Humanitarian parole—in the context of immigration—refers to official permission for an otherwise inadmissible alien to legally enter the United States temporarily. This includes aliens required to have a visa to visit or immigrate to the United States who are unable to obtain one, either due to ineligibility or urgent circumstances that make it impractical to apply for one. Specifically, the Immigration and Nationality Act grants the Secretary of Homeland Security discretionary authority to parole an alien into the United States temporarily on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons, such as to obtain medical treatment not available in his or her home country, visit a dying relative, or reunify young children with relatives. Granted for a maximum of 1 year, humanitarian parole does not constitute permanent admission of the alien into the country. Once the purpose of the parole is fulfilled, the alien is to leave the United States. According to the associated HAB protocols for adjudicating humanitarian parole applications, humanitarian parole is an extraordinary measure, to be used sparingly and not to circumvent normal visa-issuing procedures. The humanitarian parole application process begins when HAB receives an application and supporting evidence (e.g., a doctor’s statement regarding a physical ailment or a death certificate for a family member) from the requester, who may be the applicant, the applicant’s attorney, or someone applying on the applicant’s behalf. Upon receiving an application, a HAB staff member checks to ensure that the applicant is seeking humanitarian parole, the required information is entered on the application form (Form I-131), and the package includes the $305 application processing fee. If the application is complete, the HAB staff member enters the information from the Form I-131 into the PCTS database. In turn, the PCTS generates a letter to confirm receipt of the application and assigns a case number. The adjudicator then runs a security check on both the applicant (called the beneficiary) and the person requesting humanitarian parole, if different from the applicant, against two federally operated security databases. If there is no match with immigration or national security databases indicating a security issue with the person(s) applying for humanitarian parole, the HAB Chief (or designee) signs the confirmation-of-receipt letter, which is sent to the applicant or the person applying on his or her behalf. The HAB staff then create a working case file. Urgent cases, such as those related to medical treatment, are placed in red folders and given higher priority over less urgent cases, which are placed in green folders. HAB officials told us that urgent cases are processed immediately. Figure 1 illustrates the process for adjudicating applications for humanitarian parole. The 8,748 humanitarian parole applications that HAB adjudicated from October 1, 2001, through June 30, 2007, displayed various characteristics, and grant and denial rates did not differ for most of them, although there were some differences in adjudicator recommendations. Specifically, 54 percent were female; 46 percent, male. Forty-five percent of the applicants came from 11 countries, with Mexico having the greatest number of applicants. Most, 68 percent, were under the age of 40. Sixty-four percent of the requests for humanitarian parole were for two reasons—family reunification (49 percent) and medical emergency (15 percent). Of the 8,748 adjudicated applications, 6,615, or about 76 percent, were denied. We estimate that 57 percent of the denials specified as a reason that the applicant had not first exhausted all other avenues of immigration, such as applying for a visa, and that in 13 percent of the denials, applicants had committed an infraction of immigration law or other crime—both of which are generally disqualifying factors, absent what the USCIS Web site on humanitarian parole describes as “a very compelling emergency.” We found few differences in the granting or denial rates with regard to the demographic characteristic of gender and, with two exceptions, with regard to country of residence. However, we did find a difference in adjudication decisions for applicants under age 18, who had a higher grant rate than other age groups. This is consistent with the stated purposes of humanitarian parole and the HAB protocols that facilitate family reunification of minors in circumstances of compelling humanitarian need. There were some differences in grant/denial recommendation rates among adjudicators, with a denial recommendation rate of 66 to 84 percent for the 6 adjudicators with the greatest workload who made 15,000 adjudication recommendations from fiscal year 2002 through June 30, 2007, or 84 percent of all adjudicator recommendations. However, there was considerably greater variation among those who adjudicated fewer cases, with denial rates ranging from 43 percent to 93 percent of total recommendations among 18 other adjudicators who made 2,957 recommendations, or 16 percent of the total. From October 1, 2001, through June 30, 2007, HAB adjudicated 8,748 applications for humanitarian parole; of these, 24 percent were granted humanitarian parole, while 76 percent were denied parole. Table 1 displays data on humanitarian parole adjudication decision outcomes from fiscal years 2002 through 2007. Fifty-four percent of the humanitarian parole applicants were female and 46 percent were male. The gender ratios were generally consistent year to year, with the exception of fiscal year 2005 when 51 percent of applicants were male and 49 percent were female. Table 2 shows the number of humanitarian applicants by gender for fiscal years 2002 through 2007. Individuals from 167 different countries applied for humanitarian parole. Of the 8,748 applicants, 3,933 or 45 percent, were from 11 countries; 4,632 applicants or 53 percent, were residents of 156 other countries, and no country of residence was listed in PCTS for 183 applicants (2 percent). Residents of Mexico constituted the largest number of humanitarian parole applicants, about 9 percent. Table 3 provides data on the number of final adjudications by country of residence for the top eleven countries. Most of the applicants for humanitarian parole were under age 40. Of the 8,692 applicants for whom the application contained data on their age in PCTS, 5,966, or 68 percent, were under age 40. Twenty-seven percent of all applicants were under the age of 18. Table 4 shows the number of humanitarian parole applicants by age group. HAB officials identified four broad reasons for humanitarian parole applications: (1) life-threatening medical emergencies; (2) family reunification for compelling humanitarian reasons; (3) emergent, such as to visit an ill family member, or to resolve matters associated with the death of a relative; and (4) “other,” such as a caregiver needed to care for someone in the United States. We estimated that 64 percent of the requests for humanitarian parole were for two reasons—family reunification for compelling humanitarian reasons (49 percent) and medical emergency (15 percent). Figure 2 shows the percentage of applications adjudicated by reason for the request for fiscal years 2002 through 2007, based on a probability sample of 462 cases that we reviewed. The PCTS database shows that since fiscal year 2002, 76 percent of all applicants were denied humanitarian parole. Based upon our review of the narrative summaries in our sample of denied applications, we identified 10 reasons adjudicators cited when recommending a humanitarian parole application be denied. HAB officials agreed that these categories represented the reasons for denial; they noted that because their decisions are discretionary, none of these reasons are in and of themselves automatically disqualifying. Rather, these are the reasons cited in the probability sample as the basis of the reasoning by the HAB adjudicators as leading to their denial recommendation. The 10 categories were: The applicant had not exhausted alternative immigration processes available to them for which they might have been eligible, such as obtaining a visa, absent urgent circumstances that made it impractical to do so. The applicant provided no evidence supporting an emergent condition, such as a death certificate in the case where the request was to attend a funeral. The applicant provided no or inadequate evidence to support the reason for the request for humanitarian parole, such as a claimed medical emergency. The applicant had committed a prior immigration violation or other criminal violation. The purpose of the parole was not temporary in nature. That is, HAB believed that the applicant intended to stay in the United States beyond the duration of a parole period. Other family members already in the United States could provide care to the person intended to benefit from the presence of the applicant. The needed medical treatment was available outside the United States. There was insufficient evidence of adequate financial support to prevent the applicant from becoming a public charge while in the United States. The applicant provided no proof of familial relationship in cases where a family relationship was claimed as the basis of the application. Other: This was for applications that did not fall into the other categories. For example, other cases included when persons already approved for humanitarian parole mistakenly applied to HAB for an extension of their parole period rather than apply with a local USCIS district office. Another example was when an applicant for lawful permanent residency departed the United States without first obtaining the needed permission from USCIS and then applied for humanitarian parole to re-enter the United States, a situation that is not valid grounds for humanitarian parole. In recommending that an application be denied, adjudicators sometimes cited more than one reason in explaining their recommendation. For example, an adjudicator may have cited both that the applicant had not exhausted alternative immigration processes available and that the applicant provided no evidence supporting an emergent condition. Table 5 below shows the estimated percentage of applications where a particular reason for denial was cited. Table 5 shows that an estimated 57 percent of the denials had as a reason that the applicant had not first exhausted other avenues of immigration, such as applying for a visa, absent urgent circumstances that made it impractical to do so. Table 5 also shows that an estimated 46 percent of all the denied applicants had not provided evidence of an emergent condition and that an estimated 13 percent of denied applicants had committed an infraction of immigration law or other crime. These and the other reasons cited are generally disqualifying factors in applications for humanitarian parole.