The government continues to tighten immigration rules. This time, the target is advance parole — a mechanism that for years allowed certain noncitizens to leave the United States and return on parole without triggering the three- or ten-year unlawful-presence bar.
In the precedential decision Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, 29 I&N Dec. 830 (BIA 2026), the BIA held that travel on advance parole does count as a departure for purposes of the statutory three- and ten-year bars.
This is especially important for people who originally entered the United States without admission, later obtained DACA, TPS, or another form of protection, accumulated unlawful presence, and expected to use advance parole as a step toward adjustment of status — for example, through marriage to a U.S. citizen.
Below, we explain what advance parole is, why the old rule no longer applies, who is affected by the new decision, what happens to people who already traveled or returned, and what options remain.
1. What Advance Parole Is
2. Parole and Admission Are Not the Same Thing
3. How the Old Arrabally Rule Worked
4. How Advance Parole Helped People Adjust Status
5. The Facts of Milagro's Case
6. What the BIA Held
7. Why the Board Overruled Arrabally
8. Who the New Rule Affects
9. People Who Returned Before August 13, 2026
10. People Who Left Before the Decision but Are Still Abroad
11. What Options Remain
12. What to Do in Practice
13. Conclusion
14. Cases and Legal Authorities
Advance parole is advance authorization to travel outside the United States and then request reentry through parole.
Physically, the person returns to the United States. Legally, however, this is not the same as an ordinary admission after presenting a visa and being admitted at the border.
Parole itself is not immigration status. It has an expiration date, can be terminated, does not independently create work authorization, and does not provide the same set of rights that comes with formal admission.
Still, for many years advance parole had major practical importance for certain noncitizens, particularly those who originally entered the United States without inspection or admission.
U.S. immigration law distinguishes between admission and parole.
With admission, a person is legally admitted into the United States. With parole, the government permits the person to be physically present in the country without a formal admission in the ordinary sense.
That difference is critical in many immigration procedures.
For example, INA § 245(a) allows certain noncitizens to apply for adjustment of status if they were inspected and admitted or paroled.
A person who originally crossed the border without inspection may therefore have a problem: there was neither admission nor parole. Even marriage to a U.S. citizen does not always solve that problem for adjustment inside the United States.
Returning on advance parole could create the parole entry that was missing for a later adjustment-of-status application.
There was another problem: unlawful presence.
Under INA § 212(a)(9)(B)(i), certain periods of unlawful presence can lead to a three- or ten-year bar after departure from the United States.
As a general rule, more than 180 days of unlawful presence may trigger a three-year bar, while one year or more may trigger a ten-year bar.
Until August 2026, advance parole benefited from an important exception created by the BIA in Matter of Arrabally and Yerrabelly, 25 I&N Dec. 771 (BIA 2012).
There, the Board held that temporary travel on advance parole was not a departure for purposes of the unlawful-presence bars.
That meant a person could accumulate unlawful presence, obtain advance parole, leave, return on parole, and then potentially use that parole entry for adjustment of status without automatically triggering the three- or ten-year bar simply because of that trip.
Our firm has handled cases using this mechanism.
For example, one client from South America entered the United States as a small child — his parents brought him here when he was about four years old. He grew up in the United States, went to school, and worked here, but he had never been lawfully admitted.
Later, he married a U.S. citizen. The family petition created a path to permanent residence, but the lack of a lawful entry prevented adjustment of status inside the United States.
By then he had DACA, but he had already accumulated unlawful presence.
Using advance parole, he traveled to his country of origin for a family reason and returned to the United States on parole. That gave him the parole entry needed for adjustment of status, while the old Arrabally precedent protected him from automatically triggering the unlawful-presence bar because of the trip.
He later received his green card.
This route was well known and had been used for years. Matter of Delcarmen-Lara has now significantly restricted it.
Milagro Delcarmen-Lara is a citizen of El Salvador who had lived in the United States for many years.
In 2006, an immigration judge found her removable, denied TPS, and entered a removal order. The BIA later upheld that decision.
Milagro did not leave. In 2013, she obtained DACA. The following year, her U.S.-citizen husband filed a family petition, which USCIS approved.
But because she lacked a lawful entry and still had an outstanding removal order, she could not simply obtain a green card inside the United States.
She tried to reopen her case in order to use the provisional unlawful-presence waiver process through Form I-601A and then attend an immigrant-visa interview abroad. The BIA denied that effort, including on procedural grounds relating to the motion to reopen.
Milagro later used advance parole. After returning, she again asked the BIA to reopen her case, this time so that she could pursue adjustment of status inside the United States based on the approved family petition.
It was in that proceeding that the Board chose to reconsider the old Arrabally rule.
In Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, the BIA held that leaving the United States on advance parole is a departure for purposes of INA § 212(a)(9)(B)(i)(II).
That means that if a person accumulated enough unlawful presence before the trip, travel on advance parole can now trigger the three- or ten-year bar.
The Board expressly overruled Matter of Arrabally and Yerrabelly.
It is important to understand the distinction: advance parole may still allow a person to physically return to the United States on parole, but that does not mean a newly triggered ground of inadmissibility disappears.
In other words, a person may be paroled back into the United States and later discover, when applying for a green card, that the unlawful-presence bar makes that person inadmissible.
The BIA's principal argument was the statutory text.
The unlawful-presence provision refers to departure from the United States. The statute does not contain a separate exception for travel on advance parole.
Arrabally took a different approach: because a person traveling with advance authorization to return did not intend to permanently abandon the United States, such a trip was not treated as a departure in this particular statutory context.
In Delcarmen-Lara, the BIA rejected that interpretation.
The Board concluded that the ordinary meaning of departure is simply leaving the country. If Congress had wanted to create an advance-parole exception, it could have written one expressly.
The BIA also pointed out that in other parts of the immigration statute, Congress expressly created exceptions when it wanted parole or certain travel to receive special treatment.
The result: Arrabally was deemed incorrectly decided, and advance parole no longer removes the trip from the meaning of departure under § 212(a)(9)(B).
The main risk applies to people who have both of the following:
If unlawful presence is less than 180 days, the three- or ten-year bar under this particular provision generally does not arise solely because of that fact.
But counting days can be more complicated than it appears. DACA, TPS, time spent as a minor, certain pending applications, and other circumstances can affect the calculation.
The decision also does not mean that every person with advance parole automatically loses the ability to adjust status. The problem arises specifically where the relevant period of unlawful presence exists and is followed by a departure.
The BIA limited the new rule to prospective application.
People who traveled on advance parole and already returned to the United States before August 13, 2026, are therefore in a much safer position.
Their earlier trip should not be reevaluated under the new rule merely because Delcarmen-Lara was issued later.
Still, it is wise to preserve documentation: passports, boarding passes, I-94 records, CBP and USCIS records, the advance-parole document itself, and exact dates of departure and return.
If a future dispute arises over which rule applies, those dates may become critical.
This is one of the most difficult categories.
The decision does not provide a simple, complete answer for someone who left before August 13, 2026, relying on the old rule, but had not yet returned by the time the new precedent was issued.
One argument is that the bar attaches to the departure itself, and the departure occurred while Arrabally was still controlling law.
On the other hand, the new rule could be interpreted differently when inadmissibility is later evaluated.
There is also a reliance argument: the person traveled while relying on the then-existing precedent, and changing the legal consequences of that completed act after the fact raises fairness concerns.
But this category remains unsettled. A person who is already outside the United States should not rely on a general internet answer; the specific travel dates, documents, and immigration history need to be reviewed individually.
First, advance parole itself has not disappeared. A parole entry still exists and can continue to matter for adjustment of status in appropriate cases.
Second, if a person has not accumulated enough unlawful presence to trigger § 212(a)(9)(B), Delcarmen-Lara may not create this particular problem.
Third, the provisional unlawful-presence waiver through Form I-601A remains available to people who qualify and must complete immigrant-visa processing through a U.S. consulate abroad.
Fourth, once a bar has been triggered, its statutory period runs according to its own rules; a person is not necessarily required to remain physically outside the United States for the entire period. But that does not mean the inadmissibility issue disappears or that adjustment automatically becomes available.
Finally, other waivers and exceptions may exist, but they depend on the particular ground of inadmissibility and the facts of the case.
If you already returned before August 13, 2026, gather and preserve proof of the exact travel and return dates.
If you have advance parole in hand but have not yet traveled, first calculate unlawful presence precisely. Not approximately, and not "about six months" — count the days.
If accumulated unlawful presence is approaching or exceeds 180 days, leaving without individualized analysis can create a serious problem for a future green-card case.
If you already left and are currently outside the United States, the situation requires separate review, especially if departure occurred before August 13 but return will occur after that date.
TPS travel raises a separate issue. Special rules apply in that area, and Delcarmen-Lara does not resolve every possible combination of status, travel authorization, and admission. It is particularly risky to mechanically transfer conclusions from one type of case to another.
There is also a practical border risk: possession of advance parole has never been an absolute guarantee of return. Parole is decided at entry, and a person with other problems — a final removal order, criminal history, fraud, or other grounds of inadmissibility — may face separate consequences.
Matter of Delcarmen-Lara did not abolish advance parole.
It eliminated one of the most important benefits advance parole had provided since 2012 to people with accumulated unlawful presence.
Before this decision, travel on advance parole was not treated as a departure for purposes of the three- and ten-year bars. Now it is.
A person may therefore obtain permission to travel, leave the United States, return on parole — and still later discover that the trip triggered a ground of inadmissibility that blocks the green-card application.
The practical lesson is simple: before any trip, calculate unlawful presence precisely and determine what legal consequences the departure will create in that specific case.
After Delcarmen-Lara, a mistake can mean three or ten years of serious immigration consequences.
Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, 29 I&N Dec. 830 (BIA 2026) — departure on advance parole is a departure for purposes of INA § 212(a)(9)(B)(i)(II); Matter of Arrabally and Yerrabelly was overruled.
Matter of Arrabally and Yerrabelly, 25 I&N Dec. 771 (BIA 2012) — the former rule under which temporary travel on advance parole did not count as a departure for purposes of the unlawful-presence bars.
INA § 212(a)(9)(B)(i) / 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(B)(i) — the three- and ten-year bars tied to unlawful presence and a subsequent departure.
INA § 245(a) / 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a) — adjustment of status for certain noncitizens who were inspected and admitted or paroled.
Form I-601A, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver — the provisional waiver process for certain applicants who must complete immigrant-visa processing outside the United States.
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