Advance Parole understanding as per USCIS

[pphuff]

My wife has a pending AOS I-485 etc. She has been in the U.S. w/o legal status for 20 years but now we?ve filed for AOS Nov 2017. Except for the interview nothing else is left to be done. She and I would like to visit her home country next year on a non-emergent basis which would require advance parole provided her AOS and green card is still pending. We do not in any way want to risk prohibited re-entry into the U.S. This is text from USCIS website:

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If I receive this card, does that guarantee my re-entry into the United States if I travel?
A4. No. This card authorizes parole, not admission, to the U.S. Parole is not an admission or "entry". If you obtain this card, you may use it to travel abroad and return to the U.S. Upon arriving at a port-of-entry, you should present the card to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officer to request parole. Issuance of an Advance Parole document does not guarantee that CBP will parole you into the U.S. If parole is granted, you will be permitted to come into the U.S. as a parolee, but will not have been 'admitted". Individuals who have been unlawfully present in the U.S. and subsequently depart and seek re-entry through a grant of parole may be inadmissible and ineligible to adjust their status.
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I?m not understanding the statement ?No. This card authorizes parole, not admission to the U.S.? The way it reads to me is that even if granted parole there is no guarantee of re-entry. However, the third sentence states ?If you obtain this card, you may use it to travel abroad and return to the U.S.? but further down it states the Advance Parole document does not guarantee that CBP will parole you into the U.S.

I guess what I don?t understand are the differences in the terms ?Parole? vs ?admission? vs ?re-entry?. Perhaps it's just legalese so can someone explain if my wife has an Advance Parole document will she definitely be allowed re-entry to the U.S.? Since we filed the I-485 about one year ago will we need to pay the advance parole fee?

[newacct]

My wife has a pending AOS I-485 etc. She has been in the U.S. w/o legal status for 20 years but now we?ve filed for AOS Nov 2017. Except for the interview nothing else is left to be done. She and I would like to visit her home country next year on a non-emergent basis which would require advance parole provided her AOS and green card is still pending. We do not in any way want to risk prohibited re-entry into the U.S. This is text from USCIS website:

**** **
If I receive this card, does that guarantee my re-entry into the United States if I travel?
A4. No. This card authorizes parole, not admission, to the U.S. Parole is not an admission or "entry". If you obtain this card, you may use it to travel abroad and return to the U.S. Upon arriving at a port-of-entry, you should present the card to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officer to request parole. Issuance of an Advance Parole document does not guarantee that CBP will parole you into the U.S. If parole is granted, you will be permitted to come into the U.S. as a parolee, but will not have been 'admitted". Individuals who have been unlawfully present in the U.S. and subsequently depart and seek re-entry through a grant of parole may be inadmissible and ineligible to adjust their status.
**** **

I?m not understanding the statement ?No. This card authorizes parole, not admission to the U.S.? The way it reads to me is that even if granted parole there is no guarantee of re-entry. However, the third sentence states ?If you obtain this card, you may use it to travel abroad and return to the U.S.? but further down it states the Advance Parole document does not guarantee that CBP will parole you into the U.S.

I guess what I don?t understand are the differences in the terms ?Parole? vs ?admission? vs ?re-entry?. Perhaps it's just legalese so can someone explain if my wife has an Advance Parole document will she definitely be allowed re-entry to the U.S.? Since we filed the I-485 about one year ago will we need to pay the advance parole fee?

When you enter the US with a visa, you are "admitted" into the corresponding status; that is an "admission". "Parole" is a process where they let you into the US without a visa in an extraordinary circumstance, maybe because you can't get a visa or aren't admissible to the US for whatever reason. This is mostly a legal, technical distinction; in both cases the person is let into the US. They have humanitarian parole to let someone into the US for a humanitarian reason. They also have "advance parole" for people who have a pending Adjustment of Status, or for TPS beneficiaries (or formerly for DACA beneficiaries), where they grant you permission in advance before you leave the US, to seek parole into the US without a visa when you come back. In these situations (AOS pending/TPS/DACA), most of the time these people don't qualify for a visa to come back; that's why they are given permission to come back and be paroled instead.

Having an Advance Parole does not guarantee that you will be paroled, i.e. that they will let you into the US, because technically, the decision of whether to parole is at the discretion of the immigration officer at entry. In practice, for people with AOS-based APs, as long as their AOS hasn't been denied, they will almost always get paroled. Even having a visa or a green card does not "guarantee" you will be allowed into the US; there are situations in which such a person can still be denied entry. It's a matter of degree of risk. I would say that there's less risk of being denied entry on an AOS-based AP than on most types of nonimmigrant visas, because for most types of nonimmigrant visas, you can be denied for immigrant intent, whereas for an AOS-based AP, immigrant intent doesn't matter (because you are in the process of immigrating).

[pphuff]

That helps a great deal...thank you very much for your insightful explanation. Much appreciated.