Hi, and welcome back to Unite Immigrant Families. I'm Rosemary Vega, and I'm an immigration attorney in Houston, Texas. And today I have Magali Candler. She is also an immigration attorney in Houston, Texas. Hi, Magali. How are you today? Hi, Rosemary. I'm doing great. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure.

It's always fun to have you on. So today I'm super, super excited because we have a new executive order that I think is going to help lots of people in the immigration realm. Um, yesterday President Biden signed an executive order, um, It's a new action to keep families together. Um, this new executive order, he wants to help mixed status families have some peace of mind.

He wants to help them stay together in the United States, meaning, you know, so many of the families, they had to, because they entered the United States. Iwi, meaning entry without inspection, without a visa. So many of them had to consular process, meaning they had to leave the United States and they couldn't end consular process.

And when they did that, so many of them had the risk of maybe not being able to come back for a couple of years because as you know, at the consulate, you never know what's going to happen. Right. And they do trigger a 10 year bar anyway, when they leave, some might be able to have that provisional waiver here first.

And as you said, even with that, no guarantees. Yeah. So that's, it's really scary for a lot of these families, especially if, um, a mom or a dad came in with their minor children, you know, they're considered alien smuggling. Oh my goodness. So, they, those individuals really did have to do the waiver outside of the United States and had to wait years.

Exactly. Even if they're not out the 10 years, they still leave, trigger a 10 year bar, have to do the waiver of the 10 year bar and the waiver for alien smuggling just for having brought their children here. No wonder people are afraid of doing the consular processing under these circumstances. Right. So with this new program, it's giving the option for these individuals to be able to get a parole in place so they could do their adjustment of status here in the United States, which would be wonderful.

Exactly. Forgive me as if they entered legally. Correct. Correct. So the requirements, um, from what I'm reading is Um, and it says that these individuals have to be married to a U. S. citizen as of June 17th, 2024. They have to be physically present in the United States for at least 10 years as of June 17th, 2024.

And they have to be present in the United States without admission or parole. So let's, let's talk about the very first requirement that we talked, that I read, which is being married as of June 17th. That sounds so simple, right? Being married. It sounds simple. Jinx. But in Texas, but in Texas, Magali, what do we have?

We have common law marriage, what is recognized, and in a way that it complicates it a little bit, but it also makes it so that people who are not formally married, as of June 17, They can still register their common law marriages if they qualify. And in Texas, you have to have an agreement to be husband and wife.

You need to live together and you need to be otherwise eligible to be married. So there are lots of things to look at, but they can go and register their common law marriage going back before June 17th. But there are other things to look at. And don't you agree they should go consult with a good attorney before doing any of this?

Oh, absolutely. Because you don't want to definitely, you don't want to, um, cause any problems because I know I've seen where they've registered a common law marriage when they shouldn't have, or to a date where they really shouldn't have, you know, um, maybe the U S citizen spouse naturalized and they got their...