6540 S Pecos Rd. Suite 105
Las Vegas, NV 89120
Our Grateful Nation (ONG) is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization. OGN’s primary mission facilitates Military Family Unity, honoring the service, sacrifice and patriotism of American immigrant families.
OGN uses a little-known U. S. Government program, Military Parole in Place (MIL-PIP) to legalize deserving, qualified noncitizen family members of U.S. Armed Forces Personnel and Veterans.
What is Military Parole in Place and what does the OGN do?
- Military Parole in Place is the most efficient path to legalization for qualified noncitizen parents, spouses, sons and daughters of military members.
- OGN conservatively estimates that at least 431,721 present and former service members and their families may qualify for MIL-PIP* Up to 2-4 million predominantly Hispanic noncitizens may be eligible to legalize their status through this program. (Hispanics are disproportionately eligible because MIL-PIP is limited to people not lawfully admitted to the U.S.)
- MIL-PIP opens the door to lawful permanent residency (LPR, the “Green Card”) for these family members, eventually leading to U.S. Citizenship.
- MIL-PIP is the law of the land. MIL-PIP originated in a USCIS policy memo (PM-602-0091) in 2013. It became law through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020 (Public Law 116-92).
- The U.S. Government usually requires unlawfully-present noncitizens to return to their home countries for interviews. Wait times can take 5+ years for immediate relatives and 20+ years for other relatives — if applicants are eligible at all. MIL-PIP is obtained simply by filling out a USCIS Form I-131, and sometimes, an interview at a USCIS Field Office.
- MIL-PIP requires no government fees, quotas, or wait times.
What’s next for Our Grateful Nation?
Our Grateful Nation will operate a centralized National Military Parole in Place Processing Center to bring Military Family Unity to deserving, qualified immigrant families. The U.S. Department of Justice (USDOVJ) has authorized OGN to provide immigration legal services utilizing highly-trained accredited representatives, supervised by licensed, experienced immigration attorneys.
When operating at scale, Our Grateful Nation will be able to process at least 1,000 MIL-PIP applications per month, followed by derivative applications (i.e., Green Cards, Employment Authorization, Naturalization).
Applicants who entered the U.S. lawfully, then overstayed, are ineligible for MIL-PIP. However, they may qualify for Deferred Action. This program, renewable every two years, protects them from removal. Deferred Action also has no government fees or quotas.
OGN is currently engaged with the Nevada National Guard and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) to help provide tangible and symbolic community engagement benefits.
OGN Leadership
- Founder, President & Legal Director: William J. Marvin, Esq. is a retired Lieutenant Colonel of U.S. Marines with 30 years of success in processing and winning complex immigration cases. LtCol Marvin is the preeminent expert on Military Family Unity through MIL-PIP. His law firm, and OGN, are the only entities specializing in this unique immigration program.
- Founder & Vice President of Operations & Administration: Jair Ruiz-Martinez, a DACA recipient, is skilled and experienced in the operations management and administration of law firms. His team is primarily Hispanic, bilingual in English and Spanish, and seasoned in the efficient delivery of comprehensive legal services on a broad scale.
- Chairman, Advisory Council: Stephen J. Hunt is the former President and CEO of the New York State Housing Finance Agency (HFA) and former trustee and Audit Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York (SUNY) system of higher education. At SUNY, he oversaw $15 billion of public funds.
Footnote on Target Population Statistics
*Ascertaining “hard” MIL-PIP eligibility numbers for the target market is limited by challenges inherent within the different segments of the macro population (i.e., active duty, “active reserve” and National Guard members of the U.S. Armed Forces, vice veterans officially and permanently separated from the military, are counted by [respectively] the Department of Defense and the Census Bureau; reluctance to self-report undocumented relatives in one’s family, even to facially confidential agencies such as the Census Bureau; reluctance to self-report/self-identify as “Hispanic”; etc.
To generate a conservative estimate of a national target market for MIL-PIP eligibility, OGN used data from reports by the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families (October 2017); the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community & Family Policy (ODASD [MC&FP], 2020); and the U.S. Census Bureau (2018).
Due to limitations of the available data, the following populations are NOT included:
- Non-Hispanic eligible persons (as noted above, Hispanics are overwhelmingly the largest target market for MIL-PIP.)
- Service members and veterans with eligible spouses or children (the majority of the applicants served so far have had eligible parents. However, spouses and children are significant minorities.)
- Multiple eligible immediate relatives in the same family.
- Active or reservist members of the U.S. Coast Guard. (In nominal peacetime, USCG is under DHS vice DoD);
With these exclusions, a “hard” estimate is 90,746 eligible active duty/reserve/National Guard members and their families, and 340,525 veterans. The actual number is likely well over a half-million. The Pew Center estimates the percentage of Hispanic veterans will double between 2021 and 2046.
- https://www.hispanicresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Hispanic-Center-Undocumented-Brief-FINAL-V21.pdf
- https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2020-demographics-report.pdf
- https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/acs-43.pdf
- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/05/the-changing-face-of-americas-veteran-population/