Top immigration experts are hammering the Biden administration over its plan to establish so-called "parole-in-place" qualifications for illegal immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens.

The idea of parole-in-place stemmed from a memo crafted by President Bill Clinton in 1998 and has been used since 2016 to categorize non-citizen immediate family members of U.S. service members.

A forthcoming executive order expanding the construct is expected to shield as many as half a million illegal immigrants from deportation.

Former Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said the move will cause further damage to the U.S. and lead to an uptick in marriage fraud – as the policy is set to focus on spouses.

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"This administration has done nothing to secure the border – they’re playing a shell game," Homan said. "This is just another enticement… for more illegal aliens to cross the border to take advantage of a giveaway program."

Homan, who served in the Trump administration, previously said he hopes to help establish a "historic deportation program" if the real estate mogul is elected in November.

He told reporters the parole-in-place program will incentivize illegal immigrants to venture across the southern border and simply "hide out" until a program like this comes along to provide them amnesty.

"A record number of migrants are dead, a record number of American citizens are dead, a record number of terrorists have crossed the border. And what's your focus? Let’s get another giveaway program, which is going to entice more people to come. This is nothing but a political ploy," he said.

There are several conditions for qualifying for the program – a key stipulation being that the spouse must have resided in the U.S. for at least 10 years, have a legally valid marriage to a U.S. citizen and must have a clean criminal history. 

Joe Edlow, former acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), added that federal estimates of parole-in-place leading to upwards of 500,000 qualifying individuals is, at best, a minimum figure.

"From my perspective, there is absolutely no other amount of amnesty that I would support or accept… there will be no integrity if we continue to allow people to flagrantly flaunt the immigration laws," said Edlow, who also served as chief counsel for USCIS.

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"They say 500,000. I think we've seen other estimates up to 1.1 million. But the bottom line is we don't actually know yet what this [policy] is ultimately going to include."

In Edlow's view, the Biden administration essentially has "shut down" immigration enforcement for four years, so the actual figures on how many people will be permitted to remain on U.S. soil via parole-in-place is indeterminate.

Another expert on the issue said that whether parole-in-place allows 500,000 or many more people to come to or stay in the U.S., it essentially creates a 51st state.

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Heritage Foundation President Dr. Kevin Roberts previously served as a college president in Wyoming – the 50th most populous state. He suggested the Biden administration will be essentially adding another collective population between it and 49th-place Vermont.

"[The White House] has articulated and will soon release details of what we think is going to be the largest mass amnesty scheme in American history. That’s not hyperbole. It's true," said Roberts.

"Having lived in Wyoming, adding the population of an entire state on top of more than 10 million illegal aliens who are already here is just more in fundamentally reordering America," he said.

As of the 2020 census, Wyoming had just over 576,000 residents, while Vermont had about 643,000.

The White House and ICE did not respond to requests for comment for purposes of this story. 

A baby moose in Alaska was saved from what police described as its "sure demise" after it fell into a lake and became wedged between a floatplane and a dock last week.

Spencer Warren, who works for Destination Alaska Adventure Co., heard a noise that he initially believed belonged to a bird when he arrived to work at Beluga Lake in Homer around 6:30 a.m. on Friday, the Associated Press reported.

When heading out to the dock to prepare a floatplane for a trip that day, he noticed the noise wasn't coming from a bird, but a moose calf that was stuck between the floats of the plane and the dock.

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Warren told the outlet his first thought was, "Oh, man, where is mama? I know she's nearby."

Sure enough, the mother, who was with another calf, was about 4 feet away from the trapped calf and was keeping Warren from getting any closer to her struggling baby.

The young moose kept attempting to get out of the lake, but its hooves couldn't catch a grip on top of the metal floats, which replace the wheels on a plane and allow it to take off and land on water.

"It's like an ice rink for the moose and its hooves," Warren said when describing Friday's rescue. "So he just kept slipping and slipping and could not get up."

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Warren said he then contacted his boss, who called the Homer Police Department for assistance.

When officers arrived at the dock, one used his police cruiser to block off the mama moose while another officer and Warren began pulling the calf from the water, according to Homer police Lt. Ryan Browning.

Though one of the calf's legs was stuck across the top of the plane's float, the rescuers were still able to pull the moose safely from the water.

"You know, kind of thankfully, he wasn’t moving so that it made the rescue a little bit easier," Warren said. "We just lifted him straight out and, put him on the dock there."

An officer helped the calf stand up on the boardwalk and watched it reunite with its mother.

"Anytime you can rescue a little critter, it always makes you feel good," Browning told The AP.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.