Alejandra Montesinos Cisneros v. Todd Blanche

USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 1 of 37 PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 23-1090 ALEJANDRA MONTESINOS CISNEROS, Petitioner, v. TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: October 22, 2025 Decided: July 17, 2026 Before AGEE, THACKER, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges Petition for review denied by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Agee joined. Judge Thacker wrote a dissenting opinion. ARGUED: Jennifer Campos, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER, for Petitioner. Jonathan Aaron Robbins, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Erica Hashimoto, Director, Salvatore Mancina, Supervising Attorney, Loro Schreiner, Student Counsel, Jerry Blake Blevins, Student Counsel, Appellate Litigation Program, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner. Brett A. Shumate, Assistant Attorney General, Zoe J. Heller, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 2 of 37 Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. 2 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 3 of 37 RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge: Alejandra Montesinos Cisneros, a native of El Salvador, seeks cancellation of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a). That statute requires, among other things, that the applicant have “resided in the United States continuously for 7 years after having been admitted in any status.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a)(2). We must decide whether Cisneros was “admitted in any status” when she crossed the border on December 14, 1994, under the Executive’s Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) program. The immigration officer stamped “Admitted” in Cisneros’s passport but then handwrote “DED until Dec. 30, 1994” within that stamp. We hold that Cisneros was not “admitted in any status” on December 14, 1994. Even assuming she was “admitted” by virtue of the officer’s stamp when she returned, she was not admitted “in any status” because DED is not an immigration status. Her petition for review is denied. I. BACKGROUND Cisneros is a native citizen of El Salvador who first came to the United States without inspection in November 1985. She later applied for and was granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under 8 U.S.C. § 1254a. 1 When the TPS designation for El Salvador ended in 1992, President Bush—and later, President Clinton—delayed the deportation of Salvadorans who had registered for TPS by allowing them to benefit from 1 TPS allows aliens to remain in the United States if their home country is in a state of upheaval due to an ongoing armed conflict, natural disaster, or similar event. 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(a)–(b). 3 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 4 of 37 Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). 2 In 1994, Cisneros received a Form I-512 under the DED program, which authorized her to travel and seek return without abandoning her DED-based protection, and she subsequently traveled outside the United States with this document on November 17, 1994. Upon returning to the United States on December 14, 1994, an immigration officer at Dulles International Airport stamped Cisneros’s passport with the pre-marked word “Admitted” and handwrote “DED until Dec. 30, 1994” within that stamp. J.A. 253, 267. Cisneros later traveled abroad twice more using DED documents, returning to the United States on April 13, 1996, and December 28, 1997. On each of these trips back, the immigration officer stamped Cisneros’s passport “Paroled” and wrote either “DED” or “I- 512.” On November 29, 2006, Cisneros obtained lawful permanent resident status (LPR) under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA). In 2012, Cisneros was arrested and pleaded guilty to falsely identifying herself to law enforcement, in violation of Va. Code § 19.2-82.1. Then in 2013, Cisneros was arrested and pleaded guilty to petit larceny, in violation of Va. Code § 18.2-96. In September 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a Notice to Appear, charging Cisneros as subject to removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I), as an alien convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT). At a hearing before an 2 Granted at the President’s discretion, DED is discretionary executive forbearance that defers removal for a specified period. See Extension of Deferral of Enforced Departure for Nationals of El Salvador, 58 Fed. Reg. 32,157-01 (June 8, 1993). 4 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 5 of 37 immigration judge on September 26, 2017, Cisneros conceded removability and applied for cancellation of removal under § 1229b(a). 3 Her eligibility turned on whether she met the statute’s requirement of seven years’ continuous residence “after having been admitted in any status.” § 1229b(a)(2). Cisneros conceded that her period of continuous residence ended when she committed petit larceny in February 2013. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1229b(d)(1), 4 1182(a)(2)(A)(i) 5 (deeming a period of continuous residence to end when the alien has committed a removable offense, such as a CIMT 6). She argued, however, that the clock started on “The Attorney General may cancel removal in the case of an alien who is 3 inadmissible or deportable from the United States if the alien— (1) has been an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence for not less than 5 years, (2) has resided in the United States continuously for 7 years after having been admitted in any status, and (3) has not been convicted of any aggravated felony.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a). 4 “Any period of continuous residence or continuous physical presence in the United States shall be deemed to end . . . when the alien is served a notice to appear under section 1229(a) of this title, or . . . when the alien has committed an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2) of this title that renders the alien inadmissible to the United States under section 1182(a)(2) of this title or removable from the United States under section 1227(a)(2) or 1227(a)(4) of this title, whichever is earliest.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1). 5 “[A]ny alien convicted of, or who admits having committed, or who admits committing acts which constitute the essential elements of . . . a crime involving moral turpitude (other than a purely political offense) or an attempt or conspiracy to commit such a crime . . . is inadmissible.” 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I). Cisneros concedes that this question has been foreclosed by this Court’s holding 6 in Chavez v. Bondi, 134 F.4th 207, 222 (4th Cir. 2025), that Virginia petit larceny is a CIMT. Her only argument on this question is that the issue should be reviewed by the Supreme Court or by this Court sitting en banc. But we are bound by Chavez. 5 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 6 of 37 December 14, 1994, nearly 20 years earlier, when the immigration officer stamped “Admitted” in her passport. At the November 5, 2018, merits hearing, the government initially conceded that Cisneros had accrued seven years of continuous residence but withdrew that concession before the hearing concluded. On December 14, 2018, the immigration judge denied Cisneros’s application, concluding that she was not “admitted in any status” when she returned under DED on December 14, 1994. The IJ reasoned that Cisneros was paroled rather than admitted, and that DED is not an immigration status within the meaning of § 1229b(a)(2). The IJ found that Cisneros was not “admitted in any status” until she adjusted to LPR status on November 29, 2006, which left fewer than seven years before her February 2013 offense. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed Cisneros’s appeal on December 29, 2022, affirming the IJ’s reasoning. Cisneros timely filed a pro se petition for review on January 26, 2023. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(1). Venue is proper because the proceedings took place in Arlington, Virginia. See Herrera-Alcala v. Garland, 39 F.4th 233, 242–43 (4th Cir. 2022) (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(2)). II. DISCUSSION Cancellation of removal is a discretionary form of relief. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a). We have jurisdiction to review only questions of law arising from the denial of Cisneros’s application. § 1252(a)(2)(D). The IJ and Board’s interpretation of the term “admitted in any status” in § 1229b(a)(2) is “a question of law that we review de novo.” Mohamed v. 6 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 7 of 37 Holder, 769 F.3d 885, 888 (4th Cir. 2014). 7 And “[w]here, as here, the [Board] has adopted an IJ decision and issued its own decision, we review both rulings.” Xing Yang Yang v. Holder, 770 F.3d 294, 302 (4th Cir. 2014); see also Cabrera v. Garland, 21 F.4th 878, 883 (4th Cir. 2022). Our review is limited to whether the clock “started” on December 14, 1994. 8 In other words, was she “admitted in any status” on that date? See § 1229b(a)(2). We hold that she was not. We explain in three steps: first, what “status” means in the INA; second, why DED is not one; and third, why Cisneros’s contrary arguments fail. Because this conclusion makes her statutorily ineligible for cancellation of removal, we deny her petition for review. 7 In its brief, the government suggests that we review the agency’s eligibility determinations for cancellation of removal—including findings of continuous physical presence—for substantial evidence. Respondent’s Br. at 15 (citing Ramos v. Holder, 660 F.3d 200, 203 (4th Cir. 2011)). This is incorrect. In Patel v. Garland, the Supreme Court clarified that § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i)’s jurisdictional bar extends to factual findings underlying determinations of a petitioner’s eligibility for discretionary relief—including findings made in the course of deciding eligibility for relief under § 1229b. See 596 U.S. 328, 347 (2022). But the dispositive question here is legal, and thus falls within § 1252(a)(2)(D)’s carve-out. So we review it de novo. The question, in particular, asks us to interpret the INA. Before Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), we might have afforded Chevron deference to the Board’s interpretation of “admitted in any status,” because this interpretation relied on an opinion by a three-member Board panel in Matter of Castillo Angulo, 27 I. & N. Dec. 194, 198–202 (BIA 2018). Now, however, courts—not agencies—must resolve statutory ambiguities “by exercising independent legal judgment.” Loper Bright, 603 U.S. at 401. So we must interpret §§ 1101(a)(13)(A) and 1229b(a)(2) for ourselves, using the traditional tools of statutory construction. Id. 8 Cisneros concedes that our precedent in Chavez precludes any argument that the clock “stopped” in February 2013. See 134 F.4th at 222. 7 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 8 of 37 A. Cisneros Was Not Admitted “in any status” Assuming that Cisneros’s ingress on December 14, 1994, constituted an “admission,” it was not an admission “in any status.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a)(2). She arrived with the same immigration status she had when she left the United States: none. 1. “Status” under the INA denotes membership in a legislatively defined immigration classification Admission and status are distinct concepts. See Sanchez v. Mayorkas, 593 U.S. 409, 414 (2021). Admission is a historical event—the act of lawfully entering the country after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(A). Status is different. Status is a positive-law construct. It may be held only by those who fit a legislatively defined class. It carries legal entitlements the government must recognize until the conditions prescribed by law are no longer met. “Status” had precisely this meaning when Congress enacted the INA in 1952. Black’s Law Dictionary defined it as “[s]tanding; state or condition. . . . The rights, duties, capacities and incapacities which determine a person to a given class. A legal personal relationship, not temporary in its nature nor terminable at the mere will of the parties, with which third persons and the state are concerned.” Status, Black’s Law Dictionary 1580 (4th ed. 1951); 9 see also Status, Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 3129 (Francis Rawle rev. 8th 9 The dissent reads Black’s reference to “incapacities which determine a person to a given class” to mean that aliens without status form a class—“unlawful status”—by virtue of their shared incapacity to claim a right to be in the United States. Dissent at 32. That inverts the definition. The “incapacities” Black’s describes are legal disabilities that flow from membership in an already-defined class. For example, a child’s minor status—that is, membership in the class of people under eighteen—disables him from entering into non- voidable contracts. See Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 14 (A.L.I. 1981). Or, in an 8 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 9 of 37 ed. 1914) (“The rights, duties, capacities and incapacities which determine a person to a given class.”). 10 At the time of the INA’s enactment, then, “status” was a matter of belonging to a defined class, with membership in that class creating a durable entitlement that is claimable against others, including the state. The INA reflects precisely this understanding. It is a taxonomy of statuses: Congress classifies aliens into defined categories—immigrants and nonimmigrants, refugees and asylees, LPRs and temporary visitors—and attaches to each a legally earlier era, a married woman’s status—her coverture—disabled her from contracting in her own name, owning property independently, and suing or being sued without her husband joined as a party, while simultaneously creating the capacity to bind his credit for necessaries. 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries *430 (1765). So the law defines the class; rights and disabilities follow from membership. The dissent proceeds backwards. Each recognized status identifies the class of people who hold that status and then defines the terms of the law’s relationship with them, i.e., the class members’ capacities and incapacities. The dissent instead gathers everyone with whom the law has established no such relationship and treats that shared absence as a status of its own. But, as we’ve just discussed, a status is “[a] legal personal relationship,” Black’s Law Dictionary 1580 (4th ed. 1951), and a group united only by the lack of any relationship is precisely the absence of what that definition requires, not an instantiation of it. Moreover, a status must be “not temporary in its nature nor terminable at the mere will of the parties.” Id. Yet presence at the Executive’s sufferance is terminable at will, at any moment, for any reason. The inability to claim any enduring legal position is not itself a legal position. 10 See also Status, The New Century Dictionary 1832 (1952) (“[I]n law, the standing of a person before the law in the class of persons indicated by his or her legal qualities; the relation fixed by law in which a person stands towards others or the state.”); Status, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English 1234 (E. McIntosh rev. 4th ed. 1952) (“(Law) person’s relation to others as fixed by law; position of affairs.”). For later formulations of the same legal sense, see Status, Oxford English Dictionary (2d ed. 1989) (“The legal standing or position of a person as determined by his membership of some class of persons legally enjoying certain rights or subject to certain limitations.”); Matter of Blancas-Lara, 23 I. & N. Dec. 458, 460 (BIA 2002) (“‘Status’ is a term of art . . . . It denotes someone who possesses a certain legal standing.”). 9 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 10 of 37 cognizable entitlement to remain in the United States. Every immigration “status” recognized by the INA is thus a creature of statute. Matter of Rotimi, 24 I. & N. Dec. 567, 576 (BIA 2008) (“[T]he privilege of residing in this country [is] reflected in a recognized status such as that of nonimmigrant, refugee, or asylee, each of which is set out in the statute.”); see also Holder v. Martinez Gutierrez, 566 U.S. 583, 587 (2012) (explaining that under § 1229b(a) “the alien must have lived in the United States for at least seven continuous years after a lawful admission, whether as an LPR or in some other immigration status”) (emphasis added). 11 The pattern for each of these statuses is the same: An alien who satisfies the eligibility criteria for a status receives a defined period of authorized presence, so long as he satisfies the conditions required to maintain that status. See generally 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(A)–(V) (enumerating nonimmigrant statuses 12 and their attendant eligibility criteria, periods of authorized stay, conditions for maintenance, and grounds for deportability); § 1101(a)(20) (same, for LPR status); § 1157 (same, for refugees); § 1158 (same, for asylees); § 1254a (same, for holders of temporary protected status). 11 Only Congress may create an immigration status. See Galvan v. Press, 347 U.S. 522, 531 (1954) (“Policies pertaining to the entry of aliens and their right to remain here are peculiarly concerned with the political conduct of government. In the enforcement of these policies, the Executive Branch of the Government must respect the procedural safeguards of due process. But that the formulation of these policies is entrusted exclusively to Congress has become about as firmly imbedded in the legislative and judicial tissues of our body politic as any aspect of our government.” (citations omitted)); see also Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792, 796 (1977). 12 The nonimmigrant statutory scheme establishes the framework for temporary lawful presence tied to specific purposes (e.g., work, study, tourism). 10 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 11 of 37 Thus, throughout the INA, “status” refers to membership in a specific, congressionally defined class. See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(20) (defining LPR as “the status of having been lawfully accorded the privilege of residing permanently in the United States”); § 1254a (entitled “Temporary protected status”) (emphasis added). It does not refer to a general description of the alien’s legal condition. An alien must affirmatively fit into one of these legislatively defined categories to hold a “status”; an alien who occupies none of them holds no status at all. In the INA, status refers to membership in a statutory immigration classification, not merely to the lawfulness of one’s presence in the United States. 2. DED is not a “status” There is no dispute that Cisneros was the beneficiary of DED when she crossed the border in December 1994. The question, then, is whether DED is an immigration “status” as required by § 1229b. It is not. DED is not a creature of the INA but a discretionary act of executive forbearance—a decision not to enforce the law against an alien who has no entitlement to be in the United States and is therefore removable. Forbearance of this kind does not create a status. Indeed, it presupposes the absence of one. The beneficiary of such forbearance remains in the country only at the government’s sufferance, with no statutory entitlement that he can claim against it. 13 His presence in the country is permitted The Board recognized this principle decades ago (albeit in a somewhat different 13 posture) in Matter of Lok: The government’s forbearance from enforcing an alien’s deportation “does not legalize the status of the beneficiary of the Government’s forbearance. He remains in the United States at the sufferance of the Government, not under any lawful status accorded him by the Act.” 18 I. & N. Dec. 101, 108–09 (BIA 1981) (emphasis added). Lok addressed a LPR whose lawful domicile under former 11 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 12 of 37 by executive grace alone, untethered to any class that Congress has defined in the INA. 14 Resting on no statutory footing, his presence is “terminable at the mere will” of the executive, at any moment and for any reason. Cf. Status, Black’s Law Dictionary 1580 (4th ed. 1951). Because the beneficiaries of such executive grace occupy no congressionally created category, they hold no entitlement that the law obliges the government to recognize. In other words, they lack status. 15 And a lack of status is not a status. § 212(c) ceased to accrue once he became deportable, that is, an alien who held a recognized status and forfeited its lawfulness. As we explain, a DED beneficiary stands a step further removed: He never possessed an INA-recognized status at all. If forbearance cannot preserve the lawful presence of one who once held a recognized status, it cannot manufacture a status for one who never held any status at all. See Adjustment of Status; Certain Nationals of the People’s Republic of China, 14 62 Fed. Reg. 63,249, 63,253 (Nov. 28, 1997) (codified at 8 C.F.R. pt. 245) (“Deferred action does not confer any immigration status on an alien, nor is it in any way a reflection of an alien's lawful immigration status. . . . Since deferred action is not an immigration status, no alien has the right to deferred action. It is used solely for the administrative convenience of, and in the discretion of, the Service and confers no protection or benefit on an alien. Deferred action does not preclude the Service from commencing removal proceedings at any time against an alien.”); Press Release, U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Secretary Napolitano Announces Deferred Action Process for Young People Who Are Low Enforcement Priorities (June 15, 2012) (explaining that “[t]he use of prosecutorial discretion [under DACA] confers no substantive right, immigration status, or pathway to citizenship” and that “[o]nly Congress, acting through its legislative authority, can confer these rights”); see also Adam B. Cox & Cristina M. Rodríguez, The President and Immigration Law Redux, 125 Yale L.J. 104, 219–20 & n.319 (2015) (“[T]he Executive has created a variety of immigration non-statuses like deferred action that leave their recipients at the mercy of executive discretion.”); Geoffrey Heeren, The Status of Nonstatus, 64 Am. U. L. Rev. 1115, 1129 (2015) (“If the government exercises its discretion and does not deport an unauthorized immigrant, what is that individual’s status? The government would likely answer that such individuals have no status . . . .”). For this reason, courts have repeatedly recognized that an alien who lacks a status 15 as defined in the INA is “without status.” See, e.g., United States v. Orellana, 405 F.3d 12 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 13 of 37 This picture describes the situation of those who are present in the United States under DED. DED is grounded in “the president’s power to conduct foreign relations,” not in any provision of the INA. USCIS, Deferred Enforced Departure, https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/deferred-enforced-departure (last updated July 1, 2026) [https://perma.cc/3Y8H-EMB8]. It “is not a specific immigration status.” Id. 16 As one scholar puts it, DED has “no application process . . . let alone a formal hearing,” leaving its beneficiaries “in a state of perpetual uncertainty”—the “paradigmatic” case of immigration “nonstatus.” 17 Heeren, The Status of Nonstatus, 64 Am. U. L. Rev. at 1129– 360, 370 (5th Cir. 2005); Reyes-Melendez v. INS, 342 F.3d 1001, 1002 (9th Cir. 2003); Zheng v. Gonzales, 422 F.3d 98, 111 (3d Cir. 2005); Jiang v. Gonzales, 425 F.3d 649, 652 (9th Cir. 2005); Ariz. Dream Act Coal. v. Brewer, 855 F.3d 957, 964 (9th Cir. 2017). 16 See also USCIS, Adjudicator’s Field Manual § 38.2 (2026); USCIS, Policy Manual, Vol. 10, Pt. A, ch. 2, n.14 (2026); USCIS, Affirmative Asylum Procedures Manual 97 (Feb. 2025); cf. Jill H. Wilson, Cong. Rsch. Serv., RS20844, Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure 4 (Dec. 5, 2024) (describing DED as “a temporary, discretionary, administrative stay of removal” with “no statutory basis”). 17 This also describes the situation of DACA beneficiaries, for example. See Brewer, 855 F.3d at 964 (DACA recipients “enjoy no formal immigration status”); 62 Fed. Reg. at 63,253 (“Since deferred action is not an immigration status, no alien has the right to deferred action.”); DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Office of Detention and Removal, Detention and Deportation Officers’ Field Manual § 20.8 (Mar. 27, 2006) (“[Because] deferred action is not an immigration status, no alien has the right to deferred action. It is used solely in the discretion of the [government] and confers no protection or benefit upon an alien.”). That deferred-removal programs like DACA or DED may create interests reviewable by the courts does not help Cisneros. See DHS v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 591 U.S. 1, 18–19 (2020) (explaining that DACA’s conferral of “affirmative immigration relief” created “an interest courts often are called upon to protect.”). The creation of reviewable interests does not imply the conferral of status under the INA, with an attendant substantive right to remain in the United States. See id. at 16. By contrast, TPS, while also a form of reprieve from removal, is status, because Congress said so in § 1254a. That the Secretary may terminate a TPS designation does not dissolve this distinction. Termination 13 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 14 of 37 32; see also Jiang, 425 F.3d at 652 (explaining that DED does not confer lawful immigration status on one who did not already possess such a status); Zheng, 422 F.3d at 111 (explaining that “DED is not an admission status” because it involves “the President simply order[ing] the Attorney General to defer deporting” foreign nationals). DED is forbearance, not status. Because Cisneros returned to the United States as a DED beneficiary and nothing more, she was not admitted “in any status.” She is thus ineligible for cancellation of removal under § 1229b(a)(2). 18 3. Cisneros’s arguments to the contrary are unavailing Relying on Fifth and Ninth Circuit precedent, Cisneros argues that “in any status” includes both “lawful” and “unlawful” immigration statuses. See Tula Rubio v. Lynch, 787 of TPS is not an act of executive will but the discharge of a statutory duty: Congress required the Secretary to review country conditions, to terminate by determining that the statutory “conditions for [the] designation” are no longer met, and to do so by published notice on a timetable Congress fixed. 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(A)–(B). See also Mullin v. Doe, No. 25–1083, 609 U.S. ___, ___ (2026) (slip op., at 3–4) (explaining that Extended Voluntary Departure—the predecessor to DED—made “the grant and termination of humanitarian relief . . . purely a matter of executive discretion,” and that “[a]fter critics objected that [EVD] lacked proper guidelines or standards, Congress created TPS,” a “regime [that] provided standards to govern the grant and termination of TPS”) (cleaned up). But DED and DACA may be extended or withdrawn at the President’s unfettered discretion because no statute defines their beneficiaries, supplies their conditions, or governs their termination. That congressional silence forecloses treating DACA or DED as immigration statuses. 18 Notably, the dissent does not contend that DED is itself a status. On that much, we agree. The dissent instead contends that Cisneros was admitted in an “unlawful status,” whether because her TPS had expired two years earlier or simply because she held no INA status at all when she was admitted. We address that contention below. 14 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 15 of 37 F.3d 288, 293 (5th Cir. 2015); Saldivar v. Sessions, 877 F.3d 812, 816 (9th Cir. 2017).19 She contends that because the INA repeatedly refers to both “lawful” and “unlawful” statuses, the word “status” without any qualifier must include both lawful and unlawful statuses. See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1255(c) (referring to “unlawful immigration status,” “lawful status,” and “lawful nonimmigrant status”). Thus, she claims that reading “status” to require lawfulness violates a “cardinal principle of statutory construction” and makes other provisions of the INA that use terms like “lawful status” “superfluous, void, or insignificant.” See Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 174 (2001). Cisneros also makes much of the difference in language between subsections (1) and (2) of § 1229b(a). See also Tula Rubio, 787 F.3d at 294–95; Saldivar, 877 F.3d at 818–19. Whereas § 1229b(a)(2) requires admission “in any status,” § 1229b(a)(1) requires that the alien have been “lawfully admitted for permanent residence.” 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a). 20 From the narrower language of subsection (a)(1), Cisneros infers that “any status” in (a)(2) must sweep broadly enough to include unlawful statuses. She argues that the statute distinguishes between those with lawful permanent residence status under subsection (a)(1) and those who are merely admitted in any other status under (a)(2), by imposing different residency We recognize that our conclusion places us at odds with two of our sister circuits. 19 While we weigh their reasoning carefully, we do not defer to it blindly. 20 Subsection (a)(1)’s requirement of “lawful[] admi[ssion] for permanent residence” is not, as Cisneros’s argument suggests, simply “admission” qualified by “lawful[ness].” This Court has held that the phrase is a statutorily defined term of art that “has nothing to do with ‘admission’ at all,” referring “not to an applicant’s admittance but instead to his status.” Azumah v. USCIS, 107 F.4th 272, 276 (4th Cir. 2024) (emphasis in original). So the two subsections do not stand as parallel provisions differing only in whether admission is lawful. 15 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 16 of 37 requirements for each. Compare § 1229b(a)(1) (requiring five years of residency for those who have been “lawfully admitted for permanent residence”), with § 1229b(a)(2) (requiring seven years of residency for those “having been admitted in any status”). These arguments misconceive the question. 21 The issue is not whether DED is a “lawful” status or an “unlawful” one; it is whether DED is a status at all. As we have explained, it is not. Cisneros’s framing assumes the opposite—that DED is a status, just not a lawful one. In other words, Cisneros presumes that the INA’s references to “unlawful status” use the word “status” in some loose, nontechnical sense, to describe the situation of any alien present in the country—lawfully or not—without regard to that alien’s membership in a defined status. But when the INA speaks of “unlawful status,” there is no reason to suppose that it is abandoning the technical sense of “status” that pervades the rest of the statute. See Martinez Gutierrez, 566 U.S. at 587 (recognizing “status” as an immigration-law term); United States v. Hansen, 599 U.S. 762, 774–75 (2023) (explaining that a term of art in a statute generally assumes its technical meaning). Rather, the phrase describes an alien who holds an enumerated status and asks whether the alien obtained and maintained that status in conformity with the law. The “lawful” and “unlawful” qualifiers thus specify the alien’s relationship to an INA-defined status; the word “unlawful” does not conjure a status that does not exist under the INA. 21 The dissent says we read “status” to mean “lawful status.” Dissent at 32. We do not. That was the characterization of the government’s argument in Tula Rubio and Saldivar; it is not ours. Our holding is that “any status” means any status: membership in some classification Congress defined. Whether an alien holds a status and whether she holds it lawfully are different questions. Cisneros fails at the first. 16 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 17 of 37 So “unlawful immigration status” does not simply sweep in everything that is not a lawful status and thereby include the absence of status altogether. Rather, an “unlawful” status presupposes the existence of a status: The phrase “unlawful immigration status” describes a recognized immigration status that the alien unlawfully obtained or has violated. A student visa holder who fraudulently claimed university enrollment to obtain status holds a status that was never lawful. Similarly, a student visa holder who fails to maintain a full course of study still holds a status, albeit one with which she has fallen out of compliance. A DED beneficiary, by contrast, holds no INA-recognized status by virtue of DED—the program neither creates a classification nor places its beneficiary in one. True, Cisneros once held a recognized status: TPS. But that status ended in 1992, when the designation for El Salvador terminated. See 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3). So when Cisneros presented herself at Dulles in December 1994, TPS provided no contemporaneous status, and DED supplied no replacement. Section 1229b(a)(2) asks what status the alien was admitted “in.” To be admitted “in” a status, the alien must hold it at the moment of admission. A status that has expired is not a status the alien holds in unlawful fashion; it is a status the alien no longer holds at all. After June 1992, then, Cisneros held no status— she was simply an alien present in the United States without one. And presence without status is not something an alien “holds”; it is a fact about where she is and therefore lasts only as long as the alien remains in the country, and ends when she leaves. Congress understood this distinction. In the same Act that created § 1229b(a)(2), Congress addressed the alien who remains “after the expiration of the period of stay 17 USCA4 Appeal: 23-1090 Doc: 72 Filed: 07/17/2026 Pg: 18 of 37 authorized,” and it described such an alien’s condition not as a