FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT JOSE MAURICIO ALANNIZ, No. 15-72792 Petitioner, Agency No. v. A073-815-349 WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General, OPINION Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted February 12, 2019* Pasadena, California Filed May 20, 2019 Before: Dorothy W. Nelson and Consuelo M. Callahan, Circuit Judges, and Edward R. Korman,** District Judge. Opinion by Judge Callahan * The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). ** The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. 2 ALANNIZ V. BARR SUMMARY*** Immigration On petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, the panel denied Jose Alanniz’s challenge to the pretermission of his application for cancellation of removal, holding that parole into the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5) is not an “admission in any status” for purposes of meeting the residency requirement for cancellation of removal, and remanded his asylum application for further fact-finding. To be eligible for cancellation of removal for certain permanent residents, an applicant must establish, as relevant here, that he or she has “resided in the United States continuously for 7 years after having been admitted in any status.” Because Alanniz’s period of residency was deemed to end when he was convicted of a drug offense in 2006, he had to show that he had been “admitted in any status” by at least 1999. Although Alanniz did not adjust to lawful permanent resident status until 2000, he contended that he met the residency requirement because his 1997 grant of parole constituted being “admitted in any status.” The BIA rejected that contention and found him ineligible for cancellation. The panel held that Alanniz’s parole was not an admission and, therefore, he was not “admitted in any status” until his later adjustment to lawful permanent resident status. *** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. ALANNIZ V. BARR 3 The panel explained that it was bound by Medina-Nunez v. Lynch, 788 F.3d 1103 (9th Cir. 2015), in which this court deferred to the BIA’s reading of “admitted in any status” as meaning that a person has been “admitted,” as defined in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(A). In Medina-Nunez, the court also deferred to the BIA’s decision that acceptance into the Family Unity Program was not such an admission. Because the court held in Medina-Nunez that the BIA’s determination that even a specialized parole, such as acceptance into the Family Unity Program, did not constitute an admission, the panel concluded that Alanniz could not prevail on his argument that his 1997 parole constituted an admission. Accordingly, the panel concluded that Alanniz failed to obtain the seven years of continuous residency required for cancellation. The panel also rejected Alanniz’s contention that his case should ...
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