Garcia

Jorge Raul Garcia (“Garcia”) petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’s (“BIA”) dismissal of his appeal of an Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) decision denying his application for cancellation of removal. The BIA concluded that Garcia’s 1992 parole as a Special Immigrant Juvenile, under 8 U.S.C. § 1255 (h), did not qualify as an admission “in any status” as required by 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a)(2) and, as a result, found Garcia statutorily ineligible for cancellation of removal because he did not establish seven years of continuous physical presence after having been “admitted in any status.” We disagree and hold that parole as a Special Immigrant Juvenile, under 8 U.S.C. § 1255 (h), qualifies as an admission “in any status” for the purposes of 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(a)(2). We grant Garcia’s petition and remand to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with our opinion.

I

A

Garcia was born in Mexico in 1984 to Mexican citizen parents. Garcia had a difficult and tragic childhood in Mexico. His father was incarcerated for murdering his mother, and in his youth Garcia suffered a closed head injury, a type of traumatic brain injury. Garcia entered the United States…