Date: Jul 15, 2026

U‑Visa Waiting‑List Relief Is Disjunctive: USCIS May Grant Deferred Action or Parole (Not Both), and Overseas Parole‑Process Claims Become Moot Once Conditional Parole Is Provided

1. Introduction

Case: Bruna Arenales-Salgado-de-Oliveira v. Director, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services
Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (Not for Publication)
Context: The case arises from U‑visa petitions filed by noncitizen survivors of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland) shooting and their immediate family members. Because the annual statutory cap of 10,000 U‑visas creates extensive backlogs, USCIS uses a waiting list under 8 C.F.R. § 214.14(d)(2), which states USCIS “will grant deferred action or parole” to waitlisted petitioners and qualifying family members.

Core dispute: Petitioners split into (i) domestic petitioners (in the United States), granted deferred action, and (ii) overseas petitioners (outside the United States), granted conditional parole (approval contingent on consular identity/biometrics steps). They sued under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), alleging USCIS unlawfully denied/withheld/delayed “waiting list parole” and that parole benefits were mandatory upon waitlist placement—domestically as advance parole, and overseas as something more than “conditional” parole.

2. Summary of the Opinion

Overseas petitioners: The Eleventh Circuit held their claims were moot because USCIS had already provided the specific relief requested in the complaint (the ability to schedule consular appointments and issuance of process to seek entry). The court therefore vacated the dismissal on the merits and remanded with instructions to dismiss without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.
Domestic petitioners: The Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal for failure to state a claim. The waiting‑list regulation’s phrase “deferred action or parole” is disjunctive and gives USCIS a choice; it does not require USCIS to grant advance parole in addition to deferred action. The advance-parole regulation, 8 C.F.R. § 212.5(f), applies only “when parole is authorized” for a given person—which had not occurred for domestic petitioners who received deferred action instead.
Jurisdiction and standing (domestic petitioners): The court held (a) 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) did not strip jurisdiction because plaintiffs alleged USCIS failed to follow binding regulations, and (b) domestic petitioners had Article III standing based on family-separation and inability to plan travel abroad without risking reentry.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

The panel’s reasoning is anchored in three clusters of precedent: (i) justiciability (mootness/standing), (ii) immigration jurisdiction-stripping and the “agency must follow its own regulations” principle, and (iii) textual interpretation of “or” and consistency with parole’s statutory limits.

A. Mootness and Article III limits (overseas petitioners)

Corley v. Long-Lewis, Inc. (quoting Ex parte McCardle) supplied the court’s “threshold obligation” to confirm jurisdiction before reaching merits. Ex parte McCardle provided the canonical statement that without jurisdiction a court cannot proceed.
Soliman v. United States ex rel. INS (quoting Adler v. Duval Cnty. Sch. Bd.) framed mootness as deriving from Article III’s “case or controversy” requirement.
Djadju v. Vega (citing United States v. Al-Arian) supplied the test: whether subsequent events deprive the court of the ability to grant “meaningful relief.”
Al Najjar v. Ashcroft reinforced mootness as jurisdictional and requiring dismissal when meaningful relief is impossible.
Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int'l Union, Loc. 1000 supported the proposition that a case is moot where the court cannot grant any “effectual relief whatever.”
Gagliardi v. TJCV Land Tr. was used to emphasize that the relief sought can itself demonstrate mootness when the court can offer no effective remedy.
Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co. blocked plaintiffs’ attempt to pivot on appeal to a new theory (that the 30‑day travel-document window is too short), underscoring issue preservation limits.
Key Enters. of Del., Inc. v. Venice Hosp. supplied the remedial instruction: when a case becomes entirely moot on appeal, vacate and remand with directions to dismiss (here, without prejudice).

B. Jurisdiction-stripping and “binding regulations” (domestic petitioners)

Bowles v. Russell and Patchak v. Zinke
Kucana v. Holder supplied the key gloss that § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) bars review only of decisions made discretionary by statute—important because parole discretion is statutory under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A).
Kanapuram v. Dir., U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs. supported the breadth of the bar as extending to “actions taken in the course of the decision-making process,” but also recognized an opening where USCIS violates binding regulations.
Kurapati v. U.S. Bureau of Citizenship & Immigr. Servs. provided the controlling circuit principle: § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) does not bar suits alleging the agency failed to follow its own binding regulations (because the agency lacks discretion to disregard them). The court treated the dispute over whether USCIS complied as a merits question, not a jurisdictional one—mirroring Kurapati.
Patel v. U.S. Att'y Gen. (en banc) was used to acknowledge that an agency can, through rulemaking, make a discretionary authority effectively mandatory—an argument petitioners implicitly relied on, but the panel found the regulation’s text did not do so here.

C. Standing and injury (domestic petitioners)

Worthy v. City of Phenix City (quoting Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife) grounded standing as an unchanging Article III requirement.
Baughcum v. Jackson summarized the traceability/redressability elements (citing Lujan).
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins supplied the definition of injury in fact as concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent.
Trump v. Hawaii was central: it recognized family-unity interests as sufficiently concrete and particularized for Article III standing. The court analogized the domestic petitioners’ inability to plan travel (for fear of being unable to return) to the real-world family separation injury recognized in Trump v. Hawaii.

D. Textual interpretation and statutory context (merits)

Washington v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. (citing Chase Bank USA, N.A. v. McCoy) supplied the “start—and often end—with the text” approach.
Campos-Chaves v. Garland, Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, and Brown v. Budget Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc. anchored the ordinary disjunctive meaning of “or,” supporting USCIS’s ability to choose between deferred action and parole.
Shaw v. Nat'l Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh acknowledged that “or” can sometimes be construed as “and,” but only to carry out evident intent—an escape hatch the panel declined to use.
Biden v. Texas was used to highlight parole’s statutory constraint: it must be exercised “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” (8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A)). This statutory context reinforced reading “or” disjunctively; an automatic parole grant to an entire waitlisted class would conflict with the case-by-case limit.
Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo was invoked to emphasize courts’ independent duty under the APA to ensure the agency stays within statutory authority—bolstering the point that an interpretation requiring categorical parole would raise statutory-authority concerns.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. Overseas petitioners: mootness turns on the relief actually requested

The complaint sought an order requiring USCIS to (i) “schedule all necessary appointments at the relevant consulates” and (ii) “issue necessary process” to allow physical entry. The court matched that requested relief to what USCIS had already provided via conditional parole notices: instructions to complete DS‑160, schedule consular biometrics/identity verification, then receive a travel document, and present it at a port-of-entry where CBP would generally parole them.

Because the overseas petitioners had already received the process they asked for, the court concluded there was no further “meaningful relief” it could provide. Their later attempt to recharacterize the dispute as one about the adequacy of the travel-document window (30 days) was rejected as a new issue raised for the first time on appeal (Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co.).

Importantly, the court’s disposition was procedural: it vacated the merits dismissal and required dismissal without prejudice for mootness, consistent with Key Enters. of Del., Inc. v. Venice Hosp..

B. Domestic petitioners: “deferred action or parole” means USCIS chooses one

The domestic petitioners’ theory depended on converting “or” into “and,” arguing that waitlist placement triggers mandatory parole (as advance parole) even for those already granted deferred action. The panel rejected this as incompatible with:

Text: 8 C.F.R. § 214.14(d)(2) states USCIS “will grant deferred action or parole,” which under ordinary usage is disjunctive (Campos-Chaves v. Garland; Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro).
Statutory context: Parole under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A) must be case-by-case and for specified reasons; a rule compelling parole for all waitlisted domestic petitioners would risk exceeding statutory authority (Biden v. Texas; Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo).
Regulatory mechanics: 8 C.F.R. § 212.5(f) (“[w]hen parole is authorized… shall be issued… document authorizing travel”) does not itself create authorization; it describes what happens after parole is authorized for a particular person. Because USCIS authorized deferred action (not parole) for domestic petitioners, § 212.5(f) did not compel travel documents.

The court also rejected a hypothetical: if domestic petitioners left the U.S., deferred action would no longer apply, and therefore USCIS would have to parole them. The panel treated this as speculative and outside the pleaded facts—standing/merits are assessed on the actual posture, not an unalleged future relocation.

C. Threshold rulings: reviewability and standing

Even though parole decisions are discretionary and often insulated by 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), the panel held it could review claims framed as “USCIS failed to follow binding regulations”—a carve-out grounded in Kurapati v. U.S. Bureau of Citizenship & Immigr. Servs. and consistent with Kanapuram v. Dir., U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs..

As to standing, the panel accepted the allegation that lack of advance parole effectively prevents travel abroad because petitioners cannot plan to leave without risking inability to return, which keeps them separated from family. Relying on Trump v. Hawaii, it treated family unity/separation as a sufficiently concrete injury.

3.3. Impact

For U‑visa waitlist litigation: The decision signals that, at least in the Eleventh Circuit, 8 C.F.R. § 214.14(d)(2) is unlikely to be read as mandating parole for domestic waitlisted U‑visa petitioners who have already been granted deferred action. Claims seeking “both” forms of relief face a strong textual and statutory-context headwind.
For overseas waitlisted petitioners: If USCIS has provided conditional parole steps (consular scheduling + travel-document process), a lawsuit demanding that same process may become moot. Challenges to terms of the travel document (e.g., validity period) may require different pleadings and preservation at the district court level.
For jurisdiction under § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii): The opinion reinforces a practical pathway for judicial review: alleging the agency failed to follow its own binding regulations (procedural compliance), rather than challenging the discretionary outcome itself.
For parole doctrine: By tying interpretation of the waiting-list regulation to parole’s statutory “case-by-case” limitation, the decision may influence how courts police attempts to transform parole into a classwide entitlement through regulation or litigation theory.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

U‑visa: A temporary nonimmigrant status for certain crime victims who assist law enforcement; Congress caps principal U‑visas at 10,000 per year, creating long backlogs.
Waiting list (8 C.F.R. § 214.14(d)(2)): A USCIS mechanism for otherwise eligible U‑visa petitions that cannot be granted immediately due solely to the annual cap; waitlisted individuals receive certain interim protections.
Deferred action: A discretionary decision not to pursue removal for someone already inside the U.S.; it does not itself authorize admission and is generally inapplicable to people abroad (the court cited Reno v. Am.-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. for the concept).
Parole (8 U.S.C. § 1182(d)(5)(A)): Permission to enter (or remain) temporarily despite inadmissibility; by statute it must be granted “only on a case-by-case basis” for specified reasons.
Advance parole (8 C.F.R. § 212.5(f)): A travel document issued when parole has already been authorized, allowing a person to travel to a U.S. port-of-entry to seek parole on arrival.
APA claims (5 U.S.C. § 706; 5 U.S.C. § 555(b)): Tools to challenge agency action as arbitrary/capricious or to compel unlawfully withheld/unreasonably delayed action, subject to jurisdictional limits and statutory preclusions.
Mootness: If events after filing mean the court cannot grant meaningful relief, the case must be dismissed for lack of Article III jurisdiction.
Vacated and remanded for dismissal without prejudice: The appellate court erases the lower court’s merits dismissal and instructs dismissal on jurisdictional grounds, leaving plaintiffs free to bring a properly framed future case if a live dispute arises.

5. Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit delivered two key holdings. First, where USCIS has already provided the overseas waitlisted U‑visa petitioners the consular scheduling and travel-document process they requested, their APA challenge is moot and must be dismissed without prejudice. Second, for domestic waitlisted petitioners, the waiting-list regulation’s promise that USCIS “will grant deferred action or parole” is disjunctive: USCIS satisfies the regulation by granting deferred action, and the regulation does not compel advance parole in addition—especially given parole’s statutory requirement of case-by-case determinations.