United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 19-1777 

WISSAM MAHMOUD, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

WILLIAM P. BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

Respondent. 

PETITION FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF 

THE BOARD OF IMMIGRATION APPEALS 

Before 

Lynch, Thompson, and Kayatta, 

Circuit Judges. 

 Randy Olen for petitioner. 

 Victoria M. Braga, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration 

Litigation, with whom Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, 

Civil Division, and Cindy S. Ferrier, Assistant Director, Office 

of Immigration Litigation, were on brief for respondent. 

November 30, 2020 
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THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Wissam Mahmoud 

seeks our intervention in a decision of the Board of Immigration 

Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal of an Immigration Judge's (IJ) 

decision finding that Mahmoud had abandoned his status as a Lawful 

Permanent Resident (LPR) in the United States and ordering removal. 

Bound by a deferential standard of review, we must deny Mahmoud's 

petition. 

BACKGROUND 

Mahmoud's Story 

Mahmoud is a Lebanese citizen, admitted to the United 

States as an LPR in 1991. By 2002, Mahmoud's parents and siblings 

had all lawfully immigrated to the United States, with the bulk of 

them settling in Rhode Island. From 1991 to 2008, Mahmoud lived 

with his family in what might be appropriately described as the 

family compound. Consequently, Mahmoud never owned his own home 

in Rhode Island. During this seventeen-year period, he did pay 

taxes to the United States and had health insurance here. 

In 2008, in the midst of a United States recession, 

Mahmoud, having lost his job managing one brother's restaurant, 

obtained a temporary work visa and moved to Edmonton, Alberta, 

Canada, to work in a restaurant owned by another one of his 

brothers. While there, he solely paid taxes to Canada and had 

Canadian health insurance. 
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Mahmoud renewed his Canadian temporary work visa 

annually because he says he was unable to find work in the United 

States and, in 2012, he purchased a home in Canada. In April of 

2013, Mahmoud was visiting the United States when a United States 

Customs and Border Patrol Officer advised him that he should apply 

for a reentry permit for travel to the United States. 

Along the way, Mahmoud met a Canadian citizen of Lebanese 

descent who would become his wife. The couple travelled to Lebanon 

in 2013 where they married in August. While Mahmoud was there, a 

United States Customs and Border Patrol Officer again advised 

Mahmoud that he should obtain a reentry permit. 

After the wedding, the couple flew back to Canada with 

the professed intention of settling their affairs and returning to 

the United States. Towards that end (and as before), Mahmoud's 

wife never petitioned Canada on Mahmoud's behalf for any sort of 

permanent immigration status. But before Mahmoud could order his 

affairs, he fell ill with listeria and viral meningitis and 

required months of hospitalization and rehabilitation in Canada 

from October of 2013 through most of 2014. The rehabilitation 

program prohibited Mahmoud from traveling, but once he was well 

enough to adequately move about, he says he intended to return to 

the United States. In July of 2014, Mahmoud's wife gave birth to 

their son, whose birth was registered in Canada and not in the 

United States. 
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By November of 2014, Mahmoud was physically able to 

travel and applied for preclearance to enter the United States. 

He was paroled into the United States in December of 2014 for a 

deferred inspection because the duration of Mahmoud's absence from 

the United States at that point raised red flags about his 

admissibility. In total, from 2008 to 2014, Mahmoud returned to 

the United States seven to ten times to visit family and look for 

a job. The visits, ranging in length from three days to several 

weeks, cumulated in Mahmoud being physically present in the United 

States for 110 days over that six-year period. 

At the hearing before the IJ, the government contended 

that Mahmoud was not admissible into the United States because he 

had abandoned his LPR status. In support of its position, the 

government highlighted Mahmoud's connections to Canada and the 

short time he spent in the United States. For his part, Mahmoud 

testified to the facts as summarized above and repeatedly stated 

that he always intended to return to the United States. In its 

ruling, the IJ concluded that Mahmoud's actions did not demonstrate 

an uninterrupted intent to return to and permanently reside in the 

United States. Specifically, the IJ held that Mahmoud's extended 

trips out of the country, various connections to Canada, and delay 

in pursuing a reentry permit (even after being warned in April and 

August of 2013 to do so) all evinced that Mahmoud lacked the intent 

to return to the United States as soon as practicable. As to 
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Mahmoud's main contention that he was looking for work in the 

United States during his travels, the IJ found that Mahmoud's trips 

were often too short to facilitate a search for work. 

On appeal to the BIA, the Board agreed with the IJ that 

Mahmoud did not demonstrate a continuous, uninterrupted intent to 

return to the country and dismissed the appeal. The BIA noted 

that Mahmoud's record demonstrated a close connection to Canada 

(which he had maintained for five years when he became too ill to 

travel) and that his trips to the United States were too short to 

allow for a reasonable search for employment. 

Mahmoud now petitions us for relief. He argues that he 

always wanted to move back to the United States once he had a job 

and the burden is on the government to disprove that. Carefully 

considering his argument, the record, and the decision of the BIA, 

we deny Mahmoud's petition. 

OUR TAKE 

Standard of Review

When an applicant for admission has a colorable claim to 

returning to lawful permanent resident status, the government 

bears the burden of proving by "clear, unequivocal, and convincing 

evidence" that he abandoned his status while out of the country 

and is therefore ineligible for admission into the United States. 

Katebi v. Ashcroft, 396 F.3d 463, 466 (1st Cir. 2005) (quoting 

Singh v. Reno, 113 F.3d 1512, 1514 (9th Cir. 1997)). Where "the 
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BIA adopted and affirmed the IJ's decision yet supplied its own 

gloss, we review the tiered decisions as a unit." Arias-Minaya v. 

Holder, 779 F.3d 49, 52 (1st Cir. 2015). We review the factintensive question of whether the government proved by clear, 

unequivocal, and convincing evidence that an LPR abandoned his 

status under the "substantial evidence test." Katebi, 396 F.3d at 

466. "Substantial evidence exists if the [BIA's] decision is 

'supported by reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence on 

the record considered as a whole.'" Id. (quoting INS v. EliasZacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 (1992)). To grant Mahmoud's petition, 

the evidence must not only support the contrary finding, but compel 

it. See Albathani v. INS, 318 F.3d 365, 372 (1st Cir. 2003). 

Retention or Abandonment of LPR Status

In most circumstances, an LPR is permitted to reenter 

the United States after traveling abroad, so long as he is 

"returning to an unrelinquished lawful permanent residence after 

a temporary visit abroad." Katebi, 396 F.3d at 466 (quoting Moin 

v. Ashcroft, 335 F.3d 415, 418 (5th Cir. 2003)). If, however, the 

trip in question was not a "temporary visit abroad," then the LPR 

will be deemed to have abandoned his permanent resident status. 

Id. Although the notion of a "temporary visit abroad" is 

"inherently nebulous," id. (quoting Aleem v. Perryman, 114 F.3d 

672, 676 (7th Cir. 1997)), we have identified two main 
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circumstances in which a trip abroad qualifies as a temporary 

visit: 

[A] permanent resident returns from a 

temporary visit abroad only when (a) the 

permanent resident's visit is for a period 

relatively short, fixed by some early event, 

or (b) the permanent resident's visit will 

terminate upon the occurrence of an event 

having a reasonable possibility of occurring 

within a short period of time. If as in (b), 

the length of the visit is contingent upon the 

occurrence of an event and is not fixed in 

time and if the event does not occur within a 

relatively short period of time, the visit 

will be considered a temporary visit abroad 

only if the alien has a continuous, 

uninterrupted intention to return to the 

United States during the entirety of the 

visit. 

Id. (quoting Chavez-Ramirez v. INS, 792 F.2d 932, 936-37 (9th Cir. 

1986)). Mahmoud agrees that his time abroad was not "relatively 

short" and that his case is therefore best analyzed under part 

(b). The operative question then is whether the BIA erred when it 

held he did not have "a continuous, uninterrupted intention to 

return to the United States during the entirety of his visit" to 

Canada. Id. 

 Merely professing one's intent to maintain LPR status is 

not alone enough. Id. at 467. Indeed, intent can be a slippery 

concept, so we evaluate Mahmoud's actions to see if they evince 

his continued intent to return to the United States. Though time 

abroad can be an informative factor, it is not alone determinative 

in this holistic analysis. We look at the record to determine if 
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Mahmoud's "activities are consistent with an intent to return to 

the United States as soon as practicable." Id. at 466. 

Specifically, we look at Mahmoud's "family ties, property 

holdings, and business affiliations within the United States" and 

in Canada, where he was living during his time abroad. Id. at 

466-67 (citing Moin, 335 F.3d at 419). 

Mahmoud undoubtedly had strong family connections in the 

United States through the entirety of his time abroad. His parents 

and several siblings lived in Rhode Island and he stayed with them 

during his visits to the United States. Though Mahmoud also had 

a brother in Canada with whom he lived for some time and he 

eventually married a Canadian citizen, that alone does not minimize 

his familial connections to the United States. However, Mahmoud's 

other actions as reasonably interpreted by the government weaken 

his contention that he maintained a continual intention to return 

to the United States as soon as practicable. See Singh, 115 F.3d 

at 1514. He purchased a home in Canada, paid taxes there, 

maintained employment there, married a Canadian citizen. During 

that same period (2008 - 2014), Mahmoud only spent 110 days total 

in the United States, and did not pay taxes, have employment, or 

own any property in this country. Considering that, we can see 

why the BIA did not believe he had a continual intent to make a 

hasty return to the United States. See Matter of Huang, 19 I. & 

N. Dec. 749, 755-56 (BIA 1988) (holding government met its burden 
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of proving LPR relinquished status where she did not maintain a 

residence or have a job in the United States and stayed with 

relatives when visiting occasionally). Further, even prior to his 

illness, he delayed applying for reentry to the United States, 

despite multiple suggestions to do so from immigration officers. 

The sticking point of all of this, which was highlighted 

at oral argument, is Mahmoud's contention on appeal that he planned 

to return to the United States as soon as he obtained employment. 

But the only evidence in the record supporting this contention is 

Mahmoud's own conclusory testimony that he "look[ed] for work" 

each time he returned to the United States. Mahmoud did not 

present evidence of any specific efforts he made to find a job, 

nor is it obvious why an experienced restaurant worker could not 

find a job working in a restaurant in the United States for over 

five years. Mahmoud argues though that the burden below is on the 

government, so he has no obligation to introduce such evidence. 

Mahmoud is not wrong about the burden, but his argument stalls 

when one realizes that the government introduced evidence of 

Mahmoud's extensive connections to Canada. The government met its 

burden with the weight of that evidence, so it need not disprove 

Mahmoud's unsupported contention that he wanted a job in the United 

States.1 See Katebi, 396 F.3d at 466-67. 

1 It is worth noting that Mahmoud's own communal or cultural notions 

regarding family may well be working to his disadvantage here. He 
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Mahmoud makes two more arguments on appeal that require 

attention. First, he points out that since returning to the United 

States in 2014, he has put his house in Canada on the market, has 

taken a job working for one of his brothers in the United States, 

and has petitioned for his wife and their child to join here. None 

of this undermines the conclusion that Mahmoud abandoned his lawful 

permanent resident status during his many years of living and 

working in Canada. Second, Mahmoud argues that the BIA made a 

factual error when it noted that Mahmoud did not move back to the 

United States promptly after his brother opened a restaurant here. 

Mahmoud contends that his brother did not open that restaurant 

until Mahmoud was in the hospital in 2013, so he did indeed move 

as soon as practicable back to the United States to work here. 

The transcript excerpts upon which Mahmoud relies reveal some 

confusion, apparently brought about by the government's vague 

questioning, about which of Mahmoud's brothers is being discussed. 

Neither the IJ's or BIA's decisions rely upon this allegedly 

only resided with family in the United States and never acquired 

title to his own home here. Our case law conflates reliance on 

family for housing with a lack of permanence and does not reward 

those who stay with their families. See Singh, 113 F.3d at 1515-

16 (collecting and relying upon cases where LPR lost status after 

only staying with family during trips into the United States). 

This is not to say that a different level of cultural understanding 

would make a difference in Mahmoud's case (or many others), but 

this limited convention of understanding intent certainly 

establishes a deep hole for Mahmoud (and others who rely on family 

for housing in the United States) to climb out of. 
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erroneous fact to any meaningful degree and, on the whole, the 

decisions are supported by the record evidence. See EliasZacarias, 502 U.S. at 481 n.1 ("To reverse the BIA finding we must 

find that the evidence not only supports that conclusion, but 

compels it."). 

CONCLUSION 

For the foregoing reasons, the petition is denied.