Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-315_q713.pdf
Page Number: 6.0

4 

SANCHEZ v. MAYORKAS 

Opinion of the Court 

that “a grant of TPS does not constitute an ‘admission’ into 
the  United  States.”  Sanchez  v.  Secretary  U. S.  Dept.  of 
Homeland Security, 967 F. 3d 242, 252 (2020).  The court 
observed  that  “admission”  and  “status”  are  separate  con-
cepts  in  immigration  law.  Id.,  at  246.  So,  the  court  con-
cluded,  providing  a  person  with  nonimmigrant  status  (as
the TPS provision does) does not mean admitting him (as 
§1255 requires).  See ibid. 

We granted certiorari, 592 U. S. ___ (2021), to resolve a 
Circuit split over whether a TPS recipient who entered the
country unlawfully can still become an LPR.3  We now af-
firm the Third Circuit’s decision that he cannot.  The TPS 
program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but 
it does not admit them.  So the conferral of TPS does not 
make  an  unlawful  entrant  (like  Sanchez)  eligible  under 
§1255 for adjustment to LPR status. 

II 
Section  1255,  applied  according  to  its  plain  terms,  pre-
vents Sanchez from becoming an LPR.  There is no dispute
that Sanchez “entered the United States in the late 1990s 
unlawfully,  without  inspection.”    Brief  for  Petitioners  13. 
But as earlier described, §1255 requires an LPR applicant 
like Sanchez to have entered the country “lawful[ly],” with
admitted. 
to 
“inspection”—that 
§1101(a)(13)(A); see supra, at 1–2.  Indeed, §1255 imposes 
an admission requirement twice over.  Its principal provi-
sion states that an applicant for LPR status must have been
“inspected and admitted or paroled into the United States.” 
—————— 

have 

been 

is, 

3 Compare Sanchez v. Secretary U. S. Dept. of Homeland Security, 967 
F. 3d 242, 245 (CA3 2020) (case below) (holding that such a person cannot
do so); Nolasco v. Crockett, 978 F. 3d 955, 959 (CA5 2020) (same); Serrano 
v. United States Atty. Gen., 655 F. 3d 1260, 1265–1266 (CA11 2011) (per 
curiam) (same), with Velasquez v. Barr, 979 F. 3d 572, 578 (CA8 2020) 
(holding that he can); Ramirez v. Brown, 852 F. 3d 954, 958 (CA9 2017) 
(same); Flores v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Servs., 718 
F. 3d 548, 553–554 (CA6 2013).