The Fourth Circuit has affirmed summary judgment for USCIS against two naturalized citizens who obtained status through the Special Immigrant Juvenile program as children and later tried to petition for immigration benefits on behalf of their mothers, one through military parole-in-place and one through a family-based petition.
The Court held that the SIJ statute's exclusion clause permanently bars any natural or prior adoptive parent of an SIJ recipient from ever obtaining immigration benefits by virtue of that parentage, regardless of which parent was found to have abused, neglected, or abandoned the child, and that USCIS's implementing regulation faithfully tracks that bar. The Court also rejected the petitioners' equal protection challenge, holding that although SIJ recipients are treated differently from other citizens seeking to sponsor a parent, the exclusion clause survives rational basis review because it reasonably protects children from parents who may have caused them harm.
The full text of Fuentes v. USCIS can be found here: https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/251005.P.pdf