Green Card Holder in Removal Court: How LPR Cancellation Under INA § 240A(a) Is Actually Won

What we see in our practice

The client is usually someone who has not thought about immigration status in twenty years. They have a green card, a mortgage, U.S. citizen children, a business or a long employment history. Then something surfaces an old conviction — a return from a trip abroad, a routine traffic stop, a background check, an ICE operation — and they are served with a Notice to Appear for a guilty plea entered in 2009 that their criminal lawyer described at the time as "not a big deal."

The family's first reaction is almost always disbelief that a green card can be taken away at all. The second reaction is the dangerous one: they treat it as a criminal problem that was already resolved, so they wait. By the time we are retained, months of the discretionary record that could have been built — restitution paid, treatment completed, letters gathered while memories are fresh — are months that were not used.

The cases that go well share one feature. Someone sat down early and separated the two questions: is this person even eligible, and if they are, why should a judge exercise discretion in their favor? Those questions have different answers, different evidence, and different deadlines.

The three gates, and where cases actually die

The statutory requirements are short. Almost every fight is about how they are counted.

Five years as a lawful permanent resident

Measured from the date LPR status was granted. This is usually the easiest element and the least litigated, but the date on the card is not always the date of admission to permanent residence — check the A-file rather than the plastic.

Seven years of continuous residence after admission in any status

This is the element people misunderstand most. The seven years do not have to be as a green card holder. Time in the United States after any lawful admission counts, including years spent as a student, a visitor, or a worker before adjusting status. Someone who entered on a visa in 2012 and became an LPR in 2021 may already have the seven years even though they have had the card for four.

No aggravated felony conviction

An aggravated felony under INA § 101(a)(43) is an absolute bar, and the label is misleading — offenses that are neither aggravated nor felonies under state law can qualify, while some serious-sounding convictions do not. Whether a particular conviction counts is decided by the categorical approach, comparing the elements of the statute of conviction against the generic federal definition, not by what the person actually did. Under Mathis v. United States, 579 U.S. 500 (2016), if the state statute sweeps more broadly than the federal definition, the conviction does not match, and the bar does not apply. This analysis is technical, it is winnable, and it is routinely skipped.

The stop-time rule is where the paper fight happens

The seven-year clock does not run forever. Under INA § 240A(d)(1) it stops on the earlier of two events: service of a Notice to Appear, or the commission of certain offenses that make the person removable or inadmissible.

That rule is also the single most productive place to attack the government's case, because of what the Supreme Court has said a Notice to Appear has to be:

• Pereira v. Sessions, 585 U.S. 198 (2018) — a document that does not specify the time and place of the hearing is not a Notice to Appear for stop-time purposes and does not cut off the clock.
• Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 593 U.S. 155 (2021) — the government cannot cure a defective notice by mailing the missing information later. It must be a single complete document.

In practice this means a client the government says has six years and four months may actually have more than seven, because the charging document that supposedly stopped the clock was defective. We pull the NTA and check what it actually said on its face before conceding anything about dates. The government's calculation is an assertion, not a finding.

The second trigger matters too. The commission of a qualifying offense stops the clock on the date of the conduct, not the date of conviction or plea. A person whose offense occurred in year six does not reach seven years by staying afterward.

Discretion is the actual trial

Once eligibility is established, the judge decides whether to grant relief as a matter of discretion. The framework comes from Matter of Marin, 16 I&N Dec. 581 (BIA 1978), applied to LPR cancellation in Matter of C-V-T-, 22 I&N Dec. 7 (BIA 1998). The judge balances the favorable equities against the adverse factors.

Favorable factors the record has to prove, not assert:

• Family ties in the United States, and what happens to those people if the respondent is removed.
• Length of residence, especially residence beginning at a young age.
• Hardship to the respondent and to family members. Unlike the ten-year form of cancellation, there is no "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" threshold here — hardship is weighed, not gated.
• Employment history, tax compliance, business ownership, property.
• Service in the armed forces.
• Community, congregational, and volunteer involvement.
• Genuine rehabilitation, which for any case involving a conviction is the center of gravity.

Adverse factors on the other side: the nature and recency of the offense, the sentence, additional violations, any evidence of bad character, and — this one surprises clients — a pattern of immigration violations or misrepresentation separate from the criminal record.

Rehabilitation is not a speech. It is documents: completion certificates for treatment or classes, proof restitution and fines were paid in full, probation discharged early where that happened, a substance-abuse or psychological evaluation from a credentialed evaluator, employer letters that acknowledge the conviction rather than pretend it does not exist, and a clean record measured in years.

One grant per lifetime

INA § 240A(c)(6) bars cancellation for anyone who has previously been granted relief under § 240A or the old § 212(c). There is no second application, no matter how sympathetic the later case is.

This changes strategy. If another remedy can resolve the case — termination because the removability charge fails, a motion to suppress, post-conviction relief that eliminates the conviction, adjustment through a family petition, or a waiver — that route should be examined first and the one-time grant preserved. A client in their forties with a long life ahead should not spend it on a case that could have been won on the charge.

Section 240A(c) also bars several other categories outright, including certain crewmen, some exchange visitors, and people removable on specified security grounds.

Building the file, in order

1. Get the conviction records first. Certified copies of the judgment, the charging document, the plea colloquy transcript, and the statute as it read on the date of the offense. The categorical analysis cannot be done from a rap sheet.
2. Get the immigration file. A FOIA request for the A-file establishes admission dates, prior entries, and what the government actually has. Start it immediately; it is slow.
3. Read the Notice to Appear as a document, not a formality. Time, place, date, and what it charges. This is the stop-time analysis and it is free.
4. Have criminal counsel evaluate post-conviction relief in parallel. If the conviction can be vacated on a legal defect, the removal case may disappear and the one-time grant stays available.
5. Build the equities file over months, not the week before. Tax transcripts for every year, employment verification, medical records for dependents, school records for children, mortgage and lease history, and letters from people who will actually appear if called.
6. Prepare the respondent to testify about the offense directly. Minimizing it in front of a judge is the fastest way to lose on discretion. Acknowledging it, explaining what changed, and pointing to the record that proves it is the case.
7. Run the custody track in parallel if the client is detained. Many LPRs with convictions are held under mandatory detention, and release changes what can be prepared.

The hearing itself

Cancellation is decided at an individual merits hearing. The respondent testifies first and is cross-examined by the government attorney, who will focus almost entirely on the conviction and on anything in the record that suggests the account has shifted over time. Family members and employers testify to the equities. The judge frequently rules from the bench.

If relief is denied, there are thirty days to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Federal court review of a discretionary denial is narrow — 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B) strips review of the discretionary judgment itself — but subsection (D) preserves review of constitutional claims and questions of law, and Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, 589 U.S. 221 (2020), confirmed that the application of a legal standard to established facts is a reviewable question of law. Eligibility rulings, stop-time rulings, and aggravated-felony rulings are legal questions. That distinction is the appeal.

What not to do

Do not concede removability at the master calendar hearing before the aggravated-felony and stop-time analysis is finished; conceding is often unnecessary and hard to undo. Do not let a criminal lawyer resolve a pending charge without an immigration analysis of the plea first — the difference between two statutes that carry identical jail time can be the difference between eligible and permanently barred. Do not file for cancellation as a placeholder while hoping something better appears; the grant is one-time and the application is a commitment. Do not submit an equities packet built on letters that all say the same three sentences. And do not assume that decades in the United States speak for themselves in front of a judge who has the file and forty minutes.

Who should call us now

Call if you are a green card holder who has been served with a Notice to Appear, if ICE has detained a permanent resident in your family over an old conviction, if a criminal case is pending and a plea is being discussed, or if you have been told you are ineligible for relief because of an aggravated felony and no one has run the categorical analysis. The work is establishing eligibility on the documents, deciding whether cancellation is the right use of a one-time remedy, and building a discretionary record a judge can actually rely on. If a hearing date is already set, schedule a consultation now — the file takes months to build properly.

Frequently asked questions

Do the seven years have to be as a green card holder?

No. INA § 240A(a)(2) requires seven years of continuous residence after being admitted in any status. Time as a student, visitor, or worker before adjusting to permanent residence counts toward the seven years. Only the separate five-year requirement has to be LPR time.

My conviction was fifteen years ago. Why is it a problem now?

There is no statute of limitations on removability. A conviction from any year can be charged whenever the government becomes aware of it, which is often at a port of entry after a trip abroad or during a records check. Age of the conviction does not create eligibility, but it is a significant favorable factor in the discretionary balance.

The government says my conviction is an aggravated felony. Is that the final word?

No. Whether an offense qualifies under INA § 101(a)(43) is a legal question decided by comparing the elements of the statute of conviction to the federal definition, not by the offense's name or by the underlying conduct. Under Mathis v. United States, a state statute broader than the generic federal offense does not match. Many charged aggravated felonies do not survive that analysis.

Can I get cancellation a second time?

No. INA § 240A(c)(6) bars relief for anyone previously granted cancellation under § 240A or the former § 212(c). This is why the decision to use it should come after other options have been evaluated.

Does the ten-year hardship standard apply to my case?

No. The "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" requirement belongs to the ten-year form of cancellation for non-permanent residents. For an LPR under § 240A(a), hardship is one favorable factor weighed in the discretionary balance, not a threshold that must be crossed.

Will I be detained while the case is pending?

Often yes. Permanent residents charged with certain criminal grounds are subject to mandatory detention under INA § 236(c). Whether that classification is correct can be challenged, and release is worth fighting for on its own terms because it makes preparing the equities file realistic.

What happens if the judge denies cancellation?

There are thirty days to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Federal review of the discretionary decision itself is barred by 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B), but legal questions — eligibility, stop-time, whether an offense is an aggravated felony — remain reviewable under subsection (D).