Maria Reynoso-Salgado v Todd W. Blanche

Sep 1, 2026
23-2628

JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge. Maria Reynoso-Salgado, a citizen of Mexico, petitions for our review of a determination by the Board of Immigration Appeals. The Board concluded that her state misdemeanor conviction for neglecting a child renders her ineligible for cancellation of removal because the conviction qualifies as “a crime of child abuse” under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i). Because the state statute is a categorical match to the federal offense, we deny Reynoso-Salgado‘s petition.

I

Reynoso-Salgado entered the United States in 1997 and has resided in the country since then. In 2012, Reynoso-Salgado entered a plea of guilty to neglecting a child in violation of Wis. Stat. Ann. § 948.21(1). One year later, the Department of Homeland Security served Reynoso-Salgado with a Notice to Appear charging her with removability pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) for being present in the country without admission or parole by an immigration officer. After admitting to the factual allegations in the Notice to Appear and conceding removability, Reynoso-Salgado applied for cancellation of removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b). Among other factors, § 1229b(b) permits cancellation of removal so long as the applicant has not been convicted of an offense requiring removal under federal immigration law.

An immigration judge denied Reynoso-Salgado‘s application. The judge found that her guilty plea to child neglect qualified as a conviction of “a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment” under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i), which rendered her ineligible for cancellation of removal. Reynoso-Salgado appealed the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which affirmed the immigration judge‘s denial of her application. Reynoso-Salgado now petitions this court for review, arguing the Board erred in its determination.

II

The sole issue on appeal is whether Reynoso-Salgado‘s guilty plea to neglect of a child under Wis. Stat. Ann. § 948.21(1) qualifies as a crime of “child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment” under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) and therefore renders her ineligible for cancellation of removal. We review this question of law de novo. Aguirre-Zuniga v. Garland, 37 F.4th 446, 449 (7th Cir. 2022). Because the Board affirmed the immigration judge‘s decision but provided its own analysis, we review both decisions. Id.

Section 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) does not provide a definition for a crime of “child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment.” At the time Reynoso-Salgado filed her petition in 2023, resolving Reynoso-Salgado‘s appeal required us to determine whether the Board‘s interpretation and definition of § 948.21(1) and § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) was reasonable and, if so, to defer to the Board‘s analysis. See Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842–44 (1984). But now, following the Supreme Court‘s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, “courts need not and under the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.” 603 U.S. 369, 413 (2024). Instead, we “exercise [our] independent judgment” and use “traditional tools of statutory construction … to resolve statutory ambiguities,” paying “[c]areful attention to the judgment of the Executive Branch” where helpful for our inquiry. Id. at 401, 412–13.

Whether a conviction of or guilty plea to § 948.21(1) qualifies as a removable crime under § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) is a question of first impression for our court. In the absence of precedent and the need to defer to the Board‘s decision, we “employ a categorical approach by looking to the statute … of conviction, rather than to the specific facts underlying the crime.” Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 581 U.S. 385, 389 (2017). This approach requires us “to assess the minimum conduct required for a conviction under the state statute[] in question.” Hassan v. Bondi, 170 F.4th 599, 602 (7th Cir. 2026).

Where, as here, the federal statute “refers generally to an offense without specifying its elements,” we craft a “generic” version of the offense—“that is, the elements of ‘the offense as commonly understood.‘” Shular v. United States, 589 U.S. 154, 158 (2020) (quoting Mathis v. United States, 579 U.S. 500, 503 (2016)). A state statute is not a categorical match to the federal offense if conduct under the statute “would not be sufficient for conviction under the generic federal definitions of that crime.” Mwendapeke v. Garland, 87 F.4th 860, 867 (7th Cir. 2023) (citing Esquivel-Quintana, 581 U.S. at 389).

Using this approach, we begin by determining the elements of child neglect under § 948.21(1) and the federal definition of a “crime of child abuse, child neglect, and child abandonment” under § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i). We then compare the elements of the two offenses to determine if they are a categorical match.

A

To determine the elements of a state statute, we look at the text of the statute itself and state-court decisions interpreting that statute. Parzych v. Garland, 2 F.4th 1013, 1017 (7th Cir. 2021). At the time Reynoso-Salgado pleaded guilty to the offense in 2012, the Wisconsin child-neglect statute read as follows:

(1) Any person who is responsible for a child‘s welfare who, through his or her actions or failure to take action, intentionally contributes to the neglect of the child is guilty of one of the following:

(a) A Class A misdemeanor.

(b) A Class H felony if bodily harm is a consequence.

(c) A Class F felony if great bodily harm is a consequence.

(d) A Class D felony if death is a consequence.

(2) Under sub. (1), a person responsible for the child‘s welfare contributes to the neglect of the child although the child does not actually become neglected if the natural and probable consequences of the persons actions or failure to take action would be to cause the child to become neglected.

Wis. Stat. Ann. § 948.21(1)–(2) (2011).

To date, Wisconsin courts have not deconstructed this offense into constituent elements. But the elements are clear from the face of the statute: (1) intentional; (2) action or failure to take action; (3) by a person responsible for a child‘s welfare; and (4) that contributes to the neglect of the child. See id. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin‘s explanation of the statute in State v. Evans, 492 N.W.2d 141 (Wis. 1992), reinforces our conclusion. Quoting the state‘s model jury instruction for § 948.21, the court noted:

The second element of this offense requires that the defendant intentionally contributed to the neglect of (name of child). This element requires not only that the defendant contributed to the neglect of a child but also that the act or failure to act was done intentionally. The term ‘intentionally’ means that the defendant either had a purpose to do the thing or cause the result specified or was aware that his conduct was practically certain to cause that result.

A child is neglected when the person responsible for the child‘s welfare fails for reasons other than poverty to provide necessary care, food, clothing, medical or dental care, or shelter so as to seriously endanger the physical health of the child.

Evans, 492 N.W.2d at 481 (quoting Wis.J.I.—Criminal 2150 (1989)).

One note about the first element: In her petition, Reynoso-Salgado notes that the current version of the statute requires the conduct to have been negligent, not intentional. But because Reynoso-Salgado pleaded guilty to the prior version of the statute, that change in mens rea is not relevant to our determination here.

With our interpretation of § 948.21 in hand, we now define the elements of the federal statute.

B

Title 8, Section 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) of the United States Code provides no definition of “a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment.” Cf. Garcia v. Barr, 969 F.3d 129, 133 (5th Cir. 2020) (collecting cases from the courts of appeals declaring the statute to be “silent or ambiguous on the meaning of a crime of child abuse“). The Board has interpreted the term “crime of child abuse” broadly to mean “any offense involving an intentional, knowing, reckless, or criminally negligent act or omission that constitutes maltreatment of a child or that impairs a child‘s physical or mental well-being, including sexual abuse or exploitation.” Matter of Rivera-Mendoza, 28 I. & N. Dec. 184, 186 (BIA 2020) (citation modified).

Rather than representing three individual offenses, the Board treats “crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment” as a “unitary concept.” Id. Stated otherwise, the definition of “‘crime of child abuse’ includes the crimes of child neglect and abandonment, and that ‘endangering a child can reasonably viewed as either abuse or neglect.‘” Id. (quoting Matter of Soram, 25 I. & N. Dec. 378, 381 (BIA 2010)). From this definition, the Board engaged in a “State-by-State analysis … to determine whether the risk of harm required by the endangerment-type language in any given State statute is sufficient to bring an offense within [its] definition of ‘child abuse.‘” Id. Under Chevron, our sister circuits afforded this definition broad deference when considering whether a state statute was a categorical match to § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i). See Sandoval Argueta v. Bondi, 137 F.4th 265, 273 (5th Cir. 2025) (collecting cases).

Before the Supreme Court required courts to do so in Loper Bright, the Fourth Circuit conducted its own analysis of § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) in Cruz v. Garland, 101 F.4th 361 (4th Cir. 2024). The Cruz court agreed with the Board‘s treatment of the statute as a “unitary concept.” Id. at 365 (citation modified). The court explained that “[t]he statute‘s structure … clearly evinces Congress‘s intent that ‘a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment” should be read as a single category that encompasses the entire phrase.” Id. The court went on to hold that “a crime of child abuse requires an act or omission that either injures a child or creates a sufficiently high risk that a child will be harmed.” Id.; see also id. at 365–66 (stating that it is “no accident” that its analysis “accords with the approach of the BIA” because the agency‘s “experience in the field often renders its decisions persuasive” (citation modified)).

The Fourth Circuit‘s definition and analysis have since been favorably adopted by the Fifth and Ninth Circuits. See Sandoval Argueta, 137 F.4th at 274; Leon-Briviesca v. Blanche, 179 F.4th 1180, 1190 (9th Cir. 2026). A concurring judge on a panel in the Eleventh Circuit has done the same. Bastias v. U.S. Att‘y Gen., 158 F.4th 1188, 1220–21 (11th Cir. 2025) (Middlebrooks, J., concurring). This consensus on the actus reus has held for the mens rea too, with each court agreeing that § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) requires a mens rea of at least criminal negligence. See Cruz, 101 F.4th at 369; Sandoval Argueta, 137 F.4th at 273–75; Leon-Briviesca, 179 F.4th at 1191–13; see also Bastias, 158 F.4th at 1218 (Marcus, J., concurring) (explaining “the generic federal crime of child neglect requires a mens rea of recklessness“); id. at 1224 (Middlebrooks, J., concurring) (holding that the state statute‘s “culpable negligence” requirement matched that of the generic federal definition of child abuse).

We find the reasoning reflected in the decisions of our sister circuits to be persuasive. Accordingly, we too hold that under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i), a “crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment” should be read as a single category of crimes—“a crime of child abuse“—consisting of three elements: (1) “a culpable mental state“; (2) “an act or omission that causes harm or creates a reasonable probability of harm“; and (3) the harm or reasonable probability of harm is “to a child.” Cruz, 101 F.4th at 369. Further, “a culpable mental state” requires, at minimum, a mens rea of criminal negligence. Id.

C

With the elements of the relevant state statute identified and a definition of the federal offense crafted, we now can put the two side-by-side to decide whether Reynoso-Salgado is ineligible for cancellation of removal. Under Wisconsin law, “[a]ny person who is responsible for a child‘s welfare who, through his or her actions or failure to take action, intentionally contributes to the neglect of the child” is guilty of a misdemeanor. Wis. Stat. Ann. § 948.21(1). And under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i), a crime of child abuse requires an act or omission that either injures a child or creates a reasonable probability of harm. The question, then, is whether the minimum conduct required for a conviction of child neglect under § 948.21(1) would be sufficient for a conviction of child abuse under § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i).

The elements of each statute compel us to answer “yes.” Both offenses prescribe liability for either an act or an omission. And the Wisconsin statute‘s “intentional” state of mind is greater than the criminal negligence minimally required by § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i), so a defendant who meets the Wisconsin statute‘s mens rea requirement necessarily meets that of the federal statute. Therefore, § 948.21(1) is a categorical match to § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i), and Reynoso-Salgado‘s guilty plea renders her ineligible for cancellation of removal under § 1229b(b).

Reynoso-Salgado‘s arguments in her petition are unavailing. She argues that § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) is unconstitutionally vague and therefore void. But this argument is underdeveloped and therefore waived. Rock Hemp Corp. v. Dunn, 51 F.4th 693, 704 (7th Cir. 2022). She also argues that Congress never intended § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) to include crimes of child neglect where the victim suffers no harm. As support, she cites the Tenth Circuit‘s decision in Ibarra v. Holder. There, the court rejected the Board‘s generic federal definition of § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) and held that the federal offense did not encompass conduct “committed with only criminal negligence and resulted in no injury.” 736 F.3d 903, 918 (10th Cir. 2013).

But the Tenth Circuit‘s holding does not help Reynoso-Salgado for two reasons. First, in Ibarra, the petitioner pleaded guilty to one count of “child abuse—negligence—no injury,” a misdemeanor under Colorado law. Id. at 905. Unlike that statute, Wisconsin‘s child-neglect statute assigns liability regardless of whether injury results so long as “the natural and probable consequences of the person‘s actions or failure to take action would be to cause the child to become neglected.” Wis. Stat. Ann. § 948.21(2). Second, the state statute in Ibarra required a mens rea of criminal negligence, whereas the Wisconsin statute requires an intentional action or failure to take action. Ibarra, 736 F.3d at 908. So regardless of whether the floor of § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) is properly set at criminal negligence or somewhere higher, the intentional conduct to which Reynoso-Salgado pleaded guilty still falls within the ambit of the federal offense.

III

The Wisconsin child-neglect statute at issue in this case is a categorical match to a crime of child abuse as defined under federal law. Accordingly, we deny Reynoso-Salgado‘s petition for review of the Board‘s determination that she was ineligible for cancellation of removal.