[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-10445 ____________________

ESMELDA RUIZ, Petitioner, versus U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,

Respondent.

____________________

Petition for Review of a Decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals Agency No. A096-091-552 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 22-10445 Document: 35-1 Date Filed: 07/05/2023 Page: 2 of 30

2 Opinion of the Court 22-10445

Before JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges. NEWSOM, Circuit Judge: The Court sua sponte VACATES its prior opinion, published at 67 F.4th 1321 (11th Cir. 2023), and substitutes the following in its place. * * * Esmelda Ruiz, a native and citizen of Peru, appeals the Board of Immigration Appeals’ determination that she is ineligible for relief under 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(2), a provision whose language was originally adopted as part of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and that outlines the conditions under which certain “bat- tered spouse[s] or child[ren]” qualify for discretionary cancellation of removal. As relevant here, it requires a petitioning alien to show that she “has been battered or subjected to extreme cruelty” by her spouse or parent. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(b)(2)(A)(i). Ruiz contends that the Immigration Judge and the BIA made two errors in refusing her cancellation request. First, she maintains that, as a matter of law, they misinterpreted the statutory term “ex- treme cruelty” to require proof of physical—as distinguished from mental or emotional—abuse. And second, she asserts that, having misread the law, the IJ and the BIA wrongly concluded that she doesn’t qualify for discretionary relief. We agree with Ruiz that the IJ and the BIA misinterpreted § 1229b(b)(2) and thereby applied an erroneous legal standard in evaluating her request for cancellation of removal. Accordingly, USCA11 Case: 22-10445 Document: 35-1 Date Filed: 07/05/2023 Page: 3 of 30

22-10445 Opinion of the Court 3

we grant her petition for review and remand to the BIA for further consideration. I A Esmelda Ruiz entered the United States with her son on a six-month nonimmigrant visa in 2001. Shortly thereafter, she mar- ried Gavin Blanco. Only a year into her marriage, Ruiz was diag- nosed with breast cancer. She received chemotherapy and, as a re- sult, lost her hair and broke out in hives. Ruiz testified that follow- ing her diagnosis Blanco’s attitude toward her changed, and he be- came “rude” and “obnoxious.” He told her that “if they remove[d] [her] breast, that was the end of it.” After she underwent a mastec- tomy, he “got [her] out of [the] bed” in “a cruel way,” grabbed her arm, forced her in front of a mirror, and said, “You are not a woman for me anymore.” Ruiz’s son, Cristian, corroborated that incident and testified that, in general, Blanco “scream[ed] at” her. Cristian also reported that he once heard “something b