What does "excluded within the past year" mean, exactly?

[John & Mary 1]

John and I are preparing the forms for his AOS, and we're stuck at Part 3, #9: "Have you ever been deported from the United States, or removed from the United States at government expense, excluded within the past year, or are you now in exclusion, deportation, removal, or rescission proceedings?"

John was allowed to "withdraw his application for admission" on 10 Oct 2008.

I scoured the Internet trying to find a definition for what "exclusion" means and found this legal mumbo-jumbo. John was not sent home at government expense, which makes me think he wasn't "excluded," but at the bottom of the exclusion description on that site it says that "An applicant placed into Exclusion proceedings may apply for the following forms of relief: (1) Withdrawal of the Application for Admission." So was he or wasn't he excluded?

Can anyone who has had a similar situation shed some light on this problem?

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

PM mod Kim (KimandRuss) because she will know if nobody answers you. Russ was allowed to withdraw his application for admission prior to his K1.

[KimandRuss 0]

Because he was never "excluded, deported or removed" from the Country, we answered "no" to this question but we did include the deposition paperwork from the interview when he was 'allowed to withdraw his application for admission'.

Terminology is everything... he was simply not allowed to enter with the current visa (VWP) as previous visits had shown possibility of intent to immigrate.

best of luck to you