I just ran into this myself and found the same thing for user_status. wp_update_user() won’t change user_status.
From other threads I see that user_status is effectively a “dead” field. It remains in the wp_user table, but isn’t used by WP itself for anything anymore. Probably explains why wp_update_user doesn’t touch it.
Regardless, my solution was just using wpdb to write a direct SQL call to update the user_status field:
global $wpdb;
$wpdb->query('UPDATE wp_users SET user_status = 1 WHERE ID = '.$current_user->ID);
Note that I’m setting an explicit internal value here via code. If you’re setting values based on user input, don’t use a literal SQL string as I’ve done above. Instead use one of the many secure SQL-generating functions detailed on this page:
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Class_Reference/wpdb
