It’s not in the manner too which you lie or that it is immaterial to the reason, it’s that you lied, period. – PB/TK
Can You Lose Your Citizenship by Lying About Your Weight? By Jacob Sullum
If you want to become a citizen of the United States, you have to answer a lot of questions, some of which are very broad and many of which seek potentially embarrassing information. In a case the Supreme Court heard yesterday, the U.S. government takes the position that a false answer to any of those questions, no matter how trivial or irrelevant the subject, is enough to strip you of your citizenship years after you were naturalized. That argument encountered a lot of resistance from the Court and prompted a startling confession from Chief Justice John Roberts.
“Some time ago,” Roberts told Assistant to the Solicitor General Robert Parker, “outside the statute of limitations, I drove 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone….I was not arrested.” Had Roberts done that as a green-card holder seeking citizenship, he would have been obligated to check the “yes” box next to Question 22 in Part 12 of his application for naturalization: “Have you EVER committed, assisted in committing, or attempted to commit a crime or offense for which you were NOT arrested?” According to the government, checking the “no” box could have life-altering consequences. “You say that if I answer that question no,” Roberts said, “20 years after I was naturalized as a citizen, you can knock on my door and say, ‘Guess what, you’re not an American citizen after all.'” Parker confirmed that was indeed what he was saying. “Oh, come on,” the chief justice replied.
At the center of the case, Maslenjak v. United States, is the meaning of 18 USC 1425, which makes it a felony to “procure” citizenship “contrary to law.” In addition to a prison term of up to 25 years, a conviction under that statute triggers automatic loss of citizenship. Divna Maslenjak, an ethnic Serb from Bosnia who became a citizen in 2007, was convicted of violating 18 USC 1425 because she lied about her husband’s military service while seeking refugee status in 1998 and did not acknowledge the lie when she applied for citizenship. It is a matter of dispute whether that lie, which violated another law making it a crime for a naturalization applicant to knowingly make a false statement under oath, actually helped Maslenjak become a citizen. But during her trial the prosecution argued that it did not matter. The judge agreed, telling jurors they could convict Maslenjak of illegally procuring citizenship “even if you find that a false statement did not influence the decision to approve the defendant’s naturalization.”
Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit approved that interpretation of the law, parting company with four other federal appeals courts. Yesterday Parker urged the Supreme Court to uphold the 6th Circuit’s decision. “What Congress was concerned here with is not what people lied about,” he said. “Rather, it was the fact that they lied.” Several justices seemed skeptical. “How can an immaterial statement procure naturalization?” asked Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Elena Kagan said it “seems quite natural” to require some causal connection between the false statement and obtaining citizenship. Samuel Alito suggested it was rather odd to say that someone “procured X contrary to law, but the thing that she did had no potential to help her get that thing.”
Continue to reason.com article: https://reason.com/blog/2017/04/27/can-you-lose-your-citizenship-by-lying-a
