Can citizenship be revoked due to an aggravated felony (SIS)

C

canon.boston

New Member
I took a plea deal for an aggravated stalking charge (class D felony), we fought it for a year but were running out of money and my lawyer said if I took the plea the case would be sealed and as long as I didn't contact this person (I never stalked anyone and had NO intention of having anything to do with this lady ever again so not a problem) it was not considered a conviction so he advised I do that. This stemmed from an affair and instead of draining our bank account more and putting my wife through more I took the deal. This was 3 years after I took the oath and became a citizen. (I was charged in April 2011 and got my citizenship in July of 2008.) My wife and I were looking over the court papers and noticed the lady made her first complaint back in Sept of 2008. I had NO idea she made a complaint like that about me, she never told me. Nothing was ever done and noone contacted me until April of 2011. Could this be a problem for possible deportation/citizenship revocation purposes? The woman has put it out there by word of the grapevine her ultimate goal was to get me deported and she was so upset when she learned I had became a citizen, she had thought I was still a permanent resident. In her original complaint (sept 08) she said the "crime" had been going on for 2 years, which would have been 2005-2006 way before I became a citizen. Since in her complaint she says I was committing a crime prior to Sept 08 when I got my citizenship and I took the plea for said crime, does this mean they can now come back and revoke my citizenship? I had NO idea I was committing a crime when I took my citizenship oath, at worst I was fooling around on my wife when I took the oath. Does this constitute a means for INS to come knocking on my door? The actual "charge" date is 4/2011 from what I can see on the case files. Now I'm wishing we had fought the bogus charge and went to trial.
 
Crime commited after citizenshipo can not be used to take away one's citizenship and that is why many advocate this impotant benefits of naturalization instead ofg remaining a PR for ever.

But a serious crime commited by a natualized citizen can likely make the government re-examine his immigration history in order to find if any cheaing is involved in obataining immigration benefits.

On both N-400 and I485 therer is a catch-all question which can make government deport almost anyone

"have you ever commited a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?". There is no clear defnition
what consittute a crime or oofense for the purpose of thsi question. If it reserved for seriosu one like murder, robbery, rape, then most of us are safe. If it applies to taking a pen to home from work then we are all in trouble.

Technically anyone can be de-natualized because majority of us at least once failed to report chnage of addess (AR11) and most of us did not report that on our N-400 so technically many of us cheated on N-400. But I doubt government want to go that far.

But there was an immigrant who got de-natualized after commiting a aggravate assault after citizenship. The government
ccould not use that offense to do anything in immigration aspect so they dig up his history and found he beat his wife
before citizneship and did not answwer Yes to this "Have you commited an crime or offense for whioch you
were not arrrested?" question so he was de-natualized for cheating

So in your case, if your immigration history is clean and you obtained all immigration benefits including citizenship
in honest and fair manner, you have nothing to wroyy about losingyouir citizebnshipo
 
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WBH said:
Look at this old thread

http://forums.immigration.com/showt...me-or-offense-for-which-you-were-not-arrested
Click to expand...

Although this old thread you reference is titled "crimes...for which you were NOT arrested", it refers to a specific case: US vs Castro-Vasquez:

http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?xmldoc=20061145481FSupp2d664_11086.xml&docbase=CSLWAR2-1986-2006

In this case Castro-Vasquez' problem was that he WAS arrested (for domestic violence) prior to filing his N-400 but failed to disclose this on the form. The charges were subsequently dropped--the problem was that he didn't disclose the arrest, not that he was necessarily believed to be guilty. The problem was compounded by the fact that when he applied for his GC he falsely claimed to be unmarried without children whereas in fact he was married with 4 kids.

Castro-Vasquez' situation doesn't necessarily quite fit the subject of the thread in which it is discussed. If he'd disclosed the arrest along with the ultimate disposition showing the charges were dropped, he probably would have been OK--although he still would have had the issue about the earlier false statement on his GC application to deal with.
 
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WBH said:
On both N-400 and I485 therer is a catch-all question which can make government deport almost anyone

"have you ever commited a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?". There is no clear defnition
what consittute a crime or oofense for the purpose of thsi question. If it reserved for seriosu one like murder, robbery, rape, then most of us are safe. If it applies to taking a pen to home from work then we are all in trouble.
Click to expand...

The question arises, then, whether anyone has EVER been denaturalized on the basis of lying in answer to this question--without a criminal conviction.

Certainly the following scenario has happened--call this "Scenario A"--someone commits a crime for which they are not immediately arrested. They answer 'no' to this question on the N-400 and become a citizen. At some point AFTER becoming a citizen, they are caught for the earlier crime, charged, and convicted. They are then denaturalized for lying in answer to this question on the N-400.

But has the following scenario ever happened--call this "Scenario B"--someone allegedly commits a crime for which they are not immediately arrested. They answer 'no' to this question on the N-400 and become a citizen. At some point AFTER becoming a citizen, evidence comes to hand that they may have been guilty of a crime prior to becoming a citizen. However, for whatever reason--statute of limitations, prosecutorial discretion, lack of evidence, lack of witness cooperation, etc.--no criminal charges are actually pursued. The federal courts nevertheless conclude that there is sufficient evidence that they lied about criminal activity to denaturalize them.

In the thread you mention, a particular case is mentioned that is said to be an example of this Scenario B. However I posted a link to this case in #6, and it seems the exact scenario was a bit different from Scenario B. The person WAS arrested and failed to disclose the arrest--and his problems were compounded because he also seems to have lied about having been married when he applied for his GC years ago.

Can you (or anyone) provide a link to a case where Scenario B actually happened?
 
canon.boston said:
I took a plea deal for an aggravated stalking charge (class D felony), we fought it for a year but were running out of money and my lawyer said if I took the plea the case would be sealed and as long as I didn't contact this person (I never stalked anyone and had NO intention of having anything to do with this lady ever again so not a problem) it was not considered a conviction so he advised I do that. This stemmed from an affair and instead of draining our bank account more and putting my wife through more I took the deal. This was 3 years after I took the oath and became a citizen. (I was charged in April 2011 and got my citizenship in July of 2008.) My wife and I were looking over the court papers and noticed the lady made her first complaint back in Sept of 2008. I had NO idea she made a complaint like that about me, she never told me. Nothing was ever done and noone contacted me until April of 2011. Could this be a problem for possible deportation/citizenship revocation purposes? The woman has put it out there by word of the grapevine her ultimate goal was to get me deported and she was so upset when she learned I had became a citizen, she had thought I was still a permanent resident. In her original complaint (sept 08) she said the "crime" had been going on for 2 years, which would have been 2005-2006 way before I became a citizen. Since in her complaint she says I was committing a crime prior to Sept 08 when I got my citizenship and I took the plea for said crime, does this mean they can now come back and revoke my citizenship? I had NO idea I was committing a crime when I took my citizenship oath, at worst I was fooling around on my wife when I took the oath. Does this constitute a means for INS to come knocking on my door? The actual "charge" date is 4/2011 from what I can see on the case files. Now I'm wishing we had fought the bogus charge and went to trial.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, as you probably know, something that may not legally be a "conviction" for state criminal purposes may still be a "conviction" for federal immigration purposes. This usually happens when someone is considered to have formally admitted to the elements of a crime by virtue of their plea--but the state then agrees to eventually drop the charges pursuant to state law. The admission to the elements of the crime is then a "conviction" for federal immigration purposes even though the state doesn't pursue the charges and the person is still legally innocent under state law.

In your case, when was the actual offense date according to what you admitted in your plea? I know she says the offense date back to 2005 but what did you actually admit to? If nothing that you agreed to was before 2011, then I would say you are quite safe. If you did admit to anything that might be considered a crime prior to Jul 2008, you might have more of a problem. In that case you might want to talk to an immigration attorney who could tell you both whether there would be a case for denaturalizing you and, if so, how likely it would be that such a case would actually be pursued. It would just be a consultation with the immigration attorney--hence not too $$$--since it doesn't sound like there is much you can actually do pro-actively given that the state case is now resolved.

I'm a little confused as to the timeline, though. You say that she said that the alleged "crime" took place from 2005-2006. Where does she/you come by this time frame? Is she claiming that the "crime" ended in 2006? What caused her to suddenly make a complaint in Sept 2008, almost two years after the alleged "crime" ended? Usually these kinds of allegations arising from bad relationships die down after a period of no contact unless there is renewed contact of some kind to fuel fresh anger. Did something about your becoming a US citizen itself fuel anger on her side--since that seems to have happened not long before her initial complaint?

In any event I would say you are likely safe unless you actually admitted to something that occurred before Jul 2008.
 
CalGreenCard said:
Although this old thread you reference is titled "crimes...for which you were NOT arrested", it refers to a specific case: US vs Castro-Vasquez:

http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?xmldoc=20061145481FSupp2d664_11086.xml&docbase=CSLWAR2-1986-2006
Click to expand...

Actually this is not the case we talked about in that thread. The link to the case we talked about in that thread
was not valid any more. In that case the person was never arrested, cited, prosecuted for beating his wife.
The story just claimed he was known to often beat his wife in teh neighborhood. And because of this, he
was accued of lying twice on his N-400 form because he answered No to two N-400 questions.
One question was that famous "Have you ever commited a crime for whichyou were not arrested?" and the
other was "have you ever lied to Immigration office". Since he answewred No to teh first question, it was considered lying , then he was considered cheating when he answered No to second question.

I think acusing him of lying to teh first question is valid but I am not sure about the second if teh second question come first on N400 form.

But any way, my point is : that question "Have you commited a crime for which you were not arrested"
can be used by the government to punish a lot of natualizaed citizens when teh government can not
do anything about post-nationalization crimes commited.

If a famous person later admitted he smoked pot with his friends in USA before he became a PR or citizen and he did not answer Yes to that question and his firends later exposed him due to whatever reasons. He can be in trouible for keeping his citizenship
 
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WBH said:
Actually this is not the case we talked about in that thread. The link to the case we talked about in that thread was not valid any more.
Click to expand...

Yes, the link in that earlier thread is not valid anymore. However that thread contains the following statement:

"Castro was convicted of lying twice on his naturalization application." (by Vorpal, post #19 in that thread, 23rd January 2008, 11:37 AM)

A Google search on the above statement turns up the following website:

http://www.alipac.us/f12/federal-judge-denaturalizes-mexican-national-who-lied-his-53112/

And that website, in turn, gives Castro's full name: Hector Venancio Castro-Vasquez. A Google search on "Hector Venancio Castro-Vasquez" then produces the link that I found, giving full details of the case and showing that Castro-Vasquez was, indeed, arrested and the problem was that he lied about his arrest:

http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?xmldoc=20061145481FSupp2d664_11086.xml&docbase=CSLWAR2-1986-2006

Is there anything in the above chain of Google searches where I've gone astray?

WBH said:
In that case the person was never arrested, cited, prosecuted for beating his wife.
The story just claimed he was known to often beat his wife in teh neighborhood.
Click to expand...

He may well have been known in his neighborhood for beating his wife. But the above legal reference shows that, on at least one occasion, it went a step further: he was arrested. However in the end he wasn't prosecuted.

WBH said:
But any way, my point is : that question "Have you commited a crime for which you were not arrested" can be used by the government to punish a lot of natualizaed citizens when teh government can not
do anything about post-nationalization crimes committed.

If a famous person later admitted he smoked pot with his friends in USA before he became a PR or citizen and he did not answer Yes to that question and his firends later exposed him due to whatever reasons. He can be in trouible for keeping his citizenship
Click to expand...

Yes, I already understood that this is the claim you are making. I'm asking you if you can cite a specific reference where this has actually happened to back up your claim. These sorts of allegations are made all the time in the case of political figures. And certainly there are politicians who are naturalized citizens. While these kinds of allegations may damage a politician's career (whether US born or naturalized) I have yet to hear of ICE/USCIS attempting to take away someone's citizenship based on these kinds of allegations.
 
CalGreenCard said:
He may well have been known in his neighborhood for beating his wife. But the above legal reference shows that, on at least one occasion, it went a step further: he was arrested. However in the end he wasn't prosecuted.
Click to expand...


Then he should be acused of lying three times on N400 but maybe government think it is enough to
catch 2 lies. If the burden of proof for deportation is already made, why bother spending more efforts?
 
Yes, I already understood that this is the claim you are making. I'm asking you if you can cite a specific reference where this has actually happened to back up your claim. These sorts of allegations are made all the time in the case of political figures. And certainly there are politicians who are naturalized citizens. While these kinds of allegations may damage a politician's career (whether US born or naturalized) I have yet to hear of ICE/USCIS attempting to take away someone's citizenship based on these kinds of allegations.
Click to expand...


That is why many claim it is stupid to be honest. Get citizenship first before you worry about de-natualization.
If you are too honest, you won't even get citizenship in the first place and you even won't have a chance
to get de-natualized.
 
WBH said:
Then he should be acused of lying three times on N400 but maybe government think it is enough to
catch 2 lies. If the burden of proof for deportation is already made, why bother spending more efforts?
Click to expand...

True, but it might go further than that. If the government isn't confident they'd win on the third lie, but pretty sure of their case on the other 2, they might avoid raising the third issue to avoid setting any precedents they might not like. Even though they'd win this particular case because of the first two lies, they could still end up setting some bad (from the gov'ts point of view) precedents if they present a weak case on the third lie.

In this case, just to be clear, Castro-Vasquez was accused and convicted of lying on the following two questions on the N-400:

"16. Have you ever been arrested, cited or detained by any law enforcement officer (including USCIS or former INS and military officers) for any reason?" (he'd previously been arrested for domestic violence)

"23. Have you ever given false or misleading information to any U.S. government official while applying for any immigration benefit or to prevent deportation, exclusion or removal?" (he'd previously lied on his GC application)

He was NOT formally accused of lying on the following question on the N-400:

"15. Have you ever committed a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?" (yes, perhaps it was general knowledge that he beat his wife multiple times without being arrested--in addition to the one time he was arrested--but this doesn't seem to have been used as a basis for denaturalization)

So I'm still waiting for a clear reference to a case where a lie on question #15 has been used as the sole basis for denaturalization in the absence of a criminal conviction. You've claimed multiple times that the government intends to use #15 to denaturalize "many" people they don't like but you haven't produced any evidence as yet.
 
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