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Maslenjak v. United States

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Supreme Court of the United States
Maslenjak v. United States
Reference: 15-1194
Issue: Immigration
Term: 2016
Important Dates
Argued: April 26, 2017
Decided: June 22, 2017
Outcome
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded
Vote
9-0 to vacate and remand
Majority
Chief Justice John G. Roberts • Anthony Kennedy • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Stephen Breyer • Sonia Sotomayor • Elena Kagan
Concurring
Clarence Thomas (in part and in the judgment) • Samuel Alito (in the judgment) • Neil Gorsuch (in part and in the judgment)


Maslenjak v. United States is a case argued during the October 2016 term of the U.S. Supreme Court. Argument in the case was held on April 26, 2017. The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. On June 22, 2017, in an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the court vacated and remanded the judgment of the Sixth Circuit. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored an opinion concurring in part and in the judgment which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Samuel Alito authored an opinion concurring in the judgment.

In the case, the court held that, in order to denaturalize a U.S. citizen under federal law for illegally procuring citizenship through false statements, the government must prove that those false statements were material to the decision to award citizenship.

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The case: After lying on an application for refugee status in 1998 and affirming those lies under oath in interviews with immigration officials, Divna Maslenjak was convicted on two counts related to providing false statements. She was stripped of her naturalized citizenship as a punishment attending the convictions. Maslenjak argued that the false statements she made were immaterial to decision to grant refugee status and that this is not sufficient to enforce a denaturalization order under the relevant federal law. Proof of materiality is a requirement under a federal law to denaturalize a defendant for certain civil violations. The Sixth Circuit is the only circuit to hold that materiality is not required to denaturalize a defendant for similar criminal violations.
  • The issue: Must the government prove false statements are material in order to denaturalize a citizen under 18 U.S.C. §1425(a)?
  • The outcome: On June 22, 2017, the court vacated and remanded the judgment of the Sixth Circuit.


    • In brief: After lying on an application for refugee status in 1998 and affirming those lies under oath in interviews with immigration officials, Divna Maslenjak was convicted in 2014 on two criminal counts related to providing false statements. As part of her sentence, she was stripped of her naturalized citizenship. Maslenjak argued on appeal that the false statements she made were immaterial to decision to grant refugee status and that this is not sufficient to enforce a denaturalization order under the relevant federal law. The government argued that a defendant's statements need not be material in order to sustain a conviction under 18 U.S.C. §1425(a), the statements simply need to be demonstrably false. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the lower court, however, the court also noted that their position was in conflict with four other federal appeals courts. Those courts adopt the same requirement for a civil or criminal violation. Proof of materiality is a requirement under a federal law to denaturalize a defendant for certain civil violations. The Sixth Circuit is the only circuit to hold that materiality is not required to denaturalize a citizen for similar criminal violations. Argument in the case was held on April 26, 2017.

    You can review the Sixth Circuit's opinion here.[1]

    Click on the tabs below to learn more about this Supreme Court case.

    Case

    Background

    In April of 1998, Divna Maslenjak asserted under oath to a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agent that she and her family feared persecution in war-torn Bosnia because her husband, Ratko, did not serve in the military during the conflict between Bosnia and Serbia. Maslenjak is an ethnic Serbian, as is her husband, but she lived in a village in Bosnia. According to her statements to INS, Maslenjak returned to Bosnia with her children in 1992, leaving her husband in Serbia to avoid conscription into the Bosnian Serb army. Maslenjak and her husband lived apart from one another from 1992 to 1997. Based on these statements, Maslenjak and her family were granted refugee status in 1999 and immigrated to the United States in 2000, settling near Akron, Ohio. Maslenjak obtained lawful permanent resident status in 2004.

    In 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents questioned Maslenjak's husband as part of an investigation into whether he failed to disclose that he, in fact, served in the Serbian army on his immigration application. Ratko Maslenjak was later arrested on these charges. One week after his arrest, Divna Maslenjak filed for an application for naturalization. According to the record provided by the Sixth Circuit,[1]

    “

    One of the questions on the application asked whether she had ever 'knowingly given false or misleading information to any U.S. government official while applying for any immigration benefit or to avoid deportation, exclusion, or removal.' A separate question asked whether Maslenjak had ever 'lied to any U.S. government official to gain entry or admission into the United States.' Maslenjak answered 'no' to both questions on her written application. Maslenjak was also interviewed under oath about the written answers on her application and declined to make any changes to the answers when given the opportunity to do so. On August 3, 2007, Maslenjak was naturalized as a citizen of the United States.[2]

    		”

    In October of 2007, Ratko Maslenjak was convicted on two counts of making false statements on a government document. He was sentenced to 24 months probation by the district court, but his criminal conviction made him subject to deportation and he was taken into ICE custody in January of 2009. He petitioned for asylum to avoid deportation. Divna Maslenjak filed a petition to recognize Ratko as an alien relative and testified at Ratko's asylum hearing in April of 2009. During her testimony at Ratko's asylum hearing, she admitted that Ratko had served in the Serbian army, that they lived together after 1992, and that she had lied to the INS agent during her refugee application interview in 1998. In March of 2013, Divna Maslenjak was indicted on two counts. She was indicted on one count of knowingly procuring her naturalization contrary to law in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1425(a) because, the indictment alleged, she knowingly made materially false statements on her naturalization application. The second count of the indictment alleged a violation of 18 U.S.C. §1423 for knowingly misusing her unlawfully issued naturalization to obtain lawful permanent resident status for her husband. In April of 2014, she was convicted on both charges, sentenced to 24 months' probation, and stripped of her naturalization as a U.S. citizen.[1]

    On appeal, Maslenjak argued that any misrepresentations that she may have made about her husband's military service were immaterial to the decision to grant her refugee status in 1998. That decision, she argued, was based on fear of persecution by Bosnian Muslims. The government argued that a defendant's statements need not be material in order to sustain a conviction under 18 U.S.C. §1425(a), the statements simply need to be demonstrably false. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the lower court, however, the court also noted that their position was in conflict with other federal appeals courts. The court's opinion referenced that the Ninth Circuit, Seventh Circuit, First Circuit, and Fourth Circuit hold a different view. Those circuits use the same standard for criminal denaturalization as for the statute authorizing civil denaturalization, 8 U.S.C. §1451. That statute for civil denaturalization requires evidence of the concealment of a material fact or of willful misrepresentation. The Sixth Circuit alone requires differing standards of materiality for a criminal or a civil denaturalization.[1]

    Petitioner's challenge

    Divna Maslenjak, the petitioner, challenged the holding of the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit that demonstrably false statements which were immaterial to a decision to grant refugee status are sufficient by their falsity alone to sustain a denaturalization order.

    Certiorari granted

    On September 8, 2016, Divna Maslenjak, the petitioner, initiated proceedings in the Supreme Court of the United States in filing a petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Maslenjak's certiorari request on January 13, 2017. Argument in the case was held on April 26, 2017.[3]

    Arguments


    Question presented

    Question presented:

    "Whether the Sixth Circuit erred by holding, in direct conflict with the First, Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, that a naturalized American citizen can be stripped of her citizenship in a criminal proceeding based on an immaterial false statement."[3]


    Audio

    • Audio of oral argument:[4]



    Transcript

    • Transcript of oral argument:[5]

    Outcome

    Decision

    On June 22, 2017, in an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the court vacated and remanded the judgment of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored an opinion concurring in part and in the judgment which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Samuel Alito authored an opinion concurring in the judgment.

    In the case, the court held that, in order to denaturalize a U.S. citizen under federal law for illegally procuring citizenship through false statements, the government must prove that those false statements were material to the decision to award citizenship.[6]

    Opinion

    After a review of the factual and procedural record of the case, Justice Kagan noted a key distinction between Maslenjak's and the government's arguments. She wrote, "Section 1425(a), the parties agree, makes it a crime to commit some other illegal act in connection with naturalization. But the parties dispute the nature of the required connection. Maslenjak argues that the relationship must be 'causal' in kind: A person 'procures' her naturalization 'contrary to law,' she contends, only if a predicate crime in some way 'contribut[ed]' to her gaining citizenship. ... By contrast, the Government proposes a basically chronological link: Section 1425(a), it urges, 'punishes the commission of other violations of law in the course of procuring naturalization'—even if the illegality could not have had any effect on the naturalization decision. ... We conclude that Maslenjak has the better of this argument."[6]

    In her opinion for the court, Justice Kagan highlighted that the statutory text supported Maslenjak's position. Kagan wrote,[6]

    “

    The most natural understanding is that the illegal act must have somehow contributed to the obtaining of citizenship. ... If whatever illegal conduct occurring within the naturalization process was a causal dead-end—if, so to speak, the ripples from that act could not have reached the decision to award citizenship—then the act cannot support a charge that the applicant obtained naturalization illegally. The conduct, though itself illegal, would not also make the obtaining of citizenship so. To get citizenship unlawfully, we understand, is to get it through an unlawful means—and that is just to say that an illegality played some role in its acquisition.[2]

    		”

    Justice Kagan went on to note that, for purposes of prosecuting illegal procurement of citizenship under 18 U.S.C. §1425(a) based on false statements, "such conduct can affect a naturalization decision in a single, significant way—by distorting the Government’s understanding of the facts when it investigates, and then adjudicates, an application. So the issue a jury must decide in a case like this one is whether a false statement sufficiently altered those processes as to have influenced an award of citizenship." Justice Kagan went on to note that there must be a direct causal link between the false statements and the award of citizenship in order to prosecute under §1425(a); that is, the false statements must be material to the government's decision to grant citizenship. The court proposed guidance as to how causation could be proved in similar cases going forward.

    Because the jury had been instructed in Maslenjak's case that any false statement made during the naturalization process was sufficient for a conviction regardless of whether the statement was material or not, the court vacated the Sixth Circuit's judgment and remanded the case for additional proceedings.

    Concurring opinions

    Justice Neil Gorsuch authored his first concurring opinion as a Supreme Court justice in this case. He wrote an opinion concurring in part and in the judgment which was joined Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Gorsuch agreed with the court that a causal link was required between a defendant's illegal conduct and the government's decision to award citizenship. Justice Gorsuch, however, did not agree with the court's decision to provide guidance as to how causation should be proved. In his words,[6]

    “

    The work here is surely thoughtful and may prove entirely sound. But the question presented and the briefing before us focused primarily on whether the statute contains a materiality element, not on the contours of a causation requirement. ... So while I agree with the Court that the parties will need guidance about the details of the statute’s causation requirement ... I have no doubt that the Court of Appeals, with aid of briefing from the parties, can supply that on remand. Other circuits may improve that guidance over time too. And eventually we can bless the best of it. For my part, I believe it is work enough for the day to recognize that the statute requires some proof of causation, that the jury instructions here did not, and to allow the parties and courts of appeals to take it from there as they usually do. This Court often speaks most wisely when it speaks last.[2]

    		”

    Justice Samuel Alito wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment only. In his view, "the language of 18 U. S. C. §1425(a) does not require that an illegal false statement have a demonstrable effect on the naturalization decision. Instead, the statute applies when a person makes an illegal false statement to obtain naturalization, and that false statement is material to the outcome. I see no indication that Congress meant to require more."[6]

    Dissenting opinions

    There were no dissenting opinions filed in this case.

    The opinion



    Filings

    The U.S. Supreme Court granted Maslenjak's certiorari request on January 13, 2017.

    Merits filings

    Parties' briefs

    • Divna Maslenjak, the petitioner, filed a merits brief on February 27, 2017.
    • The United States of America, the respondent, filed a merits brief on March 29, 2017.

    Amicus curiae briefs

    The following groups filed amicus curiae briefs in support of the petitioner, Divna Maslenjak:

    • Brief of Asian Americans Advancing Justice et al.
    • Brief of the Immigrant Defense Project et al.

    Certiorari filings

    Parties' filings

    • Divna Maslenjak, the petitioner, filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on September 8, 2016.
    • The United States of America, the respondent, filed a brief in opposition to certiorari on November 23, 2016, after two order extending the time to file were granted.


    See also

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, United States of America v. Divna Maslenjak, filed April 7, 2016
    2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Supreme Court of the United States, Maslenjak v. United States, January 13, 2017
    4. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, Maslenjak v. United States, argued April 26, 2017
    5. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, Maslenjak v. United States, argued April 26, 2017
    6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Supreme Court of the United States, Maslenjak v. United States, June 22, 2017
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