Supreme Court to Review Denaturalization Case
Last Friday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Maslenjak v. United States. The question presented in that case, as framed by the Petitioner, is whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit erred by holding, in conflict with the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 1st, 4th, 7th and 9th Circuits, that a naturalized American citizen can be stripped of her citizenship in a criminal proceeding based on an immaterial false statement.
The Sixth Circuit describes the case as follows:
“Divna Maslenjak appeals her conviction for knowingly procuring her naturalization contrary to law in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a). Maslenjak, an ethnic Serb and native of Bosnia, came to the United States in 2000 as a refugee fleeing the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Maslenjak claimed she and her family feared persecution in Bosnia because her husband had evaded conscription into the Serbian army during the war. In fact, Maslenjak’s husband had not only been in the Serbian militia during the war but had served as an officer in a unit implicated in war crimes. Maslenjak was granted refugee status and ultimately obtained her naturalization. Based on her misrepresentations during the immigration process, a jury found Maslenjak guilty of knowingly procuring her naturalization contrary to law in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a) and of knowingly using an unlawfully issued certificate of naturalization in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1423. “
KJ