Court Rules That INS Must Take Naturalization Fraud Cases To CourtJuly 20, 2000 San Francisco, CA – The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that immigration officials can't act on their own to revoke citizenship and must take such cases to court. The unanimous decision by the federal appeals court reverses a split opinion by one of its own three-judge panels. It upholds the decision of a Seattle judge who said the power to denaturalize citizens is not inherent in the power to naturalize them. The opinion indefinitely extends a 1998 nationwide injunction that suspended the Immigration and Naturalization Service's attempts to revoke the citizenships of more than 6,000 immigrants who, according to the agency, had failed to disclose past crimes or arrests when they applied for naturalization. In 1990 Congress shifted the power to naturalize citizens from the courts to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. However, the court ruling held that these laws did not grant the INS authority to denaturalize citizens, but rather, only the power to cancel certificates of citizenship. Loss of certification does not deprive immigrants of legal residency status but makes them vulnerable to deportation for certain crimes. ``There is no general principle that what one can do, one can undo. It sounds good, just as the Beatles' lyrics - `Nothing you can know that isn't known/Nothing you can see that isn't shown - sound good,'' Judge Kleinfeld wrote for the court, citing the words from ``All You Need is Love.'' He then quoted Gershwin's ``Porgy and Bess'': ``But as Sportin' Life said, `It ain't necessarily so.''' The Immigration Service issued a statement indicating that it is reviewing the court’s order to determine what further action it will take. |
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