The complaint notes that “[a]t the conclusion of the interview, he swore an oath under penalty of perjury that his responses were true.”The complaint charged Mamadjonov with Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization (18 U.S.C. 1425(b)), False Statements on a Naturalization Application (18 U.S.C. 1015), and False Oath or Declaration Under Penalty of Perjury (18 U.S.C. 1546). You may read the complaint here [PDF version].

v. Ekpin, 214 F.Supp.2d 707, 713-15 (S.D. Tex. 2002) [illegal procurement sustained where applicant admitted to committing aggravated felony during statutory period but conviction was subsequent to naturalization]. A conviction under 18 U.S.C. §1425 for knowingly procuring naturalization in violation of law is a grounds for automatic denaturalization. INA §340(e), 8 U.S.C. §1451(e).

Maslenjak v. United States, No. 16-309: Petitioner Divna Maslenjak, an ethnic Serb who immigrated to the United States in 2000 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2007, was convicted under 18 U.S.C. §1425(a) for “knowingly procur[ing], contrary to law, the naturalization of any person.” Maslenjak had made up much of her story to immigration officials when seeking refuge in the U.S. She had testified at the time that her husband had evaded service in the Bosnia Serb Army, but it later became known that he had in fact served in a brigade that slaughtered thousands of Bosnian Muslim civilians, which Maslenjak later admitted to knowing.

But it turns out Maslenjak’s husband had not only been in the Serbian militia during the war, he had served as an officer in a unit implicated in war crimes. Based on her misrepresentations during the immigration process, she was convicted of knowingly procuring her naturalization contrary to law in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a) and had her citizenship revoked under 8 U.S.C. § 1451(e) as a mandatory and automatic consequence of her conviction.She argued that to be convicted under § 1425(a), the government must prove her false statement was material to her refugee application, but the Sixth Circuit disagreed. It noted the term appears nowhere in the statute and rejected as “unpersuasive” the decisions in the other circuits, where it appears the government for various reasons didn’t contest whether there’s a materiality requirement.

The Court, resolving a circuit split and with two justices concurring in part and in judgment and one in judgment only, reversed. The majority held that 18 USC 1425(a) is best read to require a means end connection between the allegedly illegal act and the procurement of naturalization and the alternative reading offered by the government that any violation of law during the course of naturalization does not require causality and thus fails as a matter of statutory interpretation and would allow denaturalization on grounds which would not have resulted in denial of naturalization and the majority concluded Congress did not intend that outcome. The majority held that juries must find that false statements sufficiently altered the naturalization process that they influenced the grant of citizenship and evidence that a disqualifying facts were misrepresented would obviously violate 1425(a) as would false statements which keep the government form discovering other disqualifying facts and proof that inquiry would have predictably discovered the disqualifying facts sufficient to convicted but proof that a defendant would have qualified for citizenship reg

Maslenjak was later naturalized as a U.S. citizen after falsely swearing that she had never “lied to a government official to gain entry or admission into the United States.” She was later charged with violating 18 U.S.C. §1425(a), which prohibits “knowingly procuring, contrary to law, the naturalization of any person.” If a person is convicted of unlawfully procuring her own naturalization, her citizenship is automatically revoked.

After a trial, he was convicted of three crimes: 1)unlawful procurement of citizenship or naturalization; 2) fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents; and 3) aggravated identity theft. Mr. Work contended that his convictions under 18 USC 1425(a) and (b), in count 1, and 18 USC 1546(a), in count 2, violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. He was in plain-errorville.