U.S. top court sets higher bar for stripping citizenship

[Eugene]

Last edited Thu Jun 22, 2017, 12:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Reuters

The Supreme Court handed a setback to the Trump administration on Thursday by making it harder for the government to strip immigrants of U.S. citizenship in a case involving an ethnic Serb woman who lied about her husband's military service after Yugoslavia's collapse.

The justices ruled 9-0 that a naturalized American citizen cannot be stripped of citizenship if a lie or omission on immigration forms was irrelevant to the government's original decision to grant entry into the United States.

The justices sided with Divna Maslenjak, who had her citizenship revoked and was deported to Serbia after being convicted of breaking immigration law by falsely stating her husband had not served in the Bosnian Serb army in the 1990s.

"We hold that the government must establish that an illegal act by the defendant played some role in her acquisition of citizenship," Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-citizenship-idUSKBN19D1RJ

---

SUPREME COURT | Thu Jun 22, 2017 | 11:02am EDT
By Lawrence Hurley | WASHINGTON

__________________________________________________________________________________

EDIT: Article updated at link

Original headline: U.S. top court rules in favor of Serb stripped of U.S. citizenship

[Hortensis]

1. Hope for her sake that his, and her, activities during the genocide

are not material to her own entry into the U.S.

[Chrysanthemum]

2. The article would have been better if...

If the Reuters reporter had included information on why the Court ruled in her favor, it would have been an interesting article! As it is, we just know that they rolled back the lower court's ruling but not why. We also know that she could still lose at the lower court, that they could rule against her again.

There must be some aspect of the law that the lower court did not properly rule on, according to the SC. Wonder what it was.

[Eugene]

4. Reuters has expanded the article.

The court ruled that the lie or omission needs to be material
in the acquisition of citizenship. It wasn't in this case.

[Chrysanthemum]

6. Thanks!

Thank you, Eugene!

[mrmpa]

3. The lower court ruling punished........

a woman because of her husband's behavior. This is so misogynistic it's pathetic.

Or I should say that the question asked of her was misogynistic.

[Gothmog]

5. This is a good ruling

[former9thward]

7. This was not a Trump administration case.

The Obama administration brought the case and the Trump administration took it over.