These summaries are not intended as legal advice. Please contact a licensed attorney to discuss the specifics of your case.
Viewing entries tagged
I-9 forms
The Ninth Circuit has determined that making a false claim to US citizenship for the purpose of procuring private employment renders a non-citizen inadmissible. However, the court also found that the only way to make a false claim to US citizenship for the purpose of procuring private employment is through the use of an I-9 form.
The full text of Diaz-Jimenez v. Sessions can be found here:
http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/08/30/15-73603.pdf
The Eighth Circuit determined that checking the box on a I-9 affirming that an applicant is a "citizen or national of the United States," on its own, is not sufficient to establish that the applicant made a false claim to U.S. citizenship. Instead, an adjudicator must ascertain whether the applicant intended to make a false claim. In the instant case, the petitioner had testified that he would lose his job if he wasn't a U.S. citizen, and thus, the Immigration Judge correctly determined that he intended to falsely represent himself as a U.S. citizen.
The full text of Godfrey v. Lynch can be found here: http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/16/01/151027P.pdf
The Eighth Circuit addressed the use of an electronic I-9 form, which pre-populated the applicant's biographical data and selected the US citizen box by default. Though the petitioner argued that the selection of the U.S. citizen box was accidental, the court found that by submitting the form under penalty of perjury, the petitioner had adopted all the assertions in it. Because the petitioner had made a false claim to U.S. citizenship, he was not eligible for lawful permanent residence based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen.
The full text of Etenyi v. Lynch can be found here: http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/15/08/143397P.pdf
Today, the Eighth Circuit addressed whether checking the "U.S. citizen or national" box on an I-9 form can constitute a false claim to U.S. citizenship. The court reaffirmed its prior case law that checking this box on an I-9, on its own, does not necessarily establish a false claim to U.S. citizenship. However, because the case arose in the context of eligibility for relief (the petitioner was seeking adjustment of status), the petitioner bore the burden of proving that his action did not constitute a false claim to U.S. citizenship that would render him inadmissible. The petitioner testified that he did not know what a U.S. national was, that he had represented himself to be a U.S. citizen on his college application, and that he had not followed the application process laid out by his college for non-U.S. citizens. Thus, the court found that he had not met his burden of demonstrating that his misrepresentation on the I-9 form was not a false claim to U.S. citizenship that rendered him inadmissible.
The full text of Mayemba v. Holder can be found here: http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/15/01/131558P.pdf
