Philadelphia Immigration Lawyer Blog

On September 23, 2008, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued an important and just decision on the issue of false claims to citizenship and whether making such a false claim precludes someone from an immigration benefit—in this case, whether making the false claim precluded the person from establishing good moral character in a cancellation of removal application. I have previously posted on issues surrounding false claims to citizenship on I-9 forms here but this is a new issue that is worth taking a look at. The case is the Matter of Viviana Alejandra Guadarrama de Contreras.

In the case, the applicant falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen on an I-9 employment eligibility verification form. Although the written decision does not state a lot of the background facts, she was later placed in removal proceeds and applied for cancellation of removal. The Immigration Judge, who appears to have been generally sympathetic to her case, nonetheless ordered her removed because, he ruled, her false claim to citizenship on the I-9 made it impossible for her to establish the required “good moral character” that is necessary for cancellation of removal. The IJ held that although the law does not specifically include false claims to citizenship in the class of offenses that make it impossible to establish good moral character (such as committing an aggravated felony) the law has a “catch-all” provision that “the fact that any person is not within any of the foregoing classes shall not preclude a finding that for other reasons such person is or was not of good moral character”. The law is found at 8 U.S.C. Section 1101(f). The IJ believed that this catch-all provision required him to find that the applicant could not establish good moral character.

The Board of Immigration, fortunately, reversed. It held that the catch-all provision did not require the IJ to hold that the applicant could not show good moral character. While a false claim to citizenship could preclude an applicant from being able to show good moral character, the BIA held, the law does not require an IJ to make such a finding. Each case must be decided on its own facts and its own merits. In this case, the BIA did not even remand the case back to the Immigration Judge so that he could make findings on the issue of good moral character because the IJ had basically made those findings already. The IJ had stated in his opinion that but for his view that the catch-all provision precluded the applicant from showing good moral character; he would otherwise have found that the applicant did have good moral character. Therefore, there was no reason for the BIA to remand the case for such findings.

This is a well reasoned and just decision by the BIA.