Naturalized U.S. Citizen Loses His Citizenship Because of Twenty-Year-Old Conviction

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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal has recently decided United States v. Teng Jiao Zhou, a case holding that a U.S. citizen naturalized 20 years ago could be stripped of his U.S. citizenship for an offense committed prior to his naturalization.

Zhou moved to the U.S. from China in 1983 and applied for naturalization in 1993. During the same year, Zhou was charged with robbery, kidnapping and extortion of his former business partner.  He was convicted of robbery and false Imprisonment and sentenced to six years for false imprisonment and concurrent term of two years for robbery on November 21, 1994.

After his offense but prior to the date of the conviction, Zhou filled in one of the naturalization forms which asked whether he “knowingly committed any crime or offense, for which [he] ha[d] not been arrested?” Zhou responded “no.” He proceeded to have his naturalization interview and became a U.S. citizen in March of 1994.

Apart from the conviction, Zhou remained out of trouble for the next twenty years, enjoying his U.S. citizenship status. Unexpectedly, in March 2013, the government filed a complaint to revoke Zhou’s naturalization. The government’s argument was that the 1994 conviction showed that Zhou lacked the good moral character necessary for a successful naturalization application.

Good moral character for the five years immediately preceding the naturalization application is one of the requirements for citizenship. Lack of good moral character can be established when the applicant “[c]ommitted unlawful acts that adversely reflect upon the applicant’s moral character, or was convicted or imprisoned for such acts . . . . 8 C.F.R. § 316.10(b)(3).”

The Court found the facts of the case unusual in that even though the offense was committed prior to the naturalization application, the arrest, conviction and sentencing all happened after Zhou became a citizen.  Despite various arguments to the contrary by Zhou, the Court held that since the offense in question happened within the five-year statutory period necessary for naturalization, the fact that the arrest and conviction occurred outside of the five-year mark was of no relevance to the case. Zhou committed a crime of moral turpitude within five years prior to his naturalization application, and that misstep alone was enough to render him ineligible for citizenship in the first place.

The government never explained why they waited twenty years to bring the action against Zhou and such decision seems unconscionable, especially considering the fact that Zhou never committed any other crime in the last two decades. The Court indicated that the Zhou case would have made a strong case for laches, which is a type of defense in a case where there is unreasonable delay in the plaintiff’s bringing of the claim. Had Zhou raised that defense before the Court, it would have been possible for him to prevail against the government.