your honour's greetings from cedar rapids pleasure to be in front of you this morning for that ex husband to get a green card the petition was approved however the couple divorced and the husband never received a visa or green card from that marriage a fast forward eighteen years and samuels has married her fourth marriage to a gentleman from jamaica eighteen years later she files a petition for his gentleman or her husband in which she's still married for him to get a green card to attain permanent residen and one of the many questions that she responded to was have you ever filed a petition for any other person before and she in correctly marked the no box she was prosecuted for that she was sent to prison for that miss sandal's  at the trial the defense for the trial attorney argued that there were the chucking in the wrong box was not a purposeful willful or not with knowledge and an event it wasn't material well how do we know it wasn't willful or knowledge well as part of her petition for her current husband mysterious fully disclosed her prior marriage she marriage and the government states well she didn't want the gratian office to scrutinize that second marriage well that's not true and that's not true by all the times that she disclosed that she was previous marriage what she didn't know was that even though he obtained no benefits from getting a green card or visa that is considered being filed  yes it has to be the decision being made for it to be material house to be on the current marriage is this current marriage a legitimate marriage and at the trial the immigration officer said well if i would have known about the marriage eighteen years ago i would have investigated it and it would have enough i would have determined that it was a fake marriage then ms samuels can never s i respectfully disagree on right the immigration the immigration officer at the trial and the district court experts that we relied on was that his testimony doctor's testimony was well if i would have found out about the prior marriage that could have led me to find it was fraudulent which would have denied mr e mails any future petition no no no i want this he said future he said that that was a mistake an investigation that showed that this was this that this was a marriage with which had as its motivation the evasion of the third husband passport winding up in the possession of someone in the caribbean who the defendant then admitted that she she said dollars to all of that could lead to a conclusion by the agency says this was a this was an american citizen who was routinely involved in helping the caribbean would  well the obvious materiality in our mind was what the officer testified to and and it's not just what the officer testified the district court relied on when she denied the post trial motion for judgment quintal the district court at page three and four of her ruling quote you dish an investigation is necessary to try to determine if the prior petition involved a fraudulent relationship between the petition elian in which case the instant form would be barred what was fact was a slate of the instant petition was approved they're still married today so that's the focus want to make sure that everybody understood well i didn't i really didn't understand the government to be continuing that this answer or this false answer in correct answer would determine the outcome or that the outcome would have been any difference but rather that the answer was capable of influencing the outcome well you and i answer the correct answer would have prompted the government to do something to do some further investigation and that's the that's the nature of materiality that i understood the government to be alleging what he said that well i'd asked that i'd invite the court to look at that plunges case in supreme court  government has to show to prove materiality and they have to show for things that it's set forth in the case i'm out of time i'll give you some more time here in congress the supreme court stated that there are fo things that the government has to show for materiality that the person must have misrepresented or conceal the fact the misrepresentation or concealment must have been willful the fact must have been material and that the person procured the benefit as a result of the misrepresentation so let's assume that the government looked into these things but that's still this is not to kind of case this case of all of that statute well under another statute it's an immigration case and i think i know but but but this but this case really requires a material misrepresentation current case and if the if the immigration officer had any believes that all of the evidence that ms samuels presented in support of her application the tax returns  together the lease together the taking of mr samaras last name all of those show of her good faith marriage and the fact that three years later they're still married all of those show that she had investigating the past so that it would only concentrate on the parent bona fides of what you're doing today is satisfies a materiality requirement i don't know i'm sorry can't give you yes or no i just don't know in reading the conscious case it has to be material to the current proceeding the court i'm dan tweed representing the united states in this matter congress as the court said it was dealing with the removal of a benefit we don't have that issue here we have to say that whether or not this petition have you ever filed a petition for an alien or a relative benefit before they want to know when where and result they want to know the result and you want to go look and see this cor why the divorce was there we don't know was it because it was a fraudulent marriage we don't know but at the time it was approved they had a marriage in one thousand nine hundred seven that was approved at that petition was approved doesn't determine that materiality this court has said in that case that it's not in that brief it's us versus her ronnie a twenty four after seven forty one at page seven forty nine i believe a circa two thousand and sixteen and it was dealing with the denial of the benefit and conscious but in that case they said that basically a misrepresentation of inquiry so when you say no you're telling the examiner everything you need to know is in this petition you don't need to go looking elsewhere that's  might still get the benefit but we but the government or the immigration folks need to know have you done this before if they had known about the short marriage with the illegal alien or the alien relative there's nothing in this i won thirty filed in twenty fifteen that tells us that the second husband was not a us citizen that he needed a petition to try and get benefits to get status here and again both i one third in the forty five both asked the petitioner either the us citizen or the alien who is trying to get status have you ever done have you ever filed these petitions before because they want to know the result so you investigate the spouse of a us citizen spouse and you are investigate the alien spouse to see if they have either one of them have done something in the past that would really relevant yes yes it's h i r a n i it's a twenty four f third seven forty one and i believe i'm citing paid seven forty nine circuit twenty sixteen  but you make a false statement does the government have to be confused once and a thousand and one prosecution for that the that someone lied to the government but your position seems to be that so long as the answer so acted the government's investigation in some way or another and that's on the up and that's enough to make a material how do you how do you make the leap from proposition to the general proposition that you have to show that it was capable than nationwide i don't know i have not studied that was actually i'm but again i'm not relevant really when i believe that this would show that it was annoying statement because or i would also the first part of it so that it was a doing statement because she knew the she filed it and one of the things they want to know about is the result that anybody knew the result in this case do you agree that it didn't the outcome was not affected in the in the end i don't know i mean different well i don't know as the court pointed out before we had the damage to roe evidence and i don't know if that would have been presented if it was reopened but whether it would have the danny de ro that the defendant's third husband passport was found yes with somebody in another country trying to come into this i was at route so i mean i don't know what would happen if it were reopened but i do know and twenty sixteen or fifteen it was approved based upon the limited information that was presented because they didn't have access or knowledge of the other petition thank you so you have a time all right take  shepard with the information that they know now have affected their current decision on the the misandrous marriage petition the officer testified out mishandles trial in may of two thousand and sixteen we are here in september two thousand and seventeen the couple still married mr samuel still has his green card still has its legal status if that isn't overwhelming evidence that everything is valid in the marriage and mr samuels has his green card and there's been no attempt by the government to reopen anything government was trying to take something away and this case we're dealing here is with when the government is trying to give something the united states supreme court a couple things one the false statement one for the current marriage and that's what she's got prosecuted for secondly congress of the supreme court says on page seven seventy of their their  opinion quote while we have before us here a statute revoking citizenship rather imposing criminal fine or imprisonment material means material and so the question is what doesn't make a difference that the government is trying to take something as opposed to give something material means material according to the supreme court thank you don't like thank you for your arguments