the defendant was the petitioner it was six months after he took his oath he became a citizen he was charged with a crime and he would he fought the charges he took it to a jury trial there was a hung jury and after the hungary there was another trial and he was he was convicted he was convicted of false imprisonment and robbery and the record is clear that it had to do with a business dispute with his business partner he's alleging that his business partner owed him a lot of money and he was set up it is true he was convicted and now we look we're looking back and saying well he may not have had good moral character during the statutory period the law dealing with revocation clearly states that under two does not say that if you lacked a good moral character then you shall be stripped of your sense your citizenship should prevail sorry i'm nervous the law does state that illegal procurement and it does define what is if essentially if you didn't legally get naturalization because you didn't meet the criteria then you illegally got naturalization and that isn't necessarily the only way to read the word illegally but it seems to be the way tell there is no it's clear that if he did meet the criteria then he obtained a legal there's been an alice is a good moral character and there has been a case by case determination more or less so in these cases that were that i have a for me or that i i researched i didn't find and once or get keys that clearly explain what it is an unlawful procurement however there is a lot of analysis about good moral character and misrepresentation and also other cases when it went the ones that i came across dealing with a conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine or that individual had a prior prior arrest but was was not charged or the cases are different my argument is that the knowing element is important and i believe that if you read the cases there is the you're saying that that's the only section that we should be looking at fourteen fifty one fourteen fifty one  but just when i understand your position i did make knowing argument but to understand the argument that you're now advocating here if i were to say if i were in someone's shoes and i were to say i was convicted of a fraud crime ok and i said you know what i didn't think it was fraud my accountant told me it was ok to take these deductions but a jury came back and found that i was guilty of tax evasion and your position would be i could still not have the section applied to me if i came into court and said because the argument you could be making in this case about i didn't see it which is what i want to ask you if you could make a latches argument or so for the argument of the government by not taking action by waiting nineteen years and i imagine members of this panel are going to have a lot of questions for the government as to signed the paper that says have you knowingly committed a crime he said no and until this day he says i i was set up i was charged six months after the kind if i kidnapped somebody or if i imprisoned false in prison somebody why did they wait so mean so much time to charges now all that said and done if he was convicted it's true however when when we look back it isn't it is a question of did he illegally procured did he have that knowing intention and the truth is that i'm arguing that he character but when i looked at those other cases like the rankle there was clear misrepresentation other cases in the eleventh circuit where the person in a conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine well that person can't look back and say i didn't know that i was i mean he didn't make that argument he didn't make that argument that i didn't have that knowing intent and then in this instance he was the allegation is that he committed the crime of before he was naturalized or he wasn't charged or as long as he committed the crime during the relevant period even if he was convicted afterwards there's there's a mandatory refusal of the nationalisation i'm nationalization in other words where he that incident occurred even though i'm arguing that it's not necessarily an illegal procurement if i think the state of mind and if we if we pick at the law the state of mind does matter because like i said the day that he takes that oath  fills out a form and asks him did you knowingly commit any crime the for which you're not arrested he didn't know there's a reason why we use that knowingly language and when we look at the law it does if there is one when you're dealing with an illegal act at least before us with the with the citizenship issue there is a knowing element so you largely conceding that he lacked good moral character the law says so there is i'm not going to argue with the law says the law does say that if you if you  arguing for him that he did not knowingly commit in the law and i also made that argument that the justice system is flawed and there are individuals who are convicted and he happens to be one of them who's adamant about it and he has not committed a single he doesn't even have a dui or he claims one even if you get so we're talking as a woman we look back we say well you know maybe the justice and field him however i guess i can't make that argument because he was convicted but i would argue i want to make is saying that you illegally procured your citizenship is not necessarily they're not equal just because you lack good moral absolutely that form that they fill out before their they take their oath the day there's a form they fill out and they were knowingly is there the intent is absolutely important and revoking somebody's citizenship twenty years later that's no joke i mean he's been voting he's a citizen illegally just means anything that would have made you not eligible to begin with even if you didn't do anything it helpful and hiding in iraq sealing it or anything illegal means you did not meet the requirements at the time not a natural and obvious meaning of illegal legally but if you did something illegal with regard to the naturalization not because here as i understand the statute the way you're reading it were specifically or is not part of it is that he did something he committed an offense he was not charged and convicted up until later for right and you're saying essentially or maybe i'm not sure you're saying sometimes the government seems to say this is sometimes not that at the time he was naturalized he wasn't eligible to not be naturalized he had been convicted yet if i phone you correctly he has that he has a responsibility to demonstrate that during the statutory period he was the requisite good moral character at the time but at the time of naturalization at the time of natural he had been convicted it correct so how did he illegally procure naturalization when the naturalization  addresses crimes involving world turpitude that statute generally would be applied at the time someone naturalizes and i says you have to have been convicted of it ron says you have to be convicted as long was committed during such period but on the other hand right if you were in convicted yet how does your how does anybody know whether you're right legally obtained the naturalization you didn't yet the fact is that he committed the act anything else that happens during the statutory period so if he beats someone up on the street was never arrested was never convicted but the evidence could show that you know this is not a person who possesses good moral if yes is there a case in this corps that is actually read the word illegally the way you're saying anything that even if it happened after the fact that would have made you the across that i don't know of a court that hasn't read it that way your honor i think in general they start at step one illegal procurement means you did not meet the requirements at the time and  get for your position is that on the catch all gem change the facts of this case slightly let's say the defend it was never convicted of these crimes but enter into a civil settlement with the victim and as part of a civil settlement he admitted ok on this so in order to get there in terms of the term illegally you have to combine the catch on the statute which says the fact that any person is not within any of the foregoing class case to case basis taking into account all the elements of numerate in the section and the standards of the average citizen which is a very general thing and then this list of shall be found which are are simply directives first i believe they were i know that this court has found that those regulations are not all to vice fires to the staff i understand but i wonder whether in fact at the time he was nationalized believed they were but i'm not certain ok let's suppose they weren't just writing the stick right ok then was he a legal entity i would say yes if a district court judge weighed his good moral character to the standards in the community under level no one f the catchall and the government has a very high standard of the original naturalizations as well as subsequent yes to novo review by a clear and convincing evidence standard is a very high standard and these regs say that the service shall character twenty years i don't know the case of my top of my head but in the sixty's there were many cases in that regard on cases brought by the agency talking about extramarital affairs and many courts found that this isn't in our community  should have found that he was or was not of good moral character but it is the district courts  strenuously but i surely must be curious i mean were you asking me to do here i could tell you that i was attorney what are you asking me to do you surely must the said that you know it's not on the record it was a question that i don't know i didn't get an answer i can tell you there's there's nothing to my knowledge that the government wasn't diligent in this and i can tell you that with the in our cases with the advent of the internet a lot of this information how would the government have known back in one thousand nine hundred four without the internet that he committed these crimes i'm curious about the one thousand nine hundred nine re issuance of the certificate to get to judge davis's point and i understand at ninety four when he was sworn maybe right at the convention but in one thousand nine hundred nine when they gave him a duplicate copy i mean surely they would have some idea this guy just got out of prison given the copy that's a  and that not only that you came a piece of paper reiterating that he was a citizen because under under federico illegal for germany relies on the fact of whether or not he was qualified for naturalization and he had period let's assume that we're talking about the catch all which has an exchange away ssion exceptions i understand and so it is circular to say because he did it he did a legally whether he did  legally depends upon whether he would have been aware that whether there were extenuating circumstances why understand i see what you're saying that because it's we're looking at at the time what happened at the time in terms of whether he  not the government actually found out six months later that he was convicted of these crimes is important but but not important here because the government doesn't find out all the time i think in and day it from this court it addressed that a lot of the major decisions of the naturalisation involving cases where the government found out twenty or thirty years later i four in and there is a knowing element on the misrepresentation fact yes he does if it's a material fact yes that to knowingly misrepresent ok yes i asked him whether he committed innocent and he took the jury trial that was a hung jury and that it's very clear from the record that it was a business dispute it's not like he went into somebody's home and robbed them robber is terrible and if you read the statute it's ugly if loney is taking personal property in the possession of another how any of that anything in the record he was was the same put the business partner that he referenced this even the charges against the stephen louis individual were dropped and he was he was supposedly there when it happened but he my argument is there are extenuating circumstances because like i said he fought to cut the case from the beginning he took a jury trial there was a jury and and also there's no other arrests or no other convictions prior or after and even if we look back and we're if they're if they're bringing this case twenty years later then of course why not why can't we look at explaining circumstances by looking in to see had to commit any violent crime since