United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit

No. 15-2254 

JANARIUS ELANJWE NANJE, 

Petitioner, Appellant, 

v. 

LUIS CHAVES, Lawrence Field Office Director, 

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, ET AL., 

Respondents, Appellees. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS 

[Hon. Judith G. Dein, U.S. Magistrate Judge] 

Before 

Torruella, Selya and Thompson, 

Circuit Judges. 

 Todd C. Pomerleau, with whom Rubin Pomerleau P.C. was on 

brief, for appellant. 

 Emma C. Winger and Wendy S. Wayne on brief for the 

Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services Immigration 

Impact Unit and the National Immigration Project of the National 

Lawyers Guild, amici curiae. 

 Christine J. Wichers, Assistant United States Attorney, with 

whom Carmen M. Ortiz, United States Attorney, was on brief, for 

appellees. 

September 9, 2016 
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SELYA, Circuit Judge. The lead-in to a serialized radio 

program, wildly popular in the mid-1900s, warned that "the weed of 

crime bears bitter fruit." In his quest for naturalization (which 

rests at the epicenter of this appeal), the petitioner has learned 

that hard lesson at first hand. The tale follows. 

I. BACKGROUND 

Petitioner-appellant Janarius Elanjwe Nanje is a native 

of Cameroon who has been a lawful permanent resident of the United 

States since 2002. In March of 2005, he was charged in a 

Massachusetts court with two counts of filing false health care 

claims, one count of larceny, and one count of attempted larceny 

all in violation of various Massachusetts statutes. 

The record reflects that the appellant submitted a claim 

to Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (Harvard Pilgrim) for reimbursement 

of medical expenses allegedly incurred during a trip to Cameroon. 

Harvard Pilgrim took the appellant at his word and paid him $11,965 

without investigating his claim. When the appellant submitted a 

second claim for an even larger sum, however, Harvard Pilgrim 

investigated and, with the help of a federal agent stationed in 

Cameroon, determined that the appellant had not received any of 

the care for which reimbursement was sought. The second claim was 

denied, the first claim was deemed fraudulent, and the matter was 

turned over to the authorities. 
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The appellant ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of 

filing a false health care claim, in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws 

ch. 175H, § 2; one count of larceny, in violation of Mass. Gen. 

Laws ch. 266, § 30(1); and one count of attempted larceny, in 

violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 274, § 6.1 The Boston Municipal 

Court (the BMC) continued the case for nine months without a 

finding and ordered the appellant to pay $12,000 in restitution.2 

The court did not allocate the restitution among the counts of 

conviction. By April of 2006, the appellant had paid the full 

restitution amount and his case was dismissed. 

In the meantime, the appellant had filed a petition for 

naturalization with the appropriate agency, United States 

Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). He was scheduled to 

attend a naturalization hearing in 2011 but — having been advised 

 

 1 This final count was charged under the general attempt 

statute. Throughout, however, the parties have described the 

offense as attempted larceny. 

 

 2 A continuance without a finding occurs when the defendant 

agrees to satisfy particular terms during a probationary period 

without an express finding of guilt. See United States v. Mensah, 

737 F.3d 789, 793 n.4 (1st Cir. 2013) (citing Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 

278, § 18). As long as the defendant satisfies the imposed terms, 

his case will be dismissed when the probationary period expires. 

See id. The BMC's continuance without a finding nonetheless serves 

as a conviction for present purposes: where, as here, an alien 

admits "sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilt" and a 

judicial officer orders some form of punishment, the Immigration 

and Nationality Act (INA) treats the matter as a conviction. See 

8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(48)(A); Herrera-Inirio v. INS, 208 F.3d 299, 

304 (1st Cir. 2000).
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that his criminal record not only might thwart his quest for 

naturalization but also might render him deportable — he withdrew 

his application before any hearing was held. 

Faced with this unwelcome prospect, the appellant tried 

in various ways to revise his criminal record. We chronicle only 

those efforts that are relevant to this appeal. 

In December of 2010, the appellant (represented by new 

counsel) moved in the BMC to vacate his admission to sufficient 

facts. He maintained that his lawyer had failed to inform him of 

the immigration consequences of his plea, thus depriving him of 

the effective assistance of counsel. See Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 

U.S. 356, 366-69 (2010); see also Commonwealth v. Saferian, 315 

N.E.2d 878, 882-83 (Mass. 1974). The BMC denied the motion, 

concluding that even if counsel's performance was objectively 

unreasonable, no cognizable prejudice resulted. The appellant 

eschewed any appeal of this adverse ruling. 

Early in 2012, the appellant moved to amend the sentence 

in the criminal case. That motion sought an order to the effect 

that the $12,000 restitution amount should be considered equally 

divided between the false health care and larceny counts. 

"[R]earranging the restitution amount amongst the counts in the 

complaint," the appellant asserted, would protect his ability to 

become a naturalized citizen because the amount of restitution 

paid with respect to the false health care count would be less 
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than $10,000. In July of 2012, the BMC entered a one-line order 

allowing the appellant's motion to clarify the docket with respect 

to the amount of restitution that applied to each count. 

With this supplementary order in place, the appellant 

again applied for naturalization. USCIS denied this renewed 

application in March of 2013. It concluded that the appellant had 

been convicted of an aggravated felony (the false health care 

charge) and was therefore unable to demonstrate good moral 

character — a prerequisite for naturalization. See 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) (classifying as an aggravated felony any 

offense that involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the 

victim exceeds $10,000). Although USCIS acknowledged that the BMC 

had subsequently split the appellant's restitutionary obligation 

evenly between the false health care and larceny counts, it 

nevertheless determined that the record reflected a loss to the 

victim of the false health care claim of more than $10,000. 

In response, the appellant requested a hearing before 

the agency. After the hearing was held — but before USCIS issued 

its final decision — the appellant returned to the BMC and filed 

yet another motion in November of 2013. This motion sought to 

"clarify" his sentence, asking the court to specify that the total 

amount of loss attributable to the false health care charge was no 

more than $6,000 and that this sum was separate and distinct from 
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the amount of loss attributable to the larceny charge.3 The court 

obliged, signing an order to that effect in January of 2014 (the 

2014 Order). 

That same month, USCIS again denied the appellant's 

petition for naturalization. In so ruling, USCIS reiterated that 

the record established that the appellant had been convicted of an 

aggravated felony. In its view, then, the appellant remained 

ineligible for naturalization. 

The appellant did not go quietly into this bleak night. 

Instead, he filed a petition for judicial review in the federal 

district court. See 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c). The parties agreed to 

proceed before a magistrate judge. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(c); Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 73(a). In due course, they cross-moved for summary 

judgment. 

In his motion, the appellant argued that his petition 

for naturalization had been improperly rebuffed because — even 

though he had been convicted of a crime of fraud or deceit — the 

2014 Order established that the amount of loss to the victim of 

that crime was less than $10,000. The government demurred, arguing 

that the totality of the circumstances plainly supported USCIS's 

 

 3 One impetus for this motion was the appellant's apparent 

concern that the earlier order of the BMC might be disregarded by 

USCIS because it dealt with "restitution" rather than "amount of 

loss." See, e.g., Munroe v. Ashcroft, 353 F.3d 225, 227 (3d Cir. 

2003) (acknowledging that restitution amounts might not reflect 

amount of loss). 
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finding that the amount of loss to the victim (Harvard Pilgrim) 

exceeded $10,000. Following oral argument, the court denied the 

appellant's motion and granted the government's motion. See Nanje 

v. Chavez, 134 F. Supp. 3d 544, 556 (D. Mass. 2015). This timely 

appeal ensued. 

II. ANALYSIS

The statutory provision that authorizes judicial review 

of USCIS's decision entitled the appellant to de novo review in 

the district court. See 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c); see also Aparicio v. 

Blakeway, 302 F.3d 437, 445 (5th Cir. 2002). We, in turn, afford 

de novo review to the district court's entry of summary judgment 

in favor of the government in this naturalization case. See 

Kariuki v. Tarango, 709 F.3d 495, 501 (5th Cir. 2013); Chan v. 

Gantner, 464 F.3d 289, 292 (2d Cir. 2006) (per curiam). The 

conventional summary judgment paradigm requires the moving party 

to show that "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact" 

and that he is "entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 56(a). A reviewing court reads the record in the light 

most hospitable to the non-moving party and draws all reasonable 

inferences in his favor. See Gomez v. Stop & Shop Supermkt. Co., 

670 F.3d 395, 396 (1st Cir. 2012). 

Here, the parties quarrel over whether this conventional 

framework applies in the naturalization context. The appellant 

asserts that it does. The government disagrees, noting that "it 
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has been universally accepted that the burden is on the alien 

applicant to show his eligibility for citizenship in every 

respect." Berenyi v. Dist. Dir., INS, 385 U.S. 630, 637 (1967). 

It adds that "doubts should be resolved in favor of the United 

States and against the claimant." Id. (internal quotation marks 

omitted). 

We need not resolve this contretemps. The parties agree 

on the facts, and neither has suggested that any additional facts 

outside the existing record bear on the salient issues.4 Moreover, 

in this case all roads lead to Rome: even if we assume, favorably 

to the appellant, that all reasonable inferences are to be drawn 

in his favor, his appeal fails. 

The INA provides that "[n]o person . . . shall be 

naturalized" unless he can show that he is "a person of good moral 

character." 8 U.S.C. § 1427(a)(3); see Berenyi, 385 U.S. at 636-

37. Persons who have been convicted of aggravated felonies are 

categorically disqualified from attempting to show good moral 

character. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(f)(8). An aggravated felony is an 

 

 4 Given that all of the pertinent facts were before the 

district court on the cross-motions for summary judgment, it would 

have been prudent for the court to advise the parties that it 

planned to decide the case as a case stated. See, e.g., TLT 

Constr. Corp. v. RI, Inc., 484 F.3d 130, 135 n.6 (1st Cir. 2007); 

EEOC v. Steamship Clerks Union, Local 1066, 48 F.3d 594, 603 (1st 

Cir. 1995); see also Pac. Indem. Co. v. Deming, ___ F.3d ___, ___ 

(1st Cir. 2016) [No. 15-2386, slip op. at 7-9]. That course of 

action would have rendered irrelevant any question about the 

contours of the summary judgment standard in a naturalization case. 
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offense that "involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to the 

victim or victims exceeds $10,000." Id. § 1101(a)(43)(M). Filing 

a false health care claim is therefore considered a crime of fraud 

or deceit.5 See Kawashima v. Holder, 132 S. Ct. 1166, 1172 (2012) 

(explaining that crimes that "necessarily entail fraudulent or 

deceitful conduct" fall within this statutory taxonomy). 

It is undisputed that the appellant was convicted of a 

crime involving fraud or deceit (namely, filing a false health 

care claim). The critical issue here is whether the loss 

attributable to that crime exceeded $10,000. The appellant argues 

that, in resolving this issue, USCIS was required to give the 2014 

Order dispositive weight and erred in looking beyond this order. 

We do not agree. 

The beacon by which we must steer is the Supreme Court's 

decision in Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U.S. 29 (2009). There, the 

Court fashioned a circumstance-specific approach for determining 

whether a particular crime of fraud or deceit caused losses greater 

than $10,000. See id. at 36-38. The Court started with the 

premise that the INA's monetary threshold could be crossed even if 

a particular crime did not require a loss of $10,000 or more as an 

 

 5 In contrast, larceny is not considered a crime of fraud or 

deceit. See De Vega v. Gonzales, 503 F.3d 45, 49-50 (1st Cir. 

2007). That is presumably why the appellant made so determined an 

effort to allocate a substantial portion of the loss to the larceny 

charge. 
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element of the offense. See id. at 38-40. "Rather, the monetary 

threshold applies to the specific circumstances surrounding an 

offender's commission of a fraud and deceit crime on a specific 

occasion." Id. at 40. Thus, a court tasked with assessing the 

amount of loss must consider not only findings of fact made by 

juries and judges but also other facts in the record. See id. 

Employing Nijhawan's circumstance-specific approach, it 

is luminously clear that Harvard Pilgrim's loss was greater than 

$10,000. After all, only a single false claim was honored — and 

that claim, on its face, was for more than $10,000. Moreover, the 

record shows, without any hint of contradiction, that Harvard 

Pilgrim paid the appellant $11,965 in satisfaction of that 

fraudulent claim for reimbursement. In addition, the record shows 

that Harvard Pilgrim later paid around $8,000 to investigate the 

appellant's fraudulent claims. To cap matters, the appellant 

admitted to essentially these facts when he entered his guilty 

plea, and he indicated a willingness at that time to pay a full 

$20,000 in restitution. 

Given this historical record, we cannot fault USCIS's 

determination that the appellant's false health care claim caused 

more than $10,000 in losses. Indeed, the totality of the relevant 

circumstances admits of no other reasonable conclusion. 

The appellant protests this circumstance-specific 

approach and labors to distinguish Nijhawan. His case is 
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distinguishable, he submits, because the BMC's 2014 Order found a 

specific amount of loss. In his view, the Full Faith and Credit 

Clause, U.S. Const. art. IV, § 1, and its implementing statute, 28 

U.S.C. § 1738, demand that USCIS ignore the other circumstances 

and give dispositive weight to the BMC's statement. 

The appellant cites no authority — and we are aware of 

none — for the proposition that the Full Faith and Credit Clause 

compels a federal court (or a federal agency, for that matter) to 

give non-essential findings of fact in state court proceedings 

conclusive weight.6 We reject that ambitious proposition and hold 

that the 2014 Order is but one circumstance to be considered in 

the circumstance-specific analysis that Nijhawan requires. 

The appellant gains no traction through his reliance on 

our decision in Rodriguez v. INS, 204 F.3d 25 (1st Cir. 2000). In 

Rodriguez, we upheld a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals 

(the BIA) ordering an alien's removal due to marriage fraud. See 

id. at 26. The BIA had relied, inter alia, on a state court's 

annulment of the alien's marriage based on a finding of fraudulent 

intent to evade the immigration laws. See id. at 28. In denying 

the alien's petition for review, we observed that the state court's 

 

 6 Of course, the situation might be different if the federal 

government had been a party to the state court proceedings such 

that principles of claim preclusion or issue preclusion applied. 

See, e.g., R.G. Fin. Corp. v. Vergara-Nuñez, 446 F.3d 178, 182-83 

(1st Cir. 2006). Those principles are inapposite here. 
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judgment terminating the alien's marriage was entitled to full 

faith and credit and that the finding within it (that the alien 

had engaged in marriage fraud) was a "presumption plus." See id. 

We were careful, however, to note that the factual finding was not 

entitled to dispositive weight. See id. The same is true here. 

Nor does the inclusion of the 2014 Order in the mix of 

relevant circumstances tip the decisional scales. The BMC entered 

the 2014 Order years after the crime was committed, years after 

the appellant pled guilty, years after the nine-month continuedwithout-a-finding period had elapsed, years after the appellant 

had paid the full restitution amount, and years after the criminal 

case had been dismissed. There was no longer anything at stake in 

the criminal case, and the BMC's statements about amount of loss 

were not essential to either its judgment of conviction or any 

outstanding restitution order. Rather — in the appellant's own 

words — those statements were "purely administrative." We reject 

the notion that non-essential statements of fact in an order issued 

years after a defendant's sentence has been imposed and carried 

out are entitled to dispositive weight in the Nijhawan 

circumstance-specific calculus. 

If more were needed — and we doubt that it is — the case 

at hand fits neatly alongside our opinion in Conteh v. Gonzales, 

461 F.3d 45 (1st Cir. 2006). There, we stated that "when a 

restitution award has been artificially manipulated for the sole 
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purpose of influencing an alien's immigration status, that award 

is not controlling with respect to the amount of loss." Id. at 

61-62. The record here shows unmistakably that the appellant filed 

the series of post-conviction motions solely to (in his lawyer's 

words) "allow him to pursue his desire to become a U.S. citizen." 

These motions were filed years after his criminal case was closed 

and his restitution obligation satisfied. The BMC's further orders 

were useful to the appellant (if at all) only insofar as they might 

affect his immigration status. To deny that these maneuverings 

were anything but artificial manipulations of his restitution 

record would be to blink reality. 

We summarize succinctly. Our review of the record 

convinces us that USCIS properly undertook a circumstance-specific 

analysis and, in the course of that analysis, appropriately 

discounted the appellant's attempts at revisionist history. We 

discern no error: giving dispositive weight to nunc pro tunc orders 

entered by state courts years after the fact — orders that do not 

fairly address the issues in the state case — would afford state 

courts carte blanche to shield defendants from federal immigration 

laws with the stroke of a pen. That is not the law. Cf. Fierro 

v. Reno, 217 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2000) (noting that "Congress' 

rules for naturalization must be applied as they are written, and 

a state court has no more power to modify them on equitable grounds 

than does a federal court or agency"). 
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III. CONCLUSION

We need go no further.7 In the case at hand, the record 

compels the conclusion that the appellant's fraud-and-deceit crime 

caused a loss to the victim of more than $10,000. It follows 

inexorably that both USCIS's denial of naturalization and the 

district court's approval of that denial are impervious to the 

appellant's attack. 

Affirmed.

 

 7 Throughout, the appellant, supported by the amici, has 

suggested that reliance on the original record of his conviction 

is especially problematic because he received ineffective 

assistance of counsel in the plea-bargaining process. See, e.g., 

Padilla, 559 U.S. at 366-69. But the BMC has already addressed 

this claim head-on and found it wanting. The appellant chose not 

to appeal the BMC's decision. Consequently, the Padilla question 

cannot be revisited here. See Gouveia v. INS, 980 F.2d 814, 817 

(1st Cir. 1992) ("Criminal convictions cannot be collaterally 

attacked during immigration proceedings.").