Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/16-309_h31i.pdf
Page Number: 19

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

accord, id., at 783–784 (Brennan, J., concurring).  Or said 
otherwise,  we  gave  the  defendant  a  chance  to  establish 
that  she  was  qualified  for  citizenship,  and  held  that  she
could not be denaturalized if she did so—even though she 
concealed  or  misrepresented  facts  that  suggested  the 
opposite.  And  indeed,  all  our  denaturalization  decisions 
share this crucial feature: We have never read a statute to 
strip  citizenship  from  someone  who  met  the  legal  criteria 
for acquiring it.  See, e.g., Fedorenko v. United States, 449 
U. S.  490,  505–507  (1981);  Costello  v.  United  States,  365 
U. S. 265, 269–272 (1961); Schneiderman v. United States, 
320  U. S.  118,  122–123  (1943).    We  will  not  start  now. 
Whatever  the  Government  shows  with  respect  to  a 
thwarted  investigation,  qualification  for  citizenship  is  a 
complete defense to a prosecution brought under §1425(a). 

III 
Measured against all we have said, the jury instructions
in  this  case  were  in  error.    As  earlier  noted,  the  District 
Court told the jury that it could convict based on any false 
statement in the naturalization process (i.e., any violation
of  §1015(a)),  no  matter  how  inconsequential  to  the  ulti-
mate decision.  See App. to Pet. for Cert. 86a; supra, at 3. 
But as we have shown, the jury needed to find more than 
an  unlawful  false  statement.  Recall  that  Maslenjak’s  lie
in  the  naturalization  process  concerned  her  prior  state-
ments  to  immigration  officials:  She  swore  that  she  had
been honest when applying for admission as a refugee, but 
in  fact  she  had  not.  See  supra,  at  2–3.  The  jury  could 
have convicted if that earlier dishonesty (i.e., the thing she
misrepresented  when  seeking  citizenship)  were  itself  a 
reason to deny naturalization—say, because it counted as
“false testimony for the purpose of obtaining [immigration] 
benefits” and thus demonstrated bad moral character.  See 
supra, at 11–12.  Or else, the jury could have convicted if
(1)  knowledge  of  that  prior  dishonesty  would  have  led  a