Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/364/350
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 14:19:24+00:00

Document:
Petitioner, a native of Hungary, was admitted to citizenship by a decree of the District Court in 1940. Respondent filed a complaint to revoke and set aside that order as authorized by § 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 260, as amended, 68 Stat. 1232, 8 U.S.C. 1451(a), 8 U.S.C.A. § 1451(a), on the ground that it had been procured 'by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.' 1 The complaint stated that petitioner had falsely denied membership in the Communist Party and that by virtue of that membership he lacked the requisite attachment to the Constitution, etc., and the intent to renounce foreign allegiance. It also alleged that petitioner had procured his naturalization by concealing and misrepresenting a record of arrests. The District Court cancelled petitioner's naturalization, finding that he had concealed and misrepresented three mattershis arrests, his membership in the Communist Party, and his allegiance. The Court of Appeals affirmed, reaching only the question of the concealment of the arrests. 9 Cir., 270 F.2d 179. The case is here on a writ of certiorari. 362 U.S. 901, 80 S.Ct. 610, 4 L.Ed.2d 554.
While disclosure of them was properly exacted, the arrests in these cases were not reflections on the character of the man seeking citizenship. The statute in force at the time of his naturalization required that 'he has behaved as a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States' during the previous five years. 2 These arrests were made some years prior to the critical five-year period. They did not, moreover, involve moral turpitude within the meaning of the law. Cf. Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 71 S.Ct. 703, 95 L.Ed. 886. No fraudulent conduct was charged. They involved distributing handbills, making a speech, and a breach of the peace. In one instance he was discharged, in one instance the prosecution was 'nolled,' and in the other (for making a speech in a park in violation of city regulations) he apparently received a suspended sentence. The totality of the circumstances surrounding the offenses charged makes them of extremely slight consequence. Had they involved moral turpitude or acts directed at the Government, had they involved conduct which even peripherally touched types of activity which might disqualify one from citizenship, a different case would be presented. On this record the nature of these arrests, the crimes charged, and the disposition of the cases do not bring them, inherently, even close to the requirement of 'clear, unequivocal, and convincing' evidence that naturalization was illegally procured within the meaning of § 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
It is argued, however, that disclosure of the arrests made in New Haven, Connecticut, in the years 1929 and 1930 would have led to a New Haven investigation at which leads to other evidencemore relevant and material than the arrestsmight have been obtained. His residence in New Haven was from February 1929 to November 1930. Since that period was more than five years before his petition for naturalization, the name of his employer at that time was not required by the form prepared by the Service. It is now said, however, that if the arrests had been disclosed and investigated, the Service might well have discovered that petitioner in 1929 was 'a district organizer' of the Communist Party in Connecticut. One witness in this denaturalization proceeding testified that such was the fact. An arrest, though by no means probative of any guilt or wrongdoing, is sufficiently significant as an episode in a man's life that it may often be material at least to further enquiry. We do not minimize the importance of that disclosure. In this case, however, we are asked to base materiality on the tenuous line of investigation that might have led from the arrests to the alleged communistic affiliations, when as a matter of fact petitioner in this same application disclosed that he was an employee and member of the International Workers' Order, which is said to be controlled by the Communist Party. In connection with petitioner's denial of such affiliations, respondent argues that since it was testified that the IWO was an organization controlled and dominated by the Communist Party, it is reasonable to infer that petitioner had those affiliations at the time of the application. But by the same token it would seem that a much less tenuous and speculative nexus with the Communist Party, if it be such, was thereby disclosed and was available for further investigation if it had been deemed appropriate at the time. Cf. United States v. Anastasio, 3 Cir., 226 F.2d 912. It is said that IWO did not become tainted with Communist control until 1941. We read the record differently. If the Government's case is made out, that taint extended back at least as far as 1939. Had that disclosure not been made in the application, failure to report the arrests would have had greater significance. It could then be forcefully argued that failure to disclose the arrests was part and parcel of a project to conceal a Communist Party affiliation. But on this record, the failure to report the three arrests occurring from 10 to 11 years previously is neutral. We do not speculate as to why they were not disclosed. We only conclude that, in the circumstances of this case, the Government has failed to show by 'clear, unequivocal, and convincing' evidence either (1) that facts were suppressed which, if known, would have warranted denial of citizenship or (2) that their disclosure might have been useful in an investigation possibly leading to the discovery of other facts warranting denial of citizenship.
Petitioner swore in his application for naturalization that he had never been under arrest when in fact he had been arrested in New Haven, Connecticut, on three separate occasions within an eight-month period. The arrests were for distributing handbills in a public street, making 'an oration, harangue, or other public demonstration' in a public park and a 'general breach of the peace.' Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals have found that petitioner's falsification 'was an intentional concealment of a material fact and a willful misrepresentation which foreclosed the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the district court from making a further investigation as to whether he had all the qualifications for citizenship * * *.' (270 F.2d 182.) These findings, as such, are not disputed. It is nowhere suggested, for example, that the petitioner's falsehoods were the result of inadvertence or forgetfulnessthat they were anything but deliberate lies. This Court, however, brushes these findings aside on the ground 1 that the arrests 'were not reflections on the character of the man seeking citizenship.' The Swiss philosopher Amiel tells us that 'character is an historical fruit and it is result of a man's biography.' Petitioner's past, if truthfully told in his application, would have been an odorous one. So bad that he dared not reveal it. For the Court to reward his dishonesty is nothing short of an open invitation to false swearing to all who seek the high privilege of American citizenship.
The test is not whether the truthful answer in itself, or the facts discovered through an investigation prompted by that answer, would have justified a denial of citizenship. It is whether the falsification, by misleading the examining officer, forestalled an investigation which might have resulted in the defeat of petitioner's application for naturalization. The Courts of Appeal are without disagreement on this point 2 and it is, of course, a necessary rule in order to prevent the making of misrepresentations for the very purpose of forestalling inquiry as to eligibility. The question as to arrests is highly pertinent to the issue of satisfactory moral character, the sine qua non of good citizenship. Petitioner's false answer to the question shut off that line of inquiry and was a fraud on the Government and the naturalization court. The majority makes much of the fact that the arrests occurred prior to the five-year statutory period of good behavior, but that is of no consequence. Concealment at the very time of naturalization is the issue here and that act of deliberate falsification before an officer of the Government clearly relates to the petitioner's general moral character. Indeed, the Congress has long made it a felony punishable by imprisonment for a maximum of five years. Certainly this does not fall within a class of peccadilloes which may be overlooked as being without 'reflections on the character of the man seeking citizenship.' In fact it strips and offender of all civil rights and leaves a shattered character that only a presidential pardon can mend.
The Court concludes that the false denial of prior arrests was 'neutral' because the petitioner revealed in his preliminary application that he was an employee of the International Workers Order, which the Court adds, 'is said to be controlled by the Communist Party.' What the Court fails to point out is that the sole evidence, in this record, as to the International Workers Order was presented in 1955, 15 years after petitioner's deception of the examiner. There is no evidence that the examiner knew anything about that organization other than what petitioner had told him. And there is nothing whatever in the record that would have even indicated that I.W.O. was communistic in 1940. What was there to prompt the examiner to investigate it at that time? The truth of the matter is that in his final naturalization application petitioner said he was employed by the 'Fraternal Benefit Society of Internation (sic) Workers Order,' a name which would lead one to believe that it was an insurance society. Surely the Court is not charging the examiner and the naturalization court with the dereliction of admitting petitioner to our citizenship knowing that he was connected with a Communist organization. In fact the testimony at the trial indicates that the Communist Party did not take over the leadership of the International Workers Order until 1941, 3 a year after petitioner was naturalized. It is also well to remember that the Attorney General did not list it as subversive until 1947, although lists of subversive organizations had been issued prior to that date.
Section 4 of the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 598, as amended, 45 Stat. 15131514, now 8 U.S.C.A. § 1427(a).

References: § 340
 § 1451
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 § 340
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 § 1427