Opinion ID: 4470914
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Santos’s 2007 Application for Naturalization

Text: A native of the Dominican Republic, defendant Santos became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1982, when he was 12 years old. On July 27, 2007, Santos, then age 37, applied for naturalization. To that end, Santos completed a N-400 Application for Naturalization (hereinafter “Form N-400 Application” or “Application”), which is a standard form that all individuals must submit to the government to become a naturalized citizen. In a section titled “Good Moral Character,” Santos certified under penalty of perjury that he had never been arrested for any reason (Question 16), had never been charged with committing a crime (Question 17), had never been convicted of a crime (Question 18), and had never been in jail or prison (Question 21). Santos 2 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 3 of 45 did not provide any information in the section asking for more details about his prior criminal history, including the “City, State, Country” of any arrest or charge The Application also required Santos to report the amount of time he spent outside the United States since becoming a lawful permanent resident in 1982, specifically, any trips that lasted longer than 24 hours. In response, Santos listed these six trips to the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua: (1) an 11-day trip to the Dominican Republic in July 2003; (2) a 2-day trip to the Dominican Republic in November 2003; (3) an 11-day trip to Nicaragua in 2004; (4) a 3-day trip to the Dominican Republic in September 2007; (5) a 3-day trip to the Dominican Republic in April 2007; and (6) a 15-day trip to Nicaragua in June 2007. Notably, Santos did not report taking any trips before 2003. Santos also did not disclose that he had previously used any other names or aliases. Santos signed his Form N- 400 Application directly below a certification that its contents were true and correct. B. Santos’s 2009 Interview and Re-signing of Form N-400 Application On January 26, 2009, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) Officer Lucas Barrios interviewed Santos. During the interview, Officer Barrios annotated in red ink Santos’s Application with handwritten checkmarks and comments, which included clarifications and corrections to Santos’s answers. Officer Barrios checked in red ink each of Santos’s answers 3 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 4 of 45 regarding his criminal history and wrote “claims no arrest[,] no offense[,] no DUI” under Santos’s answers. Officer Barrios also checked in red ink each of Santos’s answers regarding his history of trips outside the United States and wrote “claims no other” below the list of trips. Using red ink, Officer Barrios numbered his corrections to the application 1 through 8 and then signed the Application. At the end of the interview, Santos again swore and certified under penalty of perjury that the contents of the Application, including Officer Barrios’s eight corrections, were true and correct. Santos again signed the Application in black ink, this time below that second certification. After the interview, Officer Barrios approved Santos’s Application, and Santos became a naturalized citizen in February 2009. In March 2009, Santos used his certificate of naturalization to obtain a U.S. passport. During the naturalization process, however, Santos failed to disclose in his Application and interview: (1) that he had a prior conviction for voluntarily killing a person, (2) that he had traveled to the Dominican Republic in 1986 and stayed there for over two years, and (3) that he used an alias name while in the Dominican Republic. Specifically, in November 1986, Santos was involved in killing another Dominican national named Jose Martinez Tavarez in New York City. Soon thereafter, in December 1986, Santos left the United States and returned to the Dominican Republic. In February 1988, Dominican police arrested Santos for 4 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 5 of 45 Martinez’s death. At the time he was arrested, Santos was carrying a false identification document in the name of “Junior de Jesus Abinader.” Santos then spent one year in a Dominican prison and was eventually found guilty of voluntarily killing Martinez, in violation of “Articles 295-321,” and 326 of the Dominican penal code. In March 1989, Santos was released from prison and, in April 1989, he returned to the United States. C. Santos’s December 2015 Statement After investigating Santos’s criminal records in the Dominican Republic and his travel history with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security arrested Santos on December 16, 2015 on the immigrationrelated charges in this case. On the day of his arrest, Santos provided a sworn post-Miranda statement to Special Agent Mildred Laboy. Special Agent Laboy documented Santos’s answers to her questions on a handwritten form entitled “Record of Sworn Statement in Affidavit Form.” The statement read, in part: Q. What is your true and complete name? A. Justo Jonah Santos Abinader Q. What is your date and place of birth? A. [redacted month and day] 1970 Santiago, Dominican Republic ... Q. Have you ever been arrested any where [sic] in the world? A. Yes. Q. When and why were you arrested? 5 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 6 of 45 A. 1987 arrested for murder in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic Q. Where [sic] you convicted of murder? A. Yes manslaughter and was given time served – a little over one year Q. Have you ever been arrested other than 1987[?] A. No Q. When did you become a U.S. citizen? A. 2009 Q. On your Application for Naturalization form N400, page 8 Section D #15, Have you ever committed a crime or offense for which you were not arrested and #16, Have you ever been arrested, cited or detained by any law enforcement officer (including USCIS or former INS and military officers) for any reason? A. When I completed my naturalization application, I was under the mind set [sic] that the question in the application related to the U.S. Now that you have explained the Questions-I understand and I should have placed a yes on Questions [sic] #16. Q. What about Question #17, where it states Have you ever been charged with committing any crime or offense? A. Yes, I understand today, I should have said yes to Question 17. Q. Question #18 on your naturalization, is Have you ever been convicted of a crime or offense? A. I should have said yes to Question #18 because I was given time served for the charge. I don’t want to continue any more questions. At the end of the 2015 interview, Santos refused to sign the statement. D. Indictment and First Jury Trial In May 2016, a federal grand jury indicted Santos on one count of procuring citizenship or naturalization unlawfully, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a) (Count 6 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 7 of 45 One), and one count of misusing evidence of citizenship or naturalization, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1423 (Count Two). Santos was tried twice. Prior to Santos’s first trial, the government filed a motion in limine about Santos’s post-Miranda statement to Special Agent Laboy. The government planned to elicit testimony from Special Agent Laboy that Santos admitted he was arrested for murder and convicted of manslaughter in the Dominican Republic in 1987, and that he served over one year in prison. But the government sought to prevent Santos from eliciting testimony about the rest of Santos’s statement to Special Agent Laboy. Santos had said as follows: when he completed the Application, he thought the questions about his criminal history related only to the United States, but that after Special Agent Laboy explained the questions to him, he understood that he should have answered yes to those questions. Santos opposed the motion, arguing that the government was seeking to admit the incriminating portions and exclude the exculpatory portions of his postMiranda statement. Santos contended that the rest of his statement should be admitted under, inter alia, Federal Rules of Evidence 106 and 611(a) and the rule of completeness because both portions pertained to the issue of whether Santos acted knowingly. 7 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 8 of 45 After hearing arguments, the district court granted the government’s motion in limine, concluding, inter alia, that the exculpatory portion of Santos’s statement was not necessary to clarify or explain the inculpatory portion. After a five-day trial, a jury convicted Santos of both counts. The district court imposed a total 15-month prison sentence, followed by two years of supervised release. The district court also revoked Santos’s citizenship. E. First Appeal and Remand Santos appealed. In light of Maslenjak v. United States, 582 U.S. __, 137 S. Ct. 1918 (2017), the parties jointly moved this Court for summary reversal, asserting that the district court erred in instructing the jury that the government did not need to prove that Santos’s false statement was material to his obtaining naturalization to convict Santos under 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a). A three-judge panel of this Court agreed, granted the motion for summary reversal, vacated the order revoking Santos’s citizenship, and remanded for further proceedings. F. Second Jury Trial After remand, Santos moved in limine to admit the entirety of his postMiranda statement. The government again opposed Santos’s request. After Santos’s criminal case was transferred to another district court judge, that judge denied Santos’s motion in limine. 8 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 9 of 45 At trial, the parties stipulated that: (1) in December 1986, Santos left New York for the Dominican Republic; (2) in February 1988, he was arrested by the Dominican Republic police; (3) he remained in a Dominican jail until March 3, 1989; (4) he returned to the United States on April 2, 1989; and (5) while in the Dominican Republic, he “acquired and possessed false identification documents in the name of Junior de Jesus Abinader” and used that name. The government introduced, among other exhibits: (1) translated copies of Santos’s conviction records from the Dominican Republic showing that he was charged with causing the death of Jose Martinez Tavarez, he was “found guilty of violating Articles 295-321 of the [Dominican penal code] and 326 of the [penal code],” and he was sentenced to one year in prison; and (2) translated portions of the Dominican penal code, including Articles 295, 321 and 326, which the parties stipulated were in effect in 1989. 1 1 The government introduced translated excerpts of the Dominican penal code, including: (1) Articles 295 to 300, which cover voluntary homicide (Article 295), homicide with premeditation or stalking (Article 296), parricide (Article 299), and infanticide (Article 300); and (2) Articles 319 to 328, which cover involuntary homicide (Articles 319 and 320), and when homicide is excusable (Articles 321 and 323) and self-defense (Article 328). The government’s excerpts omitted Articles 301 to 318. Under Article 295, “He who voluntarily kills another, is guilty of homicide.” Article 321 states, “Homicide, injuries and blows are excusable, if there was a preceding immediate provocation, threats or severe violence by the offended party.” Article 326 provides that “[w]hen the circumstance of excuse is proven, the punishment will be reduced” to six months to two years in prison for a crime warranting a 30-year punishment and to three months to one year in prison for any other crime. 9 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 10 of 45 Special Agent Laboy testified, describing her 2015 arrest of Santos and his post-Miranda statements to her. Special Agent Laboy testified, without objection, that Santos admitted to her that he had been (1) arrested in the Dominican Republic, (2) charged with murder but convicted of manslaughter, and (3) sentenced to a little over one year in prison. USCIS Officer Barrios, who conducted Santos’s naturalization interview, did not testify at trial. Instead, Natalie Diaz, another USCIS officer with ten years of experience, including adjudicating over one thousand applications, testified. Officer Diaz testified generally about the process by which “adjudications officers” approve or deny naturalization applications. According to Diaz, to obtain naturalization, an alien files a Form N-400 application, appears for a non-waivable interview, provides documentation and then, if approved by an adjudications officer, is naturalized. Once signed, an alien’s Form N-400 becomes part of his “A-file,” which the immigration authorities use to perform a background check before conducting the interview. USCIS consults only United States databases for this process, relying entirely on the applicant to disclose information about foreign convictions. During the interview, the adjudications officer places the alien under oath and reviews the entire Form N-400 application with the alien, marking in red ink the answers the officer confirms and any changes and corrections the alien makes 10 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 11 of 45 during the interview. According to USCIS policy, the applicants complete the Form N-400 with black ink and the adjudications officers use red ink during the interview, so that the officers’ markings are easily distinguishable from those of the applicants. Adjudications officers are required by the policy to use checkmarks when they confirm answers and, at the end of the interview, the officers must have applicants sign the Form N-400 application a second time in blue or black ink and agree to any changes made by the adjudicators. Per the policy, if an adjudications officer does not ask an applicant certain questions, the officer is not supposed to mark that question on the application. The policy does not require an adjudications officer to confirm answers when the questions clearly do not pertain to the applicant. Providing false testimony under oath during the interview is ground for an alien’s ineligibility to naturalize, regardless of whether the lie is about something material to obtaining naturalization. Over Santos’s objections based on “hearsay, confrontation, [Rule] 403,” Officer Diaz was given Santos’s annotated Form N-400 Application and read to the jury what Officer Barrios had written on it in red ink. Officer Diaz confirmed that, at the interview, Santos signed the annotated Form N-400 Application, thereby agreeing and certifying that Officer Barrios’s corrections numbered 1 through 8 were correct. Santos does not dispute that he signed the Form N-400 Application, which looks like this: 11 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 12 of 45 Officer Diaz testified that Officer Barrios’s marks and signature in red ink on the annotated Form N-400 were consistent with USCIS policy. While Officer Diaz acknowledged that she did not adjudicate Santos’s Form N-400 Application, she explained that USCIS’s background check into Santos’s criminal history yielded no results. Ultimately, because Santos met the requirements for English reading, writing, civics, physical presence and residence, and good moral character, Officer Barrios granted his Application for naturalization in January 2009. Officer Diaz opined, however, that based on her review of the evidence, Santos’s N-400 Application would have been denied if USCIS had known about his criminal history in the Dominican Republic. When an applicant has a prior foreign conviction, the adjudications officer will look for an equivalent crime under United States federal law. Officer Diaz determined that the federal equivalent of Santos’s Dominican conviction was voluntary manslaughter, which is a crime involving moral turpitude for immigration purposes. 12 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 13 of 45 Office Diaz identified several ways in which Santos’s criminal conviction in the Dominican Republic rendered him ineligible for naturalization, including that: (1) Santos’s re-entry into the United States in 1989 was unlawful because he was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude while he was outside the country, which is ground for removal; (2) Santos was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude less than five years after he entered the United States, which is also ground for removal; (3) Santos abandoned his lawful permanent resident status when he left the United States in 1986, stayed in the Dominican Republic for over two years, and obtained false identity there, which also made him removable; and (4) per USCIS policies, Santos’s lies on his Form N-400 Application rendered him ineligible for naturalization, regardless of whether the lies were material. On cross-examination, Officer Diaz admitted that she did not know how long Santos’s naturalization interview lasted, what questions Officer Barrios asked, or how Santos responded to them. Officer Diaz further admitted that, because she was not present during the interview, she did not know if Officer Barrios followed USCIS policy and asked all the questions he checked off. Officer Diaz conceded that her conclusions about Santos’s eligibility for naturalization were her own opinion, but they were also “conclusion[s] that a reasonable adjudicator would have come to.” Officer Diaz agreed that, for immigration purposes, the federal crime of involuntary manslaughter, unlike voluntary manslaughter, was not 13 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 14 of 45 automatically a crime involving moral turpitude because it required individual analysis of the actual record of conviction. In his defense, Santos called an immigration expert, Linda Osberg Braun, a private immigration attorney who had previously worked for the United States Immigration and Nationality Service. Braun testified about the procedures, and some of the pitfalls, of the naturalization application and interview process. According to Braun, USCIS has information officers who help applicants during the citizenship process, but the officers are not legally trained and can give bad advice. In addition, notaries and travel agents, some of whom are operating scams, often help applicants fill out Form N-400s even though they are not supposed to do so, and do not sign their names as the preparers at the bottom of the document. When Braun is reconstructing a client’s travel history for a Form N- 400 application, she uses the client’s passport, if possible, but before September 11, 2001, it was common for stamps to be missing from passports, which made reconstructing travel difficult. The government, on the other hand, has much better access to the applicant’s travel history, and, if her client is confronted with an inaccuracy, they will correct it during the interview. Braun asks her clients about their criminal history in many different ways because her clients often do not understand what she is asking and initially do not tell her about past arrests or convictions. 14 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 15 of 45 In Braun’s experience, there is a range of competence among USCIS adjudicators. Adjudicators must work hard to handle a certain number of files each day and hit their goals. Not every adjudications officer goes through every question during the interview and, in some cases, an adjudicator’s denial of an N- 400 is determined to be incorrect in later appeals. Contrary to Officer Diaz’s view, Braun testified that USCIS would not have found Santos to be disqualified from naturalization had the agency known of his travel to, and criminal history in, the Dominican Republic. Braun opined that Santos did not abandon his lawful permanent residence status when he went to the Dominican Republic in 1986 for over two years because he did not form the subjective intent to do so. Braun stressed that Santos was a minor when he was arrested in 1988, his parents remained in the United States, and Santos returned immediately to the United States upon his release from prison and has remained in the United States since. In Braun’s experience, a juvenile was not considered to have abandoned his lawful permanent residence status unless his parents’ intent to abandon their U.S. residency was imputed to him. Braun also disputed that Santos’s Dominican conviction was for a crime of moral turpitude. Braun said that it was unclear which statute Santos was convicted of violating because his conviction records show he was “found guilty of violating articles 295 through 321,” with a dash separating the two numbers. Those articles 15 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 16 of 45 include crimes due to “ineptitude, recklessness, inadvertence, negligence, or regulatory noncompliance,” not all of which are crimes involving moral turpitude. In Braun’s opinion, Article 321 is a self-defense or “excusable offenses” statute, the violation of which also would not be a crime involving moral turpitude. Braun said Articles 295 and 321 were inconsistent because one appeared to be a homicide statute and the other an excusable homicide statute, and defendants could not be convicted of both in the United States. In short, Braun opined that there was not enough information in the record to determine if Santos was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude or lacked good moral character. Braun also said that because Santos was a minor when he was convicted, his conviction could be treated as juvenile delinquency, which would not be a conviction for immigration purposes. Further, because Santos had not committed any crimes in the five years prior to his 2007 naturalization application, Braun believed he would not be permanently disqualified from naturalizing. On cross-examination, Braun agreed that (1) the notations in red ink on Santos’s Form N-400 Application were “in accordance with USCIS procedures,” (2) it was not USCIS’s responsibility to uncover undisclosed foreign convictions, (3) the USCIS relies upon applicants to truthfully answer questions on the Form N- 400 Application, (4) the applicant has the burden to establish his eligibility for naturalization and is required to present certified conviction records to meet that 16 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 17 of 45 burden, and (5) if the applicant’s records are not clear or comprehensive, the applicant’s Form N-400 Application would be denied. 2 After Santos rested, the government recalled Officer Diaz for rebuttal. Among other things, Officer Diaz testified that Santos’s conviction records indicated he was found guilty of violating only Articles 295 and 321, despite the dash between 295 and 321, because otherwise Santos would have been found guilty of killing his parents, his children, and all the crimes in between.” 3 Officer Diaz explained that she believed Santos was convicted of voluntarily killing another, under Article 295, and Article “321 is just a reduced version of that[,] . . . because there was an excuse, the provocation.” Officer Diaz did not believe that Article 321 constituted an involuntary homicide statute because Dominican law has a separate self-defense statute. Officer Diaz concluded the equivalent federal crime in the United States was voluntary manslaughter because Article 295 pertained to the voluntary killing of another. Officer Diaz said she did not need more information about Santos’s Dominican Republic convictions to determine he was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. 2 Santos also called Yamil Martin, an investigator for the Federal Public Defender’s Office, who testified that he went to Officer Barrios’s residence to interview him, but Officer Barrios would not cooperate and closed the door on the investigator. 3 See supra note 1. 17 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 18 of 45 In addition, Officer Diaz said the fact that Santos was a juvenile when he left the United States in 1986 did not change her opinion that he abandoned his lawful permanent residence status because: (1) juveniles, like adults, can abandon their status; (2) Santos killed the victim in 1986 and, four days later, left the United States for the Dominican Republic and stayed for over two years; and (3) Santos acquired false identification and used an alias in the Dominican Republic in order to remain there undetected. Officer Diaz maintained that she would have concluded that Santos lacked good moral character to be naturalized because he omitted information on his Form N-400 Application, as marked by Officer Barrios and signed under oath by Santos a second time, and the content and substance of those omissions all related to Santos’s three years in the Dominican Republic and “the reason was he was in jail for having killed someone.” The district court denied Santos’s motions for a judgment of acquittal. The jury found Santos guilty on both counts. The district court imposed concurrent sentences of time served, plus two years’ supervised release.4 Upon the government’s motion, the district court revoked Santos’s citizenship as a result of his convictions. 4 According to the Federal Bureau of Prison’s website, Santos was released from prison on October 30, 2018, and is currently serving his term of supervised release. 18 Case: 18-14529 Date Filed: 01/09/2020 Page: 19 of 45