Opinion ID: 42943
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts and proceedins

Text: 2 Plaintiff-Appellant Debra Hosein and her husband lawfully entered the United States in 1981, and in 1983 they were joined by Hosein's infant son from a previous marriage. In October 1996, Hosein and her husband both filed naturalization applications; she alleges they submitted the applications in the same envelope. Hosein's husband was granted citizenship in October 1997; Hosein was not granted citizenship until March 1999. Hosein alleges that the only difference between the two applications was the presence, on hers, of information related to her son. 1 In December 1997, Hosein's son pleaded guilty to committing a felony. In the period between Hosein's husband's naturalization and Hosein's naturalization, Hosein's son reached the age of majority, thereby becoming ineligible for automatic citizenship under 8 U.S.C. § 1432 (repealed). Because of his felony conviction, Hosein's son underwent deportation hearings and received a final order of removal on July 7, 2005. During her son's deportation process, Hosein requested that the District Director of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) backdate her naturalization to October 1997, the date her husband was granted citizenship. Had Hosein been a citizen at that earlier date, she alleges, her son would have become a citizen then as well, and he would not now be deportable. Because Hosein had not met several threshold application requirements 2 as of October 1997, the District Director denied the request and stated that the statutory prerequisites to naturalization... cannot be back-dated by a nunc pro tunc order. 3 After the denial, Hosein filed in district court for a declaratory judgment that her citizenship be recognized as of October 1997. Hosein's claim rests on equal protection grounds, alleging that a violation occurred because of the different processing times of the two applications. Acting on a government motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the district court dismissed the case with prejudice. 3 Hosein timely appealed.