Opinion ID: 771476
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court's Jurisdiction to Review a Visa

Text: 10 Tittjung's overarching claim on appeal is that a district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to review a visa eligibility determination and on that basis vacate an order of naturalization. We note at the outset that Tittjung's status as visa eligible has been at issue in Article III proceedings for approximately eleven years to date. To say that Tittjung has had ample opportunity to raise this issue is to understate the matter. Moreover, Tittjung has previously admitted that the courts do have jurisdiction to examine his visa eligibility. The original complaint, filed in 1989, specifically alleged that the district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. sec. 1345 (original jurisdiction over all civil actions brought by the government) and 8 U.S.C. sec. 1451(a) (jurisdiction to revoke citizenship). Tittjung admitted that allegation, and has never challenged the district court's determination that it had jurisdiction, either in this Court or in the Supreme Court. Therefore, unless an error of the aforementioned egregious nature has been made, res judicata bars Tittjung's claim. See County of Cook, Ill., 167 F.3d at 388. 11 We begin with 8 U.S.C. sec. 1451(a). That statute expressly confers jurisdiction upon district courts to decide suits brought to revoke citizenship illegally procured. Specifically, the statute reads in relevant part that: 12 It shall be the duty of the United States Attorney for the respective districts, upon affidavit showing good cause therefor, to institute proceedings in any district court of the United States in the judicial district in which the naturalized citizen may reside at the time of bringing suit, for the purpose of revoking and setting aside the order admitting such person to citizenship and cancelling the certificate of naturalization on the ground that such order and certificate of naturalization were illegally procured or were procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation, and such revocation and setting aside of the order admitting such person to citizenship and such canceling of certificate of naturalization shall be effective as of the original date of the order and certificate, respectively. . . 13 Tittjung argues that 8 U.S.C. sec. 1451(a) is inapplicable to his situation, as he did not illegally procure his citizenship. According to Tittjung, if any illegality took place, it was at the visa procurement phase, when Tittjung did not disclose his service as a concentration camp guard. Yet those actions, he urges, are in effect shielded from review, as he claims that his certificate of naturalization was based on compliance with all applicable provisions. Thus, when the district court in 1990 determined Tittjung to be visa ineligible and therefore revoked his citizenship, the court, he suggests, traveled beyond the scope granted by 8 U.S.C. sec. 1451(a). 14 We do not believe, nor have we found any case law to suggest that a certificate of naturalization acts as a tabla rosa, thereby precluding us from examining the validity of the visa upon which that certificate was granted. To begin with, Supreme Court precedent forecloses that argument. In Fedorenko v. United States, the Court was called upon to decide whether Fedorenko's citizenship was illegally procured, and therefore subject to revocation. 449 U.S. 490 (1981). As in the case of Tittjung, Fedorenko entered the United States under the DPA, was naturalized years later, and was having his citizenship challenged on the basis that his service as a concentration camp guard rendered him visa ineligible. See id. at 508-09 ([T]he Government [was] seeking to revoke petitioner's citizenship because of the alleged unlawfulness of his initial entry into the United States.). After the Court determined that Fedorenko's World War II service made him ineligible for a visa, it perceived the resolution of the case to be fairly straightforward. Id. at 514. Justice Marshall, writing for the Court noted that Supreme Court cases have established that a naturalized citizen's failure to comply with statutory prerequisites for naturalization renders his certificate of citizenship revocable as 'illegally procured' under 8 U.S.C. sec. 1451(a). Id. The Court observed that the statutory prerequisites required that the individual be lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence, 8 U.S.C. sec. 1427, and that lawful admission for permanent residence in turn required that the individual possess a valid unexpired immigrant visa. Id. at 514-15; see also 8 U.S.C. sec. 1181(a). Because the DPA excluded from the definition of displaced persons eligible for immigration to this country those who had assisted the enemy in persecuting civil[ians] or had voluntarily assisted the enemy forces . . . in their operations, Pub. L. No. 87-774, ch. 647, 62 Stat. 1009, amended by Pub. L. No. 81-555, ch. 262, 64 Stat. 219 (1950), Fedorenko's visa, granted under the DPA, was invalid at the time of issuance. Thus, the Court found that 8 U.S.C. sec. 1451(a) provides a federal court with jurisdiction to make a determination of visa eligibility at the time of entrance into the United States and revocation of citizenship based on a finding of visa ineligibility. 15 We find that Supreme Court precedent controls and forecloses the type of claim that Tittjung now raises. In addition, though we have not to this point expressly addressed this type of jurisdictional argument, we find our previous decisions upholding the revocation of naturalization certificates based on visa ineligibility to be de facto confirmation that Tittjung's argument is meritless. As stated above, [i]t is the duty of this court to 'satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review,' EEOC 86 F.3d at 1428, such that if the parties neglect the subject, a court must raise the jurisdictional question on its own, Christianson, 486 U.S. at 818. In United States v. Schmidt, 923 F.2d 1253 (7th Cir. 1991), as well as in United States v. Ciurinkas, 976 F. Supp. 1167 (N.D. Ind. 1997), aff'd, 148 F.3d 729 (7th Cir. 1998) and United States v. Hajda, 963 F. Supp. 1452 (N.D. Ill. 1997), aff'd 135 F.3d 439 (7th Cir. 1998), we were faced with denaturalization orders based on determinations of visa ineligibility. That we reached the merits in those cases casts into doubt any suggestion that we do not believe there is jurisdiction to find visa ineligibility and thus revoke a certificate of naturalization. 4 16 As we have just noted, this specific subject matter jurisdiction argument has been resolved repeatedly. However, to the extent that previous decisions of this Court may have left the matter unclear, we now state unequivocally that Article III courts have jurisdiction to vacate an order of naturalization when that order is based on an illegally obtained visa. Here, Tittjung's status as a former concentration camp guard made him ineligible to receive a visa. Fedorenko, 449 U.S. at 511, 514. Therefore, when Tittjung entered this country, he did so with an invalid visa. By entering this country with an invalid visa, Tittjung failed to gain lawful admission to the United States. See 8 U.S.C. sec. 1181(a)(1); Fedorenko, 449 U.S. at 514-15. Because Tittjung could not be naturalized until he had first been lawfully admitted for permanent residence, see 8 U.S.C. sec. 1427(a)(1), his citizenship was illegally procured. Thus, the district court had the power to revoke his certificate of naturalization and cancel his citizenship. See 8 U.S.C. sec. 1451(a). Consequently, we agree with the court below that there was no jurisdictional error, let alone an egregious one, in the 1990 actions of the district court.