Court Opinion

ID: 9444798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:12:26.738026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:00.511869
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I am forced to the conclusion that the petition for rehearing should be granted and that the appeal should be heard by the full court. The present decision is contrary to our per curiam affirmance of United States v. Accardo, 3 Cir., 1954, 208 F.2d 632, certiorari denied, 1954, 347 U.S. 952, 74 S.Ct. 677, 98 L.Ed. 1098, and seems to charge a naturalization court with a kind of constructive notice of any prior fraud or fraud committed by an applicant for citizenship. If a naturalization examiner negligently is unaware of a fraud committed by the applicant, or if the examiner, in the exercise of his own judgment erroneously deems the fraud to be inoperative or insufficient to prevent naturalization, the examiner’s negligence or error under the present ruling seems to be imputable to the naturalization court itself. But the naturalization examiner is an arm of the federal executive and unconnected with the judiciary, state or federal. An error of negligence or judgment committed by the executive cannot properly be imputed to the judicial branch. The principle enunciated by this court would seem to estop the executive under circumstances such as those at bar from raising the issue of fraud and also would prevent a federal court from exercising the power to cancel a certificate of naturalization conferred on it by Congress.
These issues are of grave consequence. I dissent from the denial of the petition for rehearing before the court en banc.
McLAUGHLIN and STALEY, Circuit Judges, join in the above dissent.