Court Opinion

ID: 9498270
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:12:55.254425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:42.693872
License: Public Domain

*148POOLER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in that part of the majority opinion affirming appellant’s convictions under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1425 and 1542. Appellant does not challenge those convictions, but rather, challenges only the imposition of a mandatory Guidelines sentence. Such imposition was erroneous in light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in United States v. Booker, — U.S. -, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), and, absent any other error, the appropriate course would be remand for consideration of whether to resentence under United States v. Crosby, 397 F.3d 103 (2d Cir.2005). As to the remaining conviction, the majority concludes that a defendant may be criminally convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a) for making a material false statement in an immigration document if the false statement had a natural tendency to influence the ultimate outcome of some process in connection with which the document was submitted, even if the statement is completely immaterial to the subject and purpose of the document itself. Because I find no support for such a broad reading of the materiality requirement in the statutory language, I would reverse that conviction and remand for resentencing under the two proper convictions. I therefore respectfully dissent in part.
The majority (1) correctly notes that the generally applicable test for whether a statement is material to some decision is the “natural tendency to influence” test of Kungys v. United States, 485 U.S. 759, 772, 108 S.Ct. 1537, 99 L.Ed.2d 839 (1988), (2) correctly notes that the statute at issue is facially ambiguous regarding what decision it requires false statements to be material to, and (3) accurately frames the issue in this case as “one of scope-the breadth of decision against which the materiality of a falsehood is assessed.” Supra. The majority relies on this Court’s decision in United States v. An Antique Platter of Gold, 184 F.3d 131, 136 (2d Cir.1999), as resolving the inquiry in favor of holding that statements need only be material to, or have a natural tendency to influence, the “process as a whole” leading to the “ultimate result” to which they are addressed. Supra.
The majority notes, with regard to the instant statute, that it “tells us where Wu’s misrepresentation must have been asserted ..., but not against what the materiality of Wu’s falsehoods should be assessed.” Supra.5 It is precisely this fact that distinguishes Antique Platter of Gold, for the statute there expressly provided just the guidance the majority finds lacking in the instant case. The statute construed in Antique Platter of Gold prohibited “false statement^], written or verbal,” “by means of [which]” the declarant “enters or introduces” “imported merchandise” “into the commerce of the United States.” 184 F.3d at 135. The statute itself therefore focused on the effect of the statements on a particular specified decision-the decision whether to allow importation. In fact, Congress had not expressly included a ma*149teriality requirement in that statute. Rather, this Court inferred from the requirement that the false statement be “the means” by which importation was secured that the statements must be material to the decision whether to allow importation.
By contrast, in the instant case, Congress specifically chose to narrow the range of false statements that it intended to criminalize by including a materiality requirement in addition to the requirements that the statement appear in a document required by immigration laws or regulations. See United States v. Wells, 519 U.S. 482, 489, 117 S.Ct. 921, 137 L.Ed.2d 107 (1997) (treating materiality as separate element in addition to that of falsity). Congress in drafting 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a) did not, as it did in drafting the statute at issue in Antique Platter of Gold, direct courts to inquire into the “process as a whole” leading to a particular “ultimate decision.” Rather, Congress provided only that the false statement must be “with respect to a material fact in any ... document required by the immigration laws or regulations.” Congress thus made no reference to a particular process or ultimate decision. It referred to material facts only in connection with the document in which they appear and the laws or regulations requiring the presentation of that document. Had Congress intended the broader reading that the majority imposes on this statute, Antique Platter of Gold demonstrates that Congress is perfectly capable of drafting it, and does not need the Court to read in the appropriate language.
Like Antique Platter of Gold, Kungys also involved a statute in which Congress included explicit language directing courts to evaluate materiality with reference to a specific, identified government decision. The statute in Kungys made it criminal to “procure! ]” a “certificate of naturalization” “by concealment of a material fact .... ” 485 U.S. at 764 n. 1, 108 S.Ct. 1537. Thus Congress directed the courts to determine materiality by inquiring into the tendency of the statement to affect the procurement of a certificate of naturalization, and the Supreme Court found that an alien’s misrepresentation of his date and place of birth did not have such a tendency. Where Congress has provided expressly, as it did in the statutes at issue in Kungys and Antique Platter of Gold, that materiality is to be considered with respect to the ultimate outcome of some particular specified process, naturally courts have focused on that process as the object of the materiality inquiry. This is very different from the majority’s approach, which is itself to posit the broadest possible relevant government process as the focus of the inquiry when Congress gave no indication of having contemplated focus on such a broad process and instead drafted a statute focused narrowly on documents, laws, and regulations.
Wu’s false statements at issue here appeared in documents entitled “affidavit of support,” INS Form 1-864. The form itself describes its “purpose” as “to show that an intending immigrant has adequate means of financial support and is not likely to become a public charge,” and informs the affiant that it is submitted “in consideration of the sponsored immigrant(s) not being found inadmissible to the United States” as public charges, “and to enable the sponsored immigrant(s) to overcome this ground of inadmissibility.” While the affidavit of support is generally, as the majority states, submitted as “part of a larger application process aimed at bringing alien relatives into the United States,” supra, the document itself and the statutes and regulations governing it make clear that it is directed to influencing an entirely distinct and self-contained inquiry into whether the alien is “inadmissible as a *150public charge.” See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(a)(4) & 1183a; 8 C.F.R. § 213a.2.
Because Congress has directed us to determine the materiality of the false statement in the context of the “document required by the immigration laws or regulations,” and because those laws and regulations and the instant document itself all relate solely to the self-contained determination of whether the sponsored immigrant is inadmissible as a public charge, I conclude that Wu’s false statements here were not material. Wu was not accused of making false statements about his finances, which would clearly be material. He was only accused of providing a false date and place of birth. This information had no “natural tendency to influence” the determination of whether he had sufficient financial resources to support his alien relatives, which is the relevant inquiry in determining whether the relatives were likely to become public charges and therefore inadmissible on that ground.
The majority’s broad reading is especially problematic when one considers that this is a criminal case where we are construing a statute that the majority concedes is facially ambiguous as to what activity it defines as criminal, in the absence of any legislative history addressed to the ambiguity in question. In such a situation, lenity applies, and we are required to construe the ambiguity in favor of the criminal defendant. Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 138, 118 S.Ct. 1911, 141 L.Ed.2d 111 (1998). The particular circumstances of this case render the majority’s reading doubly problematic. Wu was prosecuted for having repeated on affidavits of support false statements he previously made on petitions for alien relatives that were themselves not the subject of a prosecution solely because the statute of limitations on the earlier statements had expired by the time the Government filed charges. The majority’s holding would seem to imply that, had the statute of limitations not expired, Wu could be convicted separately for both the statements on the petitions and the repetitions of those statements on the affidavits. Leaving aside the question whether such an interpretation would raise double jeopardy issues,6 in light of the narrow language that Congress used in 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a), I cannot believe that Congress intended to separately criminalize every repetition of the uniform pedigree information required by documents that are addressed to wholly separate inquiries, simply because the documents related to the same alien relative’s efforts to secure admission to the United States. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent in part.

. The majority states incorrectly that the statute tells us that Wu's misrepresentation must have been asserted in "immigration documents comprising his application.” Supra (emphasis added). Neither the statute nor the "immigration laws or regulations” to which it refers defines an "application” consisting of various "documents.” Rather, the various documents that Wu submitted and that the government here characterizes as parts of the same "application” serve entirely distinct purposes, inform entirely distinct government decisions, and are required and regulated by distinct statutes and regulations. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1154 (defining petitioning process), 1182(a)(4) (requiring affidavit of support), 1183a (same); 8 C.F.R. §§ 204.2 (governing petition for alien relative), 213a.2 (governing affidavit of support).

. While the majority, citing cases from this Court as well as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, speculates that multiple repetitions of the same lie may be “but one crime,’’ and that it may violate double jeopardy to impose separate punishments for each repetition, supra, the majority concedes that the jurisprudence is not settled, and I note that courts in this Circuit have held in the context of perjury that a lie and its repetition are not the same crime and that imposing multiple punishments in such a situation does not violate double jeopardy. See, e.g., United States v. Bin Laden, 91 F.Supp.2d 600, 619 (S.D.N.Y.2000). Under the Ninth Circuit's “additional impediment to government functions” test, the distinct purposes of the documents in which Wu gave false information would arguably be reason to find double jeopardy not violated by the imposition of multiple punishments. See United States v. Salas-Camacho, 859 F.2d 788, 791 (9th Cir.1988), followed by United States v. Newton, 2002 WL 1285361, at *7 & n. 1 (S.D.N.Y. Jun.10, 2002) (noting that this Court has never dealt with such situation).