The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied a Trinidad and Tobago man’s claim to US citizenship on Tuesday and declined to halt his deportation even though the man held a wrongfully issued US citizenship certificate for 21 years. Lall received a Certificate of Citizenship in 1991 from Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) after applying for US citizenship. However, the agency determined the same year that he had not acquired citizenship. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) only notified Lall about their decision to cancel his Certificate of Citizenship in 2012 while he was serving a sentence for a drug conviction.
Lall was convicted of conspiracy to import five kilograms or more of cocaine following an investigation surrounding employees at JFK airport in New York City allegedly involved in a drug importation ring.
While still incarcerated, Lall was interviewed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2020, who determined that he was a “removable alien with no proper claim to US citizenship” due to his conviction. In 2021, an immigration court ordered Lall to be removed from the US to Trinidad and Tobago, and he was deported in January 2021.
Lall was born in Trinidad and Tobago and entered the US after he was adopted by his parents, who were naturalized US citizens from Trinidad and Tobago. In 1990, Lall was 17 and a permanent resident in the US. Through his parents, he submitted an application claiming derivative citizenship under the former §321 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that allowed children to acquire citizenship when their parents naturalize. However, USCIS determined that he could not acquire citizenship under that section as he did not reside in the US when his parents naturalized in the 1970s. Lall challenged this by claiming that he was nonetheless eligible under INA §322 which allowed foreign-born children generally residing outside the US to naturalize. However, USCIS noted that Lall was only interviewed by INS and swore the Oath of Allegiance after he had turned 18, and thus was also ineligible under that section.
These findings were upheld by the appeals court, which noted that a Certificate of Citizenship was merely proof of citizenship but did not itself confer such status. It cited that citizenship is conferred lawfully “only when the statutory requirements for citizenship have been met”. As Lall had not met those requirements, he could not be a US citizen.
The court criticized USCIS for failing to promptly notify Mr. Lall about the cancellation of his Certificate of Citizenship, which facilitated the confusion about Lall’s citizenship status in the first place when “the government has known practically from the start that there was a mistake.” The court said, however, that it cannot grant citizenship to Mr. Lall as it would “circumvent the strict statutory requirements” for conferring citizenship, citing the US Supreme Court’s decision in I.N.S. v. Pangilinan.
The panel concluded by noting:
It is unfortunate that the government erroneously issued Lall a Certificate of Citizenship in the first place. And it is inexcusable that it quickly discovered its error but failed to correct it for over twenty-one years. Of course, it is Lall’s own subsequent criminal conduct that has brought the consequences of the government’s dereliction down on his head. Still, that dereliction has fundamentally changed Lall’s identity and place in the world. He turns to us for assistance, but we cannot provide the relief he seeks. Not every wrong is ours to right.
