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Ninth Circuit affirms woman’s immigration fraud convictions
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a Chinese woman’s convictions on two counts of immigration document fraud for lying in her immigration application.
In a decision yesterday, the Ninth Circuit judges ruled that the evidence was sufficient to support Liwen Tang’s convictions.
The judges said both the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services I-485 Form and the immigration adjudicator asked Tang to disclose all of her children.
I-485 Form is the primary application to register permanent residence, or a “green card,” or to adjust status.
The judges said Tang’s false responses to those questions were capable of influencing a decision to grant her permanent resident status because the immigration adjudicator testified that the information could have cast doubt on the legitimacy of her marriage to Patrick Mansfield.
“They were thus material,” the judges said.
The judges said there was also sufficient evidence for the jury to find that Tang understood the questions being asked and understood that the answers she gave were false.
“For instance, Tang told the investigators that she did not disclose her previous child because she was ashamed to have had a child out of wedlock,” the judges said.
According to the indictment, Tang lied in her application to register for permanent residence or adjust status with USCIS. Tang claimed that her only child was her daughter born in 2006 when in fact she also gave birth to a son in April 2002.
In May 2012, a federal jury reached a verdict, finding Tang guilty of two counts of immigration document fraud. Court-appointed counsel Colin Thompson served as her counsel.
Tang appealed to the Ninth Circuit to reverse her convictions, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence presented.
In affirming the convictions, the Ninth Circuit judges said the form plainly asked Tang to list “all” of her children and that her response identifying only one of her two children was a false statement.
