United States v. Salvador Vanegas, Jr.

The United States appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court granting the petition of Vanegas for admission to citizenship. After the court’s decision he took the required oath of allegiance.

The ground of the appeal of the United States is that the District Court erred in granting the petition because, it contends, Vanegas has not maintained his burden of proof of the fact that he had been and still is a person of good moral character. At the hearing here it was admitted that evidence was presented on his behalf.

It is conceded by the United States that the law involved is the Immigration Act of 1940, 8 U.S.C. 707(a) providing:

The United States has brought to the court a meager partial record of the District Court’s hearing of his petition. None of the testimony of Vanegas or of any other witness on his behalf, if any, which was heard by the trial court, is before us. In the printed transcript is a statement of fact in a Naturalization Examiner’s report that: “The evidence of record indicates (Exhibit A) that the petitioner was convicted in the Municipal Court of the City of San Francisco on May 12, 1949, of the crime of petty theft. The sentence was…