United States v. Marisela Castro-Juarez

MEMORANDUM *

Defendant-appellant Marisela Castro-Juarez (Castro) appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States stripping Castro of her naturalized U.S. citizenship. The district court found that Castro willfully misrepresented and concealed material facts to procure U.S. citizenship because she failed to disclose her criminal history on her application for naturalization and in her INS interview. Castro concedes that she misrepresented her criminal history, but argues that she did not do so willfully. She contends she was unable to recall those facts at the time she filled out the form, due to traumatic events in her past that caused her to repress her memories. Castro also argues that her criminal history was not material because the acts occurred outside the relevant five-year period leading up to her application for naturalization, and that the government has not sufficiently shown that her criminal history renders her ineligible for naturalization. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

Summary judgment is review'ed de novo. The moving party bears the initial burden of identifying evidence in the record that *366…

dissenting

Revoking Marisela Castro-Juaréz’s (“Marisela Castro”) U.S. citizenship through summary judgment, thereby bypassing a trial on the merits, is inappropriate and cruel.

It is no exaggeration to describe Marise-la Castro’s adolescent and teenage years as a “living hell.” From the age of six, Marisela Castro suffered ceaseless sexual abuse at the hands of multiple predatory men: two uncles, a tenant in her mother’s house, and her mother’s boyfriend. Her mother abandoned her when she was 11, choosing an abusive boyfriend over her own daughter.

Marisela Castro spent the next- eight years bouncing around more than twenty foster homes and living on the streets. She frequently considered taking her own life.

During this time, when she was only fifteen, Marisela Castro was arrested for trespassing and spent six months in Juvenile Hall. She was homeless at the time, and she and a friend were in an abandoned home, looking for a place to sleep. On many other occasions, the police would find Marisela Castro sleeping in an abandoned home or in a field and take her to Juvenile Hall for the night or return her to her foster home.

When she was eighteen, Marisela Castro spent two…

FILED

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

JUN 28 2016

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 14-56080

Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 3:12-cv-02643-JLS-

WVG

v.

MARISELA CASTRO-JUAREZ, AKA MEMORANDUM*

Judy Maricella Juarez, AKA Marisela Castro Vargas,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Janis L. Sammartino, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted May 2, 2016 Pasadena, California

Before: PREGERSON, BYBEE, and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges.

Defendant-appellant Marisela Castro-Juarez (Castro) appeals the district

court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States stripping Castro

of her naturalized U.S. citizenship. The district court found that Castro willfully

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3. misrepresented and concealed material facts to procure U.S. citizenship because

she failed to disclose her criminal history on her application for…