8th Circuit decides N.D. case Tuesday, March 15, 2022

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has issued an opinion in a North Dakota immigration case.

The court explained that, upon review of the United State Citizenship and Immigration Services's denial of appellant Haciosmanuglu's application for naturalization, the district court concluded that Haciosmanuglu's 2015 disorderly conduct conviction was a per se bar to naturalization and granted the government's motion to dismiss.

The court decided that the district court erred in dismissing the petition by concluding that the disorderly conduct conviction precluded a finding of good moral character and thus a bar to naturalization. Disorderly conduct is not among the enumerated bars to a finding of good moral character and, as an unlawful act, it is to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis taking into account the standards of the average citizen in the community, an analysis the district court did not conduct.

Because Haciosamanuglu's petition contains allegations sufficient to plausibly allege he is a person of good moral character, the district court should have looked to the facts pleaded as required for a case-by-case assessment of naturalization applications. The district court is reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.

Read the court's opinion in Haciosmanoglu v. Tritten: https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/22/03/212584U.pdf