One of the many traps on the way to residency and naturalization

An Arizona couple is learning about one of the many traps in American immigration law. It’s called “false claim of United States citizenship.”

In my experience, these false claim cases seem to affect the spouses of military personnel more than other groups. The typical case seems to be that at some time in the past that some zealous voter registrar shoved an application at the foreign national. An American citizen spouse or relative or friend urged the foreign national to register because “that’s what we do in America.”

The false claim, whether knowing or unknowing, usually leads to inadmissibility for the foreign national for which no “waiver” currently exists.