The Situation

My client owed the IRS back taxes and was paying them off in monthly installments, on a schedule the IRS itself had approved, without ever missing one. He had filed every return and passed his naturalization interview. Then USCIS denied his application for lack of good moral character.

The specific charge was that he had failed to pay his income taxes:

“USCIS finds that your failure to pay income taxes is an unlawful act that adversely affects your moral character. Your explanation for your failure to pay taxes has not established any extenuating circumstances that would warrant a departure from this finding. Therefore, you have not demonstrated that you are a person of good moral character. For this reason, you are ineligible for naturalization at this time.”

And just like that, USCIS ruined his day.

Owing Is Not Failing to Pay

The denial treated a debt as if it were a crime. Owing money to the IRS is not a crime in any U.S. jurisdiction. The denial confused owing taxes with failing to pay them. Millions of taxpayers owe income taxes: because too little was withheld, because a freelance check arrived untaxed, because an investment paid out, because a house sold or an inheritance came through. That is why the IRS has installment agreements. Good moral character has never turned on whether a person owes the government money. It turns on conduct.

USCIS’s own manual settles such tax issues: a record must prove the returns were filed and taxes either paid or arranged to be paid. USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 12, Part F, Chapter 5. That was the first ground for reopening the case.

There was a second, independent ground. The case arose in the Ninth Circuit, where a moral-character denial cannot rest on a single mark against the applicant. The examiner has to weigh that mark against the rest of the record before judging the person. Hussein v. Barrett, 820 F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 2016). This denial weighed none of it. It found the tax debt and stopped. Failing even to perform the analysis the circuit requires is an abuse of discretion, and that alone was enough to reopen the case.

There was a third, independent ground. My client was married and had filed jointly in every year at issue. The debt belonged to the couple, not to him alone. Both husband and wife were jointly and severally liable. The denial blamed the husband alone for a debt he shared with his wife.

By the time I filed the motion, the debt the denial was built on no longer existed. My client had paid the balance in full. He owed nothing.

The Result

USCIS reversed the denial just over three months after I filed the motion. My client was sworn in as a U.S. citizen.