These questions, says immigration lawyer Ira KurzbanThey are asked whether the applicant validly obtained residency, a prerequisite for citizenship. US immigration authorities, he says, have become “very demanding” on this point over the past 10 years.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not respond to a question about whether the forms used by its predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, asked exactly these questions at the time Musk would have been using them, but the Experts say they would have asked substantially similar questions, since the relevant law has not changed.
“These grounds for deportation have been around for decades,” Yale-Loehr says, “and the forms back then probably contained similar or identical questions.”
An immigrant who makes false statements as part of the naturalization process may also face criminal exposure: Low united states federal lawMaking a false statement or concealing a material fact from the government carries a potential penalty of five years in prison.
Greg Siskind, a standout immigration lawyerHe doesn’t disagree that the law as written could expose someone who lied about working without authorization to loss of citizenship, but says that, in practice, it may not constitute a material fact.
“If he had disclosed it, would that have prevented him from obtaining subsequent immigration benefits?” ask. “The answer is probably no.”
However, Siskind believes there are serious questions about, among other things, the nature of the professional relationship between the Musk brothers. And Musk’s past is highly relevant to the clearances he reportedly holds as a major government contractor with a broad portfolio of national security-related holdings.
Even if Musk were found to have violated the law, he would not be summarily deported. “In general, it is quite difficult to revoke someone’s citizenship for relatively minor status violations that occurred decades earlier,” says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a member of the American Immigration Council, adding that this is “a good thing given how easily it can be be”. violate arcane immigration rules.”
However, during the Trump administration, several experts noted, the government did much more to denaturalize citizens than before. like frost wrote In 2019, in the first year and a half of the Trump administration, USCIS opened an office dedicated to denaturalization, investigated thousands of citizens and reported 95 to the Department of Justice with a recommendation for deportation. (From 1990 to 2017, there was a average of only 11 cases of denaturation per year.)
Even if USCIS had strong evidence that Musk had violated the law, experts say, it would not handle the matter administratively but might instead refer it to a U.S. attorney’s office. Prosecutors, who have broad discretion to accept or reject cases, could then proceed or not proceed as they see fit.
Many of the open questions here could be clarified if Musk authorized the release of his immigration records under the Freedom of Information Act. His lawyer, Spiro, did not respond to a question about whether he would do so.
