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By TERRIE MORGAN-BESECKER [email protected]
Saturday, July 02, 2005     Page: 3A

A Vietnamese woman who operates a local nail salon is challenging a
decision by a federal agency to deny her citizenship because she failed to
report several shoplifting arrests.
   
Xuan Thi Nguyen says her failure to report the arrests was not intentional,
and that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services wrongly determined she
“lacked good morale character.”
    “This is really such a minor event and it wasn’t something that she did
intentionally,” said Nguyen’s attorney, Joseph McDevitt of West Conshohocken.
“It’s a situation where the UCIS is really being overly technical.”
   
Nguyen and her husband have operated Tommy’s Nail Salon on Wyoming Avenue
for several years. Nguyen had worked three years to become a U.S. citizen and
was a month shy of reaching the goal in March 2004 when the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service cancelled her induction ceremony.
   
McDevitt said Nguyen does not deny she failed to report three shoplifting
arrests in Canada in 1993, 1995 and 1997 on her citizenship application. But
she maintains the failure was an unintentional oversight caused in part by
Nguyen’s minimal understanding of the English language.
   
Two of the arrests came to light in February 2004, when Nguyen was
returning from a trip to Canada through the Philadelphia airport. Customs
agents ran her passport and permanent residency card through a computer system
and learned there was an outstanding warrant for her for failing to appear at
hearing on the 1995 arrest.
   
McDevitt said the 1995 charge has since been dropped by Canadian officials.
But the Immigration Service determined her failure to report the arrest
violated its regulations regarding “good morale character,” which requires
applicants answer all questions truthfully.
   
McDevitt said he is challenging whether the agency’s decision is reasonable
given the circumstances of case, especially since the shoplifting arrests
would not by themselves disqualify Nguyen from citizenship.
   
“They’re not taking a balanced view of all the facts,” McDevitt said. “She
is a business woman who operates her own shop . . . There is no question
whatsoever whether this person is a credit to the community.”
   
Nguyen has been in the U.S. for a least a decade through a permanent
residency card. Her husband is already a citizen. She decided to seek
citizenship in 2002 because she is grateful for the opportunities the United
States provided them, McDevitt said.
   
“They came to the U.S. to be afforded the opportunity, through hard work,
to better their lives. These are not people who came to the U.S. to get on
welfare,” he said.
   
McDevitt filed his petition Friday. A hearing will not be set before a U.S.
district judge. Whatever the legal ruling, Nguyen will be permitted to stay in
the U.S. as she already has a permanent residency card, McDevitt said.
   
“This is really such a minor event and it wasn’t something that she did
intentionally.”
   
Joseph McDevitt Attorney This is really such a minor
event and it wasn’t something that she did intentionally.”