What are the three worst mistakes you can make at USCIS? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. Today, I feel like a school teacher. I need you to remember your three F's: false, fraud, frivolous.
These are the three F words, the dirty words that start with F, inside immigration. So I want to talk about each of those, and I want to fill you in on how these mistakes, or actual errors in judgment, can ruin you when it comes to immigration forever. In other words, if you commit one of these mistakes, it might keep you from ever getting any immigration benefit in the United States for the rest of your life. All right, let's talk about false. So false is false claim to citizenship.
So if you have voted in the past, if you have registered to vote, if you have filled out an I9 on an employment form, and said that you are a US citizen, if you have applied for health insurance, if you've applied for government benefits, if you've told people that you were a US citizen, if you served on a jury, any of these things can keep you from getting your citizenship later, from getting any immigration benefit whatsoever, and it's even a deportable offense. So the first F is false, for false claim to citizenship. So don't ever make a false claim to citizenship.
And just as importantly, if you have either on purpose or by mistake made a claim that you were a citizen, or accidentally registered to vote, or even voted, you want to make sure that you talk to an immigration lawyer before you try to obtain your next immigration benefit. So if you have a false claim to citizenship, that's a very serious matter. It can get you deported. And I just was talking to somebody the other day, who allowed her nephew to file an application and marked yes on, have you ever claimed to be a US citizen? It blows my mind.
All right. Number two, frivolous. So the next thing is you don't want to ever file a frivolous application for asylum. And a frivolous asylum application is one that has no merit whatsoever. So everyone understands that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose at immigration when it comes to filing for your asylum case. So if you file a frivolous asylum claim, that's one where nobody really believes you. You don't have any real evidence, like an idea of a frivolous asylum case would be. If I go back to England, they're going to throw me in jail and torture me. Well, as far as we know, England is not jailing people and torturing them inside the United Kingdom. So it's unlikely that your asylum case is going to be granted.
But what you're really concerned about is whether it's a frivolous asylum application. So if you file a frivolous asylum application, obviously that application will be denied. You will be put into removal proceedings. You will probably be deported and you will not be able to come back. You will not be able to get other immigration benefits. So let's just say you filed a frivolous asylum application, but you happen to have a child in the United States, who's 16, that when that child turns 21, if you've been deported and you want to come back, then that's going to make it very unlikely for you to be able to do so, because you're going to be stripped of the ability to ever get any immigration benefit.
All right, so we talked about F, false. We talked about F, frivolous, and now we're going to talk about F, fraud. So that's marriage fraud. So if you engage in any kind of marriage fraud, if USCIS concludes that you entered into a marriage, just to obtained an immigration benefit, that can prevent you from ever getting any green card or any other benefit, separate from getting your case denied. And of course, it's also a crime. So immigration fraud in the marriage context is a crime, and it can not only get you thrown in jail, it can also get you deported. So if you file a BS or a fake marriage based case, that's really going to screw you up in the future.
So those are the three F's, false claims to citizenship, frivolous asylum applications, and fraudulent marriage. If you ever get accused of those things, you really want to talk to an immigration lawyer right away. You might need to clean up your record. You might need to make sure that they are wrong. You might need to fight back. So if you need help with any of these three F's, give us a call at (314) 961-8200. You can email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us on our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. And if you like this video, we ask that you please share it out on social so that you can share it with your friends and neighbors, and make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so that whenever we make a video, like this one, that you get updated right away. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
