Elon Musk May Be Stripped of US Citizenship If He Lies on Immigration Forms

These questions, said immigration lawyer Ira Kurzban, are asked to see if the applicant has obtained a place to live legally, which is a requirement for citizenship. He says, US immigration authorities have become “very strict” on this point in the last 10 years.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Service did not respond to a question about whether the forms used by the agency’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, asked the same questions Musk was using at the time, but experts say he did. very similar questions, as the relevant law has not changed.

“Those grounds for dismissal have been around for decades,” Yale-Loehr said, “and the forms back then probably had the same or similar questions.”

An immigrant who makes a misrepresentation as part of the naturalization process may also face criminal exposure: Under US federal law, making a false statement or concealing a material fact from the government carries a potential penalty of up to five years in prison.

Greg Siskind, a leading immigration attorney, doesn’t dispute that the law as written could expose someone who lies about working without authorization to lose citizenship, but says that as a practical matter, it may not be true.

“If he had disclosed it, would that have prevented him from receiving immigration benefits?” he asks. “The answer to that is probably no.”

Siskind, however, believes there are serious questions here about, among other things, the nature of the working relationship between the Musk brothers. And Musk’s past has a lot to do with the credentials he reportedly has as a top government contractor with a broad portfolio of assets related to national security.

Even if Musk was found to have broken the law, he would not be summarily fired. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an executive at the American Immigration Council, says: “It’s a good thing to strip someone of their citizenship because of a minor violation of status that happened decades ago. breaking arcane immigration laws.”

Under Trump, however, several experts have pointed out, the government has done much more to appease citizens than before. As Frost wrote in 2019, in the first year and a half of the Trump administration, USCIS opened an office dedicated to extradition, investigated thousands of citizens, and reported 95 to the Department of Justice with a recommendation for deportation. (From 1990 to 2017, there was an average of only 11 denaturalization cases per year.)

Even if USCIS has strong evidence that Musk has violated the law, experts say, it will not handle the matter administratively, but may refer it to the US attorney’s office. Prosecutors, who have broad discretion to take or reject charges, can proceed, or not, as they see fit.

Many of the open questions here could be cleared up by Musk authorizing the release of his immigration records under the Freedom of Information Act. His attorney, Spiro, did not respond to a question about whether he would do so.