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There are a couple of legal principles which might apply here, but about
which the writer isn't clear. Without seeing the legal documents
themselves, I don't know if they're significant, but here goes...
Except under explicitly defined circumstances, after a certain period of
time, depending on the jurisdiction (which State? Federal?) and the kind
of case (civil? criminal?) a court's judgment is considered final and
cannot be disturbed. There is a statute of limitations for most actions,
so bringing an action after expiration of the statutory time is
prohibited. I'm not familiar with the law applying to naturalization,
but I would presume that an attempt to bring an action to void an action
by the government which naturalized a person, making him or her a
citizen, might fall under this kind of limitation.
This idea of the finality of a judgment is a big deal among jurists,
because, without it, litigation might potentially go on endlessly. The
courts interpret these time limits fairly strictly.
The other principle is based on a corruption of the process itself, not
the issues. This corruption of the process is called "extrinsic" fraud,
to distinguish it from "intrinsic" fraud relating to the evidence
itself. The courts apply the logic that the proper process must be
strictly employed. ("Due process" is the proper process, which is
always due.) We will be saved by the process, or so goes the reasoning.
For example, bribery of a witness or court official, or the intentional
failure to join a necessary party, are considered extrinsic fraud, while
perjury is considered intrinsic. While the doctrine of finality, and the
strict time limits, apply to instrinsic fraud, they don't normally apply
to extrinsic fraud. A judgment based on perjury may not be disturbed
after some period of time, but a judgment based on bribing a juror can
be revisited after the bribery has been discovered many years later.
These principle explain why the courts won't always re-visit a
conviction based on perjury, why men found guilty of a capital crime and
sentenced to death, might remain on death row, even after the perjury is
revealed later.
I'd like to know why these principles aren't applied here. In other
kinds of cases, lying on a form years before, if the form were
introduced into evidence, wouldn't be grounds for invalidating the
judgment after the judgment were to become final. The legal reasoning is
that the process of discovery, questioning witnesses, and so on, gave
the other party (the U.S. government?) the opportunity to discover the
lying, and if the other party didn't give it its best shot then it
doesn't get a second bite at the apple. To re-open cases in such
instances would be an admission by the courts that the laws and the
court procedures aren't adequate, and they almost never would do that.
Does any one with a stronger legal background have an explanation for
this? Is there simply no statute of limitations which would apply? Or
is some immigration lawyer asleep on the job? Or are the judges, as
they sometimes do, simply ignoring the applicable law?
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