U.S. chief justice alarmed at Trump

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Roberts and other Supreme Court justices indicated support for a deported ethnic Serb immigrant named Divna Maslenjak over her bid to regain her U.S. citizenship after it was stripped because she falsely stated her husband had not served in the Bosnian Serb army in the 1990s after Yugoslavia's collapse.

Roberts seemed particularly concerned that the government was asserting it could revoke citizenship through criminal prosecution for trivial lies or omissions.

He noted that in the past he has exceeded the speed limit while driving. If immigrants failed to disclose that on a citizenship application form asking them to list any instances of breaking the law, they could later lose their citizenship, the conservative chief justice said.

"Now you say that if I answer that question 'no,' 20 years after I was naturalized as a citizen, you can knock on my door and say, 'Guess what, you're not an American citizen after all?'" Roberts asked Justice Department lawyer Robert Parker.

Roberts described the administration's interpretation as inviting "prosecutorial abuse" because the government could likely find a reason for stripping citizenship from most naturalized citizens.

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"That to me is troublesome to give that extraordinary power, which, essentially, is unlimited power, at least in most cases, to the government," Roberts added.

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she falsely stated her husband had not served in the Bosnian Serb army in the 1990s after Yugoslavia's collapse.

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for trivial lies or omissions.

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The ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs targeted Muslim Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. The ethnic cleansing campaign included unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery, and inhumane treatment of civilians; the targeting of political leaders, intellectuals, and professionals; the unlawful deportation and transfer of civilians; the unlawful shelling of civilians; the unlawful appropriation and plunder of real and personal property; the destruction of homes and businesses; and the destruction of places of worship.

In the 1990s, several authorities asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of the Bosnian Serb army was genocide. These included a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly and three convictions for genocide in German courts (the convictions were based upon a wider interpretation of genocide than that used by international courts). In 2005, the United States Congress passed a resolution declaring that "the Serbian policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing meet the terms defining genocide".

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for trivial lies or omissions.

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U.S. chief justice alarmed at Trump

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Maslenjak's citizenship was revoked. She and her husband were deported to Serbia last October.

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