In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-3333 FITSUM G. SEGID, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, et al., Defendants-Appellees. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. No. 1:20-cv-01228-SEB-DML — Sarah Evans Barker, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED MAY 27, 2022 — DECIDED AUGUST 26, 2022 ____________________ Before ST. EVE, KIRSCH, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judges. JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge. Fitsum G. Segid applied to become a naturalized citizen but was denied, and when he petitioned a district court for review of that denial, that too was denied. He now appeals, but because he has waived his arguments on the merits, we affirm. 2 No. 21-3333 I Segid is a citizen of Eritrea. While he lived there, he was in a relationship with a woman. Together they had two children by 2004 and another in mid-2006. In January 2004, Segid mar- ried another woman who was a United States citizen in Eri- trea. He continued his relationship with both women until the first woman left him, taking the children with her, in October 2005. In early 2006, Segid fled Eritrea for Egypt. There, he ap- plied for an immigrant visa without the help of legal counsel. The visa application asked him to list “ALL Children.” But he did not list the two children from his first relationship (the third had not yet been born); instead, he simply marked “N/A.” He received the immigrant visa and moved to the United States to live with his wife. In February 2007, Segid became a lawful permanent resi- dent. Today, he has three children from his marriage, bring- ing his total number of children to six, from two different re- lationships. In April 2015, Segid applied for naturalization, again with- out the aid of legal counsel. On this application, he listed all six children, including the two omitted from his visa applica- tion. He also marked that he had never lied to a United States official to gain entry to the United States and that he had never given false, fraudulent, or misleading information to a United States government official. At his naturalization inter- view—where, again, he appeared without a lawyer—an adju- dications officer asked him if he had in fact never given false or misleading information to a government official. Segid de- nied doing so. The officer then confronted him about the No. 21-3333 3 discrepancy between his visa and naturalization applications. Segid responded that he did not list the two children because they were not part of his visa petition, and he did not believe he was named on their birth certificates. He also stated he did not list them because he worried for their safety if he did. In November 2017, United States Citizenship and Immi- gration Services denied Segid’s naturalization application. It determined that Segid had given false testimony at two dif- ferent points: (1) on his visa application, because he did not disclose his children, and …
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