A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a cut-and-dried opinion Friday affirming last year’s district court summary judgment denying Maria Elena Reimers the right to become a naturalized citizen. Reimers is the owner of a Washington State dispensary who was born in El Salvador and moved legally to the United States in 2004, where she has resided ever since, married a U.S. citizen, and started the aforementioned business, Cannarail Station, which is located in Ephrata, Washington.

As explained last year by Harris Bricken’s Jesse Mondry, Reimers applied for naturalization in 2017, and in  2018, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) “denied her application for naturalization finding that her role as a co-owner of a marijuana dispensary made her an ‘illicit trafficker of a controlled substance.’ This meant, per the USCIS, that plaintiff lacked the required ‘good moral character’ needed to be qualified for U.S. citizenship. The plaintiff appealed within the immigration system and then filed an appeal with the federal district court.”

In the aftermath of Reimers’s loss at the district level and subsequent appeal to the Ninth Circuit, the Daily Mail published a story about the challenges faced by the 45-year-old mother of two, who has permanent resident status in the United States. “We didn’t think it would be a problem because, among other things, I had to submit fingerprints to get the license for the store, so they have my information,” Reimers is quoted as saying. “My husband and I have never broken the law.” Her lawyer, Alycia Moss, added that no criminal charges have been filed against her client, but she did advise her “not to leave the United States in case she is not allowed to return.” The paper also noted that Reimers said she would appeal a loss at the appeals court level to the United States Supreme Court.

The four-page opinion affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment to USCIS was issued by circuit judges M. Margaret McKeown, Jay Bybee, and Roopali Desai for the Ninth Circuit, which has long had a reputation as a left-leaning court. In this case, however, the panel was succinct in its findings, holding, “We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment. We affirm.”

Describing the mechanics by which the government-imposed Catch-22 has enmeshed Reimers, the opinion states, “To qualify for naturalization, an applicant must establish that ‘during the five years immediately preceding the date of filing [the] application,’ she ‘has been and still is a person of good moral character.’ But an applicant is precluded from establishing good moral character if she violated the Controlled Substances Act.”

Put another way, but just as problematic for the plaintiff, the opinion continues, “Ms. Reimers admitted to operating a marijuana business. Even though Ms. Reimers’s business is licensed under Washington law, it nevertheless constitutes a violation of the CSA. See 21 U.S.C. § 812, Schedule I(c)(10) (designating marijuana as a controlled substance). And, even though Ms. Reimers may otherwise be eligible to naturalize, her operation of a licensed marijuana business categorically precludes her from qualifying for naturalization. We therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment.”

The opinion swiped away a few other challenges made by Reimers lawyers, including rejecting a constitutional challenge to the “good moral character” statutory bar in this case, arguing that it is “foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent.” The panel also rejected Reimers’s claim that she was not afforded equal justice under the law, opining, “She contends that she is treated differently than citizen marijuana business owners, but Ms. Reimers is not a citizen and, moreover, the naturalization statutes do not apply to citizens.” The panel added that Reimers had failed to show that “Defendants treated similarly situated individuals—other non-citizen marijuana business owners—differently under the naturalization statutes.”

With that, the opinion concludes, “We thus affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment in Defendants’ favor on Ms. Reimers’s constitutional challenges.”

A request for comment from the plaintiff’s lawyer was not immediately returned.