In our earlier discussion about immigration reform, many readers asked “What does this have to do with us?” and “Why should legal South Asian-Americans care about illegal immigrants?” The short answer is an apparent non-sequitur: Ahnold Schwarzenegger.
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Once an illegal, now a governor, someday a President? |
Ahnold’s immigration history is similar to that of many illegal desis. Like them, he didn’t wade across the Rio Grande. Instead he entered the country legally and then violated the terms of his visa.
Ahnold first came to the US in 1968 on a B-1 Visa with the following rules:
“a non-immigrant in B-1 status may not receive a salary from a U.S. source for services rendered in connection with his or her activities in the United States” [Link]
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However, in his own autobiography, Schwarzenegger said that bodybuilding supremo Joe Weider gave him an apartment, a car, and a salary of $200/week during this period.
A year later, Weider was able to sponsor Schwarzenegger for a H-2 visa, which allowed Schwarzenegger to work, but only in the area related to his visa. However,
…he violated the terms of his H-2 work visa by launching this bricklaying business in 1971… immigration attorneys across the country said Schwarzenegger would have been barred by visa restrictions from starting his own business… “That would be considered a violation of your status, and he would have been subject to deportation.” [Link]
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p>None of this caught up with him though. We all know the Schwarzenegger Cinderella story – he made it big in bodybuilding, endorsements, real estate, and movies. He was never deported, and instead became a US citizen in 1983 (he still retains Austrian citizenship on the side). He married a Kennedy, hobnobbed with Reagan and Bush, was elected Republican governor of California, and is now angling to become the President of the United States. All of this was possible precisely because his previous immigration irregularities were overlooked. However, if the Sensenbrenner bill (1, 2) becomes law, others will be denied this chance and become felons.
Honestly, I have less sympathy for people who (like Ahnold) sneak in as tourists and overstay. They make it very hard for people to legitimately obtain a tourist visa; it took my uncle years to be able to visit us in the USA because the INS thought that he would leave his wife, children, house and business in Delhi all for the opportunity to live in Amreeka.
My concern is with the student who takes an off campus job for a bit of extra money, or who fails to take enough classes and whose status slips. I wonder about the tech worker in Silicon Valley who takes a bit too long to switch between jobs, and whose status lapses. I worry about legal and employed people who fail to inform the INS of their new address within 10 days of a move, and who fall out of status [Link]. All these people would become felons under the Sensenbrenner bill, and if any of them are your roommates, you’d be committing a crime by cosigning a lease with them. The bill’s provisions are broad and
… could endanger advocates, social workers, lawyers, medical professionals, and others because the bill expands the scope of the federal criminal offenses of of smuggling, transporting, and/or harboring undocumented immigrants. [Link]
Finally, if somebody doesn’t like the way an illegal immigrant looks, they have few rights:
The bill would enhance the Department of Homeland Security’s powers to detain individuals considered dangerous indefinitely, with review every six months [Link]
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p>At this point we’ve gone from talking about Ahnold to describing something out of one of his movies, except that he’s not here to save the day.
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p>Here’s my bottom line: I’m too American to abandon the rule of law. That’s why I care about illegals.
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The analysis of Schwarzenegger’s immigration status comes from: No amnesty for Arnold, he’s an “illegal alien” (I’m Kaavya-proofing myself)
Related posts: Immigration smokescreen, A Day Without a South Asian American: Boycott May 1st
this is a mighty informative thread.
Ennis and JOAT —
Very, very crudely, in a nutshell:
Denationalization and loss of citizenship are indeed very difficult, and the treason standard JOAT hints at applies to all citizens, whether native-born and naturalized. But naturalization can be revoked if it was improperly obtained in the first place. A naturalized (as opposed to native-born) citizen may be denaturalized if their citizenship was “illegally procured or . . . procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” And an application for naturalization may only be granted in the first place if the individual (1) is lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, and (2) has been a person of “good moral character,” among other requirements.
The facts here would matter a great deal, and I haven’t had time to wade through the facts of his particular situation or all of the potential legal provisions that might have applied at various steps along the way. (Or, frankly, the inclination to do so — after all, whether the governor of California fraudulently obtained his citizenship isn’t a consequential matter of public concern, like Kaavya Viswanathan’s plagiarism.) But if Ahnold obtained his green card or naturalization by giving false information to the INS, or by failing to disclose material information that he should have provided, then that could have had bearing on his “good moral character” or lack thereof, and depending on the circumstances could even at the time have been an independent criminal violation or ground for deportation — quite apart from the alleged violation of his original visa terms itself, which isn’t entirely clear to me.
(The alleged violation of the visa terms also may or may not have affected his ability to adjust status from his non-immigrant visa and get a green card — I’m not sure, and haven’t looked into it. Assuming of course that he fully disclosed everything to the INS at the time — if he didn’t, that seems to raise different issues.)
It seems to me, then, that the major issue for him might be whether he concealed anything at any point along the way that he should have disclosed to the INS. The fact that it all took place a long time ago and he’s now a citizen probably does not matter — just ask John Demjanjuk or the many others who have been denaturalized after many years in the US after naturalization. (Maybe it should, but if so then that should apply across the board to everyone, not just famous bodybuilder-politicians.)
As I said, very crudely. Haven’t spent time to really think through the issues closely, and there might be other relevant wrinkles here. This is, after all, the wonderful world of immigration law, which bears “striking resemblance …[to] King Minos’s labyrinth in ancient Crete” and is an example of “Congress’s ingenuity in passing statutes certain to accelerate the aging process of judges.” (Not to mention the aging process of lawyers themselves.)
Thanx AK for the information. I suppose any dreams of taking down the Terminator are doomed at the prospects of finding anything unlawful in his past.
“A naturalized (as opposed to native-born) citizen may be denaturalized if their citizenship was “illegally procured or . . . procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” And an application for naturalization may only be granted in the first place if the individual (1) is lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, and (2) has been a person of ‘good moral character,’ “
Apparently in the post 9-11 scenario, the above (possibility of denaturalization) can and has been used to harrass/take into custody anyone deemed ‘suspicious’ including people working on Urdu/Muslim type research esp. of a political nature etc. I attended a seminar at a univ in which a lawyer currently fighting for people who have been detained without any real cause told students that any evidence of their having taken part in ‘anti-war’/’unpatriotic’ activities (demonstrations, signing petitions, contacts) etc could be used against them when it came to seeking citizenship in the current atmosphere. Sad.
ok . i pointed this out in the parallel thread – of relevance here – and to the lunar voyages planned in another – von braun is an example of an ex-nazi who got a clean chit to work here because the alternative would have been the US would have lost out on the space race – here’s another slogan – one step for man, a giant leapfrog on the back of depravity – von braun was one of the commanding SS officers running the german rocket project out of a slave colony at peenemunde – code named dora – popular way to keep the slaves in line – garrot and string up transgressors on the entrance to the caves so that the shift workers can see what can and will happen if they slip up or fall short of targets – and this pleasant chappie is your friendly neighborhood rocket man today – i do admire the bullheaded adversarial system in play in the US though – and i’d love to see somebody cite operation paperclip as a precedent when someone on the wrong side of 9/11 conspiracy gets dinged by INS and decides to take it up in the legal system.
Yep.
I think it’s a political non-starter, agreed. However, if there was political will, there might be the legal material to do so. Why? Because even now his lawyers wont acknowledge that he violated his visa, which means that he probably didn’t tell the INS when he got his greencard, which might constitute fraud.
Also, as I mentioned, his bricklaying business involved fraud – they would weaken structures so that they could rebuild them. He admitted this freely back in the day. While the statute of limitations on this offense is long up, involvement in fraudulent activity back then might also get him into trouble.
However, I’m not an immigration lawyer, and this will never go anywhere. It’s just funny/sad in light of his statements about illegal immigrants.
Ennis, I don’t think that you would disagree with this, but as is implicit in Ms Fink Nottle’s comment, I assume that many of us don’t actually want to see him denaturalized or deported, given the ways in which the threat of denaturalization and deportation are more routinely used so unjustly. (Though it would be so deliciously satisfying to see him sitting before a hanging immigration judge.) At least speaking for myself, all I want is explicit recognition of the gross double standard involved in all of these arguments to excuse him, as well as a recognition that these kinds of immigration violations should indeed be excused more easily and more frequently — and for everyone, not just rich Hollywood bimbotrons — than they are now. (Though maybe that does require a leveling a credible threat against him.) As Mae Ngai has argued, we should have a statute of limitations on deportation, and we should restore the avenues for discretionary relief from deportation that were available to many non-citizens for decades before 1996. There isn’t a limitations period on denaturalization, either, and probably should be as well.
But at the end of the day, I hope for is a way to use his immigration record as an effective argument against these sweeping and punitive immigration proposals.
I agree. But if I was an immigrant rights advocate, I might think that the best way to bring attention to the double standard would be to make noise about deporting Arnold (not that they could, it would all be in the hands of the INS). Since most people think that the deal that Arnold got was reasonable, this could be used to argue for the same deal for others as well.
Isnt there a 10 year statute of limitation on material lies/fraud on the citizenship application?
From a nolegal standpoint i agree, but i think from a legal framework it was not as there was no Schwartzeneger Vs Gonzalez ruling.
I didn’t think that was the case but perhaps I’m wrong. Demjanjuk naturalized in 1958, and denaturalization proceedings weren’t initiated until the 1980s, I think.
I suppose any dreams of taking down the Terminator are doomed at the prospects of finding anything unlawful in his past.
I see that my inquiries (see #71, #82) as to whether legal recourse may effectively take care of ex-illegal aliens like Arnold has led us to nowhere.
If taking legal action is not an option, what is?
Maybe if we put the Minutemen on him?
However, if there was political will, there might be the legal material to do so. Why? Because even now his lawyers wont acknowledge that he violated his visa, which means that he probably didn’t tell the INS when he got his greencard, which might constitute fraud.
As far as I know, there’s broad, legal discretion for the DHS or Attorney General to stop a deportation if they feel like it or for Congress to pass a private bill to legalize or terminate immigration proceedings against a particular person (or persons). So the distinction between legal and political here is largely irrelevant, as far as I know (e.g. the Bangladeshi 16 year old that was forced to accept “Voluntary Departure” last year could have been allowed to stay at any point if the DHS or DOJ had used it’s discretion).
The point about using this as a tactic to call attention to the hypocrisy inherent in opposition to immigration among some is a good one. It also highlights how much of opposition to “immigration” has to do with race.
Somehow I knew you were Bengali. Don’t ask how, I just knew. Intuition.
Sadly, I do my utmost to be a walking stereotype. At least on the internets 😉
I’ll bet 5000 rupees that had his name been not “Arnold” but “Anwar” or worse, “Arnaldo”, all of those Desi mutineers poo-pooing illegal immigration would be in this forum right now, baying for blood and frothing at the corners of their mouths.