U.S. senators: are they as powerful as portrayed in the media?

[gunnergoz]

Originally Posted by AK84

Well I must say that I am surprised that you could not get US citizenship through your dad. Furthermore, while I understand that the US Court are (from a common wealth POV) ridiculously deferential to the executive, the decision to send a six year old back while allowing the family seems a textbook case of capricious and irrational use of power. Would the courts not have been easier?

I could not get into the US to get the citizenship. They refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of my entry documents. So I was ordered removed from the country. This was in a US Immigration Court in New Jersey. My parents took the only option open to them that would keep our family together...to leave the USA and return to Italy.

Recall that my "dad" was not my biological father, as it turned out - he had adopted me. The original immigration court determined that the adoption papers were insufficient to let me enter the USA, but they were used later once my legal entry was arranged by the US senator's actions.