So the Immigration people arrested a student from Columbia University. It seem the Powers That Be did not like his activities relating to protests on campus. Much is being made that he is married to an American, has a child on the way and is a “green card holder.”
I believe that the green card allows him to live in the US indefinitely. It also allows him to work in the US. Am I correct on these points?
What legal difference would there be in arresting this guy and arresting his twin brother who is on a tourist visa? .
What can I properly call a green-card holder? A “landed alien?”
Permanent resident is the technical term that the U.S. CIS uses. And, yes, a holder of a “permanent resident card” is allowed to live and work in the U.S. permanently.
Some of the issues around this is that he was on a student visa previously when he was engaging in the activities in question. The bar for cancelling a visa is significantly lower and is administrative rather than judicial.
I thought that when Justin Beiber committed some minor crime that I read it was not enough to cancel his visa. Are the standards different for different visas?
Note that the bar is lower to arbitrarily deport non-citizens; see the Alien Friends Act and so on. They can and have deported politically incorrect U.S. citizens as well, via revoking their American citizenship, but you may have a better chance of fighting that in court.
It’s very hard to revoke citizenship absent (a) fraud or mistake in the naturalization process or (b) express voluntary surrender of citizenship, generally from overseas.
The proper term is legal resident, legal permanent resident, or permanent resident. “Alien” as a descriptor for actual humans is disfavored in civil conversation (as contrasted against the growing movement to normalize its use as a way to talk about—and dehumanize—noncitizens).
My daughter-in-law is a British citizen who is a permanent resident here. She has no desire for citizenship, and has to renew things at established intervals. At the moment she is back in Old Blighty to tend to her very ill mother. I’m slightly worried that she is going to be hassled by over-zealous customs people when she returns to the US.
That actually is a not insignificant problem from which a lot of case law about legal residents has arisen (residents returning to their country of origin for lengthy stays to take care of sick relatives, then having trouble returning to the US). I won’t go into detail because I don’t want to be imagined as giving legal advice, but if she’s going to be out of the country for 6 months or more it might be a good idea for her to consult with an immigration attorney. Ideally before six months has elapsed.
Immigration law is really touchy. A lot of what people imagine must just be due to overzealous functionaries often has a much more deeply rooted basis in law. Things that might seem small to a lay person can actually have huge consequences.
Definitely do this. This is actually the reason I got citizenship during the last Trump administration, so if wanted to stay outside the country I could do
Green card holders have much more due process than people with a visa. Khalil is a legal permanent resident (aka green card holder) and no one can strip him of that without a valid reason that must be proved in front of a Judge. Some reasons can be residing outside the US for too long; certain crimes, voting fraud, and genocide, torture, etc.
For Khalil, there can also be “national security” grounds for a valid revocation. One is specifically called and you can read them here: TRIG - Terrorism-Related Inadmissibility Grounds. It would not apply to purely political speech.
Another “national security” ground, and most likely here, would be a cold war era law that basically says a legal permanent resident is deportable if the “Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to believe that his or her presence or activities in the U.S. would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences of the U.S.” In order to make such a determination, Secretary Rubio is required to notify the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees and the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees (not sure if Rubio made that formal notification, but he did tweet on Mar 6: Those who support designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, threaten our national security. The United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorists. Violators of U.S. law — including international students — face visa denial or revocation, and deportation).
If I remember my citizenship test learning materials correctly I believe fighting against the US in another country’s army is also considered revoking your citizenship
Generally though for citizenship it’s pretty much “no backsies” (though you can bet the Trump admin will be looking for “fraud” in the naturalisation process of “undesirables”, in fact they started doing so in their first administration ). Having a green card while it has some protections, is much closer to having a tourist visa than having citizenship in that respect
Friends of mine – a couple who were both born in Ireland – emigrated to the U.S. as permanent residents in the early '90s. The husband of the couple became a naturalized U.S. citizen about 20 years ago, but the wife had resisted doing that for a long time; originally, she felt more of a connection to being an Irish citizen than her husband did.
About six or seven years ago, between getting hassled a few times by U.S. Customs when she was returning to the U.S. from trips back to Ireland (“you’ve had a green card for 20 years, why aren’t you a citizen yet?”), and distrust of the first Trump’s administration’s views towards non-citizens, she started the naturalization process, though she hasn’t completed it yet.
That is my fear/expectation as well. I am most worried for how they might use the question about “have you ever committed a crime you were not arrested for?” Because the truth is everyone has. Speeding, jaywalking, underage drinking—don’t even get me started on possession of marijuana. But the near-universal response on the N-400 is going to be “no.”
I would wager that, with a concerted effort, you could find a material error in the vast majority of N-400s, particularly among those who did not consult with a immigration attorney before filing. Although there is one particular naturalized citizen who I hope gets just that sort of scrutiny when he inevitably falls from favor.
I (not a lawyer) have always been told that if you are a green card holder and are going to be outside of the US for an extended period of time (like a year), that you apply for a “re-entry permit” to ease your return. That might be something to look into.
Basically, permanent resident status is meant for residents, not just as a “super-visa” that lets someone come and go as they please. Having something that affirms “yes, things are keeping me away for a while, but the US is still home” is useful for showing that.
Fun fact: in Saskatchewan, any British subject, not just Canadian citizens, could vote in Saskatchewan elections up to 1971. After the 1971 election, you had to be a Canadian citizen to register to vote for the first time.
However, there was a grandfather clause. Any British subject who was on the electoral rolls for the 1971 provincial election is still entitled to vote in provincial elections.
Since the voting age was 21 in 1971, that means that any British subject who meets this test would be at least 74 years old now.
My wife has had a green card for nearly 40 years and I have to bite my tongue every time Customs asks her that. I wish she could say, “none of your damned business”, but my wife is smarter than that. That said, an agent once gave her an actual good reason why she should seek citizenship. She said that doing so makes that green card available for someone else. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s the argument I always make when I periodically try to push her into starting the process.
There are no quotas for green cards given to spouses. If they meet the requirements, it doesn’t matter how many other Chinese have been given green cards due to matrimony.
Speaking of Chinese, that’s a wrinkle for some people. China (and a lot of other countries) don’t recognize dual citizenship. So if my wife (Chinese) were to accept American citizenship, she’d lose Chinese citizenship, meaning it would be a major PITA to visit her own family, friends, and other relations.
). Having a green card while it has some protections, is much closer to having a tourist visa than having citizenship in that respect