Immigration law is not a topic we normally cover on this site, but it can have a profound impact on sports. After 9/11, a number of colleges had difficulty getting return visas for their foreign students, including those recruited to play sports. And for the Olympic Games, where citizenship is key, immigration law can be of the utmost importance. Just ask Ben Agosto and Tanith Belbin, the US ice dancing pair that won the silver medal. One of the first thank yous they delivered was to their lawyers.
- Without that legal team -- led by Barney Skladany of the Washington office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and assisted by Paul Virtue of Washington's Hogan & Hartson -- Agosto and Belbin would have been forced to sit out their second Olympic competition in four years.
Belbin, a native of Canada, had a citizenship problem. Although she and Agosto had skated for the United States 32 times in national and international competitions, only American citizens can be on the U.S. Olympic team.
She came to Detroit to train with Agosto in 1999, earned her status as an alien of "extraordinary ability" in November 2000, and received her green card in early 2002. But she faced a five-year residency requirement, which meant she wasn't eligible for citizenship until 2007. She and Agosto needed a miracle by Dec. 31, 2005, to make the U.S. Olympic team.
0 comments:
Post a Comment