JO-ANN BARNAS: Red tape puts a hold on skater's citizenship
September 28, 2005
They were kids then. Tanith Belbin was 13 turning 14 when she moved to Michigan from Canada in 1998 to train with Ben Agosto, a dark-haired 16-year-old who was as thin as an oboe but promisingly elegant like a young Fred Astaire.
It was a partnership that worked almost the instant their figure skating coach, Igor Shpilband, put them together. The two excelled so quickly that in 2002 Belbin and Agosto had won their second straight U.S. silver medal in ice dance -- a finish that was good enough to qualify them for the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, except that it didn't. Belbin didn't have dual citizenship.
Four years later, a same but different scenario is developing.
Belbin and Agosto are still the hottest team around. Two months after winning their second straight U.S. title last January, they became the first American team in 20 years to win a medal at the world championships when they captured silver.
As of today, Belbin can't compete for the U.S. Olympic team at the 2006 Winter Games in Italy. She's due to get her U.S. citizenship in 2007, five years after receiving her green card.
But therein lies the hitch -- and the hope. Had Belbin's green card application been filed under the policy currently in effect with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, she would be eligible for U.S. citizenship in November.
In Belbin's case, she went through a two-step process for her permanent residence. After her petition for "extraordinary ability" was processed in November 2000, it took 18 months for Belbin to get her green card application approved. But the process has since been streamlined by the CIS. Rule changes enacted four years ago permit concurrent filings and concurrent processing of extraordinary ability petitions and green card applications.
Attorneys for Belbin and others -- including U.S. Olympic Committee President Peter Ueberroth -- have endorsed a legislative proposal that would reduce from five to three years the residency period for citizenship for aliens granted permanent residence based on their extraordinary ability (after January 2001). That would put Belbin and an estimated 7,000 others in the same position as if they had been able to apply for their green cards under the current process, according to Barney Skladany, Belbin's Washington-based attorney who specializes in public policy issues.
Belbin said: "We're not cutting in front of anyone. We're not changing or expediting my process, we're just asking for it to be on the same scale as everyone else."
In a letter sent in July to Senate and House Judiciary Committee chairmen, Ueberroth explained his position backing the legislative proposal, saying in part "that the remedy proposed for her and the others who were equally affected by this anomaly in the law should be viewed as a correction of an inequity rather than the establishment of a precedent." Skladany said Tuesday that Michigan Senator Carl Levin "has become quite involved on this."
Several figure skating Web sites attracted to Belbin's plight have urged fans to contact their senators or members of Congress. Skladany said that he was willing to pass along your comments as well. He can be reached at bskladany@akingump.com or at 202-887-4132.
"My view on legislation -- I've been doing this for 33 years -- is you never know which shoulder applied to the boulder actually makes this thing start to roll," Skladany said. "So I'm ready for the e-mails to roll in. You just never know."
