My dear friends,
Let us all lift our collective hands and slap the INS silly for denying Natalia Laschenova citizenship! And then subjecting her to the threat of deportation!
Of course, I have no idea what the circumstances are, but I have faith that Laschenova, my favorite Soviet, is not some rabid terrorist who wants to blow planes up. The kind of faith that says, “She’s paying our taxes, unlike SOME PEOPLE who are already citizens.”
SAVE NATALIA LASCHENOVA!!
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I wish I had more details on this story, and I hope her lawyer is competent. If she was eligible to apply for citizenship (i.e., is a green card holder), it should be very very difficult for her to fall out of status. I suspect she tried to apply off of a work visa, which is not possible.
They keep talking about trying to get her an extraordinary ability visa, which in my experience is not a very difficult thing to get (I’ve known some people with far lesser athletic qualifications than Natalia who’ve gotten them without any significant difficulty), and for which she should certainly qualify if she has any students of any particular accomplishment. Unfortunately, now that she’s fallen out of status, the usual procedure would be for her to have to go back to her home country and wait out the line there– hopefully “home” is Latvia, because I bet the wait to get into the US is shorter there than in Russia.
So sad. I’ve seen people attempting to immigrate get terrible advice that ends with them falling out of status so many times, and it’s so unnecessary. Hopefully they’ll be able to work something out for her, but immigration law is not generally very flexible.
I agree that she should get to stay. She pays her taxes and supports herself unlike President Obama’s Aunt who is on welfare living in section 8 being paid by my damn tax money.
That being said if she is hear illegally she knew she was breaking the rules and she only has herself to blame. This Country is already to easy when it comes to the rules allowing people to take advantage. If we had done the job before 9-11 it never would have happened.