Nyarko: "if it comes to sports, [citizenship] can definitely be expedited”

If US Soccer could expedite citizenship, we would probably have gotten Andy Najar. Nyarko has no idea what he is talking about.

 

Well, according to his "hint" anyway. Doesn't sound like anything solid there to me.

But who knows? Maybe Klinsmann is on the red phone with Obama discussing it as we speak...

 

A Kenyan helping a Ghanaian!

 

A foreigner and long-time US resident playing in MLS who doesn't understand US citizenship/immigration laws?

Definitely not the first time and definitely not the last time. If he thinks his citizenship can be expedited, he's in for some disappointment.

 

Has he at least started the citizenship process?

 

Yup.

DCU and the USSF apparently did everything they possibly could for Andy Najar, as early as they could...............and it wasn't enough. They couldn't get it expedited.

The difference between the two is that there isn't another country after Nyarko.

 

No joke. Like a few months ago when Zakuani was talking about how he'd like to represent the USA, despite the fact that he hadn't even held his green card for an entire year yet.

Who the hell is informing these guys of these things?

 

How long did it take Patrick Ewing before the Olympics?

 

My understanding is that your senator or congress person can attachment an amendment to a bill to make anyone a citizen. A typical bill typically has many, many amendments that largely get ignored by those who vote on the bill.

 

Sandon Mibut originally posted this in the Zakuani thread, but it deserves to get posted here, too:

 

It takes 5 years of permanent residency before you can apply for citizenship, but it takes two years of conditional resident status before you can get your permanent resident status. Then probably up to one more year go actually do the exam and get citizenship. This is by marriage (direct experience), in other cases I dunno.
It don't know if this can be expidited, I think it also depends on who you are and how bad the US want you, my feeling is that if you're Messi you don't have to wait as long as Nyarko.

 

By the way, I am not Messi

 

I work in immigration law (I am not an attorney, but I will be shortly, and immigration is the field I work in on a daily basis). This is partially true. Through marriage to a U.S. citizen it takes only 3 years of permanent resident (green card) status before you can apply for citizenship (okay, technically 2 years and 9ish months). Five years if you get your green card through a non-marriage situation (employment or qualifying family member who already has a green card or citizenship).

Sandon Mibut's quoted piece up above there is pretty spot on. This is all sort of silly.

 

I'm trying to get my Senator to attach an irish56 tax amendment to a bill. The tax would tax every American a dime and all the proceeds will come to me.

 

This.

And Borg should have realized it before he quoted him.

 

This is only an assumption but I'm guessing he was probably told about Tanith Belbin's case. The Canadian-born figure skater that had her citizenship expedited by George W. Bush for the 2006 Winter Olympics. Wikipedia doesn't get into detailed specifics but it looks like it was a special case where a Michigan senator had to create a special congressional act just for her and got it signed by the President.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanith_Belbin

 

About the "Belbin" naturalization act ...

"The amendment, which would apply only to aliens of extraordinary ability who began their naturalization process prior to July 2002, would shorten the residency requirement from five to three years between the receipt of their green card and the date of their eligibility for naturalization."

 

I didn't even look at the byline until i was finished and knew it was Borg. I shared my disappointment with him via twitter.

 

I'm guessing most sports agents don't understand immigration law in much depth -- probably not an area of focus when they went to law school (if they went). It's also going to be a relatively specialized area of federal administrative law, so a state bar exam isn't going to prepare them for it, either. And the vast majority of their clients aren't going to have dual nationality potential.

So in the absence of a client specifically asking about it (which apparently Nyarko did not do before he started making public statements), it will likely remain an area of irrelevance to their practice.

I can understand the point of view that all agents should be 100% informed on all possible issues of importance for their clients -- and the better ones probably are -- but my guess is that the above situation is probably the case where we read about a player who doesn't have an accurate understanding of the situation.

 

Glad you have good table manners!!

 

Like all things technical in nature, The Google.

 

Well, Borg has no idea what he's talking about, either.

 

We can add Nyarko along with Charlie Mulgrew, Bradley Johnson and Rudy Gestede to our all-"that's not the way it works here" team.