Schwarzenegger is NIV Scofflaw
Schwarzenegger is NIV Scofflaw
Date: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 3:12 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
Arnold Schwarzenegger flaunted our immigration laws in order to get
permanent residency. Read more to find out how he did it.
Schwarzenegger entered the United States in 1968 on a B-1 visa, which
allows a select group of visitors, such as training athletes, to come
into the United States for brief periods of business. A "P" visa for
athletes would have been more appropriate but the INS accepted his visa
request. Joe Weider, in violation of the law, provided Schwarzenegger
with a weekly salary. Technically speaking this was enough to cause
Schwarzenegger to be deported because B visa holders cannot receive a
salary from U.S. employer.
Schwarzenegger started a bricklaying business in 1971 - the same year
he got converted his visa to an H-2. It's not clear whether he got the
H-2 visa before or after he started the bricklaying business, but
either way he was in violation of the law. Upon settin up a business he
would become out of status because H-2 nonimmigrants are not allowed to
start businesses while they are in the United States. Since
Schwarzenegger wouldn't be allowed to start a business he obviously
wouldn't be allowed to sponsor himself for a visa. Schwarzenegger
probably used three easy steps to get a fraudulent visa:
1 - Come to the US on a visitor visa or some other type of nonimmigrant
visa.
2 - Start a company
3 - Sponsor yourself for a visa on the grounds that your company can't
find somebody that can do your job. In other words, you are the
specialist!
Schwarzenegger somehow managed to get an H-2B visa for a bricklayer job
even though there are always plenty of citizens waiting in line for
that job. Bricklaying is an occupation that is, according to H-2B
regulations, permanent in nature - not temporary. The INS would not
have given him a temporary visa to perform permanent work unless he
purposely filled out the forms with the purpose of defrauding the INS.
The only bricklayers that would have been given authorization for an
H-2B would be those who were "speciality" workers - laying special
types of bricks such as Austrian style (if there is such a thing). It
would be quite interesting to view Arnold's immigration file to see
what kind of bricks he was laying.
Schwarzenegger engaged in fraud, but unfortunately nothing can be done
now. If he got his permanent status through fraud - proven without a
doubt - then he could have been kept from being a citizen. He is a
citizen now, so if legal action was attempted a good defense lawyer
would try to prove "malicious prosecution" on the part of our
government.
Arnold Schwarzenegger ran roughshod over the U.S. immigration laws and
is probably laughing up his sleeve at the poor "girly boys" who waited
patiently for their legal immigration papers. His failure to exercise
his voting rights and his flaunting of our laws should be enough to
have him barred from running for public office. If Californians knew
about this they probably wouldn't care anyway.
An LA Times article is included to illustrate the cavalier attitude
Californians have concerning immigration law:
Don't look now, but the leading Republican candidate in
the Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election may once have
been an illegal alien.
I don't find that too surprising, much less distressing,
but it will surely drive some vociferous nativists in
California's body politic to even greater distraction.
Arianna Huffinton just announced that she wants to defeat
Schwarzenegger. If someone on this newsletter knows how to contact her,
please forward this newsletter. Here is a recent statement from her
newsletter:
I am confident that we can defeat the Recall, Schwarzenegger, and Prop
54. And next year I know that we will win the battle
for publicly financed campaigns. Let's keep working together!
We have just begun our fight to fix the broken system.
Arianna Huffington
September 30, 2003
http://www.ariannaonline.com/
http://votearianna.com
http://www.visalaw.com/03sep4/15sep403.html
Schwarzenegger May Have Violated Terms Of Non-Immigrant Visa
Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger is facing heat over his immigration
records and work history. The issue has surfaced during his campaign to
become the next Governor of California.
Schwarzenegger entered the United States in 1968 on a B-1 visa, which
allows a select group of visitors, such as training athletes, to come
into the United States for brief periods of business. Under this rule,
a non-immigrant in B-1 status may not receive a salary from a U.S.
source for services rendered in connection with his or her activities
in the United States. However, the rules do allow immigrants to receive
actual reasonable expenses, such as money for food and hotel rooms.
In his 1977 autobiography, Schwarzenegger stated that he worked out an
agreement with Joe Weider to come to America. Under this agreement,
Schwarzenegger provided Weider information about how he trained, while
Weider provided Schwarzenegger with an apartment, a car, and payment of
a weekly salary.
Weider stated earlier this month that the weekly salary was $200. Last
week, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger said that he was only paid $65 per
week. At the end of last week, Weider stated that he could not remember
the details of the business deal.
After questioning about half-dozen immigration attorneys on whether
this payment would have been allowable, the Mercury News reported that
his visa would likely have been barred under these circumstances.
However, some attorneys noted the more rigorous application procedures
that are now present for the immigration process. In the 1960s, the
procedures were much more lax than they are now.
Schwarzenegger attorney Tom Hiltachk said Schwarzenegger received an
H-2 visa, which allowed him to work in this country, in November 1969
after more than a year in the United States. He became a permanent
resident in 1974 and a citizen in 1983.
In addition, Schwarzeneggers new ad campaign on a Spanish-language
radio station announces his humble beginnings in America as a
bricklayer. Several immigration attorneys also believe that he violated
the terms of his H-2 work visa by launching this bricklaying business
in 1971. According to further reports by the Mercury News, immigration
attorneys across the country said Schwarzenegger would have been barred
by visa restrictions from starting his own business. Moreover, there is
no record that Schwarzenegger and the Italian bodybuilder that he
paired up with ever received a required state contractors license.
In addition, following this latest immigration issue, Hiltachk said it
is unclear what type of visa Schwarzenegger had when he started the
bricklaying business. But whether Schwarzenegger had an H-2 or another
temporary visa, immigration attorneys said, the bodybuilder would have
been barred from doing any work as a bricklayer or handyman.
If they come into the United States to pick tomatoes, they cant go
out and work at McDonalds, said Nancy Alby, an assistant center
director at the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Naturalization Services,
who spoke in general about H-2 visas and did not comment specifically
on Schwarzeneggers case. They have to do exactly what they were let
into the United States to do.
The immigration issue fires up a debate over Schwarzeneggers support
for Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot measure that sought to keep illegal
immigrants from receiving some state educational and social services.
He also vows to fight a new law that allows illegal immigrants to get
drivers licenses. Schwarzenegger has said that immigrants must
follow the rules like he did.
The federal government and the Bureau of Immigration and Citizenship
Services declined to discuss Schwarzeneggers immigration file or
release his full file. Only a one-page article was released to the
Mercury News when they requested the information.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not
intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on
information contained herein is taken at your own risk.
<http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/recall/commentary/la-oe-delolmo28sep28,1,1604270.story>
ON THE RECALL
An Illegal-Immigration Irony
Schwarzenegger may have been in technical violation of his U.S. visa
not
once but twice.
By Frank del Olmo
Frank del Olmo is associate editor of The Times.
September 28, 2003
Don't look now, but the leading Republican candidate in the Oct. 7
gubernatorial recall election may once have been an illegal alien.
I don't find that too surprising, much less distressing, but it will
surely drive some vociferous nativists in California's body politic to
even greater distraction. Here they spend all their time and energy
warning about a Mexican takeover of the Golden State, and California's
first governor who was once an illegal alien may turn out to be from
Austria.
I refer, of course, to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bodybuilder turned
movie actor remains, according to the polls, the best hope that
California's GOP has of taking the governorship if state voters decide
to oust Gov. Gray Davis next month. Schwarzenegger has managed to
maintain that lead despite being jostled by a crowded field of would-be
replacements for Davis that includes Sacramento veterans Lt. Gov. Cruz
Bustamante, a Democrat, and state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand
Oaks).
Schwarzenegger has done it with a well-funded campaign that is tightly
controlled and carefully scripted to avoid tough questions on complex
issues like immigration. But lately his campaign staff has taken to
evading questions not just about immigration in general but
specifically about the former immigration status of their own
candidate.
Those discomfiting questions were triggered by a series of articles in
the San Jose Mercury News. An investigation by the newspaper found that
Schwarzenegger, who immigrated to the United States in 1968, may have
violated U.S. immigration laws on at least two occasions.
The first time was shortly after he entered the United States on a visa
that allows athletes to train and compete here and receive expenses.
But, according to his own biography, he also received a weekly salary
as a consultant to a bodybuilding-industry entrepreneur. The second
time may have been in the 1970s when Schwarzenegger had a temporary
work visa but
also started a bricklaying business. Several immigration attorneys and
experts interviewed by the Mercury News said that in both instances
Schwarzenegger may have been in technical violation of U.S. law, making
him -- horror of horrors -- an illegal immigrant.
The Schwarzenegger campaign has refused requests from the Mercury News
and other news media for copies of the candidate's immigration files.
"I have clean immigration papers," the actor said in response to one
query. "I have done everything legally."
Maybe. Maybe not. But if Schwarzenegger's immigration status does wind
up being a bit murkier than first advertised, he is just one of
millions of recent immigrants to this country who have faced similar
problems thanks to the vagaries of U.S. immigration laws and the
notorious incompetence of the federal bureaucrats who enforce them.
Indeed, the technical nature of the violations Schwarzenegger may have
committed is probably why the Mercury News' stories have not caused a
bigger stir. After all, it's not as if the newspaper found out the
actor had crossed the border hidden in the trunk of a Volkswagen.
Of course, if Schwarzenegger had gotten into this country by sneaking
across the U.S.-Mexico border, his oft-stated claim that he understands
the plight of the many poor immigrants living and working in this state
illegally might ring truer than it does. It could also win him a few
more votes from those immigrants from Mexico and Central America who
are new U.S. citizens. And it might even convince Latinos that
Schwarzenegger really is different from those Republicans who see
California's immigration problem not as too many immigrants but as too
many Latino immigrants.
That is the image problem Republicans have had in California since
1994, when former California Gov. Pete Wilson -- now one of
Schwarzenegger's top campaign advisors -- cynically used Proposition
187 to win a tough reelection campaign.
Wilson's victory proved pyrrhic, of course. First, the courts tossed
aside 187, which would have barred illegal immigrants from getting
public services. Then the anti-Mexican tone of the campaign on behalf
of the initiative angered thousands of new Latino voters.
That's why Wilson and other GOP leaders in the nation's biggest state
are now looking to a political neophyte -- and possible onetime illegal
immigrant -- for deliverance from their status as an endangered
political species in California.
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
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