The Northern Virginia doctor knows at least that much about his situation. He knows he is no longer considered a citizen of the United States — the place where he was born, went to school and has practiced medicine for more than 30 years — and that he also belongs to no other place.
A letter from a State Department official informed him that he should not have been granted citizenship at the time of his birth because his father was a diplomat with the Embassy of Iran. The letter directed Sobhani to a website where he could apply for lawful permanent residence.
The irony of strict immigration laws being pushed by right wing politics would mean a hard working resident, contributing to community for all his life, will get deported on next arrest and get no recognition from the US because misrepresenting yourself as a US citizen is almost an automatic bar on citizen application in current courts.
Deported to where though, he has no citizenship.
Trump would set up something similar to what Australia has with Nauru, or the UK was trying to set up with Rwanda. You find some place that’s a legal purgatory, ship them there and keep them there forever.
They’ve floated using Guantanamo Bay for that purpose.
The article got that part wrong. His father was an Iranian citizen. Iran has similar citizenship laws as the US: he is an Iranian citizen by birth, even if he has never claimed Iranian citizenship.
The exception would be if both his parents defected to the US before his birth. He wouldn’t be an Iranian citizen if his parents had renounced their Iranian citizenship before he was born. But if that were the case, he would have been entitled to US citizenship for having been born within the US.
If he were to be deported (he won’t be. INS only deports poor people who can’t afford lawyers), it would be to Iran.
The article says that he was born while his father had a job at the Iranian embassy. So I doubt he was a defector.
Any place with a similar skin tone.
In this particular situation they mention Iran.
What’s ironic about that?
I don’t agree with most right wing politics, but I don’t understand your comment.
It’s like saying that it’s ironic that an exemplary contributor to society could get a ticket if they speed while driving.
Edit 2:
Ah, I see it now. You’re specifically saying that he’ll be denied citizenship when he applies for it, because he has, unknowingly, misrepresented himself as a U.S. citizen. That’s not irony. That’s fucked up. And sort of a catch-22.
You may discard my previous edit below.
Edit:
Why the downvotes? I mean, I’m pro-immigration, bros. But the law is clear: you claim you’re a U.S. citizen when you aren’t, you can (potentially) get in trouble. I got naturalized, and I’ve received voting packages a couple of times when I wasn’t a citizen. That shit freaked me out and I immediately had to contact the relevant offices and very explicitly tell them that they made a mistake because I was not a citizen. I didn’t want any immigration officer checking my files later and say “aha! You got voting packages a couple of times! Did you try to claim you’re a U.S. citizen? You did, right? Citizenship denied!”
So, regardless of what you think about it, that’s a law (“Do not claim you’re a citizen if you aren’t.”) My question wasn’t about that. My question was, why was OP claiming that it is ironic that a person who falsely claims is a U.S. citizen could get in trouble. So, instead of downvoting, can you answer my very genuine question?
So if I understand you correctly, being a good citizen by paying taxes and contributing to your community is less significant than a clerical error on some paperwork filed more than half a century ago. May you’re right, that’s not ironic. But you and I have very different values for what it takes to be a good citizen. Your speed ticket straw-man argument is irrelevant.
Edit: I understood now, and I added an “Edit 2” to my original comment to clarify.
No, you misunderstood me on the values thing. You seemed to be pro-immigration and so am I. And I disagree with you on the strawman argument. It was an analogy for illustration.
I was just solely commenting on the irony part, and you agreed with me. The sentence, regardless of content is not ironic. I wanted OP to clarify in case I was missing something. That is all.