Immigration

ZHANGJIAKOU, China —Eileen Gu, the American-born skier who now competes for China, spent much of her recent gold medal news conference sidestepping questions about her citizenship.

Gu is the most prominent of a number of Olympic athletes in Beijing, including skaters and hockey players, who were raised in America but now compete for China. The IOC allows athletes with dual citizenship to compete but requires them to hold a passport for the country which they represent in the Olympics. China does not permit dual citizenship, at least according to the laws on its books. However, the process for renouncing American citizenship carries significant long-term repercussions for anyone wishing to remain connected in any way to America.

The actual renunciation process is fairly quick — a simple declaration that you want to end your U.S. citizenship, the payment of a fee and the surrender of your passport — but the repercussions could last a lifetime.

Americans who renounce their citizenship often do so because they’re interested in extricating themselves from the American tax system, which imposes substantial tax reporting burdens on American citizens even living overseas. A much smaller category of “accidental Americans” — for instance, children of American diplomats born overseas — renounce their citizenship because they’ve never lived in America.

To renounce citizenship, an American must walk into an overseas embassy — renouncing citizenship while on U.S. soil is extremely rare — and declare their intentions, in person, to a consular officer. The soon-to-be-former citizen must complete a questionnaire, sign a statement of intent and pay a fee of $2,350, the highest in the world for this purpose. The aggregate effect of these hurdles is to ascertain that an individual is serious about giving up their citizenship.

“A consular officer will often give you some pushback because of the repercussions,” says Sanford Posner, an immigration lawyer with Fisher Broyles, LLP with nearly a quarter-century of practice experience. “If you have family in the United States you need access to, by giving up your U.S. passport, you are essentially making it very difficult to get back into the United States.”

Verbally renouncing citizenship as an act of protest or defiance may carry some symbolic weight to the demonstrator, but in the eyes of the United States government, there’s no legal weight behind it.

“Until you sign away your citizenship and give up your passport to a consular officer,” Posner says, “it’s just a statement into the ether.”

One crucial element of renouncing citizenship: ensuring that one already has obtained citizenship in another nation. Without that overlap, an individual risks being deemed “stateless,” which can cause difficulty with virtually every aspect of public life: the ability to work, study, receive medical benefits, own or rent property, or even marry. Stateless individuals have no protection of any country, and run the risk of being kicked out of the United States entirely and permanently.

The Federal Register publishes a quarterly list of individuals who have renounced citizenship. It’s purported to be comprehensive, but expatriates have reported waits of months or years before appearing on the list.

Eileen Gu’s name does not appear on any quarterly list to date.

The financial implications of renouncing citizenship are substantial, particularly for high-net-worth individuals. The United States does not want to surrender citizens that can provide continual tax income, and the barriers in place are designed to make renouncing citizenship a costly affair for years to come.

“Giving up your passport is a taxable transaction,” says Marc Schwartz, an attorney, CPA and founder of Schwartz International, an international tax advisory firm. “If you give up your passport and your net worth is less than $2 million, it’s typically not an issue, but if it’s more than $2 million, you have to do a fictitious ‘sale’ of everything you own in the world.”

In other words: You total up your assets not just in the United States, but around the world, you assess their tax basis and their fair-market value, and whatever you’ve “gained,” above approximately $740,000, you pay taxes on it. For a minor-league hockey player, this would likely not be an issue; for someone with multiple worldwide endorsement contracts like Gu, the financial costs involved in surrendering an American passport would be substantial.

Even renouncing the passport doesn’t end the U.S. government’s involvement in an expatriate’s business. “What you need to do [when renouncing a passport] is file a final-year tax return, and the IRS has three years to audit it, more if there’s suspicion of fraud,” Schwartz says. “You’re never really out of the U.S.’s crosshairs.”

“A person seeking to renounce U.S. citizenship must renounce all the rights and privileges associated with citizenship,” a State Department spokesperson told Yahoo Sports.

Such privileges include not only the right to vote, but the ability to seek the assistance of a United States embassy while living in their new home country. Most notably, surrendering citizenship means surrendering the right to freely enter and leave the United States without the use of a visa — either a student visa, a work visa, or some other form of certification giving the now-former-citizen the temporary right to remain in the United States. Such visas come with requirements and restrictions — someone on a visitor visa, for instance, is not permitted to work in the United States.

What if our now-former citizen decides they made a mistake? It’s a long process to undo renouncing citizenship, and one with no guarantee of success.

“You would basically start back at square one,” Posner says. “There are two ways to become a citizen: either through a family member — spouse, parent, immediate relative — or through an employer. You have to go through various non-immigrant and immigrant visas before becoming a citizen.” Such processes typically take many years in the best-case scenarios.

If Eileen Gu and other American athletes competing for China have in fact renounced their citizenship, they may enjoy the benefits of representing a new nation. But their legal, financial and logistical relationship with the country of their birth will have become infinitely more complicated.

Again, the IOC doesn’t have a problem with athletes having dual citizenship. The reason the issue has come to the forefront is because of China’s rule against it. The question is, whether they’re enforcing it.

Jeremy Smith is a hockey player from Dearborn, Michigan, but is competing in the games for China. He told ESPN that one of the conditions to playing for China was that he would not renounce his U.S. citizenship.

"They were like, 'Do not worry. We will not ask you. This is not what this whole process is about. It's about getting you qualified for the Olympics,' " he said.

Smith also told Yahoo Sports, “When I'm in China, I'm a Chinese. I'm supported by the Chinese, and I'm truly thankful for that. And when I go to America, I'm American.”

If you’ve been following the Eileen Gu story, that line of reasoning should be familiar.

“I’m American when I’m in the U.S.,” Gu has stated on multiple occasions when asked about her citizenship, “and Chinese when I’m in China.”

Japan's immigration agency has been accused of operating in an untransparent manner, largely because there is no way for the public to find out what is happening inside its detention facilities. Authorities have pledged to improve the situation, but some people believe greater public involvement will be needed before meaningful change can take place. Among them is an American documentary filmmaker and a former Japanese immigration officer.

A memorial service for a Sri Lankan woman, Wishma Sandamari, was held at a temple in Aichi Prefecture on March 6. It was attended by her younger sister, Purnima, and other supporters. The day marked the first anniversary of Wishma's death at an immigration detention facility. During the six months the 33-year-old was detained, she repeatedly complained of ill health, but did not receive the care she asked for. The Justice Ministry admits that in Wishma's case, the facility's medical system was insufficient. But her death has not been the only tragedy to occur within the walls of Japan's detention centers in recent years. Since 2007, there have been 17 deaths, including suicides.

Mano Akemi, a volunteer who makes regular visits to detainees, met with Wishma and became friends. She was devastated by her death and is advocating for greater transparency in detention centers. "The biggest problem is the immigration system in Japan," she says. "It really is a black box. I think speaking up has been essential, and I am trying to make more people aware of this problem."

In response to the criticism surrounding Wishma's death, Japan's immigration agency has announced 12 improvement measures, including raising awareness among staff members, strengthening the facilities' medical responses, and setting clear guidelines for granting provisional release to detainees who are suffering ill health.

But the agency is also calling for controversial changes to Japan's immigration law. It says the current legislation creates a situation where there are more people in detention than there otherwise would be. The reason, they say, is that it allows people with no legitimate asylum claim to repeatedly apply for it to avoid deportation. Under international law, asylum seekers cannot be deported.

Thomas Ash, an American filmmaker living in Japan, recently made a documentary named "Ushiku" that urges people in Japan to face the reality of how their country's immigration system works. He says he "started filming with the strong belief that it is imperative to leave evidence so that if an incident occurs there will be no denying it in the future."

In October 2019, Ash began visiting an immigration detention center in Ushiku City, Ibaraki Prefecture — one of the largest facilities of its type in Japan — and met with detainees on a volunteer basis. At the time, around 265 detainees were being held there. There are 17 such facilities in the country with a total capacity of nearly 3,400 detainees.

In the winter of that year, Ash began secretly filming his interviews with detainees using a small camera, despite that recording is strictly prohibited. Visitors are allowed to meet with detainees, but only with the understanding that journalistic research is barred. The documentary was shot over the course of about a year.

In one scene captured in the Ushiku facility's visiting room, an asylum seeker tells Ash he is refusing to comply with his deportation order because he fears persecution if he returns to his home country.

Another scene shows a young detainee who has gone on a hunger strike.

The detainee was one of several at the center who went on a hunger strike around the time that Ash began filming his documentary. The protest spread from spring 2019 to other facilities across the country, with a total of 235 detainees involved between June 2019 and January 2020. In June 2019 one Nigerian detainee died while on hunger strike at a Nagasaki Prefecture facility.

The film also contains footage that was submitted as evidence in a lawsuit filed by a former detainee who spent a total of five years in detention and was diagnosed with depression. Immigration officials explained that he became violent while asking for tranquilizers so they forcibly restrained him. They say the practice, known as "seiatsu" or suppression, is in accordance with facility regulations.

But Ash says, "Why did they go that far? It's a detention center, not a prison, right? They should not be considered as criminals. Even if they are illegal residents, they have human rights."

There has been criticism about Ash's decision to film in secret among support groups and some lawyers providing aid to detainees. The documentary is controversial not only because it was made covertly, breaking the agency's rules, but also because of the possible repercussions for the detainees it features.

The Immigration Agency told NHK it "considers filming while knowing that recording is prohibited inside the facilities to be an unforgivable act, no matter how much it is based on personal conviction."

The director explains, "I myself believe that rules or laws should be respected, but by respecting laws or rules, someone can also become a perpetrator." He says he felt compelled to make the film: "This person in front of me may die. He will probably die. I had to document that reality."

Ash says it's essential that people know what is really going on inside Japan's detention centers. "I think there are some people who are trying to sweep immigration and refugee issues under the carpet," he says, "as if we don't have to think about them because they are problems of distant countries or only of non-Japanese.

"They are people suffering here. This is something that is actually happening. I want to ask. It's happening in your country. Are you okay with that?"

The film has caught many viewers by surprise. One woman in her twenties says she was shocked by how little she knew about the issue. Another man said he felt ashamed that he didn't know about the reality of what is happening in Japan and that Japanese people need to make this their problem.

Others have also been speaking out. Kinoshita Yoichi is a former immigration officer who leads a research group that advocates for immigration reform from the outside.

"I think the Immigration Services Agency has now realized that the days of handing out punishments without regard to the public interest or concern have passed," Kinoshita says. "The public can play a very important role in monitoring what the agency is doing so it's very important that people take an interest in the issue."

People in Japan are starting to make their voices heard on refugee causes. Local charity events and donation boxes are opening to help people displaced by the Ukrainian crisis. But is the government truly considering changes to its immigration policies?

The justice minister, Furukawa Yoshihisa, announced in April that he wants to create a new policy called 'subsidiary protection' to support people, including Ukrainians, who are escaping war in their homelands but do not meet the requirements to be recognized as refugees in Japan.

But he also indicated the ministry would continue to support government policies proposed last year that would strengthen the agency's power to deport people, including asylum seekers, as a way to deal with long-term detention. The government had withdrawn the proposal amid strong public opposition in the wake of Wishma's death.

"At present, 'fleeing conflict' is not a sufficient reason to be recognized as a refugee in Japan, which has one of the strictest screening processes in the world," says Takahashi Wataru, a human rights lawyer and researcher on immigration laws for the Japan Federation of Bar Association. "Less than 1 percent of applicants are granted refugee status. The government appears to be using what looks like a positive move as a cover to pass its former plan, which aims to strengthen its deportation policy and continues to evade discussing the core of the issue. The government needs to reform its strict screening process to recognize the refugee status of people fleeing war, including Ukrainians, and end long-term detention of asylum seekers."

The UNHCR has said that measures for subsidiary protection should not replace or undermine the refugee protection system of asylum seekers.

The opposition parties proposed their own plan in early May. It recommends setting up an independent expert committee to examine refugee applications, make a court order necessary for detention, and limit detention-period extensions to six months.

The system of indefinite detention has drawn criticism from the UN's Human Rights Council for being inhumane. At the same time, Japanese politicians and businesses have said they are willing to embrace a more diverse society — partly due to the country's severe labor shortage. But the confusion over immigration has only sown anxiety among non-Japanese residents.

Public awareness is on the rise, in part because of Wishma's death, Ash's documentary and the invasion of Ukraine. Any changes that take place are likely to happen slowly, but these factors may add momentum for reform.