Do you know of any movie stars that have been deported for not having a green card? Maybe a better question is, has ICE ever raided a TV or movie studio?
_____
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-expatriate1feb01,1,6420532.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
From the Los Angeles Times
Star power helps with green card
Hollywood loves its foreign-born actors, but they still have immigration hurdles.
By John Rogers
Associated Press
February 1, 2008
He died thousands of miles from home, but like hundreds of other entertainers who came before him, Heath Ledger had left his native land to carve out a career in Hollywood.
In doing so, the Australian-born actor, who died last week in New York City of still-undetermined causes, joined a long list of expatriate entertainers that includes Spain's Antonio Banderas, Canada's Mike Myers and even the man who paid tribute to Ledger at Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards, Englishman Daniel Day-Lewis.
With immigration as a hot-button issue in an election year, the internationalization of Hollywood -- nine of the 20 acting or supporting Oscar nominations this year went to foreign-born movie stars -- raises the question: Is it easier for an actor to get a U.S. work visa than it is, say, for a dishwasher?
"It is and it isn't," said immigration lawyer Mark Ivener, who has handled work permit and residency applications for numerous entertainers, including Ledger.
While English skills and hailing from a favored nation can certainly help, it turns out that star power helps grease the skids with government officials too.
"It is easier if you are well known," Ivener said. "Then you don't have to go through the labor certification process where you have to demonstrate to the Department of Labor that you won't be taking away a job from an American."
But for a struggling actor who's been waiting tables in London or Mexico City and would rather sling hash in Hollywood, the process is just as hard as it is for anyone else, say Ivener and others.
There are other criteria: Immigration lawyers say whether you're a scientist or a wannabe entertainer, it's definitely a drawback to be from a country on a terrorist watch list, or one that's predominantly Muslim, for that matter.
"That's still considered -- unfortunately," said Kathleen Walker, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. Just being born in a country like Iran, Sudan, Cuba or North Korea, she said, leaves any person open to extra scrutiny.
"Which I don't believe in," she added. "If I were born in Iran but have never been in Iran since my birth, I'm still subject to additional screening."
And it can't hurt to be from an English-speaking country such as Australia, England or Canada -- most roles still go to fluent English speakers, the immigration lawyers say.
All the same, Hollywood seems to be making way for an ever-widening variety of foreign-born entertainers, from Jackie Chan of Hong Kong and Salma Hayek of Mexico to relative newcomers (and current Oscar nominees) Marion Cotillard of France and Saoirse Ronan of Ireland.
And it's one thing to come to America to shoot and promote a movie. Turning that success into a full-time residence in Beverly Hills? That's a little more complicated.
"There are really only two major ways people can come here permanently. They have to be sponsored by family or by a job," said Marie Sebrechts, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
In the case of actors, musicians or athletes, they are usually sponsored by the studio, record label or sports team that employs them.
"I got my green card through Motown," said Canadian-born comedian Tommy Chong, adding that the record label sponsored him after signing his band the Vancouvers to its label in the 1960s and producing its hit record, "Does Your Mama Know About Me." After the label dropped the group, Chong went on to fame as part of Cheech and Chong and eventually became a U.S. citizen.
Ledger became a star in Australian TV and films before he came to the United States. When a studio wanted him for a U.S. film, it enlisted Ivener's help in getting him a nonresident work visa.
Ivener also helped British actor Anthony Hopkins obtain a visa and eventually U.S. citizenship after the actor came to the United States following stardom in Britain.
The key to success in these and other cases, say immigration lawyers, is in gaining enough attention somewhere else to attract a major studio or record label in the U.S. as a sponsor.
"It's kind of a corny analogy. But you know how banks only lend money to rich people?" said immigration lawyer Bernie Wolfsdorf. "It's the same framework with immigration. The top people can get the visas, and the wannabes and the up-and-comings not so much."
Although U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sets aside separate categories for actors, athletes and other entertainers who want to work in the United States, to have the best chance of receiving a visa one must also demonstrate "extraordinary ability."
"I had to amass all my gold albums and have photographs taken of them and get records of all the recorded events I'd played at and the amount of tours I'd done and the amount of money I'd made," said Keith Emerson of the British rock group Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Soon after arriving in the United States nearly 13 years ago, Emerson said, he began to bump into other British musicians around Los Angeles who had gone through the same experience.
"We've formed a band called the Aliens of Extraordinary Ability, just to get together and jam," he said.
Meanwhile, the pull of the United States on foreign entertainers is simple, Chong says: It's the big time.
"That's the dream, if you're from another country, to come to the States," he said. "It was my dream since childhood."
The Islamic Centre was firebombed at midnight. The mosque itself was fearfully damaged; the adjoining school and meeting rooms were destroyed. No one knows who was responsible, but the list of possibles is a long one.
It took two years to rebuild. After it reopened there were another two attacks inside a month. People talked about a climate of fear and a breakdown of society.
Is this Baghdad, or Cairo, or Karachi? Not even close. It’s Malmö, the port on the southern edge of the Scandinavian peninsula, and Sweden’s third-biggest city. Normally, it is docile to the point of tedium: for decades Malmö has been seen as a sanctuary from the troubles of the world. And that has become the problem.
Unnoticed by the rest of the world, Sweden has changed, and Malmö has changed dramatically to become one of the most racially divided cities in Europe. Already, 37 per cent of the population were either born abroad or had both parents born abroad. Among children, that figure rises to almost half.
The numbers have been somewhat inflated by the other big change to Malmö – the opening of the bridge across the narrow Oresund seven years ago, linking the city to Copenhagen. Many Danes have moved to this side of the strait, attracted by lower property prices.
Even so, Malmö (population 278,000) is now one-quarter Muslim. And that proportion is rising rapidly due to continuing immigration and differential birth rates. Officials accept that most of the inhabitants will be of non-Swedish origin within a decade, and that a Muslim majority could follow soon after that. Like more obvious multi-ethnic places such as Birmingham and Rotterdam, Malmö would be a “majority minority” city. And that does not factor in the possibility of a new Middle Eastern cataclysm (war in Iran? The disintegration of Iraq?) producing a new surge of refugees.
Local and national politicians are struggling to adapt and respond to these rapid changes. But there is a growing acceptance that “the Swedish model” – exceptionally generous welfare policies combined with an exceptionally generous approach to immigration – is now unsustainable. That has been the basis of Sweden’s image abroad, and of its own self-image. And, in a very quiet, very Swedish way, its collapse is likely to be traumatic.
At first sight, Malmö is everything you expect of a Scandinavian city: clean, pretty, cycle-haunted, quiet, overpriced, dull. Even the lights at pedestrian crossings click discreetly. I fancied that the police cars didn’t have sirens but a recorded message saying “Excuse me!” But I never heard one. The main threat to a pedestrian comes from irate cyclists guarding their cycle lanes against trespassers. This does not feel like a place with problems.
That’s partly because it is one of the most segregated cities in Europe. The migrants are concentrated in one district, Rosengård, with the newest ones in the sub-district of Herrgarden, where the male unemployment rate is 82 per cent. Other locals mention these names with a shudder.
You don’t need a road sign to show you’re in Rosengård. A satellite dish is attached to the balcony of just about every flat, some looking massive enough to draw in pictures from Alpha Centauri, all of them showing channels from home, wherever that may be. Very occasionally, there is an exception: a balcony with the last, lingering flowers of summer, belonging to a rare Swedish-born family who have not moved away.
But if Rosengård is a slum or ghetto, it is a showpiece slum or ghetto. The blocks of flats – no more than eight stories high – are mostly well-maintained. There is no more litter there than anywhere else in town. There are very few graffiti. And although there are many men and teenagers hanging round even on a weekday afternoon, the atmosphere is entirely unthreatening, indeed welcoming. (Very different, said our Danish photographer, from the equivalent areas in Copenhagen.) Within an hour of arrival, we were having coffee and pastries in a Turkish family kitchen. The seventh-floor flat was not opulent, but nor was it uncomfortable. Instinctive eastern hospitality battled with northern reserve and the migrant’s understandable suspicion of the stranger. But it felt like a refuge against an uncertain world.
Down below on the estate, crime is an issue. “It’s easy to get into problems,” says Lulli, a 16-year-old boy from Kosovo. “Fighting, drugs, stealing. But it’s very hard to get out.” However, these problems might seem very low-grade in other cities. People kept telling us, in shocked tones, about the fires started in the wooden buildings used for burning rubbish. The banlieues of Paris and the gun-ridden estates of south London would be delighted to have such troubles.
In Herrgarden, kids from diverse backgrounds do mix. But at schools composed almost wholly of migrants, they find it hard to feel an attachment with wider society. “My passport says I’m Svensk, but in the apartment, no,” says Lulli’s Turkish pal Nihad. “In Herrgarden, if someone has a problem, we help him. The Swedes, they are very cold. They shake hands. We kiss. Not like gays, like brothers.”
Fuelled by resentment against native Swedes, some go into town on a Friday or Saturday night to indulge in a little light mugging of what they call “the Svens”. The police think only about 150 youths are involved. At least these youngsters speak Swedish. For their parents, it can be much harder. Cushioned by social security but imprisoned by linguistic inadequacy, many of the unemployed hardly go out. The migrants are here physically, but many have not made the mental leap.
“It’s OK here,” says Nihad’s father, Sala, who still works in Turkey. “But it’s cold, and it’s not home. Nihad, though, he has more chance.”
Four years after the big arson attack, the Islamic Centre has responded to its own troubles by becoming ever more open. “Everyone can come here, Muslim, Christian, Jewish,” says the centre’s director Bejzat Becirov (from Macedonia), offering coffee and lunch. And at the centre’s elementary school, the 11-year-olds give their verdict on what Sweden means to them. They, at least, are positive. “We have clean water,” says Rayan, from Somalia. “Candy!” cries Hussein, also from Somalia. Then Omar from Lebanon chimes in: “Nice cars!”
The 260 children learn in Swedish, and the girls do the counting in their skipping games in Swedish. I asked one eight-year-old where she was from. “Iraq,” she replied. Several others shouted her down. “Sweden!” they cried. They all learn Islamic studies, but on the door of the classroom is an Olympic-style motif showing five religions interlocking and overlapping: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism.
And this positive mood is reflected among the many Swedes who believe that their charitable impulses have brought them rewards. “Twenty years ago Malmö was a very dull city,” says Julia Janiec, an adviser to the city council’s Social Democratic leaders. “We had almost no restaurants, no bars, no theatre, no university, no young people, no nothing. Now we have a dynamic multicultural city.”
This dynamism is not wholly obvious to a visitor. “There is a lot to see and do in Malmö!” says my map. But number three on its list of attractions is the public library. To an outsider, Scandinavian countries seem much the same. That’s not how the Scandinavians see themselves, however, and 20th century history provided a new and sharp division. In the past hundred years, 25 of the 27 members of the European Union have endured either foreign occupation or home-grown dictatorship. The exceptions are Britain and Sweden.
While Norway and Denmark were under Nazi rule, Sweden maintained neutrality by making unheroic compromises and accommodations. It emerged with some guilt – in part survivor’s guilt, but guilt nonetheless. Its reparation was to set itself up as clergyman to the world: “a moral superpower”.
Sweden opened its door, its wallet and its heart to refugees from the planet’s most traumatised places. There is still a substantial cohort of leftist Chileans opposed to the Pinochet regime in the 1970s. And the list of the most common birthplaces for Malmö’s population is like a reprise of global headlines: Iraq, Bosnia, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Somalia, Croatia.
Other Scandinavians often find the Swedes rather bleak: humourless, pedantic, rulebound, a bit stingy. (Trying to grasp the linguistic differences, I asked a Dane if he could understand a Swedish film. “Oh yes,” he said, “but I’d never watch one.”) I also met a Norwegian, Agnes Domaas. “These newcomers have made Sweden so much better,” she said. “They are so happy. Sweden needs them.”
The poor Swedes have worked so hard to be welcoming, it seems harsh that they get so much criticism. But higher standards apply here. The Swedes did not ask The Guardian to call their country “the most successful society the world has ever known.” But they, and the world, do expect the country’s policies to work, just like the drainage and the electricity.
Yet there is an increasing sense, even on the left, that the combination of Sweden’s welfare and migration policies was foredoomed. The “Swedish model”, often seen as a middle way between communism and capitalism, dates back to the 1930s. The intellectual roots of the policy lie in the concept of folkhem (“people’s home”); scholars have noticed its similarity to the interwar German idea of Volksgemeinschaft (“people’s community”). One turned malignant, one did not, but they were grown in similar cultures.
Nick Johnson of Britain’s Institute of Community Cohesion has studied race relations in various multicultural cities. “In both Sweden and Denmark,” he says, “it was very striking that people on the left were saying they hadn’t realised the extent to which their social model was predicated on a strong sense of nationalism. And diversity was starting to open the debate about the kind of society they want.
“Some were thinking that they can only maintain strong support for individuals if they control their borders. They are now facing the problem the UK has wrestled with for years: that of having a permanent ethnic minority underclass...”
Posted January 28, 2008 | 12:32 PM (EST)
Huffington Post
Al Giordano