A doctor tried to renew his passport. Now he’s no longer a citizen.

IamAman · 11-26-2023, 03:00 PM

Let's welcome our newest Dreamer. This guy at 61 instantly became a Dreamer due to no fault of his own- He was born in the US to diplomats working a temp job at the Iranian Embassy in the US (back when they had one here and relations with the US were good) and because of that, should not have been granted citizenship since apparently diplomats aren't subject to US laws. Yet, this is the only country he's known and was living as a citizen for 61 years.

Since his wife also got her citizenship through him, her status is also going to be in question and overall his entire life has been turned upside down. I suspect this is because of Trump setting up an office to denaturalize people and somehow or another a scumbag bureaucrat came across an old document and decided to ruin this guy's life.

I really feel this guy's pain because I know for a fact that his parent's birth country doesn't care about him and won't lift a finger to help him. It'd be different if he was Canadian or something.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md...hip-nightmare/

Quote:

Siavash Sobhani is stateless.

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.

“I’m in limbo,” he told me on a recent afternoon.

In the past few years, there have been many passport-renewal nightmare stories, with processing delays forcing people to beg, lose sleep and miss once-in-a-lifetime trips. But what Sobhani has experienced this year after trying to renew his passport is uniquely unmooring.

As he tells it, when he sent in an application for a new passport in February, he had no reason to expect he’d face any difficulties. He had renewed his passport several times previously without problems. This time, it was set to expire in June, and he wanted to make sure he had a valid one in hand before his family took a trip in July.

But he did not receive a new passport. Instead, at the age of 61, he lost what he had held since he was an infant: U.S. citizenship.

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.

“This was a shock to me,” said Sobhani, who specializes in internal medicine. “I’m a doctor. I’ve been here all my life. I’ve paid my taxes. I’ve voted for presidents. I’ve served my community in Northern Virginia. During covid, I was at work, putting myself at risk, putting my family at risk. So when you’re told after 61 years, ‘Oh there was a mistake, you’re no longer a U.S. citizen,’ it’s really, really shocking.”

Sobhani shared with me the letter he received from the State Department, along with personal documents that detail his life in the United States and letters he had sent to local lawmakers asking for their help. Taken together, those records show how the Georgetown Medical School graduate went from living a stable life in the D.C. region to standing on uncertain ground and asking questions that do not have clear answers.

Some of those questions: Can he still legally practice medicine? Will the money he has earned over his career count toward his Social Security benefits if his Social Security number changes? Will he get to attend his son’s destination wedding next year?

Sobhani was hesitant to speak publicly about his situation. He has applied for permanent residence, as instructed, and he doesn’t want to do anything that might upset government officials who hold his fate in their hands. But he also knows how slowly the country’s immigration system can move, and he worries that he could wait in limbo for years if top officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) don’t hear about his case and agree to help him. He said he has already spent more than $40,000 on legal fees and still doesn’t know when his case might be resolved.

“I’m waiting for an interview, but does that mean I wait another year for an interview?” he said. “Then another three years for the next step? Then another 10 years before I can travel outside of the country?”

At his age — he turned 62 this month — he had already started to think about retirement. He and his wife planned to spend this year exploring other countries in hopes of finding a community where they could buy a home. Now, he can’t even visit a friend in London who recently had a stroke, or his father-in-law, who lives in Lebanon and is seriously ill.

“If he passes away, I can’t even go to his funeral,” Sobhani said.

Sobhani uses the words “upsetting,” “frustrating” and “distressing” to describe what he has been going through. His language is gentler than what many people would use if they suddenly lost the freedoms, protections and benefits that come with U.S. citizenship — all because of a paperwork mistake that was made when they were too young to read.

The U.S. government didn’t take away Sobhani’s citizenship because of anything he did. The letter points to a bureaucratic reason: Those born in the United States to parents who have diplomatic immunity do not acquire U.S. citizenship at birth.

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“As a member of your parent’s household at the time of your birth, you also enjoyed full diplomatic immunity from the jurisdiction of the United States,” reads the letter. “As such, you were born not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Therefore, you did not acquire U.S. citizenship at birth.”

“But I did,” Sobhani said as he read that last line aloud. “They gave it me.”

They also reconfirmed he was a citizen over and over again throughout his life, every time his passport was renewed.

Sobhani said that after getting that letter, he started digging into his family’s history. He couldn’t ask his parents questions because his father is dead and his mother has dementia. What he discovered, he said, is this: His older brother, who was born in Kansas when their father was a military student, had a congenital condition that required surgery. To extend the family’s stay in the country for that surgery, their father obtained a temporary job at the Iranian Embassy and worked there in October and November 1961. A birth certificate shows Sobhani was born at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that November.

Family photo of Sobhani as a child. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
Sobhani said his family lived in Turkey for several years when he was a child but that he returned to D.C. to attend Georgetown Preparatory School. He received degrees from George Washington University and Boston College before attending Georgetown Medical School. He said he cannot safely live in Iran because he has spoken out against the government and his brother ran for the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 2012.

Sobhani wrote letters to Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) requesting their help, saying he had “the utmost respect for the laws governing this country.” He also noted that he has dedicated his career to helping people in Virginia and the D.C. region and has been “directly involved in the care of tens of thousands of lives, currently with an active patient panel of over 3,000 patients.”

“I can only hope that the impact I’ve made in caring for our community of Virginians, your constituents, for the past 30 years will hold some weight in swaying your decision to intervene on my behalf,” he wrote.

He shared a letter that Connolly wrote to a USCIS official on his behalf.

“I trust that you can imagine how difficult it must be to believe that you were a citizen of the U.S. your entire life, just to find out you actually were not,” Connolly wrote. He added, “Our office is respectfully requesting all possible consideration in expediting this case in accordance with U.S. laws and regulations.”

Sobhani said he hopes his citizenship will be restored within six months, but he has no idea if that’s a realistic expectation. He has no idea if he will have a passport in time to attend his son’s wedding in Portugal next year or if he will get to make those retirement scouting trips with his wife anytime soon.

He has no idea how long he will remain stateless.

salazar · 11-28-2023, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IamAman

Let's welcome our newest Dreamer. This guy at 61 instantly became a Dreamer due to no fault of his own- He was born in the US to diplomats working a temp job at the Iranian Embassy in the US (back when they had one here and relations with the US were good) and because of that, should not have been granted citizenship since apparently diplomats aren't subject to US laws. Yet, this is the only country he's known and was living as a citizen for 61 years.

Since his wife also got her citizenship through him, her status is also going to be in question and overall his entire life has been turned upside down. I suspect this is because of Trump setting up an office to denaturalize people and somehow or another a scumbag bureaucrat came across an old document and decided to ruin this guy's life.

I really feel this guy's pain because I know for a fact that his parent's birth country doesn't care about him and won't lift a finger to help him. It'd be different if he was Canadian or something.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md...hip-nightmare/

I'm sure he will be okay. He has connections, and wouldn't he be able to adjust status thru wife kids/ job.

IamAman · 11-29-2023, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salazar

I'm sure he will be okay. He has connections, and wouldn't he be able to adjust status thru wife kids/ job.

Well the thing is his wife got hers through him so it's not quite so simple.

Demise · 10:42 AM

File I-485 for creation of record as child born to a diplomat and then file for naturalization.

If they deny him, sue for equitable tolling and nunc pro tunc relief because the whole thing happened because US DOS issued him a passport in the first place.

Nycgal111 · 11-30-2023, 12:59 PM

Lol this happened to my youngest brother. He was born here but isn’t considered a citizen since my dad was a diplomat at the time. But my brother did get his green card.

kenny450 · 12-22-2023, 08:21 AM

I really feel this guy's pain because I know for a fact that his parent's birth country doesn't care about him and won't lift a finger to help him.

IamAman · 12-24-2023, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenny450

I really feel this guy's pain because I know for a fact that his parent's birth country doesn't care about him and won't lift a finger to help him.

Well his parents were diplomats back when the Shah was was ruling Iran and in 1979 he was overthrown and the religious nuts took over and executed anybody from his regime they could get their hands on so his life would absolutely be in danger if he ever went back there. He could probably get political asylum too so I'm really curious how his lawyers are going to try to get him out of his mess!

He's definitely too old to qualify for DACA though so I feel his pain there.

Pianoswithoutfaith · 01-06-2024, 12:22 AM

Oh come on he’s a freaking doctor he will be more than fine if he doesn’t get approve for a green card

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A doctor tried to renew his passport. Now he’s no longer a citizen.