Immigration officials have three weeks to decide whether to approve the citizenship application of a South Korean-born U.S. Army specialist who is suing after the military discharged her, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Yea Ji Sea filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security last month after the military moved to discharge her.
The woman came to the country as a child on a visitor visa and held other visas before enlisting in 2013 under a special government program for foreign citizens who want to serve in the U.S. military.
Yea Ji Sea, a former U.S. Army specialist who was born in South Korea, and her attorney Sameer Ahmed talk with reporters after a federal court hearing in Los Angeles Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018. Sea filed a lawsuit in July, 2018, demanding a response to her citizenship application after the military moved to discharge her. She has since been discharged. U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald says the government will have to rule on Sea's application by Sept. 5 or explain the delay to the court. (AP PhotoAriel Tu)
Under the program, recruits agreed in their enlistment contracts to apply to naturalize as soon as their honorable service was certified.
Sea, 29, alleges in her lawsuit that the government improperly failed to process her application.
She sat in the front row of a Los Angeles courtroom on Tuesday as U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald said he expected the government to rule on Sea's citizenship by Sept. 5 or explain any reason for a delay.
Yea Ji Sea, a former U.S. Army specialist who was born in South Korea, talks with reporters after a federal court hearing in Los Angeles Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018. Sea filed a lawsuit in July, 2018, demanding a response to her citizenship application after the military moved to discharge her. She has since been discharged. U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald says the government will have to rule on Sea's application by Sept. 5 or explain the delay to the court. (AP PhotoAriel Tu)
Sea is scheduled to have an interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Biche said. The government wants to resolve her citizenship application quickly, but first officials have to hear what she says in the interview, Biche said.
In the meantime, Sea is suffering "serious harm" because she cannot legally work in the U.S. and fears she could be arrested by immigration officers, said Sameer Ahmed, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, who is representing Sea.
"As a soldier, I would think that I would be protected by at least some kind of law that would say, 'I shouldn't have to worry about driving back home,'" Sea said outside the courthouse. "I was really thinking it would be OK."
Ahmed believes Sea's case is part of a greater effort by the Trump administration to deny citizenship to soldiers "based on the fact that they don't believe immigrants should get the right to citizenship that they're owed," he said.
The Associated Press reported last month immigration attorneys knew of more than 40 U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship and have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures.
The Army has since temporarily stopped discharging immigrant recruits, pending a review of the program.
Sea, who has received two Army achievement medals, applied to naturalize in 2014 but was denied after immigration officials alleged there had been a fraudulent document in an earlier student visa application. Sea believed the paperwork she obtained through an approved language school was legitimate, according to the lawsuit, but the school's owner was convicted in a fraud case.
Sea said at first she didn't really grasp what the Army was, but fell in love with it after joining. She said she hopes to one day rejoin the Army to serve as a physician.
Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Wednesday imposed new sanctions on hundreds of companies and people tied to Russia's weapons development program, more than a dozen Chinese entities accused of helping Moscow find workarounds to earlier penalties, and individuals linked to the death of Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The actions by the departments of Treasury and State target Russia’s military-industrial base, chemical weapons programs and people and companies in third countries that help Russia acquire weapons components as its invasion of Ukraine has entered its third year.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the action “will further disrupt and degrade Russia’s war efforts by going after its military industrial base and the evasion networks that help supply it.”
The Senate, meanwhile, gave final approval to legislation barring imports of Russian uranium, boosting U.S. efforts to disrupt Russia’s war in Ukraine. Democratic President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.
About 12% of the uranium used to produce electricity at U.S. nuclear power plants is imported from Russia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said Wednesday that Biden shares lawmakers’ concerns about U.S. reliance on Russia for low-enriched uranium to support its domestic nuclear fleet.
Included in the administration's announcement are importers of cotton cellulose and nitrocellulose, which are used to produce gunpowder, rocket propellants and other explosives. The penalties also target Russian government entities and people tied to Russia's chemical and biological weapons programs, companies related to Russia's natural gas construction projects and three workers at the penal colony where Navalny died.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has railed against earlier rounds of U.S. and Western penalties, claiming they are “illegitimate sanctions” on his country.
A group of 16 targets in China and Hong Kong, most of which are related to Russian procurement workarounds, are named by the Biden administration.
Yellen traveled to Guangzhou and Beijing last month to warn Chinese officials that they “must not provide material support for Russia’s war and that they will face significant consequences if they do."
China has said it is not providing Russia with arms or military assistance, although Beijing has maintained robust economic connections with Moscow, alongside India and other countries, as the West imposes sanctions.
Companies in China, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Slovakia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates were accused of helping Russia acquire technology and equipment from abroad. The penalties aim to block them from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them.
Biden last week said he would immediately rush badly needed weaponry to Ukraine as he signed into law a $95 billion war aid measure that also included assistance for Israel, Taiwan and other global hot spots.
The upcoming uranium ban is also expected to impact Russian revenues by at least $1 billion. The U.S. banned Russian oil imports after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022 but did not against uranium, despite frequent calls to do so by U.S. lawmakers in both parties.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called the import ban “a tremendous victory” and said it “will help defund Russia’s war machine, revive American uranium production and jumpstart investments in America’s nuclear fuel supply chain.″
“Wyoming has the uranium to replace Russian imports, and we’re ready to use it,″ Barrasso added.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who heads that Senate committee, said it was "unconscionable” for the U.S. to help make it possible for Putin to “finance his unlawful war against Ukraine” through U.S. reliance on Russian uranium.
Besides the import ban, the legislation frees up $2.7 billion in previously authorized funding to ramp up domestic uranium production.
FILE- This June 6, 2019, file photo shows the U.S. Treasury Department building at dusk in Washington. The United States has imposed new sanctions on hundreds of firms and people tied to Russia’s weapons development program, more than a dozen Chinese firms accused of helping Russia find workarounds to sanctions and individuals tied to the death of Russian dissident Alexey Navalny. The sanctions imposed Wednesday by the Treasury and State departments target Russia’s military-industrial base, chemical weapons programs and people and firms in third countries that help Russia acquire weapons components as its invasion of Ukraine has entered its third year. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
