Charles Jerome Ware is a best-selling author, renowned attorney, and former United States Immigration Judge ("IJ").
Immigration Visas for Professional Athletes
Those who watched the National Basketball Association ("NBA") or the National Hockey League ("NHL") finals this week saw how dependent the United States is on foreign athlete "guest workers" ["0-1 Visas"].
For example, 27 of the thirty-two Boston Bruins professional hockey players are foreign, leaving just five native-born Americans. And the San Antonio Spurs professional basketball roster boasts 8 players born in other countries.
Not unusually, more than half the team—18 players—hails from Canada, hockey's world headquarters. Other Bruin players come from across Europe: Mr. Rask, the Finn, has teammates from Latvia, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany, Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic.
Of the opposing Chicago Blackhawks' 27 hockey skaters, 13 are Canadian-born. There are as many Swedish Blackhawks (five) as there are American-born members of the team. Four others come from Eastern Europe.
The number of international athletes in the NBA is also growing—from a handful 20 years ago to a record-tying 84 foreign players on NBA rosters at the start of the current season, nearly one in five players.
The San Antonio Spurs reached the NBA finals with eight foreign players on their 15-man roster, the highest international presence in the league. In addition to Manu Ginóbili, the Spurs roster includes leading scorer Tony Parker, a Belgian-born French citizen, and teammates from France, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil and Canada. The Miami Heat, with one foreign-born player (Canadian center Joel Anthony), come in below the league average of three.
One way to think of these international players is to call them guest workers. Most foreigners playing professional sports in the U.S. are here on O-1 or P-1 visas.
But if athletes faced the same hurdles that scientists or entrepreneurs who require an H1-B visa, there would be far fewer foreign players in our professional leagues. Teams for one would be required to prove they attempted to hire American professional athletes first.
With Congress currently debating immigration reform, this intriguing issue is worth keeping an eye on.
[www.usimmigrationlaw.net/visas-athletes.htm; online.wsj.com/article/SB/"Those 'Guest Workers' of the NBA and NHL"; www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Title/book/ "The Immigration Paradox: "Fifteen (15) Tips..."]
The Immigration Paradox - 15 Tips for Winning Immigration Cases
iUniverse, September 2009, http://amzn.com/1440171920
Synopsis
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An Immigration Paradox develops when American immigration policy is subjected to Government benign neglect. Additionally, although frequently used by many in the public, the word “illegal” is technically not recognized as a legal term in American immigration law as it applies to people. Surprised? Read further.
Immigration has always been a controversial, complex, and very important issue historically in American public policy. In fact, the historic and fundamental importance of immigration in American culture, in combination with the increasing controversy and inevitably complexities involving it, has created inevitable the above-referenced immigration paradox.
This book presents an overview of American immigration history, trends, policies and practices, and addresses the “paradox” issue from the perspective of a former United States Immigration Judge. Nothing written in this book is intended or designed in any way to diminish, malign, or disparage any person, group, country, organization, institution, or people.
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