Dear Supporters,
Many of you probably predicted that I would not be saying this today, but this message is not a dream: You came up with yet another $100,000 payment — now making a total of $400,000 provided to the Arvay team.
In the last twelve days you actually donated more than $40,000 — an amazing achievement for small donors. This accomplishment proves to all those people who want us to fail — that we are very determined.
You gave until it hurt and then you gave a lot more. It’s hard not to get teary-eyed over the generosity of our supporters, who have come through every time.
We know that the pace of your litigation is painfully slow, and this is unfortunately as expected. The Government will continue to do its best to slow down the process, but we now have the assistance of a case management judge to help keep the process moving more fairly.
We filed in August 2014 and it has taken a very long time (one year) before we are finally into a (summary) trial (August 4-5, 2015). We cannot predict the outcomes of this trial, based on only part of our arguments and, with your continued support, we will prepare for all possibilities.
[Happy birthday Gwen!]
Thank you for your trust,
Stephen Kish,
ADCS-ADSC Chair,— on behalf of Plaintiffs Ginny and Gwen, their families, and the ADCS-ADSC Directors
——————————————————————————————————-
Chers amis et donateurs,
Certains d’entre vous avaient probablement pensé que je ne pourrais pasvous annoncer une si bonne nouvelle aujourd’hui. Mais voilà : ensemble, nous avons réussi à ramasser un autre montant de 100 000 $, ce qui fait un total de 400 000 $ à remettre à l’équipe de MeArvay.
Dans les 12 derniers jours seulement, vous avez donné plus de 40 000 $, un exploit tout à fait extraordinaire pour des « petits donateurs ». À tous ceux qui souhaitent nous voir échouer, cette réussite prouve que nous sommes des plus déterminés. Et que nous réussirons.
Vous avez donné jusqu’à ce que ça fasse mal, puis vous avez donné encore. Difficile de rester insensible devant une si grande générosité.
Nous sommes bien conscients du fait que notre litige avance de façon péniblement lente. Malheureusement, tout ça est normal. Le gouvernement continue à ralentirle processus, mais on nous a maintenant attitré un juge responsable de la gestion de notre dossier qui veillera à ce que le processus progresse de façon plus juste.
En août 2014, nous avons engagé une poursuite contre le gouvernement canadien. Près d’un an plus tard, nous avons enfin la date pour notre procès sommaire : les 4 et 5 août 2015. Impossible de prévoir le dénouement de ce procès, basé uniquement sur une partie de nos arguments juridiques. Mais avec votre appui, nous serons prêts pour toutes les possibilités.
(Bonne fête, Gwen !)
Au nom de nos deux plaignantes, Ginny et Gwen, de leurs familles et des directeurs de l’ADCS-ADSC, je vous remercie de votre confiance.
Stephen Kish,
Président de l’ADCS-ADSC
I have posted the following on the Jamaica Observer web site … who knows whether it will make it through moderation.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Becoming-a-US-citizen-has-benefits_18496975
___________________________________________
Lawd help me the propaganda is live.
I suggest that NO Person seek to become a US Citizen whilst certain laws remain on the books in that country. Including the Citizenship Based Taxation model introduced during the Civil War to punish Americans leaving the US during that conflict.
If you wish to live and work there then be satisfied with a Green Card and then, as soon as you are returning home, OFFICIALLY return the Green Card to the US Authorities. Unless you do this then you remain, like a US Citizen, a chattel slave to the US and no matter where you live in the world you remain liable to US Taxation on your world wide income and subject to all manner of laws passed from time to time to make it difficult for you to Bank, Prepare for Retirement, Help your NON US elder or minor relatives and so on … you become a lower class Jamaican / Canadian / citizen of the world and NOT entitled to the full protection of your local Charter of Rights … this based on the new extra territorial law that the US is imposing on the world called FATCA. These things can bankrupt otherwise decent law abiding people.
For more information read extensively at isaacbrocksociety.ca
Let’s get the thermometer reading UPPPPP guys. We are having impact!!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/california-homes-raided-in-federal-crackdown-on-chinese-birth-tourism.html?_r=0
“The affidavits quote Chinese government sources as reporting that Chinese nationals had 10,000 babies in the United States in 2012, up from 4,200 in 2008.”
I guess the US will be collecting lots of renunciation fees for a long time.
@Fred
If the US won’t get to the source of the issue (citizenship jus soli), you’d think that their efforts would be better spent advertising the US homeland tax (CBT) and FBAR in China as a deterrent.
@ Cheryl
Yes please … UPPPPP! We’ve been stuck in the 77K-to-go zone for 4 days now. It’s time to make a strong push toward the 60K-to-go zone. I wish I had paypal to at least take it down to 76K today but I don’t so I can only hope that someone(s) who have paypal or some other instant transfer method will step in. Eyes on the prize — a win for Ginny, Gwen, Stephen (potentially a plaintiff too) and everyone.
@Fred
I feel so sorry for the Chinese babies – they had no choice of where they were born.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/chinese-birth-tourism-operations-raided-in-california-20150304-13uamo.html
@fred,
If all renounced US would take home a profit of 10,000 x 2350 = 24.5 M. Enough to fund the US federal spending for 3 minutes and 24 seconds.
@Kermitzii: of course!! I was a bit ironic. While the fee is abusive and hurtful for little people, it is, obviously, nothing for a country that hardly thought twice about wasting $1 trillion in Iraq. Which, of course, makes it all the more insulting and punitive and cynical and despicable and …
@Bubblebustin: that’s quite true. I love it. In fact, this could be used as evidence that the US does nothing to publicize how necessary tax compliance is; no surprise that many people haven’t heard of their reporting duties, then. All these just-born babies are, of course, responsible for declaring financial accounts in their name, should they be worth more than $10K.
@Fred
Anchor or “anchored” babies?
FuriousAC’s inspiring words on another thread truly deserve to be here too, so I’m taking the liberty to transfer some of them. Well said, FuriousAC!
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2015/03/04/fatca-violates-americans-privacy-rights-impacts-us-economy-senator-rand-paul/comment-page-2/#comment-5692368
@ All
Just a kindly little suggestion. When new names pop up anywhere on Brock please consider making a reply to let them know they are not invisible and are welcome here. More’s the better and you never know what gems they might have to share with us. I keep thinking that I probably would not have made anything more than my first tentative little comment if Just Me had not acknowledged my presence. Of course, now I have way too much presence but please don’t blame Just Me for that. 😉
@EmBee Good suggestion.
Have any of you seen this story and discussion on slashdot.org?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/03/05/2153203/ask-slashdot-should-i-let-my-kids-become-american-citizens
Seems like the kind of fray the Brockers should jump into!
@ RefugeeFromAmerica
It sounds like that “anonymous reader” has the pros and cons lined up pretty well. I don’t think anyone could really help much with the big decision he has to make. I think I have a bias so I would say don’t hang the CBT/FBAR/FATCA albatross around a child’s neck if you can possibly avoid it. BTW, I didn’t know about a male American not automatically passing US citizenship to a child born out of wedlock and abroad. Was that something that came out of the Vietnam era perhaps? It would have made an easy out for American soldier fathers AND the USA which didn’t want those children gaining access to America?
@RefugeeFromAmerica and EmBee: It’s good to see that the guy’s getting sensible advice (non-registration), but he’s not in as good a position as he thinks: the executive branch just last month changed how they define “legitimation”:
http://www.justice.gov/eoir/vll/intdec/vol26/3826.pdf
https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/insidenews/archive/2015/02/13/bia-on-sec-101-c-1-legitimated-child-matter-of-cross-26-i-amp-n-dec-485-bia-2015.aspx
That was a Child Citizenship Act (8 USC 1433) case, but I think it affects 8 USC 1409. Meaning the US might still try to claim the kids as subjects anyway even if the dad doesn’t sign the affidavit of support.
Naturally, the Homelanders portray it as some sort of major victory for the rights of citizens:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-murraytjan/whoops-the-department-of_b_6763514.html
But given the zero-sum way US citizenship law is set up, it’s also a defeat for the rights of those to whom citizenship is forcibly attributed when they have never expressed any desire to be citizens.
oh wait never mind, that’s an “and” not an “or” in 1409. forget what I said.
@Shadow Raider
What a mess! A whole lot of children of naturalized citizens got deported in error? I wonder how many of them now living in other countries are relieved thinking they dodged a bullet, but haven’t really.
@EmBee, something like that, at least according to Wikipedia:
“This distinction between unwed American fathers and American mothers was constructed and reaffirmed by Congress out of concern that a flood of illegitimate Korean and Vietnamese children would later claim American citizenship as a result of their parentage by American servicemen overseas fighting wars in their countries.[14] In many cases, American servicemen passing through in wartime may not have even learned they had fathered a child.[14] In 2001, the Supreme Court, by 5–4 majority in Nguyen v. INS, first established the constitutionality of this gender distinction.[11][12]”
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States
@RefugeeFromAmerica
I feel bad for this man. It almost would have been better if the decision was taken out of his hands, that is, if he and his children’s mother been married at the time of his children’s births. That way, having non-US birthplaces they could fly under the radar if they wanted to and decide for themselves if they want to exercise their US citizenship.
I don’t understand why it’s different for men and women with children born out of wedlock other that to allow the US to behave as “deadbeats” with their own citizens. That said, it’s even more bewildering to me why children born out of wedlock should be treated any differently than any other child. With the burdens US citizenship brings to Americans abroad, it’s now more important than ever that there are fewer ways to become one. Why should the children born out of wedlock be singled out for persecution when their mother just happens to be a US citizen?
@ Bubblebustin RE “I don’t understand why it’s different for men and women with children born out of wedlock other than to allow the US to behave as “deadbeats” with their own citizens…… The 3-score-and-almost-ten feminist in me has to respond.
Historically, the US military has been almost entirely male in both the service realm and administration. The thinking and policies have been built and solidified with male-dominated mentality, with male concerns being front-and-center
Males, historically, have had trouble keeping that organ in their pants. Their needs for “release”, particularly in the late teens and 20s (the age of most of the ground troops over in those foreign conflicts) is high, indeed unrelenting (unless one is shooting or bombing), and perhaps even higher than when living state-side (it’s all that heightened testosterone from holding in all those fears of being killed plus the close-proximity of other high-testosterone males – – it’s a hard thing – – no pun intended). So while (I whisper) masturb….. and homo…… outlets are brutally shamed, getting it off with the natives with conducive body-parts is seen as totally acceptable when you can get it.
The homeland army-administration folks (and the homeland taxpayers) are willing to look the other way as this is such a potent bodily need (and we certainly want to support these guys who are going off to these foreign lands and doing their dirty-work for the homeland so we at home can remain “pure and content”). So spreading seed far and wide with little discrimination or worry about consequences is, basically, “understood”.
However, those “minor consequences” of such turning-a-blind-eye (the children born) must never be confronted. It’s a male-privilege thing that has gone on for centuries (the mandate to spread your genetic pool). And just because there are now laws INSIDE the homeland RE support for offspring and against rape, war is war and we leave those horrors behind when we return home (don’t we?)! We dont want these fellows to have PTSD about shooting up these communities; nor do we want these fellows to have PTSD about the lives that they may have disrupted there, including babes born or in progress from their “outlets” – – this would be too much to ask.
So the (male) president and the (mostly male) congress (who all understand these urges and need to avoid consequences when a soldier comes “back to the world”, a phrase the army is oft to say) have colluded, forever, in allowing these outlets while forbidding the potential results from being discussed/considered/noticed/brought into personal or national consciousness back at the homeland. In otherwords, a typical male-heirarchy cover-up and make-every-effort towards total denial.
Does that sort of cover it? Broo-ha, what the f… and on with one’s life back home. Right?
This isn’t “allowing the US to behave as “deadbeats” with their own citizens”, it’s allowing male soldiers to be rapacious fighters (as long as they do it outside the homeland and don’t expect the taxpayers to help to carry any burden after the soldier has left the service). Any such citizenship rule would apply to non-soldier progeny as well, because the soldier-issue is too big and MUST be dealt with, and such non-soldier issues are merely extraneous situations to be swept up (and away) with the rest.
Children born out of wedlock to US mothers – – well, that is another issue. You know/can see the mother getting full with child, and she WAS part of the US community (despite her mis-step – – she SHOULD NOT have been sexually involved if not married but since she was, and we know that this baby will be or was born through a US-branded birth canal), that infant is condescendingly acknowledged as US. It’s all a never-fully-confronted hang-over from the Victorian Age supported by conservative (and ultra-right conservative) belief in the way of the world (thems’ just the breaks, folks!!!!!!!!) The recent article in Mcleans Magazine about sexual harassment in the RCMP provides a fine 21st century example of how “far” we have come along this highly discriminatory path GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
geeze LM, your descriptive comment (all true IMO) is almost enough to make me reconsider my sexual orientation, or go live in the woods by myself, or both.
@ WhiteKat LOL.
I wonder if the going to “live in the woods by myself” might also solve one’s FATCA problems….. ? 😉
@LM
That was quite a rant. Well done.
LM, EmBee and bubblebustin,
A big thanks for pointing out so vividly this big US hypocrisy on their backwards different definitions of US citizenship transmitted by men and women with children born out of wedlock!
(I guess it is, again, off focus for this thread — but might as well have all current and potential donors to http://www.adcs-adsc.ca/ know this blatant discrimination as well!)
@LM
Whoa, I struck a nerve, one that this whole business has struck in me too. Thanks for putting into words what this not-quite-so ripened feminist couldn’t.
I’ll agree that a male-dominated military and congress has allowed its soldiers to spread its seed with the same impunity that they spread bombs – all for the sake of maintaining its rapacious fighting force, but, the net result has been to allow the US and its soldiers to shirk their responsibilities in providing maintenance for the resultant crops of progeny. After all, a child born out of wedlock can at any time in his/her life can stake claim of US citizenship (and it’s assumed benefits) without the approval of either mother or state as long as they can provide the right evidence.
Whether this child being allowed to do so is a relic of the Victorian era has also crossed my mind and makes sense, but in the age of US citizenship being a burden for non- residents, I’d say that the net result is now the opposite.
@LM
The attitude of the US government seems to be: if you don’t want ’em, we don’t want ’em.
Disgusting.