Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

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Tag Archives: Devyani Khobragade

What’s wrong with Form Crime? Part 2

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See also:  Part 1

The far-reaching ramifications of the Devyani Khobragade incident has likely sent a wave of dread upon all foreign diplomats in the US: Can they still depend on diplomatic immunity?  Will the US continue to wink at their domestic arrangements, their parking tickets, and their sometimes more blatant abuses?  Evidently not.  So they have a choice.  Either face the wrath of Form Nation or leave.  Foreign diplomats in the US have been put on notice.  They would do well to pack their bags and return home en bloc, until the US comes to its senses.  What Ms. Khobragade has learned is that any US law enforcement official is able, whimsically, to make a mountain out of molehill, and this is because of a category of law which we have dubbed “Form Crime”.

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What’s wrong with Form Crime? Part 1

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Preet Bharara, the celebrity US prosecutor, brought two main charges against Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade: visa fraud and failure to pay Federal minimum wage while overworking her employee.  She faces maximum prison sentences as reported by the press:

The diplomat, freed on payment of a $250,000 bond, could face a maximum sentence of 10 years if convicted of visa fraud, and five years for making a false declaration.

Thus, as far as we can tell, Mr. Bharara imagines no prison sentences against India’s Lady Diplomat for her underpaying Ms. Richard, since apparently, the first time violation of the Federal Minimum wage law does not include a prison sentence and therefore counts only as a misdemeanor.  Thus, the US government has determined that it is a grave crime to lie on a visa application form (DS-160)–so grave indeed that it allowed the US Marshals to violate its own standards in the treatment of a foreign diplomat (p. 16):

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Sangeeta Richard is proof of failed American reciprocity

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See also:  United States diplomacy requires a generous spritzing of PooPourri

The fallout over the Indian consular officer,  Devyani Khobragade, whom the US Marshals humiliated through strip and cavity searching her despite her immunity (we learn now that it is full UN immunity!), has much greater interest for the Isaac Brock Society than perhaps we realize.  It demonstrates the US’s stance towards other nations as being one of, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  I.e., the US has become monstrous bully and hypocrite.   When citing diplomatic protocols in his defense of accused murderer Raymond Allen Davis (see video of Obama’s plea), President Obama emphasized the concept of reciprocity.  Yet now his administration violates the very principles that he iterated in that press conference by treating Devyani Khobragade with disrespect and by indicting her for Form Crime.

Sangeeta Richard: Nanny on the run

The fundamental issue in this diplomatic controversy is one of jurisdiction.  The Indian government claims jurisdiction over the relationship between nanny Sangeeta Richard and her employer  Devyani Khobragade.  Indeed, Ms. Richard came to the United States under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963), which gives foreign consulates the right to import their own private staff, defined as,

“member of the private staff” means a person who is employed exclusively in the private service of a member of the consular post; …

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United States diplomacy requires a generous spritzing of PooPourri

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See also: Sangeeta Richard is proof of failed American reciprocity

In the uproar concerning of the US mistreatment of their Lady Diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, the Indian government has pointed out that the United States saw things quite differently just two years ago when the tables were turned.

In 2011, CIA operative Raymond Allen Davis killed two robbers in Lahore, Pakistan, using an illegal weapon.  His defense was that one of them had drawn his weapon on him in order to rob him.  While the Pakistanis charged him with murder and wanted him to stand trial, the United States took the position that he was a consular employee and therefore he enjoyed diplomatic immunity.  Barack Obama himself said that Davis should be returned on the grounds of reciprocity (see video of Obama’s very interesting plea).  The US claimed that Davis was a “technial advisor for the American Consulate in Lahore”.  Yet Pakistani lawyer, Mirza Shahzad Akbarm, argued that Pakistan had the right to hold Davis, as he was attached only to a Consulate:

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