 Good morning everybody. My name is Mark Shklav and I am the host of Law Across the Sea and Aloha, welcome. Today's show is an interesting one. It's with an old friend of mine, an immigration attorney, United States immigration attorney who lives right now in London. His name is Richard Goldstein. Welcome Richard. It's good to see you. Aloha Mark and thank you for inviting me. I said you were an immigration attorney. What is an immigration attorney? Can you give us a little hint or a little bit of a description of what an immigration attorney does and what your practice is like? My practice is particularly international because we have an office in New York as well as in London. But the nature of our specific clients in both jurisdictions is both corporate and high-tech entrepreneurial people as well as individual family work. My work in the London office is primarily consular work. I deal with a good deal of expatriation cases, people giving up American citizenship. But in general we deal with all aspects of US immigration and visa law. Now what does that mean? That means people that want to come into the United States for some reason and they want to live here forever or just part-time? What type of folks are you talking about? Well it's both kinds of folks. People who want to come to the United States on a permanent basis where they need to acquire an immigrant visa. People who want to come temporarily, which are either people coming on visit his visas or people coming on temporary work permits. So we deal with both aspects of those kinds of individuals. And once again we also deal with people who want to leave the United States. Okay well let's try to divide those a little bit as we go forward. Now you're, when you started practice of immigration law, how long ago was that? I hastened to be resistant and reluctant to respond, but it's almost 40 years ago. And that's why we titled our segment today, Around the World in 40 Years. I see. And so has the practice of immigration law changed much over those period of time or is it the same type of practice? It's in some aspects very similar to when I got started. In other aspects it's quite different. Now in particular, especially in view of the forthcoming election, it's a much more political kind of discussion going on in terms of who should be allowed in, who should be prevented from coming in, as I'm sure the viewers understand, without going into the politics of it. When I first started as an immigration lawyer, it was much more focused on bringing people to the United States, either by family relationship or by job or by investment. Okay. And you mentioned that a lot of your practice deals also with people that want to give up their citizenship. Now why would somebody want to give up their U.S. citizenship? The answer is very simple, tax. That also, by the way, applies to people who are long-term permanent residents of the United States, who have green cards who want to give up their permanent resident status, people who acquire citizenship, primarily people who are deemed to be what we call birth citizens. They acquired it at birth because anyone born in the United States is constitutionally an American citizen, even if your parents were both illegal at the time you were born. And there are people like that who left the United States early on after their families left to return back to their home country and never even realized they had American citizenship. And later on, when they want to go to the United States, they apply for a visitor's visa or a work visa, and they find out, well, you were born in the United States, sir or ma'am, you're already a citizen. You don't have to do that. And you don't, well, yes, you don't have to do that. You can either re-enter by applying for a passport, which most of them won't have if they left very early on in life, or alternatively you can give up your citizenship, which we call expatriation. Okay. All right. I do want to go a little bit more into that. You know, you said taxes, but it seems to me somebody gives up their U.S. citizenship. That's a pretty big step to me. It's all about money. That's what I hear. I would say 99 out of 100 cases where people are giving up their American citizenship or long-term permanent residence, no matter what the client tells you as the lawyer initially, you have to keep questioning, questioning, questioning as to the real motivations. Usually we hear rather innocuous responses. I don't like the weather in America. I don't like the American president. I don't like the social system there. The schools aren't great for my kid. But when you push, the ultimate answer, especially if we're talking people with high income, substantial assets later on in life when they're starting to deal with viewing state and tax issues, they start thinking of whether or not it makes sense to maintain their citizenship. Okay. Now, most people think of immigration as to what we talked a little bit about was folks coming into the United States for various reasons. And now I want to go one more step. What is the process when you give up your citizenship? What is that type of a process? Because that'll be something new for most folks. Sure. Well, the first thing to point out is that whenever we see a client, and I'm sure this is the same for most of my colleagues who deal with this work, the first and most appropriate thing to do always is to find out whether or not they have received appropriate tax advice on the consequences of expatriation. Because it is quite feasible and quite likely that if they're high income, high asset at the time of expatriation, they may be subject to what we call an exit tax, which can be very innocuous and very expensive, and only the really very wealthy ones may determine that it still pays to go ahead and do this because contrary to what a lot of people think, Mark, a permanent resident like an American citizen is required to file a U.S. tax return every year on worldwide income. And there are many, many permanent residents, as well as Americans born in the U.S. who left the U.S. for a variety of reasons, living in Asia, living in Europe, or elsewhere, who never assume that even though they're receiving income for their work overseas, they're still required to file a U.S. tax return on worldwide income. So they need to get proper tax advice and in a no double taxation jurisdiction like most of the major countries in the world, if they've paid a substantial amount and sufficient amount of taxes to their country of residence and presumably nationality other than the U.S., they will probably not be subject to a double tax in the U.S. but that does not relieve them of the responsibility to file a U.S. tax return verifying that. And I myself, like my wife and my son, we're dual nationals. We live both in the U.S. and the U.K., primarily in the U.K. now. I travel back and forth, as you know. And we do have to report our U.K. taxes and U.K. income on our U.S. consolidated return. Okay, but all right, so you say what type of tax advice? Why do you want to leave the United States? Have you got tax advice? Then what is the next step for somebody that is contemplating and just wants to give up their citizenship? If they're confident that this is what they want to do and they've gotten tax advice and they found out about the consequences and the amount of presumably the exit tax, which may not necessarily be offensive to the very wealthy or it may not be offensive at all. How much is that? It will totally depend on their assets, on the date of expatriation. What is an exit tax? It's a tax that the U.S. imposes on people who want to give up their citizenship or permanent residence. When they leave? When they leave. The idea is to discourage them from doing so or to verify that they're up to date on their taxes. So if the client comes to me and says, well, I've got my tax advice, I want to go. I want to leave the U.S. I'm taking my family with me. We would then explain to them the procedure. The first and most important thing to explain to them is they have to deal with the expatriation at an American embassy or a consular post. They cannot do this in the United States while they're physically there unless we're in a period of declared war, which has not happened since the end of the Second World War. So the Vietnamese War, the Korean War, would not be deemed to be a place or an occurrence where one could expatriate physically in the U.S. So we then determine where is the most appropriate place for them to expatriate. Would it normally be in the country that they want to go to? It's usually in the country of their alternate nationality, which raises a very interesting point, Mark. We've talked about this earlier. From a technical point of view, you do not have to have an alternate nationality to give up your American citizenship. Consular offices who will interview the person for the formal expatriation process will usually require showing evidence of the alternate nationality. If they don't do that and the expatriation becomes finalized, which is a procedure we can talk about if you wish, then technically the person is given up their American citizenship. They've given up their passport. Once they walk out of the embassy, they're stateless. Now, the next question for them to deal with is, well, what do I do if I'm in the U.K. or if I'm in France or I'm in Germany or I'm in Japan and Korea and I've given up my citizenship? I've left the embassy. I'm stateless. From a legal point of view, under the local jurisdiction's laws, they're probably going to be out of status and illegal. How are they going to get out of the country? You need a passport to leave. Well, the U.S. does have a treaty with most countries which verifies that if they're an American citizen giving up their citizenship without an alternate nationality, the U.S. will parole them back in. Re-admit them back in. What happens then is questionable. We don't have great numbers of these people. And most of them would be dual citizens and they would already have that arranged before they decided to give up. And I think I've asked you this before in various times, but where do these folks go? They give up their citizenship. Is there a favored country or is there a favored jurisdiction? I mean, I want to give up my citizenship of the United States where I've lived and I want to, for tax reasons, and I want to go somewhere else. Where do they go? They go everywhere, Mark. Usually they go to the country that they've been living in most of the time since they left the U.S. because they already have a social system created there. Their social status is already established there. Their center of gravity politically, economically, socially is there. So, for example, if I wanted to give up my American citizenship, which I have no plans on doing, or my wife Julie or my son Daniel wanted to do it and we wouldn't, we have no plans to ever do it, but since we've lived in the U.K. most of our time and we have U.K. passports, we would presumably want to go to the U.K., deal with the expatriation there and we have a U.K. passport to stay there, which at least for the next two years enables us to travel around the E.U. Okay, we'll get into that in the next part of this. Now, you've talked about quite a little bit now about you and I mentioned earlier that you live in London, but I know that you're a nice boy from New York. So how did that ever happen? How did a nice boy from New York get to London and why? What was that about? First of all, it's a long time since anyone called me a nice boy. So thank you. Well, I've always had an international focus in my education, in my traveling, pre-law school, and I always wanted to spend a considerable amount of time overseas, but when I got admitted to the bar, I thought that it made good sense to go to a place where, first of all, I could understand the language because I was not a great linguist and still am not a great linguist. So having been to the U.K. as a college student, it seemed to make sense if I'm establishing an international immigration practice, maintain the office in the United States in New York, and start spending a considerable amount of time in the U.K. where I felt physically, socially, and politically comfortable, where I thought it was easy to meet people and develop relationships, and actually I was one of two of the first two immigration lawyers, U.S. immigration lawyers, to actually open an office in the U.K. When was this, by the way? 1979. Okay, and how long had you been a lawyer at that time? I've been a lawyer since 1976. So a rather quick move, and you've always been in immigration? Always been in love with U.S. immigration law. I found it to be an extraordinarily rewarding profession. I've always enjoyed dealing with people from all over the world. We've had some wonderful clients over the years, and it's really been a pleasure to help bring good people to the United States. Okay, and we're going to talk a little bit more about bringing good people into the United States and also whether we should be keeping people out in a few minutes after we take this break. Hey, everybody, my name is David Chang, and I'm the new host of a new show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you secrets on giving yourself a smart edge in life. We're going to have awesome guests and great mentors of mine from the political, military, business, nonprofit. You name it, so it's something for everybody. Aloha, my name is Danelia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. We are the co-hosts of Keys to Success, which is live on Think Tech live streaming network series weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. Aloha. Aloha. Welcome to ThinkTechHawaii.com. This is Johnson Choi, your host. My focus is Asia in reveal. We talk about interesting subjects in Asia. Be sure to check the ThinkTech.com website on the next topic. Thank you. Aloha, I'm Chantel Seville, host of the Savvy Chick Show on ThinkTech Hawaii. This show is for you. It's all about inspiring and empowering girls of the future to do what they love, get out there, and be healthy, fit, and confident. If you're up for that, 11 a.m. every Wednesday, I'll see you there. Hi, I'm Steven Phillip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist here in Hawaii, and I'm the host of Shrink Rap Hawaii, which is on Tuesdays at 3 o'clock. Have a great summit. Take care of your mental health. Aloha, everyone. I'm Maria Mera, and I'm here to invite you to my bilingual show, Viva Hawaii on ThinkTech Hawaii, every other Monday at 3 p.m. We are here to talk about news, issues, and events local and around the world. Join me. Aloha. Aloha. How are you doing there, lassies and ladies? This is Angus McDuck here on ThinkTech Hawaii, and I have my favorite show, Hibachi Talk with my good old buddies, Gordo the Texara and Andrew the security guy. Please join us every Monday. No, it's Friday, every Friday from 1 p.m. to 1 p.m. here on ThinkTech Hawaii, and you can also find us on YouTube. Hibachi Talk. Aloha. All right, folks. We are back to La Crosse the Sea around the world in 40 years with Richard Golstein. Richard, we were talking about a concept that most people don't think of in immigration law, that is U.S. citizens that want to leave the United States. Now I want to come back and talk about bringing people in. You mentioned you like the idea of bringing good people into the United States. Who are those good people? What types of folks that you help come into the United States? Why are they coming in? I want to ask that. I also want to ask about do we keep people out? And what type of folks do we keep out? And what that has to do with this election that's happening right now? But first, what type of people do you help come into the United States normally? That depends on one's immigration law practice. There's a whole variety of aspects of U.S. immigration law that people tend to specialize in. We do not in our law firm, for example, deal with people who are subject to deportation or removal from the United States. We do not deal with litigation. That doesn't mean that that's not important. It's just that we don't specialize in those areas. And we have many colleagues who do, and they do an outstanding job representing individuals. The nature of our firm's work is primarily business-oriented immigration law, which means getting people either temporary work visas or eventually getting them permanent resident status in the U.S. It includes high-tech people, people in the medical and scientific professions, people who are teachers, students as well, who are going to university in the United States, as well as a whole variety of other people, including entrepreneurs who wish to make investments in the United States. So that's really the nature of our firm's practice, certainly in New York. In the London office, we also deal with people who have been denied temporary visas for a whole variety of reasons. Either they have committed some offense in the past, some criminal offense which requires, for the most part, a waiver of ineligibility, or they have had some political issues in the problems in the past which raise issue as to their eligibility for admission. There is a whole variety of about 38 grounds of ineligibility to enter the U.S. But none of them have raised the current issue of whether or not people should be religiously precluded from coming to the United States. Okay, so before we get there, so the people that you're helping are mostly in business. Correct. They're providing an economic benefit. Correct. You also have students. Correct. And the people that are coming in are temporary in the United States. For the most part. For the most part. So are the students. Let me ask you, why should they be temporary? Do we want these people to come in and stay, or do they have to turn around and leave after some period of time? Is that a good policy? Well, that's at the beginning really a decision for the individual to make. There are many young people who come here to the U.S. to attend American universities who have the desire to leave at the end of their studies and return home for family reasons, for business reasons. The United States is no longer the only country where people can succeed business-wise. There are many countries, as you know, which are economically very sustainable, very successful, and people often want to come to the U.S. just to get a good education. Where it becomes a dramatic problem is where we have put foreign students through the American university system. And at the end of that, we give them the option of what we call optional practical training, but then we make it increasingly more difficult for them to be able to remain in the United States and get a proper work visa to remain. How temporary work visa system is at the very center of gravity and economically concerned with the impact on the American labor union. It's a numerically limited visa. So for example, the H1 visa, which is a non-immigrant visa, which most students, particularly those who are highly educated, high-tech people, entrepreneurial people, people who have ideas for incubator companies, after they finish their optional practical training, they often want to remain in the United States and they look to the H1 visa, which is usually the appropriate visa. Regretfully and unfortunately, and due to the impact of the American labor unions, the U.S. has substantially restricted the numbers. And if you look to the major companies in the U.S. that are hiring high-tech people, they will tell you, it's absurd. We are telling the world's best, brightest students. Sorry, we have enough bright, best students here. We don't need you any longer. So go. We're telling companies like Microsoft, go build a factory in Canada. Which they did. Which they did. We're telling companies like Apple, Intel. You know, you can't get your work visas for engineers in suitable numbers for those you want. So as a result, go open factories overseas and hire them there. It really is absurd when our numbers are so restrictive on H1 visas that we're telling half the people, in some cases, two-thirds of the people who are being applied for it by companies who have real jobs who have passed through the Labor Department system so that we know they're economically qualified. They're going to be paid a proper wage. They're educationally qualified. But we tell two-thirds of them, sorry, we have no more numbers for you. So leave. And that to me is an absurdity. Okay, so, and that's why I asked you the question. It's because I thought that might be your answer. Because here you have these great young kids that we train and then we send away. And with respect to somebody that comes in on a business visa, not a student, how does that apply? Is the same rule they can stay for a while, then they have to leave? Well, it depends on the visa they come in. It depends on the temporary visa. Most of our visas will permit anywhere from four to six years, with the exception really of the E2 treaty investor visa. So if, for example, let's say you were coming from the U.K., Mark, you were born in the U.K. or the U.K. passport, and you said to me, Richard, I'd like to open a business in the U.S. How do I get a visa? I would say to you, well, tell me the nature of the business that you want to invest in and what your investment funds look like in terms of numbers. And if you have a substantial amount of money and I know you're going to say, well, what's the substantial amount of money? Fortunately, the system doesn't define substantial. They will look to the nature of the business and determine if the amount is substantial. So the amount of money you would need to open a efficient chip shop in Manhattan as opposed to a car factory in Detroit is substantially different. But as a general rule, setting up a new business, a small business, if someone is able to invest several hundred thousand dollars and they are going to be the primary investor in the business, they are going to be able to qualify as a general rule for the E2 Treaty Investor Visa, which will generally be issued on a five-year period of time and is renewable indefinitely until the business closes. Great. Can any of these people become U.S. citizens? Well, that's a good question. You'll have to look at the individual's background to determine eligibility for permanent residents first. You go from a non-immigrant visa or a work visa to a green card, which is permanent resident status. After you've acquired the permanent resident status, unless it was based on marriage to an American citizen, you need to wait five years in order to then apply for citizenship, providing you've had a sufficient amount of time physically resident in the U.S., no criminal convictions, no issues with arrest of any consequence. You should be able to acquire citizenship. So you don't go from temporary visa to citizenship. In between, you have to get the green card. So there is a pathway? There is a pathway. Okay. Although it sounds like it's a little bit long and you ought to follow some rules, which is fair, but you could get there. And it's worth pointing out that that's the same in most countries in the world. The U.S. is not unusual or unique. Okay. And you help folks with doing that? Myself and all my colleagues around the United States who do U.S. immigration work. Okay. Now I want to talk about something that is perhaps in political nature in a way, and I don't want to get too deep into who's saying what, but there's been talk about keeping certain types of folks out of the United States based on religion or race, where you come from. What's that about? Is it really something that's possible with immigration law to keep somebody out because of their religion or because of their race? Is it just political talk? What's going on here? Well, now we're getting political market. Yes, yes. I'm sorry. You know my feeling on it. I think if any effort were made to preclude Muslims from coming to the United States, and remember we have 11 million Muslims who are American citizens. So when a presidential candidate says, we're going to stop Muslims from coming, what are we going to do with the 11 million Muslims who are in the U.S. who are American citizens? Are you going to deport American citizens? I would not think you'd be constitutionally or legally able to do that. Are you going to be able to change our immigration rules to say if you are a Muslim or some other religious background, you're not eligible to acquire a visa to come to the U.S., either on a temporary or permanent basis. I abhor that kind of suggestion. So that's not, what I hear you saying is that's not a reasonable proposal. Well, it's totally illegal, unconstitutional in my view, to be rather strong and firm on it. So I think you know where I stand on that issue. Okay, and how about trying to keep other people out of the United States by building a wall or somehow putting some other barrier? Is that also a possibility? Well, let me first point out that our current problem with illegal aliens has very little to do now as it may have had to do 30 or 40 years ago with the Mexican U.S. border. 45% of people who overstay in the United States, which means they overstayed their visa status, which means they were legal. Almost half of them came on proper U.S. visas and just stayed. And the fact that we are thinking of or it's being suggested that we should put up this huge wall, to me is absurd. And the basic reason for that is we have a huge Canadian border. And who are we really afraid of? Are we afraid of Mexican workers who are coming to work in our farms, to mow our lawns, to cook in our restaurants, or should we really be focused on terrorists? Right. And you'll have to come back another time to discuss that because we are at the close of our program today. And I want to thank you very much, my dear friend, for being with me today on Law Across the Sea. Thank you, Ma. It's been a pleasure. And thank all of you who watched.