The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday reiterated that Taiwan’s representative to the US Jason Yuan (袁健生) does not and has never held permanent US residency during his tenure as the country’s top diplomat to the US.
The ministry’s explanation, however, still left some questions unanswered.
During its weekly press briefing, director-general of the Department of North American Affairs Harry Tseng (曾厚仁) gave reporters copies of correspondence between Yuan’s lawyers, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) as evidence that Yuan had terminated his application process for US permanent residency prior to his appointment on June 26 last year.
The Nationality Act (國籍法) stipulates that government workers are prohibited from holding foreign citizenship.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine on Wednesday questioned Yuan’s status during his first eight months as the director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), saying he was a US permanent resident until recently.
MOFA and the Executive Yuan defended Yuan saying the situation was a result of administrative errors on the part of US officials.
Yuan has publicly acknowledged that he applied for Lawful Permanent Residency (LPR) back in 2004 when serving as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party’s US representative. He said he needed a green card to legally work in the US.
At a press conference in Washington, Yuan presented a US State Department document stating that “a US citizen must give up US citizenship and a Legal Permanent Resident [LPR] must surrender his/her rights as an LPR to serve as the director of TECRO.”
The paperwork presented by Tseng, however, did not contain any document with an official US government letterhead clearly stating the USCIS’s official confirmation and approval of Yuan’s surrendering of his LPR or the termination of his application process.
Two letters from Barbara Schrage, the managing director of the AIT in Washington, bearing an AIT letterhead dated June 26, last year and April 14 of this year, acknowledged the receipt of letters from Yuan’s lawyer to the US Department of Homeland Security on Yuan’s request to withdraw his Form I-485, Application to Adjust Status, to be effective immediately.
A USCIS letter, dated Dec. 31 last year, stated that Yuan’s law firm’s submission of the Form G-28, “Notice of Entry of Appearance as Attorney or Representative” had been entered into the system and routed to the related file.
Tseng said, the aforementioned letter, although it did not specify that USCIS had received all other documents regarding Yuan’s intention to annul his application process, meant the immigration services had received all related documents submitted by Yuan’s lawyer on the matter.
When asked by the Taipei Times if the US government would issue another letter to confirm Yuan’s surrender of his green card in order to buttress the representative’s claims, Tseng said Yuan had already expressed his displeasure to the AIT over the matter and it was now up to the US to deal with the situation.
Tseng told the Taipei Times that Yuan informed him during a recent meeting with Schrage, that she had pointed out that the AIT letter on June 26, last year was the most crucial evidence that the Department of State had recognized the termination of his green card application process last June.
According to Yuan, Tseng said Schrage added that the US would not have granted Yuan tax-free privileges if he was still a bona fide green card holder.
Another document from USCIS shows that on Aug. 26 last year it informed Yuan that his application for permanent residency had been approved. But it was not until almost two months later, on Oct. 15, that Yuan’s legal team notified USCIS that his application had been withdrawn in June.
Tseng said Yuan received his green card in the mail sometime in February this year, but his lawyer did not inform USCIS of the mistake until March 20.
When the Taipei Times inquired about the time lag between the receipt of the USCIS letters and Yuan’s lawyers informing USCIS of the mistakes, Tseng said mail had initially been sent to Yuan’s previous address. As a result, the notification and green card did not come into the representative’s possession until much later.
“In our view, there was not much of a delay,” Tseng said.
Tseng also presented a letter dated April 6, written by Yuan’s lawyer, informing the representative that the legal team on April 3 met a USCIS officer, Tammy Miller, in USCIS’s Baltimore District Office, who allegedly wrote “Lifted 551 Card” along with her signature on a cover letter presented to her by Yuan’s lawyer regarding his surrender of his green card.
Form I-551 is the Lawful Permanent Resident Card, commonly known as the green card.
The letter said, “Officer Tammy at the Infopass desk noted that the I-551 was taken and would be destroyed.”
MOFA Spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said Yuan had not submitted his fingerprint information as required in the green card application process.
MOFA does not plan to summon Yuan back to Taiwan to explain the matter, Chen said.
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