(Minghui.org) The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy guidance on October 2 highlighting the inadmissibility of members of the Communist or any other totalitarian party.
It said, in part, “Membership in or affiliation with the Communist Party or any other totalitarian party is inconsistent and incompatible with the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America, which includes pledging to ‘support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States.’”
Policy Alert from the USCIS on inadmissibility of members of the Communist or any other totalitarian party.
This law has existed for a long time and the USCIS has recently stepped up its enforcement, according to immigration lawyer Zheng Cunzhu, who has recently been contacted by several Chinese nationals who had been denied immigration or visas by the USCIS.
An Update to the Policy Manual
According to the USCIS, this new guidance is an update to the existing Policy Manual of the agency “to address inadmissibility based on membership in or affiliation with the Communist or any other totalitarian party.”
“The inadmissibility ground for immigrant membership in or affiliation with the Communist or any other totalitarian party is part of a broader set of laws passed by Congress to address threats to the safety and security of the United States,” wrote the manual, “Its original purpose was to protect the United States against un-American and subversive activities that were considered threats to national security.”
Generally speaking, any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible.
In fact, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) back in 1952, authorizing the exclusion of all aliens, immigrants, or non-immigrants on the basis of membership in or affiliation with the Communist or any other totalitarian party.
INA 212 is also specified in U.S. Code 8 U.S.C. 1182: “Any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible.
“The naturalization provisions contain a separate but related ineligibility ground for an alien who has been a member of (or affiliated with) the Communist or any other totalitarian party within 10 years of filing and until the applicant takes the Oath of Allegiance.”
Applications Denied
In a Twitter post by immigration lawyer Zheng Cunzhu on September 17, he described the case of one of his clients, an American citizen. When the client’s father confirmed his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) membership at customs, he was denied entry and his 10-year visa was also revoked. In addition, this person’s U.S. Immigration application was also denied due to his affiliation with the CCP.
Another Chinese national, who called himself Mr. F, revealed in an online post that both he and his wife were asked if they were CCP members during their green card application interviews. He said that the immigration officer who interviewed him asked to see evidence of his taking the initiative to proactively quit the CCP, and didn't accept the fact that he had stopped paying dues and thus passively withdrawn from the CCP.
Severing Ties with the CCP
Attorney Zheng advised his client to quit the CCP organization as soon as possible and provide documentation to that effect to immigration officers. He said the inadmissibility policy of Communist Party members has existed for decades, but that only recently has it been seriously enforced.
The CCP's cover-up of the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, the new National Security Law in Hong Kong, and its ongoing hostility to Taiwan are some of the factors that motivated the U.S. government to reevaluate its relations with the CCP and its members.
Yi Rong, representative of the Global Quitting the CCP (Tuidang) Center in New York, said she and other volunteers have been working for years to raise awareness of the CCP’s brutality against Chinese people, especially Falun Gong practitioners.
According to information from Epoch Times, nearly 365 million Chinese have quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations since the publication of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in 2004. Yi said one can visit www.tuidang.org to quit the CCP and obtain proof as shown below:
Example of the certificate verifying that one has quit the CCP
Category: Media Reports
