[An earlier post on this issue can be found here.]
The story in a nutshell: A Taiwanese woman stays in America for several years, and undertakes the lengthy process of becoming a dual U.S. / R.O.C. citizen. Upon returning to Taiwan, she enters political life under the aegis of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party. Now, she is aware of a Taiwanese law which states that no one possessing dual citizenship may hold a government job (those that do must return ALL their government salaried earnings back to the State!) Despite this, the woman doesn't renounce her new American citizenship legally, and is eventually discovered.
When she IS found out, she's asked to give back her accumulated paychecks to Taiwanese taxpayers. The sum total of which equals . . . $3.29 MILLION U.S. dollars.
Naturally, the woman in question -- Diane Lee of the KMT -- insists she's the victim of overly-complicated American citizenship law. Lee claims she ASSUMED the U.S. government would strip her of her citizenship when it discovered she had taken a government position and signed an oath to the Taiwanese government.
Meanwhile, her detractors believe she had more cynical motives: THEY believe she deliberately kept her American citizenship secret as an emergency escape hatch in case any . . . unpleasantness . . . with China happened to arise. Three million bucks at stake sure buys a whole lotta ignorance of the law, her opponents argue.
Dr. William Fang of the China Post wrote a column BLAMING AMERICA FIRST for Lee's troubles, which smacked of crude partisanship. Personally, I can see plenty of blame to go around on this one. But since Fang pointed his finger at America, let's start there:
1) Where was American Immigration in all of this?
After assuming her political posts in Taiwan, Diane Lee apparently visited America using a non-immigrant visa in her Taiwanese passport. This was ILLEGAL -- dual American citizens like Lee are required to use their American passports when re-entering the country. So why didn't American Immigration officers discover Lee doing this? Granted, INS maybe didn't have its act together before 9-11, but is there any excuse for them now?
Another thing: the form for a U.S. non-immigrant visa asks the applicant about the length of their previous visits to America, as well as previous visas that were issued. (No questions about previous U.S. citizenship, though.)
Anyways, Lee lived in the States for more than six years -- so why didn't anyone take the time to pull her file to have a look-see? Unless of course, she lied on her application form . . .
2) Why didn't the KMT vet its candidate more carefully?
Chinese Nationalist Party headquarters, 1994:
Well, Ms. Lee, your credentials certainly SEEM impressive. Just out of curiosity though, it says here you spent more than six years living in America. Did you ever think about, y'know, getting a green card or maybe emigrating there, or something?
REALLY? Dual citizenizenship in 1991? No kiddin'! Now, normally I'd run this by Huang in Legal, but the guy's off on yet another one of his month-long vacations, the lazy bum . . . ;-)
But, what the hell -- we'll just take your word for it that this won't become an embarrassing problem later down the line!
Readers can decide for themselves the probability of Diane Lee's interview ending on such a note. Onto then, to the character issue. In his column, Dr. Fang says when Lee took her oath of office in Taiwan she became a woman with a "dishonest record" whose oath could not be trusted, and America should have stripped Lee of her citizenship because of her "illicit relationship with another country."
In other words, dishonest oath-breakers having illicit relationships with other countries ( ! ) should be expelled by the U.S. . . . but welcomed with open arms by the KMT.
Recalling Oliver Twist's introduction into a gang of juvenile pickpockets:
Consider yourself -- at home.
Consider yourself -- one of the family.
We've taken to you -- so strong.
It's clear -- we're -- going to get along . . .
3) Isn't Diane Lee responsible for looking out for numero uno?
Get this: SIX years elapsed between the time Diane Lee received her Green Card and the time she was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1991. That's 2,200 days she could have picked up a pamphlet or two and learned the rights and responsibilities belonging to Americans with dual citizenship. For my previous post on this matter, I found this U.S. publication which EXPLICITLY informs dual citizens on "How to give up your U.S. citizenship."
There're two words for not doing your homework when so much is at stake: willful ignorance. And what's more, Lee then allowed her entire future income to ride on her "assumption" that her U.S. citizenship would be cancelled. Cancelled by some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in a little Washington office somewhere. A bureaucrat she'd never met before. A bureaucrat who might easily have lost or mis-processed or just plain FORGOTTEN about her file.
But oh well, la-de-da. Why should Lee pick up a phone to check up on the nice man? It's only money, after all.
In December 2008, Diane Lee was found to have filed USA 2007 individual income tax (probably in April, 2008). It proves that her earlier claim to have intention of giving up USA citizenship back in 1994 was an outright lie.
Not only so. When she filed the income tax to US government, she reported her income MUCH LESS than her actually legislator salary.
She probably did that same thing to avoid paying tax to US government in the entire span of past 14 years.
And this is just one of the crimes she committed against USA government.
By filing lower than actual salary for income tax return, she made herself eligible for the 2008 USA Economic Stimulus Payment (ESP), and she applied for it and took the money that is prepared for low income USA citizens !!!
She also puts her child as a beneficiary of her cheating scam and receive extra money from ESP.
It seems to be hard to stop counting her crimes against both Taiwan and US governments.
Posted by: Taiwan Echo | January 01, 2009 at 05:49 PM
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No way, really? Jeez, I'm REALLY going to have to write an update.
But I'm a bit fuzzy on some of this -- I know that Lee claimed her tax form was for property tax, not income tax.
Wouldn't surprise me if she was lying, though. Over the last month, I've been wondering about the possible U.S. tax angle.
By the way, I just ran across some interesting info about U.S. income-taxes and green card holders:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24084
Posted by: The Foreigner | January 02, 2009 at 11:56 AM
I must say this is a great article i enjoyed reading it... keep the good work
Posted by: Passport Renewal | July 21, 2009 at 10:53 PM