Akin Gump lands its jump for Olympic ice dancer's visa.CREDIT Jessica M. Weisel, a senior L.A. partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld LLP LLP - Lower Layer Protocol , with a major assist on the silver medal won by the U.S. ice dancing ice dancing, ice-skating competition in which couples are required to perform dance routines to music. The sport gained popularity in the 1930s and the first world championships were held in 1950. team of Tanith Belbin Tanith Jessica Louise Belbin (born July 11, 1984 in Kingston, Ontario) is a Canadian-American ice dancer. Though she holds dual citizenship, she competes for the United States and has competed for the U.S. since she began skating with Benjamin Agosto in 1998. and Ben Agosto at the recent Turin Olympics. Weisel, cousin of the 24-year-old Agosto, joined the effort to win U.S. citizenship for the Canadian- born Belbin nine months before the games. The legal victory--capped on New Year's Eve at the field office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration immigration, entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. Services in Detroit--took more than five years for Belbin, 21. She moved to the Detroit area in 1998 to train with Agosto, but didn't get her green card until 2002. A typical five-year wait for naturalization naturalization, official act by which a person is made a national of a country other than his or her native one. In some countries naturalized persons do not necessarily become citizens but may merely acquire a new nationality. would have shut her out of the Games, since only U.S. citizens can be on the Olympic team. Congress took up her plight, however, and passed legislation that allowed her to take advantage of recent changes that shortened the naturalization process. She got the OK just in time to get her passport picture and a plane ticket to Italy. Weisel said that when she went before her firm' s board to have her pro-bono work for Belbin approved, the support was inspiring. "We wanted to make sure they got the opportunity to fulfill their dream," said Weisel, who just returned from Turin where she saw Belbin and Agosto claim the first ice dancing medals by Americans in 30 years. "They missed the 2002 Olympics because of citizenship issues and this would have been the second time." Weisel and her Akin colleague, Washington, D.C.-based Barney J. Skladany Jr., were out front in the lobbying efforts to win passage for the bill that provided Belbin with a 33-hour window in which to have her citizenship approved. U.S. Sen. Carl Levin Carl Milton Levin (born June 28, 1934) is a Democratic United States Senator from Michigan and is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He has been in the Senate since 1979 and Michigan's senior senator since 1995. , D-Mich.. sponsored the bill. "It was a huge accomplishment to see them on the Olympic ice Olympic Ice was a daily television program that was broadcast at 6 p.m. ET on the USA Network during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. It focused on figure skating events held at the Palavela Arena. ," Weisel said, "but to see them excel so incredibly--it was beyond our wildest dreams." Staff reporter Emily Bryson York can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 235, or at eyork@labusinessjournal.com. |
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