Accelerating citizenship for medal hopeful is wrong

Tanith Belbin and her partner Ben Agosto can now represent the U.S. in Turin. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

I enjoy it as much as the next American when one of "our" athletes, having just won the gold, is standing at attention during an Olympic medal ceremony. Hand over heart, mouthing the words to The Star-Spangled Banner through a giant smile or tears of joy -- it's hard not to feel a sense of national pride for an athlete who has devoted endless years of training for this one special moment.

But when I heard that Canadian-born ice dancer Tanith Belbin was sworn in Saturday as a U.S. citizen -- thanks to a new bill that President Bush signed into law the previous day -- that pride was replaced by a sense of national embarrassment.

Belbin benefited from a bill that contained a provision regarding citizenship for "aliens of extraordinary ability" that reduces the waiting time for those so-called special immigrants from five to three years. Since Belbin -- who with her partner Ben Agosto are the reigning world silver medalists in ice-dancing -- received her green card in 2002, her three-year wait was up on Saturday.

The reduction to a three-year wait was initially changed in the summer of 2002. But Belbin had applied for citizenship prior to that, when the wait was five years. She wasn't supposed to receive her citizenship until 2007. But the bill Bush signed Friday allowed those "extraordinary" aliens who applied before the summer of 2002 to benefit from the change in law and cut their wait time by two years.

Hmm, and it just happened to come less than two months before the Turin Olympics. Yep, nothing fishy about that.

	MAILBAG Submit a comment or question for Mike. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

So who is an alien of extraordinary ability? Immigration regulations define it as "a level of expertise indicating that the individual is one of that small percentage who have risen to the very top of the field of endeavor."

In other words, if you're, say, a Nobel peace prize contender or a potential Olympic medal winner who wants citizenship, then you're extraordinary. But if you're just someone who seeks a better life for his or her family, who goes through the proper paperwork and suffers through the red tape simply in hopes of achieving the American dream ... well, sorry, pal, you're just plain ordinary. Evidently, our melting pot now comes with an optional silver spoon.

And isn't it heartwarming to know that we don't even wait for foreign-born "average" people to actually become citizens of this country before we discriminate against them?

To be fair, Belbin wasn't the only potential Olympic hopeful to benefit from the new law. Russian-born Maxim Zavozin, another ice dancer, was also sworn in as a citizen. Obviously, the U.S. has a pretty good ice-dancing recruiting coordinator. Guess we can't say the same in biathlon and cross-country skiing. Maybe Coach K could give up his hoops duties at Duke to hit the recruiting trail in Norway.

Please realize I'm glad that others want to become citizens of our country. Whether athlete or novelist, blue-collar worker or Wall Street banker, I welcome their contributions and look forward to their enhancement of our culture. Belbin has every right to apply for citizenship; I just don't think it's right that she gets special treatment. Her supporters who say it's a matter of fairness are simply wrong. It's a matter of Olympic medals.

Isn't it sad that the U.S., which won 34 medals at the 2002 Winter Olympics (second only to Germany's 36), must resort to going through such hoops as Friday's quick-fix bill in order to enhance our medal chances in Turin? Are we really that hard-up for a medal in ice dancing?

Well, considering the only ice-dancing medal we've ever won was the bronze in 1976, guess we know the answer to that one.

And as for whether Belbin truly qualifies as an "alien of extraordinary ability," well, we'll get the answer to that one in February. You better come home with something hanging around your neck, Tanith. Otherwise, you'll be reduced to average status.