Foreign-born athletes are set to take the stage for U.S.


Associated Press

July 21, 2008 at 7:41 AM EDT

NEW YORK — As the U.S. struggles with immigration policy, Americans will get a chance next month to see their melting-pot nation through the prism of foreign-born athletes competing in USA uniforms at the Beijing Olympics.

There are at least 32 of them, compared to 27 at the 2004 Summer Games, according to the U.S. Olympic Committee, which didn't track the statistic before then.

They include four Chinese-born table tennis players, a kayaker from Britain, Russian-born world champion gymnast Nastia Liukin and seven members of the track-and-field team.

For those seeking symbolism, it's hard to top the men's 1,500-metre squad - Kenya native Bernard Lagat; Lopez Lomong, one of the "lost boys" of Sudan's civil war who spent a decade in a refugee camp; and Leo Manzano, a Mexican labourer's son who moved to the U.S. when he was four but didn't gain citizenship until 2004.

"It's a magical time," said U.S. men's track coach, Bubba Thornton. "I'm glad that these young men found their way here.

"It may just remind us all of where we came from, and how hard the struggle may have been, and how big the dream was to be here."

Within their sport, the three 1,500-metre runners have been warmly embraced, as have other immigrants among the 596 U.S. Olympic athletes.

"I don't think of any of our foreign-born athletes as foreign," said Jill Geer, USA Track & Field's communications director.

"In USATF, no-one considers them anything but American, and I'm not saying that just because it's the right thing to say."

Beyond the realm of sports, the rancorous national debate over immigration has focused on foreigners here illegally and whether they should be offered a pathway to citizenship.

Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favours stricter immigration enforcement, said foreign-born Olympians merit public support.

He says they should be viewed as exceptions in a system fraught with flaws and unfairness.

"Not everybody coming into the U.S. is an Olympic athlete or a Nobel prize winner," Mehlman said. "Maybe this ought to be a wake-up call that we ought to design am immigration policy that seeks out exceptional people."

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, said the achievements of naturalized citizens like Lagat and Lomong should be celebrated, but not used as an argument for a more lenient immigration policy.

Gheen passed along a joke circulating on the Internet that alludes to illegal Mexico-to-U.S. border-crossing - over fences, deserts and the Rio Grande.

The gist of it: Mexico will do poorly in the Olympics "because all their best runners, jumpers and swimmers are in the United States."

Randy Capps, a demographer with the non-partisan Urban Institute who studies immigrant families, sees the U.S. as keeping pace with global competition in its acceptance of foreign-born athletes.

"Would you rather have them competing for someone else? Would you rather the U.S. be more competitive or less competitive?" he asked.

"You wouldn't want an immigration policy that would exclude people who could potentially be the best at what they do."

Many other countries welcome foreign-born athletes to their own teams.

Canada, with a relatively open immigration policy, expects to have more than 50 on its team in Beijing.

Generally, foreign countries don't complain when their citizens relocate to compete for the U.S.

However, some Kenyan officials were displeased when they learned that Lagat - who attended Washington State University but won two Olympic medals for Kenya - had quietly gained U.S. citizenship in 2004 prior to the Athens Games.

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