Joel Villar sat in an antique chair contemplating his next move in the chess game he was playing with his immigration lawyer, Ian Hinonangan, at the Warehouse Café in downtown Jersey City. He carefully pushes a pawn to a square, looks and smiles at his opponent/lawyer/friend. Acknowledging the end of the game, both of them stand up and let out triumphant laughs. For several years, the two men have been involved in many moves – immigration moves – to resolve Mr. Villar's daunting immigration problem. Mr. Villar overstayed his visitor's visa a year after arriving in 2003 and since then has been living under the shadows and working under the table just to provide for his family here in the United States and in the Philippines.
Like every undocumented immigrant, Mr. Villar, now living in the Bronx and a former movie actor in his homeland, had been through the toughest of times. But on that day at the cafe, all moves and tactics were left on the chessboard as his battle to gain legal status finally ended in victory.
Hours before his leisurely chess match against his lawyer, Mr. Villar was sworn in as an American citizen in Newark, New Jersey. But it was no ordinary path to citizenship; it was a path less traveled – a remarkably unique immigration case.
In one sweeping decision of an immigration appeals court, Mr. Villar was transformed from being an undocumented immigrant to an American citizen. He didn't even have to pass through the green card or legal residency process. It was as if Mr. Villar was born a second time around and emerged not as a naturalized American but as an American at-birth, even though he was born in the Philippines.
"My life is complete now," Mr. Villar said. "When Attorney Ian (Hinonangan) told me the news, I was in a bus. I wanted to hug everyone in the bus. I cried."
Mr. Villar's mother is a Filipina and his father is an American and a former member of the U.S. Military. Since his mother and father were not married, he was born out of wedlock. Yet a provision in U.S. immigration laws under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allowed for him to be declared an American from the time that he was born.
"That he is an American from birth is what sets at-birth citizenship apart from naturalization," said Mr. Hinonangan, who specializes in cases like this.
"Naturalization goes by a different process whereby a lawful permanent resident, after having met all statutory requirements, including five years of lawful permanent residency, can then apply for American citizenship."
However, it is not enough for an at-birth citizenship applicant to merely say that one of his or her parents is an American. They have to prove acknowledgement of paternity or maternity, among others things. Some could even go as far as requesting a DNA test.
"This was the challenge that Mr. Villar has had to overcome," Mr. Hinonangan added. "His initial application for at-birth citizenship was initially denied by USCIS-Newark so we appealed the denial with the Administrative Appeals Unit of Washington, D.C and we won."
Mr. Villar, whose features are more Caucasian than Asian, never met his American father until October 2007.
"I always prayed to God that one day I could see my dad and when I did, I felt whole," he said.
Mr. Villar appeared in several feature films in the Philippines and appeared as Leonardo Litton for Seiko Films. His migration to the United States was high-profile news in the industry that some show business scribes have even contacted him here to update them with his legal battles and his life as an immigrant in general.
But due to the unappealing nature of working under the table, with the odd jobs and frequent abuses in the workplace, he never disclosed anything until he got the news of his immigration victory.
"It's hard," Mr. Villar confessed. "I worked as a bagger in a supermarket, a dishwasher in a restaurant in Manhattan, and a crew at a doughnut store. One of my co-workers even threatened me that she will have me deported a number of times. But now, I am not afraid anymore. I'm free."
Mr. Villar joins a very small set of Filipinos who have successfully overcome the burden of proving that despite being born outside the United States and out of wedlock they are also American citizens at-birth.
Although Mr. Villar's case was a success, his lawyer believes that there exists a double standard in how the American government treats Filipinos in cases like these.
"While there exists a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that gives "special treatment" to Filipinos by virtue of their previous colonial relationship with the U.S., it was also this very nature of their relationship that led to the exclusion of Filipino Amerasians from the Amerasian Homecoming Act," Mr. Hinonangan said.
"For instance, while Section 326 of the INA confers automatic lawful permanent residency to Filipinos who have been in the United States since 1934, Filipino Amerasians, unlike their Vietnamese counterparts, bear the burden of having to prove acknowledgment of paternity."
As Mr. Villar, his wife, and Mr. Hinonangan concluded their brief victory celebration with a chess match and a bottle of sparkling champagne, a teary-eyed and overjoyed Joel Villar offered one final look back at his former life as undocumented immigrant:
"My uncle who raised me up died recently and I could not come home because I still have no papers. It was very hard and I cried all the time."
Mr. Villar may have moved a pawn to win his chess match against his lawyer that day, but to be able to erase a difficult undocumented past and begin a completely new life as an American, both men, without a doubt, have moved mountains with their unrelenting faith.
