While the cannabis community is convinced that the Trump administration is pro-pot \u2014 you know, because the president said that one time almost a year ago that he would \u201cprobably\u201d sign a marijuana legalization bill if one ever crossed his desk \u2014 some shady dealings are going down in legal marijuana states that might suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n
Specifically, it appears that U.S. immigration officials are blocking citizenship applications for people currently working in the cannabis industry.\u00a0Mr. Build-A-Wall<\/a> and his cronies have apparently decided that, regardless of whether the marijuana market is legal in places like Colorado, immigrant workers opting for a job in this growing business sector should be disqualified from becoming legitimate members of the Melting Pot.<\/p>\n At least two people have been denied citizenship under these circumstances, according to a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from Colorado Public Radio.<\/p>\n One of them, a Denver man named Oswaldo Barrientos who lived in the U.S. since he was an infant, was recently denied citizenship because he collects a paycheck from a cannabis growing facility. It was a shock, the 30-year-old said, considering that he has been in the country basically all of his life: he graduated from an American high school, doesn\u2019t have a criminal record and even pays his taxes \u2013 something our president has\u00a0bragged about<\/a>\u00a0evading in the past.<\/p>\n Yet Barrientos, who has been working on a green card since his early teens, says it was his five-year working history in the cannabis trade that jammed him up at the immigration office.<\/p>\n During his-in-person interview in November of last year, Barrientos recalled that instead of focusing on his lengthy background as a productive member of society, the agent honed in on his employment a state-licensed pot business. A couple of weeks later, he learned that his application had been denied.<\/p>\n \u201cI was shocked, appalled, sad,\u201d he told CPR. \u201cIt was a mixture of emotions. I had no idea I was going to be in this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n No one would have.<\/p>\n Ever since getting rid of\u00a0Jeff Sessions<\/a> as Attorney General, the Trump administration has been mostly quiet about marijuana. In fact, there have even been a couple of instances where it seemed the president was ready to offer his full support on the matter. During a conversation with Colorado Republican Cory Gardner, Trump allegedly admitted that Sessions\u2019s marijuana views sounded \u201clike something my grandpa said in the 1950s\u201d and he even told the lawmaker that he \u201cneeds to be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n Sessions eventually\u00a0resigned<\/a>, and there really haven\u2019t \u00a0been any more anti-marijuana spiels coming from Washington ever since.<\/p>\n But make no mistake about it, Trump is a magician when it comes to using loopholes in the law to further his agenda, especially concerning his immigration plan. Since marijuana remains a banned substance in the eyes of the federal government, it provides him with an underhanded way to eliminate immigrants affiliated with this field from the equation.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite state law that may allow medical marijuana use, the Supreme Court has held that Congress\u2019s authority under the Commerce Clause empowers it to prohibit drug distribution and possession, even if the prohibited activities are not also illegal under state law,\u201d said Deborah Cannon, a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in an interview with CPR.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen adjudicating applicants for citizenship, the agency is required to apply federal law,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe appreciate the candor of applicants who provide the requisite documentation illustrating legal purchase and possession under state law. However, as a federal agency, we are legally unable to make special considerations in these cases unless or until federal law is changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the immigration-marijuana association debacle doesn\u2019t receive a lot of attention, it has become a real dilemma for immigrants. According to attorney Aaron Elinoff, who is representing Barrientos in his case, it might be better for immigrants working in the cannabis industry to hold off on the citizenship application. \u201cWe don\u2019t know how many people have been denied on the same issue,\u201d he told CPR.<\/p>\n But Colorado officials want some clarification. Last week,\u00a0Denver<\/a>\u00a0Mayor Michael Hancock sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General\u00a0William Barr<\/a>\u00a0concerning the reefer roadblocks preventing quality people, like Barrientos, from becoming citizens. The mayor is asking the Justice Department to change its policy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe strongly believe that such guidance is imperative to ensuring consistent implementation and enforcement of state marijuana laws and regulations in the more than 30 U.S. states that have chosen to fully or partially legalize cannabis,\u201d Hancock\u00a0wrote<\/a>. \u201cDenver understands the need for federal laws and regulations regarding citizenship and immigration, but we are seeing the heartbreaking effects that those federal laws and regulations are having on our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n It remains to be seen how this predicament will shake out. Considering\u00a0Trump\u2019s recent threat<\/a> to close the border, issued in order to strongarm lawmakers into making stricter immigration laws, we\u2019re not holding our breath that this is going to be easily remedied. It is possible, however, that Barr could establish some type of temporary guidance, like a document that says Barrientos and other immigrants in the legal cannabis industry are good to go as far as Uncle Sam is concerned. But the only way to ensure people are not disqualified from citizenship based on their association with cannabis is for Congress to step in a change the law.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, what kind of cannabis policy would you like to see from the White House?\u00a0<\/p>\n The post Trump Administration Uses Cannabis Careers to Block Immigrants from U.S. Citizenship<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
While the cannabis community is convinced that the Trump administration is pro-pot \u2014 you know, because the president said that one time almost a year ago that he would \u201cprobably\u201d sign a marijuana legalization bill if one ever crossed his desk \u2014 some shady dealings are going down in legalContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6418,7162,50,62,96,90,687,4003,429],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34420,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34419\/revisions\/34420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The American Dream, Denied<\/h4>\n
Presidential Roadblocks<\/h4>\n
Federal Action Necessary<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Trump Administration Uses Cannabis Careers to Block Immigrants from U.S. Citizenship<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"