Kansas City News Blog

Hans Joachim Keil is on the right

​Branson, Missouri, is not exactly the birthplace of sophistication. Perhaps it was just an innocent mistake when, on September 9, 2008, agents with the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a Samoan man, Hans Joachim Keil, on the suspicion that Keil was not in the country legally.

See, Keil is a U.S. citizen. He has dual citizenship here and in Samoa and has lived in the U.S. for over 40 years. He also served for four years in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Keil is also a Samoan diplomat, and in that capacity, he makes frequent stops in Branson to check on a troupe of Samoan dancers who perform in a show called "Island Fire" at the Dutton Family Theater. The dancers are in the country on work visas, and have little contact with their families, so Keil would stop by to relay packages and messages to and from the island. (The human-trafficking investigation did not result in any charges against the theater.)

It shouldn't have taken the authorities long to determine that Keil is legit. But instead of being released with an apology, immigration officials and the U.S. Department of State kept Keil in jail for nine days on charges of "False Claim of Citizenship."

"ICE was investigating the troupe and the Duttons, thinking there was some human trafficking going on there," says Michael Sharma-Crawford, an immigration attorney who, with his partner, Rekha, worked to get Keil released.

Crawford explains that in their investigation, ICE officials dug up Keil's application for a passport from when he came to the U.S. through Hawaii at 17 with his mother and brother. Some lines on the document were struck through, and according to Crawford, ICE investigators determined that the passport was fraudulent. "So one fine day, they (ICE special agents) show up at theater and arrest him for fraud on a U.S. Passport," Crawford says. But, as a U.S. citizen, "(ICE) shouldn't be allowed to touch him."

They touched him, all right, booking him at the Green County, Missouri, jail on an ICE detainer. The ICE agents allegedly referred to Keil as an "illegal alien" at the time of his arrest and seized his U.S. and Samoan Diplomatic Passports.

Due to bond restrictions, Keil wasn't allowed to leave Missouri for four months while his lawyers worked to resolve the issue.On December 12, 2008, the government reinstated Keil's citizenship and dropped all charges against him.

Now, through the Sharma-Crawford Attorneys at Law, Keil is filing suit against Glenn Triveline, the acting field office director of ICE in Kansas City, three other ICE agents and special agent Jack Barnhart of the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service. Keil's petition to the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Missouri asks for a jury trial to decide whether to award him actual and punitive damages for being unlawfully detained for nine days, being denied the opportunity to contact his embassy, being denied the ability to leave Missouri for nearly four months to attend to diplomatic duties or personal interests, and his pain and suffering.

"He is really afraid to come back to the United States," Michael Sharma-Crawford says. "He really is. There was never any doubt in his mind that he is a legal U.S. citizen."

In her press release, Rekha Sharma-Crawford wrote, "Although Immigration, the State Department and Department of Justice officials eventually acknowledged Mr. Keil's legitimate claim to U.S. citizenship, it should not have taken three months to resolve the issue."