Posted by Asians getting involved in immigration debate on May 03, 2006 at 11:41:37:
In Reply to: Stop the hypocrisy and racism aimed at immigration and immigrants posted by Si se puede, support hard-working immigrants! on April 30, 2006 at 22:41:39:
Saturday, April 29, 2006 Getting involved Asian immigrants in O.C.
are not very visible in the immigration debate but are starting to
realize proposed legislation may change their lives,too.
By TERI SFORZA
The Orange County Register
UNITED: Mary Anne Foo of the Orange County Asian
& Pacific Islander Community Alliance plans to join Latino immigrants
in Mondays boycott because this is an American issue that we all need
to get involved in.
ROSE PALMISANO, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER Related links
Bush, clergy urge work
Joe - like many of the 1 million Asians illegally in this country
- didn't sneak across the border without documents. He arrived with an
idealized vision of America, sky-high hopes and all the proper
paperwork.
But things went awry. His student visa required him to take a full
course load and forbade him from working, but he soon found he couldn't
afford tuition without holding a job. So his course load shrank. His
visa expired. And now he's working in the health care industry, living
with relatives, unable to strike out on his own or pursue his dream of
becoming an architect.
Joe, from Manila, who is not being identified because he fears
deportation, has joined the undocumented underground so often associated with
Hispanic immigrants.
As thousands gear up for Monday's boycott demanding immigration
overhaul, Joe will not join them. He, like many in Orange County's Asian
community, doesn't see the movement as having much to do with him,
although he's in a related legal limbo.
Experts and activists say the legislative proposals could do a great
deal of good - and harm - to the Asian immigrant community, documented
and undocumented.
"The issues have been framed more for the Latino community, but they
affect the entire community," said Mary Anne Foo, executive director of
the Orange County Asian & Pacific Islander Community Alliance. "We want
to bring that to light."
She is urging Asians to march alongside their Hispanic neighbors on
Monday, and will do so herself.
WHO DOES IT AFFECT?
Immigration overhaul doesn't just affect low-skilled workers and
undocumented workers - it affects highly skilled, educated workers as well,
experts and immigration lawyers said.
Several proposals on the table and there are many would address
the tangles faced by people here legally, said Santa Ana immigration
attorney Hilda Surtida. Her clients are mostly Filipino registered
nurses helping to stem the American nursing shortage, but visa backlogs
threaten to ensnare them. That could be solved under pending legislation,
taking the nurses out of line and ensuring their status for years.
Also:
More employment visas would be granted.
The children of illegal immigrants - who grew up here and did well in
school - could pay in-state tuition at colleges, which is a fraction of
what they must pay now.
Some of these American-raised children would have a path to
citizenship.
The agonizingly long wait time for family reunification - in some
cases stretching decades - might be shortened.
There are many other things which may especially concern Asians,
according to the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, D.C. Some
proposals would:
Criminalize students on F1 visas who drop below a full course load,
and workers on H1 visas who are laid off and can't find work within a
certain period of time.
Expand the government's ability to remove immigrants without judicial
process.
Give low-level bureaucrats authority to judge "good moral character"
in citizenship applicants.
Make even minor offenses a trigger for deportation.
Require mandatory detainment for people who enter the country without
documents, including refugees seeking political asylum.
Many Asians aren't aware how profoundly all this could affect them,
and how deeply involved they really are in the whole debate, activists
said.
Vu Qum Ho Nhijn, managing editor of Nguoi Viet Daily News, reminded
Vietnamese that many came to this country without papers.
"When host countries like you, they give you a nice label, like
'refugee.' When they don't like you, they give you a bad one, like 'illegal
immigrant,'" he wrote in a recent column.
RESERVE
Asian participation varies from place to place. In Washington, D.C.,
and Los Angeles, Koreans are regular protesters, sponsoring marches,
circulating letters to Congress and providing dramatic drumming as a
rhythmic backdrop to the protests.
Why are Orange County Asians more reserved?
"The hesitation might be that we are a more conservative county, and
people think, 'How do the police and sheriffs view this?'" Foo said.
"And with our youth, we're more concerned about, 'We don't want you to
get in trouble' and 'Don't miss school.'"
Many people come from countries where challenges to the government
are dealt with harshly. And knowing that the Orange County Sheriff's
Department and the city of Costa Mesa want local officers to enforce
federal immigration laws makes people even more wary of taking a stand in the
streets, Foo said.
"We have quite a few undocumented people in our community," Foo said.
"They might have come on student visas or through Canada. Many were
children who came with their parents when they were a year old. Some kids
don't even know they're undocumented. It wasn't their choice and
they're being punished for their parents' decision to seek a better life.
"People need to understand what's going on and what it means to
them," she said. "It's not a Latino issue. It's an issue we all need to work
on together."
Asians see discrimination in US immigration reforms
GG2.NET NEWS [29/03/2006]
Asians wary of immigration reforms
ASIANS may not account for the large majority of illegal immigrants in the United States but are in the forefront of protests of what they see as increasingly discriminatory moves to regulate immigration.
In recent days, dozens of Asian groups joined mammoth Hispanic-led protests from California to the grounds of Capitol Hill demanding better treatment for immigrants amid plans for a draconian crackdown on illegal immigration.
"Asians were historically discriminated against immigrating to the United States for about 200 years, so we are very wary," said Traci Hong, director of the immigration program at the Asia America Justice Center, a national group defending the civil and human rights of Asian Americans.
Her center is among 40 Asian groups up in arms over a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would make it a felony to be in the United States without proper papers, and a federal crime to aid illegal immigrants.
The groups, some of whom likened the bill as the harshest legislation directed at immigrant workers since the Chinese Exclusion Act, said regulations and policies have been used to "systematically" exclude Asians from the United States.
The groups are concerned that the Senate, currently debating immigration reforms, could adopt key provisions from the House bill, including one which basically allows the police to detain suspects first and verify citizenship status later.
"Now how would an officer come to such a presumption: would it be because the person `did not look American? Would it be because the person had an accent?` It would disproportionately impact the Asian American community," Hong said.
Led by the Chinese, some one million of the 14 million Asians in the United States are illegal immigrants. There are 1.5 million Asians in the backlog of applications for permanent residency status or citizenship.
Many who come to the United States on student or tourist visas stay on illegally because they are able to make a good living here, said Don Shin of the New York-based Young Korean American Service and Education Center.
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that of more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, 78 per cent are from Mexico or other Latin American countries.
Many have children and other relatives who are US citizens and are banking on citizenship as a license for their future.
"The Asian immigrant population in the US is actually the fastest growing segment in part because it is smaller to start with than the Hispanic population but nevertheless it is definitely growing very fast," said Jack Martin, special projects director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes Mr Bush`s guest-worker program.
The Asian population in the United States is projected to jump by a whopping 213 per cent to 33.4 million in 2050 and their share of the nations population would double, from 3.8 per cent to 8 per cent, the US Census Bureau has forecast.
Asians now comprise five per cent of the total US population and their 3.4 per cent population growth rate in the 2003-2004 period makes it the highest of any race group, it said.
http://www.gg2.net/viewnews.asp?nid=2335&tid=countryNews&catid=UK%20News