Chinese American Citizens Alliance
Positions on Proposed Immigration Policy 2006
Since its inception in 1895, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance has defended immigrant rights and opposed unjust, racially-based or racially-implicit laws and rulings against citizens and immigrants of Chinese descent. A major goal remains humane policies that will unite and preserve, not divide, families across the generations.
Homeland security has been forcibly linked with those who violate our borders and therefore, 2006 immigration policy. The Alliance endorses in the 2006 immigration bill Homeland Security's top priority of significantly increasing the number and deployment of professionals and surveillance technology to patrol both of our international borders defining the contiguous 48 states. The Alliance suggests that each unsecured border is a two-country problem and suggests that organization and deployment of a joint international professional team along both sides of a border strip to operate patrols, surveillance, and apprehension is absolutely necessary. Effective and efficient enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration must accompany this increased vigilance, with severe penalties for traffickers who exploit illegal immigrants for profit.
The Chinese American Citizens Alliance specifically supports the following portions of the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Bill, "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" and the Senate Judiciary Committee's proposals which provide for:
- Continuation of the four key preferences for family immigration. The Alliance favors increasing current visa quotas, as much as 50%, as minimums in these preferences to alleviate current huge backlogs, in anticipation of future placements of even larger numbers into the permanent residency line.
- A path to legalization of illegal immigrants, but not at the expense of loyal legal immigrants in the queue. This is the practical solution, as America has no machinery to deport an estimated 12 million illegals.
- The insertion of illegal aliens who apply for permanent residency somewhere behind those already legally in the process. Minimal requirements in the permanent residency application process should include fair penalty fees, proof of tax payments, education in English and self-improvement, citizenship training, and proof of continuous presence in the United States without a criminal record.
- Screening procedures that will help employers avoid hiring of undocumented workers. The Alliance does favor heavy penalties, after due process of law, for employers who have knowingly hired and been proven to have hired the undocumented. However, the Alliance opposes criminalizing employers who hire the undocumented unless the offense is proven to be a repeated violation.
- Increasing annual employment and skilled worker visas sufficiently to sustain practical growth of our economy and curtail outsourcing. Similarly, the Alliance supports a guest-worker program of sufficient size and does favor application of it beyond the agricultural sector into urban services and labor.
The Chinese American Citizens Alliance:
- Opposes conscious and deliberate illegal acts, such as border violators or overstaying visitors. Therefore it opposes any simple and direct amnesty concept, which condones such illegality.
- Opposes, however, criminalization of illegal immigrants, and insists on a fair system based on realistic and humane treatment. The Alliance has always advocated the principle of family unity and will continue its Mission of compassion on behalf of immigrants of Chinese ancestry. Most Chinese immigrants, legal or illegal, have legal family relations in America. Harassment or unfair processes significantly affect the family unit.
- Opposes criminalizing illegal immigrants here for at least five years, are employed, have no criminal record, and have learned English. Making felons of those who have broken United States law in search of the American Dream and have lived as good citizens serves no useful purpose. Criminalization is divisive and would open economic, political, and social gaps that would create problems for present and future generations.
- Opposes criminalizing those who assist illegal immigrants for the sake of basic human need, in emergencies, or for the necessary education of the young.
- Opposes any physical wall along an international border as unworkable, at extremely high cost. (Consider the Great Wall, which stopped no one over time).
Grand President
Munson Kwok
Chinese American Citizens Alliance
May 15, 2006
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