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China News Digest - US Regional Services (Bo Xiong) --------------- Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 14:57:57 CDT Reply-To: Miao Ye Sender: China-Net From: Miao Ye Subject: National Committee on Immigration News Release No 11 To: Multiple recipients of list CHINA-NT Status: R >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> National * Committee * on * Immigration <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< News Release #9511 Friday, August 26, 1995 ============================================================================== +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= The National Committee on Immigration is a coalition of Chinese Students, Scholars & Professionals who work against the anti-immigration bill HR1915 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= ============================================================================== 1. Chairmen's Forum ...............................................140 2. Update of Actions from Chicago/IL................................35 3. UCLA CSS formed a committee......................................30 4. Anti-H.R.2202 Campaign in Pittsburgh ............................22 5. Letter to the editors............................................51 6. Case study of CBS...............................................195 ===================================================================== 1. Chairmen's Forum ...............................................140 On August 20, three chairs of National Committee on Immigration held a two-hour tele-conference through midnight to discuss the current situations, exchange ideas and concerns, and propose the next lobbying strategy to block the anti-immigration legislation. Among the three participants, Dr. Xue Haipei and Dr. Hu Sen are notable participators and veterans of CSPA lobbying team, while Mr. Huang Lin, currently chairs the Association for Chinese Community Affairs, had led CBS Incident Committee last year, to extract an apology on the air from CBS Evening News for its inflammatory spy report. All are long time community activists. The tele-conference covered various issues. Mr. Huang Lin (M): Hi, Haipei, what is going on in D.C.? Your working experience with the CSPA lobby team, your close relation with Capitol Hill and other key immigration organizations are invaluable to us. I believe you guys who have lobbied the Congress to adopt CSPA should teach our new comers how the Congress work, and how we can push them to vote in our favor. I can remember vividly how you guys sent instructions to Chinese students and scholars nation-wide, as whom they should call and where they should fax and write. It was said wherever the bill went, a tide of supporting faxes, phone calls, and letters would follow just like crazy. It was very impressive. Nowadays not many new comer students know this story. You should tell them how you worked, and how to do it once again. Your role in D.C. is very important. We D.C. outsiders will support you with the media campaign. In the past two weeks, ACCA has established her first ever Public Broadcasting System, connected with hundreds of minority groups and immigration advocacy organizations through Internet. Our broadcasting system can now reach at least 20,000 people, and it is still growing fast. We will use this channel to call for actions whenever you feel it is necessary. Dr. Xue Haipei (X): Well, CSPA lobby was indeed very successful. We D.C. people have gained a lot of experience. Besides, using Internet to lobby the Congress is very much Chinese invention and style. However, no matter how hard we worked in D.C., no matter how accurate the information we obtained from the Capitol Hill, without grassroots support, nothing could be accomplished. You see, we D.C. people's job was to monitor, to follow the bill. Where ever it went, we should know, who had it, who would make what decisions/votes, who were in favor to us and who were not. Then we would just get the addresses and numbers of the concerned congressmen/women, and pass those information to the general public. The response from fellow Chinese students and scholars was tremendous. If no one followed our instructions, I do not think we would make any impression. We Chinese are minorities. Traditionally we are very quiet and do not make much noise. The Americans are totally different. They are very active, and make a lot of noises. So, unless each and every one of us are organized to yell as louder as we can, we can never be heard. That is the key point. Dr. Hu Sen (H): Well, the situation of CSPA was different from HR2202. The general public was sympathetic to Chinese students, the majority lawmakers were cooperative and helpful. In other words, we were at the wining side. The key was to get most out of it. However, this time, we are on defensive side. The general public is against the immigration, and the politicians are making use of it. This is totally different. Another difference is, the whole minority communities are with us, so we are not the sole players. We have to cooperation with all other ethic groups, and this is the key how we can make louder noises this time. M: That is exactly what ACCA is doing. You guys know I was the National coordinator. We are experienced with coordinating other groups, making use of the Internet mass media, generate a lot of noises. X: You CBS-IC was very impressive indeed. I heard you were pumping dozens of messages each day coordinating actions across the country. Besides, the fight with CBS was fundamentally different from CSPA lobby. General public was not concerned, if not indifferent. Government officials were skeptical.. M: Yes, even many Chinese believed CBS story. At the beginning, no body trusted us. However, we got all the materials we could lay our hands on, and obtained the first hand information. Not until then did U.S. Commission on Civil Right believed us and stood firmly on our side. Many other organizations finally jumped in with determination, simply because they realized that CBS had made terrible mistakes, and the whole case was doable then. So, if we only say what we want, then no one is going to listen. We must provide the truth, to let people know that our cause is justified. For example, we can not say, hey, do not cut immigration, because I want it! That has no effect at all. We must say, hey, you know how stupid this provision is? It is going to cut outstanding professionals, those the best brains of their native land! Why we can not make use of those talents for Americans? That will increase our competitive edge in the growing global market! How many jobs they will create for us? Just let those Chinese speaking salesmen sell ATT products to China, Vietnamese speaking people sell IBM products to Hanoi! You can not find a better candidate to open the global markets for America! And think about people like Albert Einstein, can we afford losing those talents? I do not think you will support this stupid provision, do you? Well, in this way, the Congressmen are going to listen. Remember, put Americans interest first all the time whenever we ask for favor. X: Exactly. That is the art of lobby........ M: Well, some local coordinators called me, expressed the concerns of the local Chinese. X: what kind of concerns? M: well, they are afraid to go to the public. They believe since non- immigrants have no rights, no one is going to listen. They may have to go back to China eventually, so, better be careful right now... Hu: What? Just because they are non-immigrants? Well, even we have green cards, we still can not vote, but we still can make difference. The HR 1915 or HR 2220 is a bill which will mostly damage Asia American community. This community has a history to be excluded and politically inactive. Their representation is much low compare with their population. However this doesn't mean that we cannot change the situation. America is a democratic country which means that a decision will be made out of compromising various forces. The CSS from mainland China have already made several remarkable achievements, like passage of CSPA and the apology from CBS. All those were done by those who were still non-immigrants. The secret is nothing but by having organized actions. M: Absolutely right. When you were lobbying the CSPA, almost all of the Chinese students were non-immigrants. There was also not a single citizen in our CBS-IC team.. Some people just feel inferior to those American citizens. I must say, the only difference is, we just came later, that is all. America had those economic, social problems long before we came. Blaming us for those problems is meaningless and not fair at all. The most important thing is to take actions. Even though many of us don't have voting rights we can still do lots of things. The congressmen are not only hearing from people they vote for but also people who contribute to this country and people who can affect votes in their district. We still need to reach more people who shared similar concerns, the local communities, the universities and corporations (they will be affected largely). The work on universities and corporations needed to be strengthened. For the members in Judiciary committee we need to work more. And in Texas we need more people to work on Congressman Smith and Congressman Bryant. In Illinois more work need to be done on Congressman Hyde. We can expect that if we work hard this bill will be delayed. It will be a long fight for better or worse. X: Besides, we do not have to be public active to lobby those congress people. Ask your professors, bosses, supervisors, your fellow classmates, your landlords. Borrow a fax machine for a night's job can easily do the trick! M: And ask anyone who is a foreign born, and still expecting a greencard to send a mail to acca@superprism.net, with "help" in the "subject:" field! Tell him/her this is the way to protect his/her American dreams! (to be continued) ==================================================================== 2. Update of Actions from Chicago/IL................................35 >From John Lin, coordinator at Chicago/IL 1, By 8/18, five Chinese Press and Television in Chicago has published our petition letter to mobilize Chinese community here; also about 100 letters /fax has been resent to IL congressmen/senators; 2, 8/24, representative from CHicago-CSS/Professionals and old CHinese Immigrants attended the Town Hall Meeting by Senatro Moseley-Braun/Dem, John J. Lin (Me) openly raised the question and concern regarding deep cut in legal immigrants of extradionary talents--- Senator's answer understandable but not very clear---- She admittted hearing lots of anger regarding family based issues and not so aware of Senator Smith's Bill--- She suggested wait for senate's bill in shape. Also, John Lin has delivered a petition sponsored by 9 Chicago-CSS and Professional Assos to Senator's Asst. on site. Also, Torren Chen from old Chinese immigration council raised the family based issue and we agreed to work together on the issue ahead. General Impression: be well-prepared and follow the democratic rules, our voices could be better heard and taken seriously. 3, IL senators, though not so clear, seems sympathetic about Chinese immigrants , the harder part may be contacting Henry Hyde, the Chairman of House Judiciary Committee. It seems republicans are not so positive hearing from immigrants/minority. 4, next step: (1) television interview(Chinese) on the issue in shape; (2) work with other Chinese communities on the issue; (3) thinking about Senate/President Clinton's lobbying in Sept/Oct. ====================================================================== 3. UCLA CSS formed a Committee Against HR2202 ......................30 (Extraction from their annoucement) If the bill(HR2202) passes, it will bring an end to most family-based immigration for the Asian Pacific American community. It will aversely affect the benefit of all our Chinese Students and Scholars and their families. It will also reduce the quota of employment-based immigrants tremendously, which will affect the Chinese student who are not covered by CSPA. What should we do? It is time we stand up again, join hands to make our concerns heard. If we don't care, who else will? If we don't try, who else will? All the potential candidates for the next year's CSSA-UCLA committee agreed to take the lead on our efforts against HR2202. Hereby we establish a committee to coordinate all the activities, including holding town-hall meetings, contacting various offices and groups on campus, communicating with other similar groups across the nation, and most importantly writing/meeting congressmen in California. The Committee of Chinese Students and Scholars Against HR2202, UCLA Principal Coordinators: Daniel L. Gu, Yu Cao Coordinators: Fuliang Xiao, Hongbin Wang, Mattew Guo Email: HR2202@caledonian.cs.ucla.edu This Committee is under the support of current CSSA-UCLA committee and its President Hongjian Yu who also serves as the Principal Coordinator for similar efforts among CSSAs across the Southern California. The Committee of CSS Against HR2202, UCLA ======================================================================== 4. Anti-H.R.2202 Campaign in Pittsburgh .............................22 From: SXBST10@vms.cis.pitt.edu The CSSA at the University of Pittsburgh and the CGSO at Carnegie Mellon University are working together to carry on the anti-H.R.2202 campaign in Pittsburgh. We had a successful party on August 23 at which nearly 200 letters were written. Most of them were addressed to Henry Hyde( HJC Chair) and George Gekas( the only HJC member from PA ). Right now we are helping Chinese students and scholars to get their advisor to voice their objection. We have one coordinator in every major department, distributing material and collecting feedback. We believe that the bill will have no way to get passed if every CSSA, especially those in the states which have many members in the House Judiciary Committee, does what we do. We appeal that every CSSA report what they have done to exchange ideas and to encourge each other. Shi Bai President, CSSA at Pitt ======================================================================== 5. Letters to the editors............................................51 From: robinsbr@ohsu.edu (Brett Robinson) Old-Date: Fri Aug 25 0:31:25 PDT 1995 It is unfortunate that the Association for Chinese Community Affairs (ACCA) has chosen to promote its own agenda at the expense of other immigrant groups. The suggested wording of a letter to elected officials that states that "It is reasonable, perhaps, to reduce the influx of unskilled immigrants who will become dependent on support services" perpetuates the myth that certain immigrant groups drain the system by their supposed dependence on welfare and other social services. It also implies that an immigrant must have a certain amount of education to be "skilled" and that only immigrants educated in the hard sciences are "energetic." Do the writers of this letter work 10 hour days in 97 degree heat hoeing crops or thinning fruit? The ACCA should examine the history of the women's suffrage movement in this country. History looks with disdain on those women who chose to abandon the African-American struggle for the vote in hopes that their own chances would improve. The same thing occurred in the history of the labor movement in this country. When oppressed groups did not stand together, they became ineffective. The ACCA should pay closer attention to the quote by Martin Niemoller at the end of their message, "In Germany, they came first for the Communists...but I was not a Communist..." Brett Robinson robinsbr@ohsu.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dear Brett Robinson, Thanks for your comments! When it is ACCA's official belief we should provide an open forum to let the voice of the community be heard, we do not, as a matter of fact, censor each and every postings which go through our system. Indeed, the drafters of the First Amendment to our Constitution knew that the way to preserve truth was by giving all persons with views the freedom to express them. From this "market place of ideas," they believed, the truth would ultimately emerge--for every citizen would have the freedom to judge the truth of a thought or idea for himself. It is our strong belief that an open forum will help our readers this way. Just as we quoted at the end of our messages, we strongly believe that all the oppressed groups should be united, as a whole, to protect themselves. Our Chinese forebears, who toiled the railroad 100 years ago, were in no way "skilled" or "talented". When they were oppressed by the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act, all other minority groups were hurt. That was why, from the very first issue of ACCA postings, we quoted Martin Niemoller's message in every tailer of our message. Thanks again for your comments, and we do hope your comment will stimulate healthy discussions among our grassroots members, and alert them in their future activities. United, we stand. Mi Mi Sr. National President of Association for Chinese Community Affairs ===================================================================== 5. Case study of CBS...............................................195 CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSES AND RESULTS We will return to the very beginning of this incident and see why a mere spies report would create such a commotion among the Chinese American) community in the United States. By Connie Chung's account, the report was aimed at the Chinese government and was only part of a series of reports about China after her visit to that country early in 1994. The other topics in the series included human rights conditions, prodemocracy movements, Most Favored Nation status, and social and economic reforms, and as a whole were intended to make the Chinese government feel uncomfortable. By declaring that China was running the biggest spy network in the United States, that almost everyone of the 350,000 Chinese students and scholars and recent immigrants, whether they were staying here for a short time or permanently, had been screened by the Chinese intelligence agncies as a potential spy before they travelled to this country; by asserting that many members of the 2,000,000 Chinese community would either be forced to spy for China whether they want to or not, or they had already been recruited and instructed to lay low for many years before activation, so that they could steal America's military and technological secrets when they have become long-time U.S. citizens or permanent residents and grown deeply rooted in the American society; and particularly by cautioning the viewers that " you could find them [Chinese spies] in the house next door," the spies story actually had something for everyone in the Chinese (American) community. A. The Most Active Public 1) Problem Recognition Apparently, according to the story, the Chinese students and scholars, and recent immigrants from mainland China, posed the greated threat to the American security. The recruitment procedures depicted in the spies report could only be applied to them since they were the ones that left mainland China in the past 15 years, many of whom were in fact sent and supported by the government and its various departments. Even those nonstudent immigrants could not escape suspicion because they had to be approved by the government for their request of emigration. But the cold fact is that nonstudent immigrants from mainland China were very small in number; simply because the restrictions imposed on immigration into the United States were extremely severe for Chinese mainlanders. The majority of the recent immigrants were actually from Taiwan and Hong Kong, which still have different political and social systems than mainland China. Many of them came to the United States because they did not want to be ruled by the Communist government (in the case of Hong Kong) or they feared for an unstable future (in the case of Taiwan). In any case, they came to this country to pursue their American dream of democracy, freedom, and happiness. Despite their different origins, they were still called Chinese and they looked and behaved Chinese in every way. The CBS spies report indiscriminately cast them into the pool of possible spies. Together with them were students and scholars from Taiwan and Hong Kong. As to the 60,000 or so students and scholars from mainland China, more than 50,000 of them came to the United States before 1989. All of them were eligible for permanent residency under the auspices of the Chinese Student Protection Act passed following the prodemocracy movement and Tiananmen " massacre " in China in 1989. The overwhelming majority of them had already obtained permanent residency either because they wanted to stay here forever to realize their American dream of material abundance and spiritual / political freedom, or because they wanted to wait until China has considerably improved its political, economic, human rights, and other conditions. Most of them grew gravely disappointed with the Chinese government and its political ideology after 1989, and a lot of them were active in the demonstrations and protests here against the Chinese government following the Tiananmen bloodshed. Even many former Communist party members discontinued their membership. In fact, it was the United States government that had been consistently seeking more Chinese students, maybe out of considerations of future influence over Chinese politics and other aspects when those students go back and assume leadership in various positions, or maybe out of benefits brought by the brain drain from developing countries. Anyway, it was after four years of bargaining with the Chinese government that the United States finally won the Chinese permission to lift its restrictions over students studying abroad. As a result, the total number of chinese students and scholars coming to the U.S. during the five years since 1989 was far below the average of the previous years. Among the few thousands who did make it to America, many, if not most, still seek to stay here forever, as is common among students from developing countries. In many respects, China is far behind the United States. Besides the indignation and bitterness caused by the spies report, this public also worried about the possible effects on them in the near as well as distant future. It has been a rule during the past 15 years that those who have fortunately obtained visas to travel to the United States and eventually allowed to stay here have something the country desires or needs: they are either students and scholars who can provide valuable brain power (most of them are science majors), or they are investors and businessmen, or at least people with skills badly needed in the country. Take a look at the U.S. immigration documents concerning priority immigrants from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and you will understand what kind of people have been granted visas and / or immigration. Even those nonstudent immigrants tend to have finished higher education and most likely are science workers of one sort or another. Most of the 350,000 people eventually will have to work in a department of scientific or technological nature if they want to put what they have learned to use. Daily contact with American technologies, some of them high technologies, is almost a must for many of them. Evidently, the CBS report threatened to deprive them of their opportunities to get the kind of job they had been trained for. And if the CBS report were taken seriously by American businesses and universities, most of them would not have any future in this free country. 2) Constraint Recognition While the first public faced a very high problem recognition, they faced an even higher constraint recognition. First of all, most of them were not American citizens. They were either permanent residents (Remember: five years of permanent residency are a basic requirement for citizenship consideration.), or worse for that matter, just plain foreigners who were allowed to stay here for " the duration of study " as stamped on their passport. They did not enjoy any political rights of substance such as voting, and they were treated discriminately in many other areas. In a word, they were " second class citizens " as many of them had both felt and admitted since long ago. Their number could be large, but their voice still would be small, as their voice was seldom backed up by American laws and government policies. In that regard, they were only a little better than those illegal immigrants who are an excellent example of people suffering because they lack the legal and political protections normally taken for granted by citizens. Therefore, theoretically this public could not do much about the situation. They could not turn to politicians because no politician could get anything from them in return (votes). They had the potential to contribute intelligence to this country, but before that potential materializes, nobody cares about their grievances. Many of them were foreigners, and that could be a grave disadvantage to them if they ever tried to make some noises in the current atmosphere of anti-immigrant and sometimes xenophobic sentiment. As a result they could not turn to the American public for sympathy. Finally, the organization they were trying to confront and influence was a media giant, one of the three national networks, which enjoyed the protection of the first constitutional amendment of freedom of the press and speech and had always been a potent power and sometimes biting watchdog against the government. What made the task more difficult was that CBS had long established its reputation as a professional and responsible media organization and enjoyed enormous credibility among its viewers and peers. It was estimated, based on the ratings of the programs for that night, that 12 million Americans watched the CBS spies report. In short, the odds against this particular public were incredible. In addition, this public faced some technical obstacles. They were almost all very busy with their work or study or both -- they had to fight for their physical survival in the first place. They did not have the necessary experience to stage a campaign of this magnitude. For most of them, language was still a big problem: they just could not say exactly what they wanted to say at the right moment in precise and compelling English. If they had been able to use Chinese, their arguments would have been much more cogent and convincing. Their financial resources were extremely limited. If there had not been such a thing called " internet, " they would not have been able to get really organized. Thanks to the virtual reality, dozens of like-minded students and scholars volunteered their time, energy and brain to form the largely internet-based CBS Incident Committee, whose members had mostly never heard of one another before. When a face-to-face meeting was called, the attendees would have to pay their own travel expenses. 3) Level of Involvement As the analysis in the section of Problem Recognition has shown, almost everyone of the 350,000 Chinese students and scholars and recent immigrants was implicated into the alleged huge network of Chinese spies. There was no escape: either they were already recruited spies, or they would be future spies, since " whether they want to or not " as asserted by the report. Anyway, from the point of view of the CBS report, everyone was at least a spy suspect, and FBI assistance should be sought whenever a Chinese was involved. If the report were taken seriously, many people would lose their present job, and many others would never be able to find a job. Even if by some miracle they did land a job and managed to keep it, they could not cherish any hope of substantial advancement since " some of the spies might not be activated for years, even decades," according to the report. Consequently, the level of involvement was indeed very high for everyone whether they wanted it or not; even those who were considered dissidents by the Chinese government could not evade the suspicion. Given the three independent variables detailed above, no wonder many of the 350,000 Chinese students and scholars and recent immigrants would feel indignant at the sweeping accusations and suggestions by the CBS spies report. They were the ones that had been singled out as a group specifically identified with the Chinese government against the American interests, as both the alleged recruitment prodecures and the only example of Chinese spying activities cited in the story both illustrated. It was this group that had been most active, aggresive, persistent and whole-hearted throughout the process, hence contributing most to the eventual resolution of the problem. ====================================================================== More info about HR 1915: ftp at superprism.net:/pub/acca www at http://superprism.net:/~acca/ gopher://cnd.cnd.org/11/English-Menu/InfoBase/HR1915 or, write to acca@superprism.net, with "help" in the "Subject:" field. Further inquiries or inputs send to hr1915@math.luc.edu **************************************************************************** To sub/unsub acca-l@superprism.net send to: acca-l-request@superprism.net with "sub" or "unsub" in the "Subject:" field. ACCA is formerly CBS-IC, to know more: ftp superprism.net:/pub/cbs-ic or http://superprism.net:/~cbs-ic/ **************************************************************************** Editor of this issue: Yi Yan ****************************************************************************