%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Editorial Board of CBS Incident Committee %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Thursday, July 21, 1994 (Special Edition) ============================================================================= Contents # of Lines ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. United, we made a difference! --a brief report of the CNN incident and CBSIC's actions..............112 2. Excerpt from a New York Times article (09/02/93) on illegal immigrants..41 3. A protest letter from Mi Mi Sr. to MONEYLINE............................68 4. Letters from netters....................................................99 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================= United, we made a difference! --a brief report of the CNN incident and CBSIC's actions..............112 ============================================================================= Earlier this week, a MONEYLINE program ad at CNN alerted many Chinese. In the ad, it claimed that "thousands of Chinese illeagal immigrants entering U.S.... no one cares about it... it costs U.S. 20 billion dollars a year". Many netters immediately pointed out the obvious exaggeration of the ad: how can thousands of Chinese illegal immigrants cost U.S. 20 BILLION dollars?! Furthermore, Chinese illegal immigrants only count a few percent of the total illegal immigrant population, why focus only on them? Since the program was scheduled in Tuesday evening, CBSIC and many other concerned Chinese mobilized immediately to sent letters, fax to and called CNN, urging them to re-examine the program and correct any false information. In his fax to CNN, Mr. Huang Lin, National Coordinator of CBSIC wrote: We are very concerned because an inaccurate or imbalanced report on a minority will create a big problem for everyone in the community. We all know from history what misinformation or disinformation could do to the destiny of an ethnic group. The unfair treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II are still fresh in our minds. We are concerned, therefore, with the ramifications of your program as advertised to be aired on July 19th, 1994 on the normal life of tens of thousands of Chinese Americans, Chinese legal immigrants and other Chinese who are here legally...In order to avoid possible scenarios of discrimination against an ethnic group, I strongly urge you to refrain from airing such a program. Thanks to the effort of Dong Xiao, we quickly located Mr. Wian who reported the program. He agreed that the ad gave a wrong impression. According to his sources, he said, 15-20 billion dollars were the cost U.S. spend on all illegal immigrants per year. He also promised to do something about the mistake, but the program couldn't be cancelled. In the meantime, we also addressed the questionable motive of addressing only a few percent of the illegal immigrant problem. Tuesday's MONEYLINE showed that we made a difference, but far from enough. In the program, they mentioned that the total cost of all (millions of) illegal immigrants is 15 billion dollars per year (down from 20 bil. in their ad). But they didn't say how much Chinese illegal immigrants costed the U.S, only mentioning that they were less than 10% of the total illegal population. They also said there were 10,000 illegal Chinese coming to U.S. per MONTH, which we think is still too high. On Wednesday, James Huang digged out a New York Time 09/02/93 article with INS sources. The article said The number of illegal Chinese immigrants is small and reprents a small fraction of the illegal population in New York City. But, strikingly, New York is home to more than half the illegal Chinese in the country... (The total number of illegal Chinese in NYC is) 12,700... This means that the total illegal Chinese population in U.S. was only about 25,000 and counted less than 1% given the total 3.2 million illegal immigrant population (as of 09/02/93). 10,000/month claimed by MONEYLINE is way too high! And it's not just "less than 10%", it is less than 1%. At the meantime, Dong Xiao called the interviewee of Tuesday's MONEYLINE, Mr. Myers, who came up with the 10,000/month number. Mr. Myers said he was also annoyed by Tuesday's MONEYLINE and issued the following statement: Other than direct cost of enforcing the law, the Chinese who has entered the United State by irregular means, does not cost a penny from the US government and the US taxpayers. He said CNN has made distorsions on his data. Those Chinese who entered the US illegally do not cost anything from the US on welfare, unlike some other ethnic groups. Just the opposite, they make possitive contributions to the US economy by joining the Chinese sector, such as working in Chinese restaurants, etc. He said he already informed Mr. Wian before the program. He estimate, however, there are 600,000 illegal Chinese in the US, 75% came by crossing the Mexican border, 15% through airport and 5% by boat. Only about 10% of them are captured. Dong Xiao then called MONEYLINE and talked to the producer Mr. Gonon about what Mr. Myers had said. Mr. Gonon was apparently surprised about the fact illegal Chinese didn't cost a dime on welfare and said he would talk to Mr. Wian about that. Wednesday's MONEYLINE didn't mention the 15 billion figure at all. And it cited Mexican illegal immigrants. The reporters also said that they were flooded by protesting calls and faxes from Chinese-American community. Wian looked embarassed and said he was a little surprised by the big protest. But the program also claimed there are 60,000 chinese in Moscow waiting to enter US illegally. Clearly, thanks to efforts of the whole Chinese community, we worked together and made the difference. Although MONEYLINE made some corrections and concessions, its report was far from impartial and objective. We need to do a lot more research, to find out every piece of misinformation in this report, such as real number Chinese illegal immigrants and their impact on U.S. It is just the beginning of a long way to go. We sincerely hope that from these CBS, CNN incidents, we Chinese can unite and go through the long journey together. PS: CNN phone numbers, fax numbers, address and e-mail address: CNN Headquarters: CNN Television Network One CNN Center 100 International Blvd Atlanta, GA 30348 Ph: (404) 827-1700 fax: 404-827-1593 E-mail: cnn@aol.com Moneyline: Moneyline CNN Business News 5 Penn Plaza, 20th floor NY, NY 10001 Ph: (212)-714-7962, (212) 714-7800. Fax: (404) 681-3578, (213) 993-5194, (213) 993-5092, (212)-714-7962. CNN Business News: 404-827-1528, CNN Public Information: (404) 827-1500 =============================================================================== 2. Excerpt from a New York Times article (09/02/93) on illegal immigrants....41 =============================================================================== The New York Times, September 2, 1993 Contrary to the images of Chinese boat people and Central American day laborers that dominate the public perception of illegal immigrants, the three major groups are from Ecuador, Italy and Poland. The first complete analysis ever of undocumented immigrants, released yesterday by the City Planning Department, estimates that the illegal population in New York State is the second largest in the country, after California's. The analysis, based on a complicated formula that combined data from border crossings, airports and the census, found that among the 18 million residents of New York are 490,000 illegal immigrants, with more than 80 percent living in New York City. ... The number of illegal Chinese immigrants is small and represents a small fraction of the illegal population in New York City. But, strikingly, New York is home to more than half the illegal Chinese in the country. In contrast, New York draws just one fifth of the legal Chinese immigrants. ... Appendix. Largest Illegal Alien Groups in New York (Sources: INS; NY City Dept. of City Planning) Ecuador 27,100 Italy 26,800 Poland 25,800 Dominican Republic 25,600 Colombia 24,500 Haiti 21,400 Jamaica 21,200 Trinidadand Tobago 20,500 Ireland 16,900 El Salvador 15,300 Pakistan 14,600 Israel 13,500 China 12,700 (2.6%) Total (in NY State) 490,000 =============================================================================== 3. The Protest Letter From Mi Mi Sr. to MONEYLINE............................68 =============================================================================== Mr. Luo Dobbs Moneyline CNN Business News 5 Penn Plaza 20th floor NY, NY 10001 Dear Mr. Luo Dobbs: We are very concerned when we noticed your promo for a program on Moneyline about illegal immigrants from China. It is a common knowledge that the illegal immigration issue nowadays in the United States arouse between race tensions. Especially, when you advertise that every year, the Chinese illegal immigrants cost the US tax payers 20 billion dollars! There are several flaws in your promo and possibly the upcoming program about Chinese illegal immigrants, which number amounts to only a few thousand the most. 1. If these Chinese immigrants cost 20 billion a year, it is equivalent to Millions of dollars per Chinese per year. It is a outrage! Every American tax payer will be asking, why do we need these Chinese here while ourselves are working hard for our families. It will not only affect the illegal immigrants, it will cause resentment on Chinese imiigrants, and Chinese Americans as well! It is a racist attack on the Chinese community! 2. There may be millions of illegal immigrants in this country. If we assume the amount of 20 billion dollars is the total cost of the entire illegal immigrant population, then the number only makes sense if there are millions of illegal immigrants. Now a few thousand illegal Chinese is a mere 0.1% or so! Why do you produce and made such an effort to advertise such a racist program?! What are your problems with the Chinese? The Chinese have long been the best target of injustice, wrongful stereotyping and racial discrimination. Last year, when Golden Venture went aground, the exposure was pushed to its maximum. No one asked how many Chinese actually had illegally entered U.S.A. comparing to the other nationalities. The fact is, although New York City has the highest concentration of illegal Chinese population in the country, its illegal Chinese population ranks barely tenth in the City. The leading illegal immigrant group, however, is from a European country! The Caucations! And no body wants to mention it at all! Further more, the media, intended or not, has portrayed Chinese communities as filled with gangs, kidnappings, people smuggling and slave trade, as your promo alleged! While we admit there are crimes in our community just as in any other communities, most Chinese are law abiding people and more often than not are victims of various criminal groups. We are invetigating the consequence of CBS's seriously biased report on resumed Chinese spying threat. We do not want to see the Chinese in this country, many of them have fought so hard for the democracy and freedom, to become victims of abuse of the freedom of press! Enclosed please find a copy of our letter to CBS for your reference. We would like to take this opportunity to share with you our point of view. Best Regards, Lin Huang National Coordinator CBSIC =============================================================================== 4. Letters from Netters......................................................99 =============================================================================== _From: David Sui My family of three has just sent out $30.00 in response to the donation calls. As ORDINARY chinese,we feel so urgent to fend off news media's discrimination. CBS incident could become ORDINARY, if we let the first offender get away from it. I can possitively assure you that there are going to be some other news media to follow CBS and CNN to catch the fashion, if we failed to respond to the fight immediately and EFFICIENTLY. Up to this point no news media has seen much cost paid by CBS yet. And only the public damage to CBS will sufficiently fend off other media. If we are strong enough we should be able to get help fro m other media too. ************************ _From: James Huang I just digged out some data about the estimated number of illegal Chinese immigrants (see my earlier post), the total number should be less than 30,000 and much less than 3% of all illegal aliens. Since the CNN Moneyline will continue this topic tomorrow, I'd like to present my humble opinions about the tactics we should use to maximize our efforts: In next few days, in your fax/phone calls, do NOT be hostile toward CNN; just calmly present our viewpoints/data, ask them to check out our findings (e.g. NY Times 09/02/93), and try to persuade them to issue a correction (not an apology) at the beginning and end of the CNN Moneyline based on the following facts: 1). according to the data from the INS and NY City Government, there are about 12,700 illegal Chinese immigrants in NY State, more than half the illegal Chinese in U.S. (It is well known among Chinese that illegal Chinese can hardly survive at most places in U.S. except the NYC Chinatown). So the illegal Chinese immigrants in U.S. should be less than 30,000. 2). according to the INS estimate (in the same NY Times article), there were about 3.2 million illegal aliens in U.S., therefore the illegal Chinese accounts for less than 1 percent of illegal immigrant population. 3). in the Moneyline report of 07/19/94, there was a claim that ``10,000 (ten thousand) illegal Chinese arrived at U.S. each month (so the America is `under siege')''. That number would be equavalent to about 30--50 smuggling boats reach the North America each month --- is it possible??? Is there any solid data to substantiate such a claim??? ************************ _From: Dong Xiao Problem with this CNN program: 1. Casey Wian mentioned that the Chinese government sending spies in the boat people (which is not new, but it has nothing to do with money) 2. They did not say how much the CHinese illegal immigrants cost. They mentioned 15 billion, indicated it's the total cost of ALL illegal, they mentioned the "slave trade" is a 3 billion dollar business, but did not say directly how much Chinese illegal cost the US. 3. The 10,000 illegal CHinese per month is too high to me, but we need to investigate. 4. Wian mentioned illegal CHinese is less than 10%, which is very clever, since 1 percent is also "less than 10%". And if a few percent is true, then why they pick illegal Chinese to say they cost US? *************************** _From: Chunyang Peng CNN CNN Money Line (CNN Business News:404-827-1528), (cnn@aol.com) I watched your ad about the program on the Money Line which will be aired today at 7:00 pm about How Chinese Illegal Immigrants cost the US millions of dollars. I understand that this country can not afford illegal immigrants anymore. (Event hough in the past illegal immigrants had made great contributions to this country and was welcomed for sometime.) As a matter of fact, the Chinese illegal immigrants are only 3 percent of all the illegal immigrants entering this country each year. My deep concern is why CNN singles out the illegal immigrants of the Chinese ethic group ONLY and exaggerate the number and impact? I strongly hope that this program on the money line will correctly portrait the case instead of exaggerate the case as if all of the American Chinese are illegal immigrants. I am wondering why there were no mercy for the dead in the Golden Venture who were supposed to find their freedom. ******************* _From: Zhandong Zhou I watched the show and feel it is disgusting. It seems that they changed the figure to $15 billion. I don't know how they come up with this number. Illegal immigrants are the labors of this country. They didn't say how much they helped the economy in this country. I think another number is not true either that they think there are about 10,000 /month illegal immigrants from China. Can you image how many boats needed to transport these people? If one boat can transport as many as 200 people and half of the illegal Chinese are from boat, that require 25 boats/month. I wonder if anybody can verify this number. At last, the show said that 10% illegal immigrants are from China. I think this number is way too high. However, they don't talk about other 90% immigrants? Obviously, Chinese are not in the politics now. In contrast, people from Cuba are welcome as hero when they arrive U.S. although Chinese are also from a communist country. This is unfair. I do against illegal transport immigrants, but the show is out of line.