>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> National * Committee * on * Immigration <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
News Release #9511
Friday, August 26, 1995
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The National Committee on Immigration is a coalition of Chinese Students,
Scholars & Professionals who work against the anti-immigration bill HR1915
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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
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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)
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
****************************************************************************
============================================================================
To (un)subscribe acca-l list, please write to acca-l-request@superprism.net
with "sub" or "unsub" in the "Subject:" field, from your individual or local
network redistribution account. You may also send your local redistribution
address to hr1915@math.luc.edu. Committee on Immigration needs everyone of
your support to protect our community and rights.
ACCA's HR1915 infor-center through anonymous ftp at superprism.net:/pub/acca
or www at http://www.superprism.net:/~acca. For auto-retrieval via e-mail,
please write to acca@superprism.net, with "help" in the "Subject:" field.
Also, please visit our CBS-IC infor-center, ftp superprism.net:/pub/cbs-ic
or http://www.superprism.net:/~cbs-ic.
National Chair of ACCA, Mr. Lin Huang (A.K.A. Mi Mi Sr.)
============================================================================
In Germany, they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a Communist; then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Jew; then they came for the Trade-Unionists and I didn't
speak up because I wasn't a Trade-Unionist; then they came for the Catholics
and I didn't speak up because I am a Protestant; then they came for me, and
by that time no-one was left to speak up. --- Martin Niemoller ---
============================================================================