WASHINGTON • Asian family values are challenged under a sweeping US immigration reform plan that grants visas based more on skills than on family connections in the United States.
While the plan offers a path to citizenship for 12m undocumented immigrants, it crumbles the bedrock underlying four decades of US immigration policy that is especially important to Asian Americans: family reunification.
Congress is to consider this week reforms such as ending issuance of US permanent resident cards for siblings and adult children of US citizens and holders of what is known as the "green card."
The new system calls for most green cards to be based on a merit system that would favour applicants who speak English, those with higher education and some with specific job skills.
Trading off family reunification for employment-based visas is seen as inconsistent with US values and with Asia's extended family system, Asian experts say. "In an era of promoting family values, proposals to eliminate family immigration categories seem entirely out of step," said Bill Ong Hing, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of California, Davis.
"What's the message? Brothers and sisters are not important? Once children reach a certain age, they need not bond with their parents? Eliminating such categories institutionalizes an anti-family message," he told a recent Congressional hearing.
Immigration has become a divisive issue in the United States, and shifting the basis of immigration policy from family to skills is seen as a last-ditch bid to woo some conservatives opposed to President George W Bush's legalisation plans for 12m undocumented immigrants in the country.
The new reform proposal "would undermine this nation's long tradition of family-based immigration," warned Japanese-American lawmaker Mike Honda, who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. The Democratic lawmaker said a merit-based immigration system would fail to adequately account for the economic contributions made by family members, who rely on one another to start and run businesses, purchase homes and send children to college. They also provide care for young children, the sick and elderly, he said.
Honda believes about 1.5m of the 14m Asians in the United States are undocumented, including some who were victimised by immigration fraud. Another 1.5m Asians are in the backlog of applications for permanent residency status or citizenship, advocacy groups say.
Waiting lines to receive green cards under the various family categories extend more than a decade for relatives from China and India, and as long as two decades and more from the Philippines.
Under the proposed reforms, the cut-off date for green-card applications on the basis of family ties was March 2005. Applications made after that date would be rejected, dealing a blow to those "who had played by the rules and are now being told it is not good enough," lamented a lawyer for an Asian advocacy group.
While the planned reforms would not eliminate the ability of US citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their spouses and minor children, it does set "an arbitrary and unrealistic cap" on the number of visas available for US citizens to bring in their parents, said the Asian American Justice Center, a national civil rights organization.
An estimated 90,000 visas per year will be cut to 40,000, it said.
"This proposal compromises the ability of millions of American citizens to reunite with their adult children and siblings and will undermine the most important ingredient in creating healthy communities," said Gen Fujioka, program director for the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco.
"Families are the source of our social, cultural and economic vitality. The proposal makes it more difficult for talented and hardworking immigrants to put down roots in the United States," he said.
Asians now comprise five percent of the US population and their 3.2 percent 2005-2006 growth rivals Hispanics' 3.4 percent growth, the highest of any race group.
Some lawmakers worry further legalisation of undocumented Asian workers would enable these new legal permanent residents to sponsor their extended families later under a "chain migration" process.
"In fact, the picture of ever-expanding immigration fueled by chain migration is a fabrication," said professor Hing.
For example, he said, the number of Koreans who entered in 1988 was 34,000, but by 1993, the figure was reduced by half, and in 2004 fewer than 20,000 Koreans immigrated.
The number of Filipinos who immigrated in 1990 was over 71,000, but by 1993 the figure was about 63,000, and around 50,000 by 2004, he said.
