By Kelli M. Rucker
On April 30th, President Barack Obama will have completed his first one hundred days in office. Traditionally understood as culminating the President’s major agenda-setting, it is an equally critical period for lobbying organizations, all competing for slots within the President’s bevy of priorities.
One Chicago organization, the Asian American Institute (AAI), is a formidable contender. Established in 1992, The Institute has become Chicago’s voice for the pan-Asian community - empowering, educating, and advocating. A supporter of various social causes, the Institute has chosen immigration reform as a way to bring Asian and Asian Americans issues to the forefront of American dialogue, “President Obama said he would make immigration reform a priority, and we want to hold him to his promise,” said April Lewton, a community organizer at the Institute, “The President and our members of Congress need to support comprehensive immigration reform this year.”
In conjunction with its issue platform, the Institute launched the “100 Stories in 100 days” initiative earlier this year, a campaign to collect the immigration stories of documented and undocumented Asian immigrants in the Chicago area. By presenting these testimonies, the Institute hopes to supplement current immigration data with a more intimate portrait, “We already have the demographics and statistics,” Lewton said, “we want to make sure there is a human face to immigration.”
The Institute’s Washington DC correspondent organization, the Asian American Justice Center, shared similar sentiments, “Once we get the faces and the stories out there, we change the imagery of the debate. Asian American immigrants need to be part of the debate,” said Tuyet G. Duong, senior staff attorney for the Center’s immigration and immigrant rights program. He believes the campaign is a proper response to current immigration policies, which he stated is broken and archaic, “A comprehensive immigration reform bill should tackle some key issues. The first is family immigration: these policies are outdated and need to be completely overhauled. No one should have to wait more than a decade to rejoin with a sibling or a spouse or a child.”
Family reunification is a salient issue within immigration reform, and its consequences may be more pronounced in the Asian and Asian American community, “One woman who is ethnic Chinese and born in the Philippines,” Lewton explained, “Was petitioned (for immigration clearance) by her sister in the United States. She had to wait twenty-four years to receive approval from immigration. She didn’t believe she would ever make it to the United States.”
Lewton indicates this is not an uncommon scenario, and unfortunately for many, the outcomes may lead to more serious and irreparable problems. Lewton documented, “A South Asian man petitioned for his new bride; four years later she was still unable to come over. The man had to make frequent, and expensive, trips back and forth to visit his wife - a journey he was only able to make a few times a year. This ordeal caused a lot of strain in their relationship, and shortly before his wife’s immigration status was approved their marriage ended.”
With its heavy influx of ethnic white, Latino, Asian, and Spanish immigrants, the U.S. has, through immigration, transitioned from a predominately single-race to a multi-racial society. There are several reasons for this shift in demographics, many relating to greater economic and social opportunities, “More than a million Asian Americans are undocumented. Many of them are students. Congress needs to pass legislation that offers students the chance to realize their dreams and come out of the shadows. All undocumented individuals who fulfill certain requirements should be able to legalize, integrate, pay taxes and become full citizens,” said Duong.
The Korean American Resource Cultural Center, a Chicago based non-profit, offers a comparable solution. Since 2004, the Center has campaigned for the passage of the Dream Act, an initiative providing opportunities for undocumented students to naturalize. The entire process: application, approval, and completion of educational or work requirements, must be completed within six years. Among other stipulations, applicants need to be under thirty years old, and have immigrated to the United States at age fifteen or younger.
Daisy Liu, instructor at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association, a social services organization in Chicago, is not entirely convinced that legalizing undocumented immigrants should be promulgated. As a Citizenship and Civics Teacher, Liu believes more assistance should be given to those trying to immigrate legally, especially people who have been waiting for extended periods of time, “Millions of people are waiting outside the door. They should have a right. Those waiting for so long, give them some consideration.” She reports to have helped hundreds of legal immigrants become naturalized and encourages those that remain undocumented to report their status to the authorities.
Adhering to protocol, however, may do little to address the underlying issues stalling immigration reform. Backlogs in the system, some up to twenty years of wait listing, force many would be legal immigrants to seek more immediate channels. Most affected by these delays are the Chinese and South Asian communities. Among the administrative causes for these waiting periods, are staff shortages and paperwork complications. These delays are often exacerbated by the failure of immigration officers to timely contact family members for correcting paperwork errors.
A more socially conscious explanation for the backlogs, is its historical use of racial quotas, a policy that has frequently been used to unfairly minimize and exclude African and Asian immigrants. Those in favor of these measures have traditionally been anti-immigration groups, who largely influence the System’s focus on capturing undocumented persons. Propagation is generally on how a large immigrant populace may damper labor wages, and in our current recessionary times, stymie economic reform. Lewton, however, believes such views run counter to remedying the country’s economic crisis, “By fixing immigration, we fix the economy. By not spending hard earned U.S. dollars overseas to support extended family, more people could spend that money in the U.S,” Further, she explained, “The immigrant communities are here not only to contribute to the local economy but also to the social fabric. People are asking to be a part of community.”
“We need common sense immigration reform that tackles these core issues, and reform, which ultimately will help our ailing economy,” Duong said, “The buying power of immigrants is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. We provide a broad taxpayer base. Immigrant families provide safety nets for each other.”
The Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community (CBCAC), a Chicago based coalition of eight major non-profit service organizations, is a major advocate and impetus for political empowerment in the Chinese American community. According to its Chairman C.W. Chan, the possibility of immigrant families contributing additional economic growth draws a natural consensus among various immigrant communities, “There are immigrants who face obstacles to becoming citizens; there are citizens who face obstacle uniting their families; and there are undocumented immigrants who face multiple untold challenges. All share one thing in common: they all work hard and try to make a productive life in this country.”
So far, President Obama’s immigration policy position has closely mirrored these needs for family stability and economic revitalization. He proposes uniting families by increasing the number of immigrants, and utilizing their talents to meet workforce demands. But with a continued ailing economy, some fear his multi-step vision for immigration reform will remain incomplete, if not entirely marginalized. “We hope that he [President Obama] will not only fix the urgent issues at our borders, but also tackle the entire broken system, including legal immigration channels like the family immigration system,” says Duong, “Only then, will there be complete immigration reform.”
Some politicians have already begun the process. Closely aligned with AAI’s Campaign efforts, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D- IL) led a nation-wide “Family Unity” tour, documenting immigration problems faced by U.S. citizens. “As a nation -as citizens- we cannot wait any longer for fair and just immigration reform,” said Rep. Gutierrez, “Across America, parents and children, husbands and wives are being torn apart by a system that values quotas over family values and which undermines our economic security in a time of crisis.”
Nearly 40 evangelical church leaders, representing almost 20,000 parishioners, joined Rep. Gutierrez to demonstrate the growing and diverse number of American families who have been adversely affected by current immigration laws. Their stories were shared with the press at each event. Gutierrez visited seventeen cities and concluded his tour on April 4th in Philadelphia, PA.
In September 2008, Rep. Mike Honda (D - CA) and Senator Robert Menendez (D- NJ), sponsored house bill H.R. 6938, The Reuniting Families Act. Among the bill’s proposals, were recapturing unused family work visas, reducing extensive backlogs, and increasing immigrant quota limits (per country) by 3%. Asian organizations that endorsed the bill included the Japanese American Citizens League, Southeast Asian Resource Action Center, National Asian Pacific American Women Forum, and the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center.
The CBCAC, which did not endorse H.R. 6938, would be willing to support a more inclusive reform, one recognizing the unique nuances within Asian cultures, “The Asian American community in general, and the Chinese American community in particular, have our own issue of diversity based on language, dialect, culture, and stage and pattern of immigration, resulting in a wide range of needs,” said Chan, “A comprehensive immigration reform should address all these issues comprehensively, including those most commonly faced by Asian Americans. Let the whole and full story be told.”
AAI will continue collecting stories until the end of the month. To get involved or learn more about the “100 Stories in 100 Days” campaign, please contact April Lewton by email April@aaichicago.org or phone 773.271.0899. Chicago residents are strongly encouraged to participate.
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