Tuesday, June 2, 2009

America Remembers Tiananmen with "Humanitarian" Racism

In the West, “June 4” has become a shorthand reminder of the weeks of student-led protests that culminated in the tragic confrontation with China’s People’s Liberation Army ending on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

While the bloody images from the streets of Beijing have seared the minds of America’s TV audience, liusi, June 4 in Mandarin, is a distant memory inside China--so much has happened in the intervening 20 years that transformed China into an economic superpower.

An ironic and curious American reminder of the drama on Tiananmen Square can be found in the little known “The Chinese Student Protection Act” enacted in 1992 and an even more obscure provision in this Act.

Authored by then second-term Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the legislation was to provide a safe harbor by giving the Chinese students in the U.S., some of whom demonstrated in sympathy with their colleagues in China, the opportunity to apply for immediate permanent residency in America.

America has a long generous tradition toward people being persecuted by their own government by offering them asylum and the opportunity to build new lives in the U.S. Eastern Europeans in the 1950s, Cubans after Castro’s 1959 revolution, and boat people from Southeast Asia and Soviet Jews in the 1970s are among those that come to mind.

Pelosi’s student protection act took three years to get through Congress. The backroom dealings apparently necessitated charging the 55,000 green cards slots needed by the students as an “advance” against future quotas of employment-based green card applications made on behalf of Chinese professionals that American companies wanted to hire.

The purpose of employment-based green cards is to allow American companies to hold onto foreign professional talent and keep them in the U.S. This provision is motivated by national self-interest and has nothing to do with humanitarian action. Indeed, the success of Silicon Valley has been due to the foreign talent we have been able to attract and keep as they start new companies and create jobs.

There was no logical reason or justification to tie a humanitarian act to our ability to employ skilled immigrants from the same country. The case involving students from China was unique.

Every year the U.S. grants a maximum of 140,000 green cards to highly skilled foreign professional workers, not more than 9800 from any one country. In fact, the 9800 slots from any one country of origin are rarely all given away except for China and India; in these cases, there are always more highly qualified applicants waiting to get their green cards than available slots. Chinese professionals being sponsored for green cards typically earned advanced degrees from American universities in the sciences, medicine and engineering.

America’s biggest sources of highly trained talent, needed to keep our companies on the leading edge, naturally come from the two countries with the largest population. (One can, of course, argue whether it makes sense to use the same fixed quota for China and India as for other much smaller countries.)

In the case with China, the quota is made even more restrictive because the Student Protection Act took away 1000 slots from China every year until all 55,000 have been offset. It will be another 14 years before the green cards for students have been “paid back.”

Consequently, there is a log jam of Chinese with advanced degrees waiting for permanent residency in the US. Because of the offset, the average wait for a Chinese applying for a green card is over three years longer than for any other nationality.

Does it make any sense to make it harder for the professionals we want to keep, to stay in America? China’s economy is on the ascendancy while ours is heading in the opposite direction. Why are we encouraging them to consider taking their talents back to China—or even Canada?

Chinese immigrants have had to face a history of exclusionary discrimination in order to live in America. This obscure provision of the Student Protection Act, which came to light only recently, seems rooted in the same racist mindset.

A group of Chinese professionals in America waiting for their green cards has formed the Legal Immigrant Association to ask Congress to repeal this discriminatory provision of the Chinese Student Protection Act. They are also seeking support from Chinese American communities.

With two prominent Chinese Americans serving in President Obama’s cabinet, it should not be necessary to remind the people of America and members of Congress of the many contributions Chinese Americans have made in America.

This should be the right time to strike another racially discriminatory statute against the Chinese from our laws.

12 comments:

  1. I am one of the students in Tianmen Squre in 1989, but I am still stuck with EB3 based green card right now.
    Those people who got green card through “The Chinese Student Protection Act” 99% of them were not in Tianmen Squre, they are in U.S.
    So who they really want to protect?

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  2. Oh, I totally support and agree the opinion of the the previous poster.
    I was a junior in 1989, and almost did everything (went to Beijing, protest....). The consequence was that I was censored the police department in 1989, and later on I was assigned to a very local hospital.
    Now I have worked in USA for 7 years, but still am struggling to get the green card as a research scientist.
    The guys who were in USA before 1990 really did nothing, and were grant the green card, it is really unfair (their green card should be called "bloody card")

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  3. Please treat the "student" who were truly devoted to the "6.4" protest

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  4. Student Protection Act appears to show America's high moral point, but indeed it revealed the hypocritical discriminatory action. It’s time for American to re-examine their deed.

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  5. I was a student in Bejing back then. I came to the US 15 year ago. I have been keeping up with my leagal papers ever since. My I-485 was approved three years ago. I am still waiting for my visa slot. ( Most likely for another 5 or more years. EB3). This is really unfair to the Chinese.

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  6. I was a studend in Beijing back then. I came to the US 15 years ago. I applied my green card in 2002. I am still waiting for my visa slot. My I-485 approved, EB3. This is really unfair to the Chinese.

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  7. America remembers Tiannamen but forgets the hundreds of thousands killed/being killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza, Lebanon, in proxy wars all over Africa and South America, land grabs to test atomic bombs in the Pacific atolls, wholesale removal of populations in Diego Rivera, slaughter of native americans, etc.

    I really wish the professional Tiannamen "protesters" would just shut it already. They do nothing but feed Western racist hatred of China and the Chinese diaspora. Word to the wise here: The U.S. never repected human rights of non-U.S. allied nations and is increasingly abusive to its those within her own borders (indefinate retention of domestic terror suspects.) Additionally, the U.S. is not a democracy - it is a republic and equal rights were not granted to a majority of its citizens until well into its 300th year.

    Freedom of expression and human rights is something everyone wants. The Chinese should find a way to work this out without crying to other governments who'll only use your complaints as future ammunition against your own people: The people who successfully opposed the Rio Tinto deal in Australia used images of Tiannamen to demonize today's China which has about as much to do with 1989 as Obama has to do with the Jim Crow laws in this country.

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  8. What do we really know about Tiannamen? Just what mainstream American media tells us. But the internet is a powerful thing and we can find out more if we do a bit of research.

    Justin Raimondo wrote an EXCELLENT analysis of the events that led up to Tiannamen and the "communist" Party that evolved from it. Much more nuanced and balanced than anything one would ever find in any U.S. Government propagandist media, um, er, I mean Mainstream Media.

    http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justinchina1.html#more

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  9. I have the impression that the Chinese students in the US who benefited from the post-Tiananmen green card law tended to be children of privileged and powerful Chinese. Hence, ironically, these kids benefited from their parents' supression of the pro-democracy protesters. Quite amusing.

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  10. I totally agree with bink. Foreign government and people DO NOT care about other people in other country. China and be drop with a nuclear bomb and I don't 1 white American will even care.

    This whole demonization of China in the West is to bring about regime change that tout the Washington line. This will make live in China harder, because revolution is never bloodless. Change happens slowly esp in a country as large as China. Look at the Soviet for your shining example of listening to Washington.

    I find it funny that Chinese go to Washington to make complaint, like any of those white people really give a shit about you. Just like the Dalai Lama, all those people are mere tools.

    Just think about the Native American, all the atrocities they have suffered. Not only American don't remmeber anything, they are mocking their culture with Native American themed mascots. The West world has perfected propaganda and double speak. I think every single Chinese and Asian people should beware when White people try to act like they care.

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  11. I totally agree with bink. Foreign government and people DO NOT care about other people in other country. China and be drop with a nuclear bomb and I don't 1 white American will even care.

    This whole demonization of China in the West is to bring about regime change that tout the Washington line. This will make live in China harder, because revolution is never bloodless. Change happens slowly esp in a country as large as China. Look at the Soviet for your shining example of listening to Washington.

    I find it funny that Chinese go to Washington to make complaint, like any of those white people really give a shit about you. Just like the Dalai Lama, all those people are mere tools.

    Just think about the Native American, all the atrocities they have suffered. Not only American don't remmeber anything, they are mocking their culture with Native American themed mascots. The West world has perfected propaganda and double speak. I think every single Chinese and Asian people should beware when White people try to act like they care.

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  12. evolved china? amazing! amzing! more censorship, more internet terror. no public discussion for june 4 even now. Do you really know the difference between country(people) and government(party)? Its not against your people by discussing the fact unless u people is a part of the evil party

    The law is a discrimination, and a violation of current immigration law. why should asylum green card be paid back with EB quota.

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