Print

Mail

wiki links

Interviews for all Chinese spouses start

The government's new policy to interview on arrival all Taiwanese returning to the country with new Chinese spouses kicked off yesterday, while, to further efforts to root out bogus marriages and human smuggling, the Cabinet intends on Wednesday to approve the draft of the organic law of the immigration office (入出國及移民署組織條例).

"We had originally planned to approve the draft about a month ago during the weekly Cabinet meeting but decided to delay it until now to coincide with the all-out interview initiative with Chinese spouses at ports of entry," said a Cabinet official who asked not to be named.

Since the Ministry of the Interior launched the interview scheme with Chinese spouses married to Taiwanese, both at home and at ports of entry on Sept. 1, 24 couples, or 2.5 percent, out of the 900 couples interviewed were found to have entered the country with fake marriages as of Oct. 8.

While 13 out of the 24 were discovered at ports of entry, the remaining 11 were caught as a result of a second round of interviews, according to statistics made available by the ministry.

Prior to the ministry launched the interview process -- in which initial interviewees were picked randomly -- spot checks by law enforcement officers between January and August this year found that 52 couples out of 1,079 visited were found to have used bogus marriages to enable a spouse to enter the country.

The interview initiative came after the death of six Chinese women who were forced to jump off a Taiwanese boat attempting to smuggle them onto the country when it was chased by a coast guard patrol in waters off Miaoli County.

Premier Yu Shyi-kun later announced that the government would establish an immigration office to tackle the human smuggling problem. But even before the office is established, Chinese spouses will have to undergo personal interviews before being allowed to enter the country.

The interviews are conducted at three levels: at overseas representative offices, at ports of entry such as airports and the seaports involved in the "small three links" and at home after the couple have entered the country.

Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎), administrative vice minister of the interior, said that the proposed immigration office should ease the manpower problem currently faced by the ministry.

"We have only eight part-timers conducting interviews at ports of entry and six after they [prospective immigrants] enter the country," Chien said. "We'll still be short of people even when an additional 20 law enforcement officers join the force to conduct interviews at ports of entry and 15 more after couples enter the country."

Under the draft of the organic law, the immigration office, once approved by the legislature, will be established under the Ministry of the Interior to handle immigration affairs, including the screening of potential immigrants from China, Hong Kong and Macau as well as overseas Taiwanese without household-registration records.

The immigration office will consist of nine divisions, including an investigation squad, and 1,640 staffers. The 300-strong investigation squad will encompass 10 teams and 25 sub-teams and be responsible for investigating and deporting people for immigration violations.

Statistics show that there were about 190,000 marriages between Taiwanese and Chinese nationals, and about 90,000 marriages between Taiwanese and other foreign nationals as of August.

The number of illegal female Chinese immigrants has increased more than tenfold over the past four years. While women smuggled from China made up 7 percent of the total number of illegal Chinese immigrants in 2000, the figure rocketed to 73.3 percent as of July this year.
This story has been viewed 2479 times.