A US federal judge in Missouri on Friday ordered the deportation of Taiwanese official Jacqueline Liu (劉姍姍), who pleaded guilty last year to human trafficking charges for abusing her two Filipina maids, the US Attorneys Office said.
Liu, the 64-year-old director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Kansas City, Missouri, was arrested in November and charged with fraud in foreign labor contracting in connection with her treatment of the two maids.
Liu ultimately admitted to forcing the two women, whom she hired in the Philippines and brought to work for her in the US between 2009 and last year, to toil day and night for significantly less pay than promised in their contracts.
US District Judge Greg Kays in Kansas City sentenced Liu, who has been in custody since her arrest, to time served and ordered her deported back to Taiwan as part of a plea deal.
Prosecutors said Liu told one of the women she would pay her US$1,240 a month to work eight hours a day, five days a week — but only paid her US$450 a month and forced her to work 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week.
She also installed surveillance cameras inside her home in Johnson County, Kansas, to monitor the woman. She did not allow her to leave without supervision or permission, and seized her passport and visa and refused to return them.
According to an FBI affidavit filed in the case, Liu also warned the woman she “has friends with local law enforcement and [was] well-known in the community, so if the [female victim] acted out, she would be deported.”
Liu pleaded guilty to the charges in November.
The judge also ordered Liu to pay US$80,044 in restitution to the women, as well as an as-yet unspecified fine, and to cover the full costs of her incarceration and deportation, including round-trip airfare for the US immigration agents who will escort her back to Taiwan.
Don Ledford, a spokesman for Missouri’s federal prosecutor, said he did not know exactly when Liu would be deported.
“The only guess I can make is that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] probably does not feel comfortable discussing the specifics,” he said.
Liu’s two former maids are eligible for T-visas, designed to help victims of human trafficking who cooperate with prosecutors. The visas will allow them to live and work legally in the US and to apply for permanent residency after three years, the US attorney’s office said.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman James Chang (章計平) said Liu was expected to be returned soon, adding that a special team would carry out an internal investigation into the Liu case when she returns to Taiwan.
In related news, the ministry said the US had agreed to a request by Taipei to discuss the terms of the existing diplomatic immunity treaty between the two sides, in the wake of the Liu case.
The ministry said it had proposed a comprehensive review of the privileges, exemptions and immunities in the treaty so that Taiwanese diplomats in the US will be guaranteed better rights in future.
The US has agreed to the request to review the treaty, which was signed in October 1980, the ministry said.
Additional reporting by CNA and AFP
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
RSS