The US Department of Homeland Security has changed its policy and will now allow Taiwanese citizens entering the US to list Taiwan as their country of citizenship rather than China (Taiwan).
“This is about fairness and today is a victory for the entire Taiwanese community,” said the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, US Representative Howard Berman.
“It is an indignity to force Taiwanese citizens to list anything other than Taiwan on their US entry documents, and together we righted this unfortunate wrong,” he said.
Berman protested to US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano last month after he discovered that Taiwanese were required to write “China (Taiwan)” on their Form I-94 entry document and in the Global Entry Program. He said in a letter that it was long-standing US policy to refer to Taiwan as “Taiwan” and not to make any reference to China.
“Many Taiwanese citizens travel across our borders every day — these individuals should not be required to sign their name under an inaccurate statement in an official government document,” Berman told Napolitano.
This week, US Assistant Commissioner for Customs and Border Protection Michael Yeager wrote to Berman saying that he had “looked into and corrected” the situation.
“Henceforth, persons presenting Taiwanese passports will have their country of citizenship listed and recorded as Taiwan on their respective Form I-94 and the Global Entry Program application process will refer to Taiwan,” Yeager said.
The matter was first brought to Berman’s attention by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) after their members complained.
“We are very grateful to Congressman Berman’s steadfast efforts over the past 20 years to ensure that the official US policy regarding Taiwan’s name is faithfully applied by all US government agencies,” FAPA president Mark Kao (高龍榮) said.
A longtime champion of this issue, Berman was behind legislation that passed in 1994 that allowed Taiwanese-Americans to have “Taiwan” rather than “China” recorded as their birthplace on their US passports. And earlier this year, Berman persuaded California to change its online voter registration system to allow Taiwanese-Americans to list Taiwan as their country of birth rather than “Taiwan, Province of China.”
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS