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New immigration agency launched amid criticism

A National Immigration Agency official patrols Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday. PHOTO: YAO KAI-SHIOU, TAIPEI TIMES

It's either a corrupt agency that intimidates would-be immigrants, or a warm, welcoming gateway to citizenship.

Located at 15 Guangzhou Street, Taipei, in the former headquarters of the Bureau of Immigration, the newly inaugurated National Immigration Agency means different things to different people.

For Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the agency symbolizes a new, "warmer" approach to serving and managing the nation's growing immigrant population.

Cabinet officials, police officers and foreign dignitaries exchanged greetings at an inauguration ceremony at the agency yesterday.

"Many people have criticized the National Immigration Agency for `putting the same old wine in a new bottle,' so to speak," Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) said at the event.

"In truth, the agency marks a new attitude, a new approach, a new era in how this government manages its immigrants and foreign visitors," he said.

Eleven floors below Lee, however, the scene was very different.

In the span of an elevator ride, the easy smiles showing on VIP faces were replaced by desperate, anonymous immigrants on the street.

"That's all bullshit," said a 42-year-old Taiwanese computer maker, referring to Su's promise to "welcome and serve" immigrants and visitors through the new agency.

Identifying himself only by his surname "Liu," the protester said that the "unfair" interview process local immigration authorities had reserved for Chinese spouses seeking residency status had prevented him from marrying and living with his Chinese fiancee in Taipei.

Questions such as "How many times in a week do you have sex [with your spouse or fiance(e)]?" or "What color are your Chinese fiancee's panties?" are typical, protesters said.

"My fiancee has a whole bunch of panties! How am I supposed to answer that?" Liu asked.

"This is a dark, corrupt agency," he added, before citing a list of recent scandals.

On Oct. 5, prosecutors in Taoyuan County detained a bureau employee for stealing and selling re-entry permits to human-trafficking rings. The accused bureau superintendent allegedly raked in US$24 million by pawning 2,000 such permits.

Barely three weeks later, authorities arrested another bureau official for smuggling in prostitutes.

The ministry says that most of the employees from the previous bureau are now working in the agency. Much of the agency's administrative infrastructure and other resources also hail from the bureau.

In fact, the defunct bureau's director, Wu Chen-chi (吳振吉), is now the agency's director.

A 45-year-old immigrant from Zhejiang Province, China, identifying herself only by her surname "Zhang," told the Taipei Times that "local authorities treat all Chinese immigrants as enemies."

Protesters yesterday said that one slip-up in the interview could nix the entire application process for honest, would-be immigrants, while immigration officers allegedly bent over backwards for smugglers with cash-stuffed red envelopes.

The goal of the agency is to streamline immigration and visa-related operations and "foster diversity," the ministry said.

Last year, one in every five newlyweds was a foreigner and one in eight children was born to "cross border" families, Su said yesterday.

He added that Taiwan had become an "immigrant society" and that the time had come to better serve its foreign-born population.

Su probably didn't know that illegal alien Zhou Yanyun (周顏韻), 38, was standing outside the agency, cradling her sick two-year-old daughter, during his speech.

A native of China's Fujian Province, Zhou said she had married a man from Taipei who turned out to be a ferocious drunk and wife beater. The couple had a daughter together before getting a divorce in February, she added.

After the divorce, immigration authorities revoked her residency status and told her to relinquish custody of her daughter to her husband, Zhou said.

"They told me to go back to China," she said, tears streaming down her weathered cheeks. "They forgot about me. Taiwan forgot about me."
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