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Task force calls for cap on immigrant spouses from China

A task force commissioned by the government to help it formulate immigration-related policies wants to limit the number of immigrant spouses from China, an interior ministry official said yesterday.

Commissioned by the Cabinet last year to research possible solutions to problems posed by the nation's aging population and influx of immigrants, the task force, comprised of National Chengchi University academics, will submit its findings to the Ministry of the Interior by the end of this month, interior vice minister Lin Mei-chu (林美珠) said.

Called the White Paper on Population Policy, the task force's report will most likely call for a reduction in yearly quotas for immigrant spouses from China, said Liu Bao-min (劉保民), a senior official in the ministry's Department of Household Registration Affairs who is directing the taskforce.

Specifically, the academics are calling for a reduction in the quota for Chinese immigrant spouses who acquire "permanent residency status" here from 6,000 to 4,700 annually, Liu said. They also recommended that the number of Chinese immigrant spouses given "long-term residency status" should be limited to 7,000 annually, he added.

No yearly quota exists for Chinese immigrant spouses with long-term residency status.

"But these are just their recommendations," he said. "The government has not decided whether to make polices yet based on them."

Asked why new quotas are under consideration, Liu said Article 16 of The Statute Governing Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) requires yearly quotas for Chinese immigrants with residency status here.

As for why a new, stricter quota was being considered for long-term residents here from China, National Immigration Agency deputy director Steve Wu (吳學燕) said yesterday that the task force is concerned over soaring divorce rates between local men and Chinese brides here and feels that immigrant spouses from China fail to identify with local culture.

"But those justifications have been extremely controversial with various interest groups, and we don't necessarily espouse them," Wu said.

The White Paper will be submitted to the interior ministry for review on June 29, he added. If the ministry approves its content, the report will then be forwarded to the Cabinet for a final review, a ministry press release said.
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