Minister of the Interior Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) yesterday promised to push for the abolition of a clause in the Nationality Act (國籍法) that requires immigrant spouses to submit proof of holding NT$420,000 (US$13,000) in assets as part of the process to obtain Taiwanese citizenship.
Liao made the promise when meeting representatives from several immigrant and women’s rights groups at the ministry.
“Most immigrant spouses [from Southeast Asia] work hard to take care of their children and parents-in-law, as well as keeping the expenses in the family — so of course they are unable to save the amount to meet the naturalization requirement,” Phyao Su (舒潘瑤), chairwoman of the TransAsia Sisters Association Taiwan (TASAT) told the minister.
“Immigrant spouses are not dependents of Taiwanese society, instead, they work very hard to shoulder burdens, especially in economically disadvantaged families,” she said. “So, tell me how it is fair that the government says they are not qualified to become Taiwanese?”
Tzeng Chao-yuan (曾炤媛), secretary-general of the Awakening Foundation, agreed and criticized the requirement as “class discrimination.”
Liao admitted that requiring NT$420,000 in financial proof is not a very practical policy, since “those who have the money don’t need to prove it, and for those who don’t have it, they can always find financial ‘proof’ of some kind.”
However, Liao said that the rule came from an article in the Nationality Act that requires immigrant spouses to prove that they can lead a decent life in Taiwan.
“It would be too arduous a task to have that article completely removed from the law, but we can always come up with other options to fulfill the requirement,” the minister said.
“For example, we can require a lesser amount, such as savings of NT$60,000 per year — that would be saving only NT$5,000 a month,” Liao said. “We may also have local borough or village chiefs, or registered local non-governmental organizations [NGOs], prove that an immigrant spouse can lead an independent and decent life in the country.”
The latter option was welcomed by activists, but the first one was met with strong opposition.
“I make NT$20,000 a month, I need to take care of my kids, my parents-in-law and pay the rent — how am I supposed to save NT$5,000 every month?” said Lina Wu (武玉貞), a TASAT board member who originally came from Vietnam.
Liao said that financial proof should be one of the options along with written proof provided by village chiefs or registered NGOs, but said he would take the immigrant groups’ opinions into consideration.
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