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Forum calls for immigration reform

National Chengchi University law professor Liao Yuan-hao (廖元豪) yesterday urged the government to stop pretending that an immigration problem doesn’t exist and stop treating immigrants as a burden on society. Rather, it should start to draw up an adequate immigration policy, the immigrant rights activist said.

Liao made the comments in a keynote speech delivered at a forum on immigration policy held in Taipei by the National Immigration Agency.

“Immigration is something that you cannot stop or try to control — if people want to move to your country, they will. But if they don’t want to, they won’t even if you ask them to,” Liao told the forum. “So instead of pretending that it doesn’t exist, you should face it and draw up an adequate immigration policy.”

He said that many countries, including Germany, Italy and Taiwan, “pretend that there’s no immigration,” and could only passively react to problems related to immigration as they arose by making minor changes in law.

“That would usually only make things worse,” he said. “Our immigration policy so far has been more of an ‘immigration control’ mechanism that considers immigrants — especially Southeast Asian immigrants — a burden on society. But when you really think about it, immigrants actually contribute more to our society than they take from it.”

Besides the government, people should also be held responsible for creating a better immigration policy, as the government may come from the pressure from xenophobic groups, Liao said.

“Last week, a woman told me that she feels uncomfortable walking on the streets of Taiwan if she finds herself among Southeast Asian immigrants,” Liao said, adding that the woman could not explain why she felt that way.

“So I asked her how she felt if she found herself walking on Taiwanese streets surrounded by Caucasians from North America or Europe — and she said she would have no problem with that,” Liao told the audience. “I’d say there’s a ghost of racism in many people’s minds.”

Hence, a first step towards a better immigration policy would be promoting multiculturalism and introducing anti-discrimination laws, Liao said.

Kao Shu-ching (高淑清), a family education and consulting professor at National Chiayi University, agreed with Liao.

While in the past, the mainstream culture always asked newcomers or minorities to “melt-in” or assimilate to the mainstream culture, “we must learn to appreciate and respect cultural differences, not try to ‘narrow’ the differences,” she said.
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