Descendants of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops from northern Myanmar and Thailand showed their appreciation to those who helped them in their decade-long struggle for residency and citizenship at a luncheon yesterday.
“We would like to express our appreciation to government officials and everyone in Taiwan who offered help to the descendants of former army troops in Myanmar and Thailand,” Liu Hsiao-hua (劉小華), executive director of the Thailand-Myanmar Region Chinese Offspring Refugee Service Association, said at a luncheon yesterday in Taipei.
“We may take citizenship as something that comes naturally, but for them, it’s something they’ve been longing for all their lives,” Liu said.
A Burmese refugee student currently attending National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Lee Wen-chao (李文超), and his Taiwanese classmate Lu Kuan-ting (盧冠廷) made a short film detailing the lives of Myanmar refugees who live illegally in Taiwan, how many suffer from homesickness, work illegally, have to avoid police checkpoints and are forced to end relationships with boyfriends or girlfriends at home.
“These are all true events that Myanmar refugees have been through in Taiwan — including my own story,” Lee told reporters after screening the film.
In addition to the events seen in the film, Lee said there were also people whose bosses withhold their salaries because they know they are working illegally.
Many refugees are not able to meet all their medical needs because their illegal status means they do not qualify for National Health Insurance, Lee said.
Following the KMT’s defeat in the Chinese civil war 60 years ago, tens of thousands of soldiers moved across the Chinese border into Myanmar and Thailand to wait for the order to “retake the mainland.”
That order never came and they became trapped when the KMT regime fled to Taiwan and the governments of Myanmar and Thailand refused to grant them residency or citizenship, making them stateless.
Over the years, thousands of descendants of those soldiers came to Taiwan to attend university with forged or bought passports because there was a policy that if they could get to Taiwan, they would be granted citizenship.
Although that provision was canceled in 1999, descendants of former KMT soldiers who were not aware of the change continued to come, only to find themselves classified as illegal residents after they graduated.
Hundreds of such refugees from Myanmar and Thailand took to the streets in protest on July 3, 2008. That led to the revision of the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) and the creation of a special regulation allowing more than 2,000 refugees from Myanmar and Thailand able to prove that they are descendants of former KMT soldiers to obtain residency.
Those who hold official residency status can apply to become naturalized citizens two years after the issuing of their residency, Liu said.
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