A Control Yuan report released on Thursday evaluating the rights of new immigrants in relation to their assimilation into Taiwanese society criticized the New Immigration Development Fund as having become the government’s “private fund.”
From 2012 to last year, 60 percent of recipients of subsidies from the fund were government agencies and schools, the report said, adding that civil organizations constituted only 10 percent.
New immigrant families that are listed as low-income households have been unable to receive rent subsidies, it said.
New immigrants’ rights — including residency, labor and health — that arise as part of their assimilation into Taiwanese society have yet to be guaranteed, it added.
New immigrants who are pregnant are still required to have resided in the nation for six months before they may apply to join the National Health Insurance system, the report said, adding that the rule is unreasonable.
After new immigrants enter the workforce, especially in small food and service businesses, many employers have reduced their salaries or benefits, including not providing them with labor or health insurance and not allocating funds to their pension accounts, the report said.
Only 30 percent of such workers have received labor insurance coverage, it said.
Discrimination against new immigrants and their children still exists, Control Yuan members said.
Foreign and Chinese spouses still do not have the same rights in terms of obtaining national identification cards and holding public office, they added.
New immigrants lack social security before they obtain citizenship, the report said.
Interviews conducted by immigration officers determine the legitimacy of a marriage with a foreign spouse solely based on “cohabitation experience,” Control Yuan members said, adding that the government may revoke a new immigrant’s residence status through periodic checks.
Regulations remain incomplete in terms of guaranteeing new immigrants’ residence status and the right to reside with their family after a divorce, which causes panic and insecurity among them, Control Yuan members said.
They criticized the Executive Yuan’s limited function in terms of negotiating and reporting new immigrant tasks, saying that the Cabinet’s responsibilities of negotiation, integration and supervision have become formalities.
Control Yuan members urged the government to reassess regulations and propose an appropriate policy.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,