US business leaders lashed out on Wednesday at legislation that would penalize companies for employing illegal immigrants.
Presenting its outlook for this year, the US Chamber of Commerce also expressed optimism for the growth prospects of the world's biggest economy, while renewing demands on China to get tough on copyright theft.
Chamber officials had an angry response to an immigration bill passed by the US House of Representatives last month that, among a raft of tough measures, imposes heavy fines on companies found employing illegal workers.
"This is a bill that's going to drag them [illegals] deeper into the shadows," the powerful business federation's vice president Bruce Josten said.
Chamber president Tom Donohue said that the US was a nation built on immigration, and added: "The argument that US companies want cheap labor is crappy."
The House bill, which has yet to be passed by the Senate, also deprived US President George W. Bush of his proposed "guest worker" program, a scheme backed by US businesses that would allow certain illegal immigrants to formalize their status.
Millions of US employers would be required to contact a verification system by telephone or through the Internet to ensure that a job applicant's Social Security number matches with one on file in the databank.
The number of illegal immigrants in the US is estimated conservatively at between eight million and 12 million.
A recent study by the US Congressional Budget Office found that one worker in seven in the US had immigrated, with more than 70 percent of them coming from Mexico and Central America.
On China, Donohue called for the US government to be "very aggressive" about intellectual property rights and encouraged Beijing to open up its currency regime more.
Over the longer term, China must find a way of marrying its political structures to its rapid-fire economic liberalization, Donohue said.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
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