A ruling party lawmaker yesterday said that prioritizing legislation for setting up an immigration department was imperative for eradicating the faking of marriages between Taiwanese nationals and Chinese people in order for the latter to obtain ROC identity documents.
"The setting up of permanent manpower and rules under the immigration department for inspecting foreign applicants for Taiwanese citizenship would prevent further cases of Chinese nationals faking marriages with Taiwanese people," said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chang Chin-fang (張清芳).
Chang felt that either his Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative colleagues or the government's top policymakers on China failed to find a resolution for the problem Chinese people faking marriages to Taiwanese nationals.
A debate over the prescribed waiting period for Chinese spouses' naturalization in the past week stalled the legislative review for amendments to the Statute Governing the Relations between the People of Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例).
Chang said bickering on how many years Chinese spouses should wait before obtaining Taiwanese citizenship is pointless.
"Those who sought legal residency through faking marriage and came here to engage in illegal activities, like prostitution, had succeeded in staying here after entering into a false marriage. Deciding on whether the waiting period for naturalization should be eight or 11 years after lodging an application would not make any difference to them living in this country," Chang said.
He added that nothing would deter these deceitful immigrants unless the government was able to catch them and carry out repatriation immediately.
"Establishing measures of enhanced surveillance coupled with scrupulous management of the quota for Chinese immigrants should be the priorities of the government and the Legislature at the moment," Chang said at a press conference yesterday morning.
He referred to the US, a country that has been internationally seen as the staunchest upholder of human rights, and said it applied an immigration policy that could abuse the human rights of foreign applicants filing for US citizenship.
The US government checks on applicants by means of bothersome inspections, such as making unannounced midnight visits to applicants during the two-year-long application procedure, before granting them permanent residency.
Chang also voiced his objection against easing the rules for a cross-strait education policy.
"The issue of validating academic records between Taiwan and China has yet to be concluded. It is too early to give the go-ahead to such movement," he said.
He said that certain lawmakers have helped Chinese colleges to recruit students underground in Taiwan for years.
"I want to urge my colleagues to stop these illegal activities since their behavior does not match the claims made by each political party that Taiwan's interests should be prioritized," Chang said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
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