The White House held an event on Tuesday to highlight success stories of immigrants who were brought to the US illegally as children, including one 28-year-old woman who emigrated from Taiwan.
Esther Yu-Hsi Lee (李御璽) was among 10 young immigrants labeled Champions of Change, all of whom have benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program initiated by US President Barack Obama’s administration.
The program grants reliefs from deportation and the opportunity for employment and education for illegal immigrants who were brought into the country before they reached the age of 16 and stayed, though it does not provide a pathway to citizenship.
Lee, an immigration reporter for online publication ThinkProgress, said that she was only two years old when her parents brought her and her older siblings to California from Taiwan in 1988.
Undocumented and residing in the country illegally, she has never been able to travel overseas because she knows that leaving the US means she will not be able to get back in.
Lee said that her roots are in Taiwan, and she holds a Republic of China passport, but she identifies culturally as an American first.
If the opportunity arises, she added, Taiwan is one of the places she hopes to visit.
Lee grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and Middle East studies, and a master’s degree in psychology.
Before the program gave her a way to work legally, she got by as a nanny, a Mandarin tutor and occasional housekeeper in New York.
With her current job in Washington, she hopes to raise awareness of immigration-related news as it happens across the country and to highlight the personal stories of undocumented immigrants.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
‘JOINT SWORD’: Whatever President Lai says in his Double Ten speech, China would use it as a pretext to launch ‘punishment’ drills for his ‘separatist’ views, an official said China is likely to launch military drills this week near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming national day speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials said. China in May launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan shortly after Lai’s inauguration, in what Beijing said was a response to “separatist acts,” sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated Lai. The May drills were dubbed “Joint Sword — 2024A” and drew concerns from capitals, including Washington. Lai is to deliver a key speech on Thursday in front of the Presidential Office
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Taiwan was listed in 14th place among the world's wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita, in the latest rankings released on Monday by Forbes magazine. Taiwan's GDP per capita was US$76,860, which put it at No. 14 on the list of the World's 100 Richest Countries this year, one spot above Hong Kong with US$75,130. The magazine's list of the richest countries in the world is compiled based on GDP per capita data, as estimated by the IMF. However, for a more precise measure of a nation's wealth, the magazine also considers purchasing power parity, which is a metric used to
RSS