Civic groups and advocates for new immigrants and foreign migrant workers yesterday urged legislators not to rush through a proposed “new resident rights protection act” (新住民權益保障法), and to hold public hearings and seek feedback from stakeholders.
Legislators are this week scheduled to hold cross-party negotiations on the bill, after the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee last month passed drafts of the act.
The proposal requires wider consultation and input from the public, representatives from the TransAsia Sisters Association, Taiwan Immigration Youth Alliance (TIYA) and Taiwan Association for Human Rights told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: Lin Che-yuan, Taipei Times
Under the draft bills, the Ministry of the Interior had presented the definition for the term “new resident” as foreigners who have been granted residence in Taiwan, dependent residence, long-term residence or permanent residence, or stateless people, or residents from China, Hong Kong or Macau whose spouse is a Taiwanese national residing in the nation with a registered household.
“We found ambiguities in the draft bills, with some unclear concepts. The definition for ‘new resident’ varies from what is used by different groups, and could uphold class divisions,” TIYA member Liu Chien-ping (劉千萍) said.
“The Ministry of the Interior has not yet held even one public hearing to solicit input and recommendations on these issues. If the regulations in these bills come from piecemeal additions made during cross-party negotiations, then the protections the act is supposed to provide would exist in name only,” Liu said.
“We call for nationwide consultations for participation and input from civil society groups and other affected people,” she said.
Most legislators have a poor understanding of Taiwan’s new immigrants, and hold quite conservative ideas on how to assist them, TIYA member Liu Chun-liang (劉俊良) said.
“Right now, we see bills that are more about promoting ‘assimilation’ into mainstream society rather than protecting the rights of diverse cultural groups,” he said.
“The bills lack enhanced rights protection for new residents, and do not cover many current difficult issues they are facing. For example, the bills aim to better protect white-collar immigrants, but not blue-collar laborers. They also do not cover the urgently needed system for a pool of court interpreters to service the language needs of people from other Asian countries,” TransAsia Sisters Association chairwoman Hung Man-chi (洪滿枝) said.
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