Font ResizeWhile much of the debate has focused on undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Asian Americans have just as much at stake, say lawyers, activists and community workers.
"It's important that the Asian and Pacific Islander communities stand together," said Atashi Chakravarty, executive director of Narika, an organization that works with abused South Asian women. "The lack of (Asians and Pacific Islanders) in the crowd (at recent rallies) was disheartening."
Narika, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Chinese Progressive Association, Filipinos for Affirmative Action and several other organizations gathered in San Francisco's Chinatown on Thursday to discuss how the bills would affect Asian and Pacific Islander, or API, communities and the importance of mobilizing a pan-Asian contingent for today's rally in San Francisco.
"There's a lot at stake for our community in this debate," said Luna Yasui of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a civil rights organization in San Francisco. "It's not a distant, abstract thing. It's very fundamental to how individuals will be impacted, our families and what the future of our families will look like."
About one in five people living in the Bay Area is Asian or Pacific Islander, and 70 percent of them are foreign-born.
The national
The national debate around immigration has centered on the estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants, about 1 million Asian, said Sin Yen Ling, an attorney at the Asian Law Caucus. About 8 million come from Latin American countries.
A provision in several bills that are up for consideration would limit the rights of U.S. citizens to petition for immediate relatives if they have been convicted of certain crimes, even misdemeanors with no jail sentence.
Another provision would give local and state police authority to assist the federal government in enforcing immigration laws, further draining local resources, critics say. Another provision would expand the definition of "aggravated felony" to include helping an undocumented family member or friend pay rent.
Ling said the Hagel-Martinez compromise bill, which may be considered as early as Monday, provides a path to legalization for the 11.1 million undocumented immigrants, but includes enforcement-heavy provisions.
She said she believes increasing enforcement would "in effect, detain more immigrants and increase the population of undocumented people." The Asian Law Caucus serves 600 Asian immigrants each year in deportation and immigration proceedings.
Immigration always has been an issue with Asians, and most Asians living in the United States today came through the national immigration system.
The first anti-immigration law was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which lasted until the beginning of World War II.
Japanese internment during World War II was another experience in which people — many U.S. citizens — were interned based on national origin. Post-9/11, Muslims and those perceived to be Muslims, including South Asians, have been targeted by immigration services.
After immigration laws opened up in 1965, many Asian immigrants came on student visas or were college-educated. Others were engineers and doctors. At the same time, many came as low-wage laborers, sometimes undocumented.
Regardless of the disparities in the API population — including legal status — advocates say it is important to stand together on the issue.
"As legal and as undocumented immigrants, these attacks are the same on our immigrant communities," said Alex Tom of Chinese Progressive Association, which plans to bring 50 to 70 people to today's rally.
Organizers say this is the first widespread effort to bring an Asian and Pacific Islander contingent in the Bay Area to protest the current immigration debate.
CPA works with many immigrants who are employed in the service industry, such as restaurant and garment workers — who have seen the direct impact of globalization. Tom said that what NAFTA created in Mexico — conditions under which immigrants were forced to leave their families just to survive economically — is happening today with the Chinese since China joined the World Trade Organization.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently announced that the 38,000 undocumented Chinese immigrants caught by Department of Homeland Security — most of whom are under surveillance but not detained — will be held in detention facilities that the department plans to open in the next few weeks.
This would impact many immigrants, including those from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and China who have no formal repatriation system. That means they could be detained in immigration facilities indefinitely, Ling said.
For many, whether documented or not, it's an issue of human rights.
Most social service and health agencies, and emergency rooms do not ask about legal status or turn anyone away. If the laws pass, "they would either have to turn people away and alienate their own community, or they would have to break the law to serve the people most in need," said Man Chui Leung of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum.
