WASHINGTON, DC: Couple of months ago Rep. Howard Berman (DCA) moved on a bill in U.S. Congress recommending immigration reforms which can remove discrimination against Asian and African nationals desires of settling in America. While it had been much easier in the past for European and Central and Southern American nationals to migrate it generally took several years to do so by Asians.

Policy of indifference toward Asians is reflected in recent decision by U.S. govt increasing this quota for Soviet Jews and Armenians by 39% to a total of 25,000 a year. Unfortunately the revised quota for Soviets Jewish immigrants came at the expense of 6,500 would be refugee immigrants from other countries like Indo China, Iran and Afghanistan.

In southern borders of U.S. and virtually open for entering and acquiring immigration. For example nearly 500 Nicaraguans are granted refugee status every week. It is expected that more than 100,000 refugees will cross from Nicaragra during the coming 18 months. Although some restrictions have been imposed recently to check unjustified refugee claimants influx, the pressure from various Christian organizations is building up to bring to a halt to U.S. Govt’s hurdles to block such entry.

United States spends almost 7,000 dollars on each new refugee provide food and shelter. Total of US. million dollars per year are spent to resettle refugees.

On the other hand, legal immigration brings in people of high caliber at no cost to the govt In spite of this a bill seeking to undermine long held policy of family reunification was introduced in US senate last year. Although the bill died due to lack of support, it sent strong signals that some American law makers still harbored indifference against those aspiring to legally migrate from Asian and Oriental countries where families ties are much stronger. The worst pity is that the decision on immigration often focuses on political and ideological battles between the countries rather than the true needs of those legitimate individuals seeking to migrate.

Even otherwise considering already receding American population the U.S leaders should err on the side of letting too many people rather than too few.

It was in this background that Congressman Berman introduced a bill seeking to expedite the immigration of immediate relatives of permanent U.S. residents or citizens. Besides reducing the period to acquire U.S. citizenship from 5 to 3 years the bill seeks to increase by 10% of each country’s immigration quota the bill also recommends incentives of liberal visas for eligible investors and encourage hard working individuals to immigrate by entering through a lottery system by scoring a threshold number of qualifying points.

The organization representing Asian and oriental communities should impress upon their area congressmen to seek support for this bill.

Article extracted from this publication >>  April 28, 1989