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According to a new study by the Department of Homeland Security, as of January 2007 there were 11.8 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. Among them, 290,000 were born in China. This is a 49% increase in the number of Chinese unauthorized immigrants since 2000. China ranks fifth on the list of source countries for unauthorized immigrants, after Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Philippines. The term “unauthorized immigrants” here refers to persons who entered the U.S. without inspection or who were admitted temporarily and stayed past the date they were required to leave. See Michael Hoefer, et al., Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2007 (USCIS Sept. 2008).

Here’s my take on this study. The study doesn’t explain whether the rate at which Chinese are violating U.S. the immigration laws (i.e., entering without inspection or overstaying their visas) is increasing or decreasing. It’s possible that the rate has decreased significantly due to improving social and economic conditions in China. The figures may not reflect this decrease because, according to some sources, there are up to 50,000 PRC citizens in the U.S. with final orders of deportation who have not been repatriated because the PRC government has not cooperated sufficiently by issuing the necessary travel papers for them to be returned to China. If this is true, a large percentage of the increase in the number of unauthorized immigrants from China may be due to the slow rate of violators departing the U.S., not due to the rate of violations by new entrants.

Many Chinese have followed with interest the case of Zhao C. This young man had used “C” as his given name for his entire life, but when he needed to update his national ID card to a second-generation version, the local Public Security Bureau refused to use that name on the grounds that it was not a legal name and that PSB computers are not equipped to handle names with non-standard characters. Zhao took the PSB to court in what was heralded as China’s first name-rights lawsuit. The district court in Yingtan, Jiangxi Province, ruled in Zhao’s favor, but the PSB appealed. While the appeal was pending the case settled, Zhao agreeing to change his name and the PSB agreeing to waive the paperwork fee.

The legal provision at issue in the case was issue in the case was Article 4 of the PRC Citizens’ ID Law (身份证法), adopted by the National People’s Congress in 2003. It states that standard Chinese characters and numerals and symbols conforming to national standards shall be used in filling out a national ID card.  Article 3 of the regulations (pre-dating the law) further specifies that the name “shall be registered in the standard language used throughout the country.” Zhao argued that the letter C is part of Hanyu Pinyin, the PRC’s official Romanization system for Mandarin Chinese, while the PSB argued that C is a foreign language letter.

If Zhao can use one foreign letter in his name, the government’s concern is that other parents may give their children English names, potentially eroding Chinese language and culture.

The Zhao C case is relevant to U.S. immigration law because China’s policy on names determines what name will be used on an immigrant visa. The visa must follow the name in the Chinese passport (9 FAM 42.73 PN1.2-1), which in turn is based on the name in the national ID.

PRC clients applying for immigrant visas as the spouse or child of a U.S. citizen sometimes ask our firm if they can use the citizen’s western surname on their immigrant visas. The answer is no, since the western surname can’t be used in a PRC national ID or passport.

The solution, then, is to change one’s name after entering the U.S. This could be accomplished by (a) filing for a name change in state court, (b) re-marrying in the U.S., since every state will allow a wife to use her husband’s surname, or (c) changing names at the time of naturalization.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released information about average bonds for noncitizens detained at ICE field offices. Los Angeles sets the lowest average bonds, while New York’s average is the highest. What the table doesn’t show is the odds of being detained in each office’s district. For example, according to anecdotal evidence, Los Angeles has a rate of detention.

Average Bonds at ICE Offices – Free Legal Forms

Five former U.S. ambassadors to China appeared together in a program for the first time on December 9, 2008. The program featured ambassadors Winston Lord (1985-89), James Lilley (1989-91), J. Stapleton Roy (1991-95), James R. Sasser (1996-99), and Joseph Prueher (1999-2001). In an exchange moderated by National Committee president Stephen Orlins, the ambassadors candidly reflected on the challenges, excitement, crises and achievements of their tenures, and shared insights on the future of U.S.-China relations.

Winston Lord: As special assistant to the National Security Advisor, Winston Lord accompanied Henry Kissinger on his secret visit to China in 1971 and President Nixon on his historic opening in 1972, as well as subsequent trips by President Ford and Dr. Kissinger. From 1985 to 1989 he served as ambassador to Beijing under Presidents Reagan and Bush. From 1993-1997 he was Assistant Secretary of State in charge of all East Asian policy, including China, under President Clinton. Lord’s other key government assignments were in the State Department as the director of Policy Planning (1973-1977) and in the Defense and State Departments in the 1960’s. He currently serves as Chairman Emeritus of the International Rescue Committee, the largest non-sectarian organization that both helps refugees abroad and resettles them in the United States.

James Lilley: Lilley was born in Qingdao, China in 1928, where his father was working for Standard Oil. He remained in China until 1940. Lilley was in the CIA until 1975, serving in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand and Beijing and as the national intelligence officer for China (1975-78). He then changed careers to work for Hunt Oil (1978-80) and United Technologies (1979-80). He served on the National Security Council’s East Asia staff (1981-82) before becoming the director of the American Institute in Taiwan (1982-84). He worked for Otis Elevator (1984-85) and then became the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia (1985-86).He was the U. S. ambassador to Korea (1986-89) and to China (1989-91), and assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs (1991-93). From 1993 to 2006, he worked at the American Enterprise Institute, where he edited six books on the Chinese military. In 2004 he wrote China Hands, a reflection on his life and career.

J. Stapleton Roy: Roy retired from the Foreign Service in January 2001 after a career spanning 45 years wth the U.S. Department of State. A fluent Chinese speaker, Ambassador Roy spent much of his career in East Asia, where his assignments included Bangkok (twice), Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing (twice), Singapore, and Jakarta. He also specialized in Soviet affairs and served in Moscow at the height of the Cold War. Mr. Roy rose to become a three-time ambassador, serving as the top U.S. envoy in Singapore (1984-86), the People’s Republic of China (1991-95), and Indonesia (1996-99). In 1996, he was promoted to the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the Foreign Service. Ambassador Roy’s final post with the State Department was as assistant secretary for Intelligence and Research. In September 2008, he joined the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. He continues in his position as senior adviser to Kissinger Associates, Inc., which he joined in January 2001. Ambassador Roy was born in Nanjing, China of American missionary parents.

James R. Sasser: Sasser practiced law in Nashville until elected to the United States Senate in 1976, where he served for 18 years. Upon leaving the Senate he became a fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, which ended with his appointment as ambassador to the People’s Republic of China in 1996. He served in that capacity for almost four years, playing a pivotal role in stabilizing Sino-American relations and traveling with President Jiang Zemin on his historic State visit to the United States in 1997. Sasser is currently a senior advisor to the FedEx Corporation and a senior counselor to APCO Worldwide in Washington, DC. He has served as a consultant to other U.S. corporation doing business in China, including the Ford Motor Company, the former Unocal Corporation and Brown-Forman Corporation.

Joseph Prueher: Prueher is a consulting professor at Stanford University’s Institute of International Studies and senior advisor on The Preventive Defense Project. He served as ambassador to the People’s Republic of China from 1999 to 2001 after completing thirty-five years in the United States navy. His last command was Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command. Prior to that, he served as commandant at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Eilene Zimmerman, Hiring Window Open at the Foreign Service, New York Times (Dec. 20, 2008):

Applying for a job with the State Department involves written and oral examinations. Those who pass the oral exam become conditional officers and receive a ranking score based on oral-exam performance and language skills. The higher the rank, the sooner they will be assigned.

Of the 12,000 to 15,000 people who register annually for the written exam, about 450 officers are hired, said Frank J. Coulter, management officer with the Foreign Service and a member of the State Department’s board of examiners….

New Foreign Service officers at the State Department choose one of five career tracks: consular affairs, economic affairs, management affairs, political affairs or public diplomacy. No matter the track, all entry-level officers spend their first several years working in a consulate, interviewing applicants for United States visas and working with American citizens who need their help.

The State Department also hires Foreign Service specialists, who provide technical, security and administrative support overseas or in Washington. Specialists must pass an oral assessment but not a written exam, and start in a specialty like medicine, information technology or law enforcement, Mr. Coulter said. All newly hired officers and specialists are trained at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington.

Each of the first two postings overseas last two years; after that, it is generally a three-year posting in each country. One-year hardship postings–in a region too dangerous to allow an officer’s spouse and children to accompany him or her–are required at least twice in the course of a career. After two assignments, Foreign Service personnel can bid on postings  requesting particular countries or Washington but everyone is expected to serve in a variety of assignments.

 

 

 

Following Barack Obama’s landslide win in the presidential election, headlines in many newspapers read like this one from the New York Times: Election Unleashes a Flood of Hope Worldwide. It strikes me that part of the optimism is due to Obama’s compelling personal story as the son of an African immigrant as well as his own experiences living abroad.

His father, Barack Obama, Sr., traveled from Kenya on scholarship to study economics at the University of Hawaii. There, he met and married Ann Dunham, who gave birth to Barack Obama, Jr., in 1961.

Obama is not the first president to be the son of an immigrant. According to Wiki info (hat tip to ILW.com), five former presidents (Jefferson, Buchanan, Arthur, Wilson, Hoover) had one immigrant parent each, and one president (Jackson) had two immigrant parents. Still, being the son of an African immigrant is different. Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s former president, said in a letter to Mr. Obama: “Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.”

Also, Obama spent several years (1967-71) in Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. This was a time of Cold War chaos in Indonesia. Newsweek editor John Meacham believes Obama’s experience of “what American power feels like on the receiving end as opposed to the giving end” may help him think two steps ahead about the impact of U.S. actions abroad.

Obama wrote about his personal story in his books, Dreams of My Father and Audacity of Hope. He campaigned on his personal story. The next several years will show whether the current wave of global optimism is justified.

In July, I blogged about a Pew Research Center survey showing that Australia is the most popular destination for Chinese seeking to emigrate. Canada was ranked #2 and the U.S. #3. I theorized that the limited interest in emigrating to the U.S. is due to America’s current economic woes and plummeting international popularity because of the Iraq War.

Today, an OpEd in the Washington Post by Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that we’re not witnessing the decline of the U.S.:

• The U.S. has a 21% share of the global economy, compared with 23% in 1990 and 22% in 1980. Although the U.S. is suffering economically, the world’s other major economies are too, and U.S. may be the first to come out of rescession.
   
• While America’s image is certainly damaged, the scale of damage doesn’t compare to the 1960s and 1970s, with the Vietnam War, the Watts riots, the My Lai massacre, Watergate, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy.
   
• Even in the Middle East, there’s been no fundamental strategic realignment against the U.S. due to the Iraq War. Longtime allies remain allies.