反对S386：一封写给美国国会议员的公开信
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Confressman (Congresswoman) XXX,
We are writing to express our strong opposition to the amendment added to HR1044 (SB386) that passed the Senate with unanimous consent on December 2, 2020. We urge you to work on removing Section 9, which places discriminatory restrictions on the Chinese immigrants and promotes racist attitudes toward Chinese Americans.
Section 9 states that “The Secretary of Homeland Security shall not adjust status of any alien affiliated with the military forces of the People's Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Director of National Intelligence.”
We think Section 9 should be removed because:
The statute is vague and overbroad. It fails to appropriately construe the term “affiliated”, or to define the scope, criteria, and enforcement. There are over 90 million Communist Party members and more than two million members of the Chinese military. In most cases, there is no easy way to know or prove who is a party member, let alone who is “affiliated” with either organization. This means that people are going to be refused visas arbitrarily based on assumptions of visa officers.
The denied groups constitute almost one-tenth of the Chinese population. Most are simply ordinary government servants doing jobs similar to those done in the United States, or people driving a city bus or teaching second grade. The U.S. already has exclusions for those who are engaged in illegal or inappropriate behavior. This sweeping categorization creates the impression to the American people that somehow all Chinese are involved in nefarious behavior, which is hardly the case. And it foments backlash against Chinese Americans, your constituents. The Chinese American community is already suffering from racial bias and misconceptions caused by policies and language used by American leaders during the coronavirus pandemic. Our children were called the “Chinese virus”; we were blamed for bringing the virus to work; and our seniors were attacked on the streets. There have been more than 3,000 hate crimes against Asian Americans recorded since March, 2020. The sweeping generalization embodied in this section reinforces these negative stereotypes and puts us all at greater risk.
Section 9 hearkens back to the Chinese Exclusion Act, a racist law that excluded Chinese immigrants for over 60 years, destroying many families in the process. Section 9 was passed to “protect American workers and national interest”, language strikingly similar to “the threat to the American labor market, and law and order” stated in the 1882 law. Anti-Chinese racism is deep-rooted and a modern Congress should attempt to eliminate it, not repeat mistakes of the past.
The statute will invite retaliation from the Chinese government, making it harder for Americans to enter China. This will cost the US government its ability to understand what is going on in China as we are likely to see fewer journalists, students, scholars, and US government officials able to visit a country that clearly influences US economic and political security. Successful competition requires knowledge.
The United States is successful because of its immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds. Chinese immigrants have made tremendous contributions to this country over the past hundreds of years. Section 9 must be overturned because it promotes ugly racism against Asian Americans, and discriminates Chinese immigrants based on subjective interpretation of a very vague statute.
Thank you,
Your Name and Address
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请到下面的网站查找代表你的国会议员（两个参议员和一个众议员）：
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members
点击文末“阅读原文”（Read More）链接直接进入网站，输入你的Zip Code，就出来了，如下图。