Asian-Americans hopeful on immigration reform
From blueprints to bills, the ideas from Washington this week on changing the U.S. immigration system have Asian-Americans in Illinois hopeful. In particular, this time around, they feel that their particular concerns may finally be addressed in a debate that has often focused exclusively on undocumented Mexican immigrants.
“I think that (Asian immigrants) come to the United States in different ways than Mexican-Americans might,” said Tuyet Le, executive director of the Asian American Institute in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. “So even the notion of being undocumented... psychologically, they may have had visas and overstayed them,” she explained, “So even those terminologies are different.”
Asians are about 10 percent of the 11.5 million undocumented immigrants, according to a 2011 estimate from the U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics. They come primarily from China, the Philippines, India, Korea, and Vietnam. Mexicans, by contrast, account for nearly 60 percent of the total. It is not known how many Asian immigrants in Illinois are undocumented, but Asian-Americans are one of the state’s fastest-growing racial groups.
Among the most hopeful points for Asian-Americans in the renewed discussion about immigration reform: fixing the backlog of applications for legal status. “A lot of Korean-Americans apply for permanent residency,” said Sik Sohn, executive director of the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, “but it took so long.... A lot of people, their status has been changing to undocumented because of that waiting period.”
Sohn said it’s common for Korean immigrants who come to the U.S. legally, to wait a decade or longer to achieve permanent status. In the meantime, he said, many apply for E-2 visas, which allow them to stay while they have controlling interest in a small business investment. But Sohn said the economic downturn threw a wrench into those plans for many immigrants. Many lost their businesses and were forced to return to South Korea.
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