January 3, 2025 | Vol. 54, Issue 1

The only bilingual Chinese-English Newspaper in New England

immigration

DIGNIDAD Act: The First Bipartisan Immigration Reform Bill Seen in Years

With the nation bogged down in partisan, polarized debate surrounding immigration, the DIGNIDAD Act provides the first bipartisan effort at reform effectively transcends party lines with seemingly practical solutions and works to address security, documentation, and humanitarian aid. The system currently faces a backlog of 1.6 million cases and unprecedented humanitarian displacement in Latin America. The situation shows no signs of slowing. The evenly divided Congress could prove a barrier to this bill’s eventual enactment. For now, the results remain very uncertain, […]

New Immigration Uncertainty with Title 42’s Expiration

Title 42 expired last Thursday, May 11th, at 11:59 pm EDT. As new migrants flooded the US-Mexico border following this development, many questions have been raised about Title 42, its provisions, and the consequences its expiration could have nationally and in the greater Boston area. Here is a look at the new immigration legislation developments. What was Title 42?             The restrictions known as Title 42 derive their name and authority from Title 42 of a 1944 public health law. […]

A Bridge Towards Tomorrow: Sampan speaks with Monique Tú Nguyen – Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement 

Government policies and mission statements are always driven by terms and phrases. Whether they exist beyond looking good on paper and sounding strong in stump speeches is the dream that isn’t always realized. For Boston’s MOIA (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Advancement), the driving motivation rests in that final word: advancement. What does it mean? How is it measured? Can immigrants advance without successfully integrating themselves within the social fabric of their chosen land? What measures need to be taken in […]

Women’s Rights are Threatened; Immigrant Women Especially Vulnerable

Abortion rights in the United States are under threat. At the beginning of this month a draft of a majority opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaked to Politico. The draft suggests that the Supreme Court will overturn the decisions it made in Roe vs. Wade nearly fifty years ago and in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey thirty years ago. In 1973, the Supreme Court decided that criminal abortion statutes, which excepted from criminality only those procedures that would […]

Society’s Other Covid-19 Symptom, Bigotry, Takes a Toll

Low-income Asian American families have faced disproportionate hardships since the Covid-19 pandemic began, as I reported here in the last issue of Sampan. “Many people are surprised to learn that Asian Americans have the highest poverty rate of any racial-ethnic group in Boston — it’s about 29%, ” Carolyn Wong, a researcher at the Institute of Asian American Studies at UMass Boston, told me. Wong is the co-writer of a recently published report on the struggles faced by Asians in the Boston area from the pandemic. “The lowest paid workers […]

With Immigration Rule’s Fate in Limbo, So Is Fate of Many Asylum Seekers

In recent decades, the United States has added approximately 1 million immigrants every year.  This has happened  in accordance with a number of provisions of immigration law, primarily through the sponsorship of family members who are U.S.  citizens.  However, when COVID-19 escalated in March of 2020, the number of immigration admissions, which had already been slowing greatly during the Trump administration, came to a virtual  stop. As part of its approach to reduce immigration,  the Trump administration sought to bypass […]

Asian Hate Is on the Rise in Massachusetts, but the True Number of Threats, Attacks Remains Elusive

Last July a Chinese American attorney was approached as she left her office at Tremont Street and Washington Street in Boston. A person came up to her, pulled on her reusable mask, and let the force of the elastic bands slap the mask back against her face. The perpetrator then ran away as the attorney demanded to know: Was she attacked because she was Asian? “I can do whatever I want,” was the response. After the attack, the attorney, who requested […]

Concerns Linger Over China Initiative’s Fate

Weeks after news that the Department of Justice’s four-year-old “China Initiative” would be dissolved, some experts now warn the program that largely targeted Chinese immigrants and visiting academics could be revived as easily as it was killed–and that its influence lingers on. “The pendulum could swing back the other way on that,” Mitch Ambrose, who heads science policy newsletters and tracking resources at the American Institute of Physics, told the Sampan. “There’s clearly interest among certain Republicans in bringing back […]

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