UCA倡议华人社区护异寻同迎接新时代

2018年4月29日  华盛顿 哥伦比亚特区

美国华人联合会 UCA 理事会倡议美国华人护异寻同，维护社区最大利益；告别过客心态，做美国主人翁，积极参与社区建设，迎接即将到来的美国多族裔民主社会。

成立一年的美国华人联合会(UCA)年度理事会扩大会议2018年4月20-22日在密执安州底特律市举行。 Continue reading →

UCA Announcing New Leadership Team

April 26th, 2018.  Dearborn, MI

2018年3月8日  华盛顿 哥伦比亚特区

隆重推出美国华人联合会正在开发的核心项目，美国华人史迹互动地图（Interactive Chinese American Heritage Map，iCAHM）。iCAHM将采用最先进的数据收集及呈现技术，记录，汇总和展现美国华人历史的标志性事件，人物和地标。它不仅是一个很好的教育工具，同时也是我们留给后代的一份宝贵的遗产。请访问UCA网站了解更多的相关信息并递交您的条目。

美国华人史迹互动地图将在2018年9月在华盛顿举办的美国华人大会上正式亮相。从现在到9月期间，我们将通过UCA网站在线收集信息，并邀请专业人员评估，验证，翻译，编辑所有上传条目。为此我们设立了一个众筹募捐网站，希望能得到大家的支持和参与。

《华人春节倡议书》

春节，是中华民族和海外华人最为欢快的节庆和神圣的日子；春节，是海外华人血脉和身份的认同和象征；春节，是海外华人助贫扶弱、公益慈善、回馈社会的最佳时节；春节，也必定是海外华人安身立命，慎终追远的精神文化源泉；

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UCA Statement on Senator Marco Rubio’s and FBI Director Chris Wray’s Remarks on Chinese Students in America as National Security Threat

Feb. 14, 2018, Washington D.C.

US Senator Marco Rubio’s leading question and FBI Director Wray’s remarks regarding Chinese students and scholars as national security threat that requires taking “a whole-of-society response by us” at yesterday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing are deeply troubling and of grave concerns among Chinese Americans and Asian Americans. UCA members are proud Americans. We uphold vigorous national security standards. However, painting all Chinese students and indeed Chinese in America with such a broad brush as a national security threat is paranoid, inflammatory, un-American, and simply wrong.

Historically, Chinese Americans and Asian Americans have been subject to suspicion, discrimination, and willful persecution. The notorious Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during the Second World War are two glaring examples. More recently, the treatment of Chinese Americans as “perpetual foreigners” and the ethnic-profiling and the wrongful prosecution of Drs. Wen Ho Lee, Sherry Chen and Xiaoxing Xi as national security threat simply because they are Chinese Americans has brought damage and shame to our rule of law and civil liberty tradition.

Today, history runs the risk of repeating itself. Although we all agree that we must do our very best to strengthen national security, doing so by ethnically profiling a whole community and by invoking “a whole-of-society” American response would not only damage the constitutional rights and rule of law that all Americans hold sacred, it could also be counterproductive and indeed damaging to the very efforts of strengthening our national security.

UCA calls on all Americans, particularly those who know and have personal contact with Chinese students and scholars to speak up; we call on Trump Administration and Congressional leaders to repudiate Senator Rubio’s and Director Wray’s remarks; we call on concerned Americans to express their views directly to their Members of Congress, to the media, and to the universities where large number of Chinese students are enrolled.

We must stop ethnic profiling of a whole community under the guise of national security. We will not allow that tainted history to be repeated again on our watch.

FBI Director’s Shock Claim: Chinese Students Are a Potential Threat

Reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act

Click to see full text.

Dear Senator Grassley and Senator Feinstein,

We, the undersigned Asian American organizations, are writing to urge stronger protections for Americans and people in the United States as Congress works out reforms of the amendments of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”), specifically Section 702 – a law set to expire on December 31, 2017.

As community leaders, we are concerned that innocent Americans and people in the U.S. whom the government has no evidence of wrongdoing may nonetheless fall victim to secret, warrantless U.S. government-sponsored surveillance. In particular, we have seen Asian Americans – 59% of whom are foreign born – placed under a cloud of suspicion and subjected to disproportionate surveillance under Section 702, among other laws. Our concerns are heightened by a spike of recent economic espionage-related cases against innocent Chinese American scientists – all naturalized U.S. citizens – whose charges were later dropped because the government lacked a solid basis for prosecution. In spite of the extraordinary secrecy of the current FISA, it is clear that the government’s secret surveillance of American citizens and people on U.S. soil was a direct cause of at least one of these false prosecutions.

Reforms are Necessary to End Warrantless Surveillance of Innocent Americans

First, we demand that Congress adhere to the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution and require probable cause and warrants to spy on Americans and people inside U.S. borders. The law was enacted to stop espionage, terrorism, and weapons proliferation. Section 702 allows for “foreigners” abroad to be targeted; however, the government captures international communications, e.g., phone calls, texts, emails involving Americans and people in the U.S., and domestic communications between parties inside the U.S. when those communications get routed overseas. Relying on Internet companies and infrastructures, the government can seize limitless numbers of communications. Coupled with exploitative tactics such as using “about communications,” “parallel construction,” “reverse targeting,” and “backdoor searches,” the government has essentially converted a 2

spy program on foreigners into a domestic one on Americans and people on U.S. soil, and without the legal protections normally afforded to them.

Consequently, the government can target individuals, and without a judge to evaluate the decisions, monitor those individuals and use such information against them for domestic crimes that have no connection to national security.

Moreover, according to a report by Demand Progress, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“the FISA Court” or “FISC”) – a federal court that was established to oversee requests for secret surveillance warrants – “identified serious compliance problems.” Among those problems are: the government collecting, storing and sharing mass domestic communications of Americans and people in the U.S. beyond what the FISA Court approved; not informing the persons being watched as the law requires; violating privileged communications between attorneys and clients; and, failing to cooperate with the FISA Court. The practices defy the oversight authority of the FISA Court, and must cease.

Second, we call on Congress to set a new sunset date within 4 to 6 years. By doing so, Congress can make adjustments as necessary to the law depending on the government agencies’ compliance, the impact on Americans and people in the U.S. and changes in technology and practices.

Third, we advocate for the government to disclose its activities and to empower outside parties like the FISA Court and amici curiae with more oversight and tools to hold the government accountable.

Such provisions have been proposed in both the House and Senate, and received bipartisan support. Moreover, over 40 major civil liberties and privacy rights organizations publicly have supported these critical reforms.

Without the Overdue Protections, Asian Americans Will Continue to be Disproportionately Impacted

Asian Pacific Americans are the fastest growing minority community, growing 72% between 2000 and 2015 from 11.9 million to 20.4 million. Unfortunately, this diversity is not reflected amongst law enforcement and intelligence agencies, making it difficult for them to combat implicit bias or investigate suspected crimes with cultural competence.

Laws, in particular Section 702, exacerbate these longstanding problems by making it more likely that communities of color, including immigrants, will be surveilled — accidentally, deliberately, and incidentally. Under the current Section 702, law enforcement agencies are allowed to browse through secret surveillance records about Americans and people within the U.S. without any court oversight. They are not compelled to report the number of adversaries.

Recently, four United States citizens of Chinese decent were wrongfully arrested and accused of spying to benefit China. After incurring legal fees of up to $200,000 each and enduring months of suspensions or firings, all were eventually vindicated. Although federal law enforcement agents normally communicate with such suspects through their lawyers, these Chinese Americans were arrested, handcuffed, and publicly humiliated by armed agents who appeared without warning at their homes and workplaces. They sustained damage to their personal and professional reputations and families’ sense of well-being and security.

A recent study of the Economic Espionage Act (“EEA”) by South Texas College of Law and distributed by the Committee of 100 and its partners reported the following findings:

● As many as 1 in 5 people of Asians and Asian Americans prosecuted as “spies” may be innocent, a rate twice as large compared to any other ethnicity.

● Asians and Asian Americans are disproportionately charged with espionage under the EEA. Since 2009, 62% of all defendants charged with espionage under this law have been Asians or Asian Americans.

● Asians and Asian Americans convicted of espionage under the EEA receive sentences twice as long as others convicted of the same crimes.

Due to the secrecy of the government, the full scope of espionage-related cases involving Asian Americans are unknown, as is the full impact of Section 702 on criminal proceedings within the United States. However, stories abound in the Asian American community of members being interrogated for past and current connections to family, friends and colleagues abroad. Many immigrants carry justifiable distrust of the government from their nations of origin. The numerous FBI visits to Asian Americans and prosecutions of the innocent Chinese American scientists only further deepen the community’s feelings of mistrust and isolation, and prevent them from fully participating in American life. Yet, based on the past record of Asian Americans’ significant contributions ranging from military service to culture and arts and STEM fields, to name only a few, the community’s potential ought to be nurtured, not discouraged.

Section 702 and related FISA amendments must be reformed to stop the warrantless surveillance of Americans and guard against unjustified racial disparities. Please ensure the privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans by supporting these 4

overdue and necessary reforms, which needs to be passed in full in order to work in concert.

In summary, we strongly urge Congress to include the following reforms in reauthorizing the FISA Amendments Act:

 A specific sunset date within 4 to 6 years.

 Maximum reforms for oversight, accountability and transparency.

 Strong protection of privacy and civil liberty.

Sincerely,

18millionrising.org

80-20 Initiative

American Heritage Employees Against Discrimination (AHEAD)

Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)

Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (APALA)

Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association (APAPA)

Asian Services in Action (ASIA)

Chinese American Citizens Alliance (CACA)

Chinese American Network for Diversity and Opportunity (CANDO)

Chinese for Social Justice

National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC)

OCA-Asian American Advocates

South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)

Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)

United Chinese Americans (UCA)

Email: Contact@ApaFisaWatch.org

Website: www.ApaFisaWatch.or

In response to the call to help the flooded schools and students by Anne Sung (宋嘉年), the first Chinese Trustee on the Board of the 7th largest ISD in the nation, UCA Harvey Relief Fund would like to thank CapCityKids in Austin for the kind donation of 300 backpacks and 500 draw string sports bags with care packs of daily supplies inside. We would also like to thank the volunteers of APAPA Austin who assembled the hundreds of packages.

About 40 boxes of backpacks, string sports bags, and care packs were picked up from Austin by volunteers of UCA Harvey Relief Fund on Monday, 10/2 and delivered to Principal Diana Castillo-De Leon of Pilgrim Academy PK-8 in Houston on Tuesday, 10/3.

Additional backpacks were delivered to the Pilgrim Academy by President Nancy Yeh of APAPA Houston TX Chapter on the next day.

Houston C.A.R.E. and UCA Harvey Relief Fund have also ordered $7,500 worth of books as requested by Pilgrim Academy. These books will be placed inside the backpacks and bags and give to the students in a ceremony that Trustee Anne Sung and other Houston ISD representatives will attend.

Another $6,668.34 worth of school supplies have been ordered for Mitchell Elementary School. Houston C.A.R.E. and UCA Harvey Relief Fund are working with Houston ISD to identify the third school.

About Houston ISD Trustee Anne Sung (宋嘉年): After receiving a BS and a MS in Physics and a MS in Public Policy, ALL from HARVARD, Trustee Sung returned to Houston to teach science in an inner city high school with 95% of the students from low income families and >50% students are English deficient. Last November she won the runoff of a special election by 27 votes or <0.5% of the votes to be the first Chinese Trustee on the board of Houston ISD and is running for re-election on Nov. 7.