LOS ANGELES — In the more than two years since President Barack Obama launched his original deferred action program, offering temporary work permits and protection from deportation to immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, Latinos have signed up in large numbers.
Most Asian immigrants who are eligible have not.
According to federal data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute, just 24 percent of eligible Koreans, 26 percent of eligible Filipinos and 28 percent of eligible Indians applied between 2012 and 2014.
Chinese immigrant youth were even more absent. Although they were among the top groups of immigrants likely entitled to relief, fewer than 1,610 applied nationwide.
Now, with a planned expansion of the deferred action program put on hold by a federal judge in Texas, immigrant advocates are worried that the political controversy might make Asians even more reluctant to take part.
“This is especially troubling for the Asian community where we have already low participation rates,” said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif. She said many Asian immigrants distrust deferred action because they are wary of sharing personal information with the government and have doubts about whether the program will last.
Since Obama announced in November that he was expanding his signature immigration initiative to include deportation protections for a broader group of childhood arrivals, as well as up to 4 million immigrant parents of U.S.-born children, advocates have been scrambling to make sure Asians are better represented.
Legal aid and advocacy groups have bolstered outreach through ethnic media outlets, and some have opened satellite offices in growing immigrant outposts such as Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley. The first step, activists say, is simply initiating conversations about immigration status.
“We need to reach out and demystify the stigma,” said Mee Moua, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “It’s not enough to tell people there’s this executive action and here are the benefits. We need to pause and say, ‘If you are sitting here feeling like you’re the only person who is undocumented, you should know that there are many people in this county or this state who are Asian American and in your same situation.”
Experts cite a number of reasons why Latinos have participated in deferred action at twice or three times the rate of some Asian immigrants. In the first two years of the program, 68 percent of eligible Hondurans, 62 percent of eligible Salvadorans and 61 percent of eligible Peruvians applied.
One is the sheer size of the Latino immigrant population. There are roughly 9.2 million immigrants in the country illegally who were born in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean or South America, compared to 1.5 million born in Asian or Pacific Island countries.
Language may also play a role: Advocates trying to reach Latinos can do it largely in Spanish, while those trying to speak to Asians must do so in multiple languages.
Tom Wong, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, said the barriers to Asian participation in the programs go beyond issues of visibility and cultural stigma. Asians “don’t feel the threat of deportation as acutely” as Latinos, who are deported at a higher rate, he said. And some Asian immigrants may have other forms of relief available to them.
“It may be a rational and conscious choice not to apply because the benefits do not outweigh the cost,” he said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.