Nationwide interviews with locals married to foreigners

Legal Human Rights
61

Ooooh, Housecat. Bring this MIL issue to the Women’s forum. Eeek!

But I betcha anything they’re looking at the foreign husbands since in this society it’s the husbands who’re considered head of the family. Amos, you may want to find gainful tax-paying employment ASAP.

I think this is utter bollocks! And completely anti-human rights. Why does Taiwan keep backsliding lately? It’s like the work that Wilhelm Stuckart did sniffing out the Jews for the 3rd Reich. Sinister! Refuse to comply! Stand up for yourselves, people!

62

“Wait, wait wait, It’s a fucking joke, right?”

Just checked with missus Huang who said she’d received a notice that the local government folks want to ask about our marriage. She said, and I’m awfully proud, "guan ni shenme pi shi".

Trouble on down the road? Bring it on. I’m getting bolshie coz I aint doing nothing wrong, nor has she.

This initiative, if one dares give it that much credence, is a as half baked as the ad to not have pre-marital sex.

I’m telling them to fuck off and fortunately my wife’s with me on this. They want to cause some trouble then I’ll trouble them right back. This shit is wrong on so many fronts, think it through.

HG

63

[quote=“mesheel”]But why the hell do they have these interviews? If your wifes and husbands would have married locals in the first place, then there wouldn’t be any interviews, so isn’t this some kind of discrimination against Taiwanese who marrie foreigners? After all you guys are married and I suppose you all therefore are living and working legally in Taiwan. So where’s the problem? If this happend here in my country I would flip…
So do something, call the news or what ever. Can this be legal??? I think it sucks and I’m sure not the only one.[/quote]

Isn’t is commom practice in the US for citizen/foreigner couples to be interviewed several times by the INS to make sure the marriage isn’t fake? From what I understand the interviews there can get pretty personal as well.

64

Yeah, and Australia too. But in both countries you’re getting way more bang for your mind fuck. Where’s my voting rights? Missus Huang would have hers by now, and her own passport. She could leave me if she so wanted and they’d not say tickety boo. I like that. Her rights are defended. Here mine aren’t

HG

65

[quote=“Poagao”]Isn’t is commom practice in the US for citizen/foreigner couples to be interviewed several times by the INS to make sure the marriage isn’t fake? From what I understand the interviews there can get pretty personal as well.[/quote]Yes, but at least they are honest about what the interviews are about and what their intentions are. And they are done according to the law. These interviews, nobody knows what they are for, except that they are not doing to ‘better understand their situations and gauge what assistance they might need’

66

[quote=“Poagao”]

Isn’t is commom practice in the US for citizen/foreigner couples to be interviewed several times by the INS to make sure the marriage isn’t fake? From what I understand the interviews there can get pretty personal as well.[/quote]

Not at all. I’ve gone through those green card interviews twice. My first husband was Colombian (not a real marriage, but not for $ either, just a gay friend out of uni) and it was nothing. We were all nervous and prepared with photo albums, etc, etc. But nothing. About five minutes, checking over the papers to see that we cohabitated, shared assets, bla bla. Funny thing too, I was already in Taiwan when he called me back for the interview…That ‘ex-husband’ is still in the US, and a citizen now. He’s more American than I am now!

Then I did it again with ex-husband Taiwanese. I thought, 'Shit! Trouble! I’ve already helped one person get a green card, but this is the REAL marriage…" Again, nothing. Five minutes. The interviewer guy spoke Chinese, it was in San Francisco.

In the US it’s all about paperwork and assets as the INS is severly understaffed and it can take two years to even be called for an interview.
Upon marriage, foreign spouse can get his/her work permit straight away, however, it’s just the permanent residency (greencard) he/she has to wait for until interview time. And I agree with HGC, it’s a helluva lot better for those foreigners there as they at least have inalienable rights as residents, not to mention, they’re able to get their citizenship within a reasonable timeframe.

And nobody ever followed up on either one of those interviews. Or even questioned me about having gone through the process previously.
My ex-Taiwanese husband gave his greencard up, however, when we got divorced as he had no need to go to or live in US.

Of course, the US is a completely different environment for immigrants, and many foreign western spouses here probably would NOT categorize themselves as ‘immigrants’. I do wonder what’s up their sleeves.

67

Oh yeah, I see, but first of all, from what you guys are telling, it sounds like, they’re not saying anything about the purpose of this interogation and second, why would they do it, if you married several years alreayd. Isn’t that obvious enough, that your marriages are not fake?

I remember telling my parents, the aliens branch of the police, something like immigration, came to their house to spy on them, when my dad wanted to become a citizen. My mom is still complaing today, that they were very unfriendly and sneaked around everywhere in the house. That was almost 30 years ago!!! Things have changed, but maybe not in Taiwan :unamused:

68

i got the call a couple of weeks ago. the interviewer only spoke chinese even after i asked that he speak english. this request seemed to have perturbed him because he spoke very fast after this.

the questions were not really questions but confirmations. do you have any children? and before i could answer he tells me names and birthdays. how many years have you been married? while i was counting on my fingers he tells me my wedding date. then directly after this he asks: and so you’ve been in taiwan ever since you came back with your husband to get married? this kind of pissed me off because he’s just made a bunch of assumptions with that question so now i know whatever survey this is its not going to be beneficial to anyone. so i mumble another affirmative grunt and wait for an opening to hang up. (see how taiwanese i am now?)

instead of an opening came a bunch of leading questions about money and work. i replied with more affirmative grunts even tho most, if not all, should have been “no” with an explanation. from our conversation up to this point there was great reason for him to suspect i didn’t understand a word of his chinese. in fact there was great reason to suspect i wasn’t even human…

… until the the last question: What is your ARC number? again, not “do you have an ARC?”, but what is the number. he was rather anxious to get this bit of information. the more i refused, the more insistent he became. please, if the Foriegn Affairs Police is not going to cooperate with the Ministry of the Interior, why should i? i told him: “bu fang bian” and asked him to call back when my husband was home. (my husband is less polite than i am. now after reading this thread i wish i had given him sandman’s number.)

i wish i had known about this sooner because i would have had a lot more fun with this interview. oh well, i’m sure there will be a next time.

69

We were never contacted. Maybe they read the Banqiao foreign affairs thread and decided to leave me alone.

70

sounds like typical taiwan cop bullshit mjb… translation, we have a quota for doing these so we will tell you it’s mandatory… cmon what are they going to do, kick everybody out who doesn’t send it back? now there’s a bureaucratic nightmare–for them. the lizhang mailed me the form with a flyer, it says nothing about mandatory unless “wei mian ni quanyi sunshi” to ensure your rights are protected? is. the form itself asks you to “please” cooperate. i can’t be bothered to look at it, it’s just some kind of sick government joke i figure. who’s brainstorm was this? imagine all the societal problems that will be swept away once the government has all this multiple choice information in hand. i’m sure it’s aimed at the vietnam etc brides, to make it look good they have to send it out to everybody.

71

But they got me. They kept leaving messages on missus Huang’s phone so she finally called. She’s a good spirited sort and dutifully ignored my suggestions to tell 'em to take a hike. She said it was just some administrative trifling. She told the woman that I’d suggested a bollocking and the woman said she’d been bombarded with abuse but very little cooperation. Tee hee.

Missus Huang got sympathetic, “poor woman’s just doing her job, she’s a civil servant not a copper.”

HG

72

Always much easier to give foreigners a hard time than to actually interrogate those causing the illegal immigration problems. I wonder what sort of a response they’d get if the rang up a few "KTV"s I know of and asked to speak to some of their Vietnamese or Mainland staff ?

This is odious stuff even for Taiwan.

73

A woman called us from the government regarding this. They asked to speak to my wife, even though I answered the phone and I speak Chinese. Actually, we both thought it was regarding my brother in law’s recent marriage to a Chinese. It was in fact this. She didn’t want to talk to me, but to my wife. She even asked how we met and other personal info like that. It made me pretty upset, but in these areas my wife and I are very different. I am inclined to go up against the government when it is wrong (but that is perhaps the New Hampshirite in me), she goes along.

74

Co-operating with the government is a very Un-Taiwanese Activity. Your missus had better be careful or she’ll be up in front of the House Committee. Oops. Wrong country. Wrong century.

75

I better get on the fine to the Mother-in-Law and find out if she has had a call…

Has anyone had any experience with what happens if you refuse the interview… Has anybody had a follow up for doing that?

After all the bad information, non-support, and general rudeness from Taiwanese government institutions… Why the hell should I give them my time when they ask for it…?

Cheers!

Daryl

76

I got a call from the houshold registry last week asking for my wife. I told them that my wife works long days and that they could ask me but that it should be in English because I don’t speak Chinese. She apologized and said that her “Englishe” was not good and she would try to find someone that could speak English. After a few minutes waiting on the phone she apologized again and hung up.

Saturday our security guard gave my wife a flyer and other paper they left for her with the request to contact them. My wife said “it’s about you”. I told her not to go there or answer any questions. I hope she didn’t.

Anyhow, as long as we are treated as second rang humans I definetely will not co-operate freely. As has been said before, they know all about us and just have to look it up. They have no reason for snooping around in my private life.

BTW, my guess is that they include all foreign spouses to avoid being blamed for human rights abuse if they only interview Chinese and Asian spouses; to flush out fake marriages.

77

Sometimes it is good to live in a smaller place - The place I live when in Taiwan has about 60 permenant Western foreigners and the head of the foriegn affairs police knows us all, and is extremely friendly. He comes to our parties. He knows our registered addresses and where we actually live - very civilised.

78

Did you all see the article http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/11/09/200307516 in yesterday’s Taipei Times stating that the legislature is now considering tougher immigration laws? One part that caught my attention:

Could this be a reaction to many foreign residents around the island refusing to grant interviews with immigration department personnel in recent weeks? Or is this motivated by some other problem?