That's medicinal!

You know that meme by supporters of racial profiling at airports and border crossings, where they say that TSA and ICE should be searching for Arab-looking folks instead of strip-searching people in wheelchairs?

Well, here's one more reason why that might not be so smart:

A 19-year-old man posing as a disabled person was allegedly found to have five pounds of marijuana stuffed under the seat of a wheelchair at the San Ysidro border crossing, U.S. authorities said Monday.

The suspect, Donte Jonae Damas, looked nervous when a drug-sniffing dog approached him at the port of entry’s pedestrian processing area.

The dog alerted customs officers, who allegedly found the marijuana tightly wrapped in three packages under his seat, authorities said.

Mr Dumbass Damas, 80-year-old nanas around the country would like to give you a heart-felt fu¢k-you.

Semi-portability of teaching visas?

With a hat tip to Stafford (he reads the KT so I won't have to!), it appears that Immigration is going to allow a lot more freedom for secondary work for E-series visa holders (including the E2 and E1 status that so many English teachers are on). Quoting Stafford:

Finally it seems Immigration has legitimized a practice that has been going on ever since I have been in Korea. That is the practice of private Hakwon contracting out their Native English Speaking Teachers on E2 visas to businesses and other miscellaneous organisations to teach English. And i would say it hasn't just been Hakwon, but also the occasional University that has had it's E1 visa holders teaching in offices and community centres - all technically against the law and with little recourse for the teachers themselves who, at least until last week, were subject to cancellation of their visa and possible deportation if caught, while the employers were in line for little more than a slap on the wrist.

The Korea Times article he is working from is here.

This would mean greater work opportunities for E-series visa holders (allowing them to work "second jobs" more freely and more often), while at the same time it would allow some hagwon or other industries to utilize anglophone labor and skill sets, in conjunction with the anglophone's employer, without going through the costly and time-consuming effort of visa sponsorship. A win-win (or even win-win-win).

But wait, there's more. This could mean that those places least able to take on a full-time worker, and therefore most likely to have trouble meeting payroll on time, providing decent housing, creating a work environment where a non-Korean-speaking anglophone can spend most of the day without pulling his/her hair out, will be able to get by simply with a legal "temp" coming in once, twice, or a few times a week. That's now you, if you're an E-series visa holder.

Given that places like that are more likely to be "fly by night," this might mean that the fly-by-night operations will have to behave better in order to attract steady "temps," because now they will no longer rely on a captive worker who's stuck there for the year. Additionally, this might mean fewer disgruntled English teachers whose primary gripes stem from workplace shenanigans.

This also means that a smaller supply of English teachers can more flexibly fill the demand. Great news if you've already got a job, but bad news if you're back in Manitoba or Mississippi looking for work in Masan. This might even mean more money for the work that is available.

It's also possible that the greater flexibility might mean more actual work available, as potential workplaces that had need for anglophones, but not so much that they could justify the cost of bringing on a full-time hire, come looking for the newly freed-up E2s and E1s.

An interesting and significant development, to say the least. A lot will depend on how "subsidiary" is defined, but I would imagine that would be covered with "contracted" work. Don't be surprised if your visa sponsor expects a percentage or a finder's fee of sorts (and since they're going through the financial burden and legal responsibility of sponsoring you, perhaps they deserve something).

How many millions of overseas ROK nationals in the Korean diaspora?

The Korea Herald article about reduced emigration from Korea also addressed another topic: the millions of SoKos who live outside of South Korea. It's a rarely touched upon topic, but it's different enough from the original news item that I thought it deserved its own focus. I'm reprinting the entire section so that no data is lost:

Meanwhile, separate government data showed among 2.87 million South Korean nationals living abroad, up to 2.29 million will be eligible to vote in the parliamentary elections scheduled to be held in 2012. The number represents more than 6 percent of the nation’s 37.8 million eligible voters.

The election law was revised in February last year to grant suffrage Korean residents overseas, including some 1.22 million people with a permanent resident status in countries such as the U.S. and Japan. Under the revision, some of them cast their ballots for the first time in the parliamentary by-elections held on April 9 in 2009.

The measure could wield strong influence in the upcoming elections, especially considering the fact that some of the election results depended on a narrow margin of no more than hundreds of thousands of votes.

Up to 73 percent, or 2.1 million overseas Koreans, are living in the U.S., Japan and China, with more than 1.65 million staying temporarily for work or studying purposes, according to the National Election Commission.

The figures, however, could only be temporary as many people are hesitant to register as living aboard or report acquiring a permanent resident status or citizenship in another country, the election watchdog said.

In 2007 the top court here ruled unconstitutional the law that restricted the voting rights of overseas Koreans, prompting moves to grasp the exact number of Korean nationals living abroad and grant them suffrage. The National Assembly approved of the bill calling for such rights last year.

So that's an estimate of nearly three million ROK nationals living abroad. When I helped out with overseas voter registration in Seoul, we were given estimates of six or seven million US citizens living abroad, a number equal to an average state. Given that the US with twice the number of citizens abroad but has six times South Korea's population, that means a South Korean is nearly three times more likely than an American to live outside his/her country.

For decades, if they were to obtain another country's citizenship, they were often stripped of their ROK nationality. Imagine not being able to get citizenship in the United States, for example, lest you be forced to sell your family land back in Kyŏngsang-namdo. They could also lose many of their rights as ROK nationals if they merely obtained permanent residence status in another country (e.g., a US green card).

But lately, Seoul has been reconsidering and changing a lot of these policies, since such draconian measures encourage shadow citizenship, economically and legally hobble ROK nationals who go back and forth from South Korea to another country of residence, and dampen ethnic Korean participation in the electoral process abroad (often with undesirable effects).

For example, South Korea is trying to find a way for ROK nationals to have dual citizenship in a way that doesn't permit evasion of mandatory military service. Spouses of foreign citizens whose countries require their ROK bride or husband to get a green card (or equivalent) if they wish to visit the US no longer see their rights as ROK nationals automatically eroded.

And of course, green card-type residency for foreign nationals married to South Korean husbands and especially wives are now the norm, while paths to residency and ROK citizenship have been opened up to many others. And the thing which has been the biggest boon for me has been the ability to own real estate despite being a foreign national, which was also designed to allow former ROK citizens to keep their land if they obtain citizenship elsewhere.

All of this adds up to a situation where the large number of ROK nationals can more easily make their status officially known. The actual number could be far higher. And if there were four, five, or even six million ROK citizens living abroad, how many would vote in presidential, provincial, or local elections? Can they become a wild card? (Maybe it's all the more reason to institute a Peruvian-style automatic runoff in elections where no candidate has gotten a real majority instead of allowing them to win with a mere plurality.)

Emigration from South Korea drops below 1000

I guess when population growth drops to barely one kid per couple, it's a good thing for there to be fewer and fewer out-going emigrants.

From the Korea Herald:

On the back of the lingering global economic downturn and comparatively brighter circumstances at home, no more than 900 South Koreans are anticipated to move out of the country by the end of this year, falling below the 1,000-mark for the first time in a decade, the Foreign Ministry said.

According to the figures released for the annual parliamentary audit and inspection, a total of 694 South Koreans have moved abroad as of September, with an average of 77 people registering overseas per month.

This is the sharpest decrease of emigrants since 2000 when up to 15,307 moved abroad. The number of emigrants has been dropping continuously sine then, with 9,509 leaving the country in 2003, 8,277 in 2005, 4,127 in 2007 and 1,153 last year, the ministry said.

I'm not sure how the audit arrived at what constitutes an emigrant, but I would submit that many ROK nationals are essentially part-time or temporary emigrants. That is, they go abroad for long periods of time to live, study, work, and even start families, with fuzzily indefinite return dates. Non-returners may not end up in those government stats. For example, South Korean citizens make up an enormous portion of foreign students in the US and Canada; how many of them never end up returning to South Korea to take up residence again?

Still, if the criteria to be considered an emigrant has remained constant over the past decade or so, it is telling that there were over fifteen thousand fitting that definition in 2000 but fewer than one thousand this year. A regularly improving standard of living may be a huge factor, but also at play, I believe, is a harsher impression about what's out there in places like the United States: higher crime, considerably less job opportunity, lack of social support services like guaranteed health insurance, loss of social capital, etc.

Meanwhile, the one thing that many South Koreans most wish to take advantage of in the US — a more open educational experience at the primary and secondary level and a better quality educational experience at some of the universities — can still be had without officially emigrating. Think of the kirŏgi families (wild goose families) where the wife goes abroad with the kids, or the college-age son or daughter who decides that, say, the University of California is a better fit than a second- or third-tier college in Korea.

Come to think of it, though, maybe we should reconsider the kirŏgi family concept.

Finally, while the reduction of emigrants may seem good for efforts to recover the birth rate, if a lower number of permanent emigrants is compensated by an increase in part-time or temporary emigrants, it may be a wash for the birth rate. Those who go abroad to study may end up delaying marriage and/or reducing the overall number of kids they have upon their return, making their numbers no better than if they had left.

We should also note that there are returning emigrants that officially number in the thousands — more than the number leaving. The Korea Times article on this same news item puts the number of returning ROK nationals at 4301 last year and 3205 as of the end of September this year. How many of these are bringing back future workers and how many of them are simply going to be cashing pension checks?

In other words, it's still a demographer's and economist's nightmare.

"How come at these immigration rallies, people are carrying flags of every nation except the USA?"

One of the memes I find annoying is when people disparage immigrants as being more loyal to their "old" country instead of their new one (i.e., the United States, or Los Estados Unidos, if you prefer). It's not hard to find remarks in the comments section of conservative sites (and mainstream ones), or even mainstream newspapers like the Orange County Register, where people ask "How come I see the flags of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, etc., at these rallies, but never the flag of the US of A?!"

Well, maybe it's because you're not actually looking and you're only repeating a talking point that sounded good to you at the time.

Exhibit A:

Here's the source (and here's the source for the picture at top). Of course, it's the New York Times, that liberal rag, so maybe they picked the one single spot where people had their American flags out. Or maybe they handed out the Stars & Stripes just so they could prove the yahoos wrong. Could be it. They're that evil.

While we're at it, Exhibit B:

Here's the source for this one. These were easy enough to find. All I did was a Google image search of "immigrant rally." I didn't even have to add "American flag" to get these results. KushiFact labels this one blatant lie.

There are more after the jump...

Obama pursues Immigration reform

One thing I did like about then President George W. Bush is that he really did seem committed to immigration reform in a way that didn't demonize the illegal crossers and attempted to treat them with dignity. Too many Republicans hated the idea of rewarding even law-abiding illegals (that is, law-abiding except for their continued illegal stay in the US) and too many Democrats just couldn't stomach cooperating with Bush on anything.

President Obama, against what appear to be long odds, is working with two senators — one Dem and one Republican — to try to regain some traction on this campaign promise:

Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators -- Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- who have spent months trying to craft a bill.

According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.

The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Citizenship would not be granted lightly, the White House said. Undocumented workers would need to register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law. Failure to comply might result in deportation.

Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman, said the president's support for an immigration bill, which would also include improved border security, was "unwavering."

While I think there should be a practical way for long-term illegals to stay, we need to do something to block new illegals from coming back in. Sure, the economy is largely doing that for us, but there need to be other efforts, as well, such as harsh punishments for people who employ undocumented workers. And, I dare say, we might have to consider a national ID or at least a nationally implemented ID standard across the states and territories.

I'd like to see former President Bush get involved with this effort, which could go a long way toward salvaging his legacy.

Judge going to bat to prevent an immigrant and juvenile offender from being deported

From the New York Times is an interesting story about Qing Hong Wu, an immigrant who came to the US from China at the age of five and who got caught up in a gang of muggers when he was fifteen. Heeding the advice of the judge who sent him to rehabilitation for three to nine years, he turned his life around. When he applied for US citizenship years later, the judicial system "discovered" his teenage arrest and now he is being deported. That is, unless the same judge can stop it:

The teenager, a gifted student, was pleading guilty to a string of muggings committed at 15 with an eclectic crew in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The judge, who remembered the pitfalls of Little Italy in the 1950s, urged him to use his sentence — three to nine years in a reformatory — as a chance to turn his life around.

“If you do that, I am here to stand behind you,” the judge, Michael A. Corriero, promised. The youth, Qing Hong Wu, vowed to change.

Mr. Wu kept his word. He was a model inmate, earning release after three years. He became the main support of his immigrant mother, studying and working his way up from data entry clerk to vice president for Internet technology at a national company.

But almost 15 years after his crimes, by applying for citizenship, Mr. Wu, 29, came to the attention of immigration authorities in a parallel law enforcement system that makes no allowances for rehabilitation. He was abruptly locked up in November as a “criminal alien,” subject to mandatory deportation to China — the nation he left at 5, when his family immigrated legally to the United States.

Now Judge Corriero, 67, retired from the bench, is trying to keep his side of the bargain.

“Mr. Wu earned his second chance,” the judge wrote in a letter supporting a petition to Gov. David A. Paterson for a pardon that would erase Mr. Wu’s criminal record and stop the deportation proceedings. “He should have the opportunity to remain in this country.”

In today's mix of law-and-order and anti-immigrant sentiment (at least as far as perceptions of crime are concerned), his chances may not be that great. I'm not so sure a one-strike policy against legal immigrants is such a hot idea; at the very least there should be allowances made for such turnarounds.