A group of community advocates for so-called “new immigrants” in Taiwan announced its plan to hold a public panel with four of Taiwan’s presidential candidates on November 12. The candidates will be invited to share their policies related to new immigrants and answer questions from the public.
Event organizer Hung Ming-chien (洪銘謙) said while he and his fellow organizers hold different political stances, they share the same concern for issues related to new immigrants. He says the group was motivated to hold the event because they feel that the situation facing Taiwan’s new immigrants has not seen significant improvement in the past few years.
The organizers said in a Facebook post that as new immigrants continue to confront discrimination and stereotypes on a daily basis, they hope the event will amplify their voices. The group adds that they hope these voices will be more deeply considered in future policy decisions.
The group says invitations have been sent to the four presidential candidates, namely, DPP’s Lai Ching-te (賴清德), KMT’s Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), Taiwan People’s Party’s Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), and independent Terry Gou (郭台銘). Each candidate will be given 30 minutes to discuss their new immigrant policies followed by 30 minutes of Q&A.