For Obama: How about a high-skilled immigration pivot for Asia?

Weeks before US President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to Manila on April 28, Eastern Samar Representative Ben Evardone called on US authorities to support the Philippines’ request for so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for some of its citizens at risk of deportation from the United States. This designation reportedly could benefit nearly 600,000 Filipinos in the United States, including Filipino visitors, students or temporary workers, and undocumented ones who can get temporary work permits.

According to news reports, TPS can be granted to foreign nationals in the United States when conditions in their home countries temporarily prevent them from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately. The Philippines had made the request for TPS designation following the destruction wrought by Typhoon Yolanda in November 2013.

The request also adds a Filipino element to an immigration debate that surfaces again and again on both sides of the Pacific, particularly during tough economic times.

For numerous countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including in Southeast Asia, immigration remains a contentious issue. Consider Australia’s controversial efforts to intercept at sea a new generation of “boat people” fleeing impoverished, strife-torn nations, and Burma’s treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority whose ancestors immigrated generations back to and who have long called Burma home. News coverage of their plight and persecution under the Burmese government won Reuters just days ago a Pulitzer Prize.

And, of course, with their vast number of overseas workers, the Philippines and Indonesia have too often been part of the story in reports of abuse of domestic workers in Hong Kong, Singapore or the Middle East.

Certainly, in the US, perhaps the nation best known as a land of immigrants and their descendants – myself included – the debate rages on. Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush both failed to move divided governments to act on immigration.

As I have argued on CNBC and elsewhere, there is at least one area where all US political parties should be able to come together for some meaningful, near-term action. That is focusing on the untapped potential of the many skilled men and women who have already come to the US through legal channels. This includes tens of thousands from India, China and elsewhere in Asia, including no doubt the Philippines though exact numbers are hard to come by.

Overlooked issue

Unfortunately, this issue has generally been overlooked amid the focus on the flow of unauthorized, low-skilled immigrants into the United States – the vast majority of them from south of the US border, but also including numerous unskilled immigrants from Asia and elsewhere. The language of immigration today is also increasingly politicized, adding little to a constructive discussion: Illegal vs. undocumented. Amnesty vs. a path to citizenship.

In the slow-to-no-growth global economy, whether in the US, Europe or Southeast Asia, politicians too often fear the consequences of action, not inaction. Some worry about the impact on core labor constituencies of potential competition by low-wage immigrants. Others ponder what numerous new citizens of Asian and Latino origin will mean for future US elections.

Yet, this larger, ongoing US debate – and admittedly an important one – on immigration should not stand in the way of making smaller-scale updates to what has been the traditional path forward for many seeking the American dream, including hundreds of thousands of Filipino-Americans.

Based on 2010 US census data, Asians of Chinese descent in the United States in 2009 numbered some 3.8 million, making Chinese-Americans the largest Asian group. This was followed by Filipinos (3.2 million), Asian Indians (2.8 million), Vietnamese (1.7 million), Koreans (1.6 million) and Japanese (1.3 million). These estimates represent the number of people who reported a specific Asian group alone, and people who reported that Asian group in combination with one or more other Asian groups or races.

For skilled immigrants from Asia or elsewhere who were doctors, lawyers or other professionals in their countries of origin, first jobs in the United States typically take little to no advantage of their full skill-set given licensing or accreditation requirements. The anecdotes are legion and legend: the taxi driver from India who was once an engineer, or the nanny from the Philippines who had long worked as a nurse back home.

The story is as old as America. Immigrants sacrifice, and ultimately succeed in building better lives for their children, if not yet themselves. That was certainly the story shared among many in my own family as some 120 people, descendants of Chinese immigrants of many decades past, came together last August in Seattle for our first ever family reunion.

And like many a Pacific Northwest family, the occupations and preoccupations were varied: from Seattle public school teacher to Boeing engineer to my own recent service as one of the few U.S. ambassadors of Chinese heritage.

By some counts, I am the fourth, having served for nearly 4 years as US Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, based in Manila. Gary Locke, the former US Ambassador to China, US Commerce Secretary and Washington state governor, was the fifth US Ambassador of Chinese descent.

Many in our extended family gathered again earlier this year in Yakima, Washington, to remember and celebrate the life of a great aunt, Jade Hong Chin, who recently passed away and who had immigrated to the United States in 1947 to be united with her husband Calvin after WWII had separated them.

Her and other tales of immigrant life, of separation and of coming together, and of becoming American will not change and will be echoed in future tales of others, including many from the Philippines – regardless of TPS designation.

But what could well change, with bipartisan support in Washington, is support for an effort focusing first on immigrant integration, separate and distinct from the contentious issue of immigrant admissions.

Addressing ‘brain waste’

Addressing the ongoing “brain waste” of an estimated 1.5 million college-educated immigrants either unemployed or employed in relatively unskilled jobs also will help America better utilize the nation’s diversity of human capital. This could well benefit numerous Filipinos already in the United States, and also should not detract from the critical challenge of job creation and ensuring all Americans, regardless of immigration status, can build careers in today’s economy.

The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute – a Washington, D.C., think tank focused on analysis of the movement of people worldwide – has in the past noted America’s uneven progress in integrating skilled immigrants. Policy implications could include a greater focus on state workforce agency partnerships and on advancing accredited work-skills training and English language programs. At the federal level, incentives could well be provided for more effective bridging programs for America’s underutilized talent.

One such program doing so, supported by World Education Services – a research organization focused on international education and credential evaluation and on whose Board I sit – is aptly called “pathways to success.”

This effort includes seminars offering practical advice and resources to skilled immigrants on how to further pursue education, obtain professional licensing or certification, and find suitable employment in the United States.

Last December, the United States marked the anniversary of the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. That original act of Congress had singled out an ethnic group for immigration exclusion, prohibited legal Chinese immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens, and relegated them to second-class status.

Those times thankfully are behind us even though some may well raise fears about new waves of immigrants hitting the shores of an ever-changing America. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed a sweeping immigration reform bill into law. In 2006, President George W. Bush became the first to address the nation from the Oval Office in prime-time on immigration – a reform effort that ultimately failed. Just this month, his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, was criticized by some for what were seen by others as more welcoming comments on immigration.

Today, America again has the opportunity to mend a broken system and set an example for Asia-Pacific nations that are also struggling with how best to welcome strangers to their shores and perhaps one day to turn them into new citizens. In his remarks during his upcoming trip to Asia, Obama may well choose to acknowledge the contributions of the many Americans who themselves or their ancestors once called the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Malaysia or somewhere else in the region home.

I will leave it to the diplomats to address directly the issue of Temporary Protected Status, but putting politics aside, I believe that an even better tribute to those who went before from Asian shores to America would include the US president and Congress focusing first on ensuring today’s skilled immigrants can fully utilize their talents and education toward building an even stronger United States. Beyond TPS, how about a high-skilled immigration pivot for Asia?

This might be a small step forward but it can help build trust that will be critical for a larger deal. High-skilled immigration reform also will be to the near-term benefit of the United States and its economy, as well as the many Asians seeking legally to build better lives there, and also provide a shining example to Asia – and to the nations of the impending ASEAN Economic Community, or AEC – that progress can still be made even on the most difficult issues.

It would also add a bit more bipartisan substance beyond the rhetoric and defense moves that have dominated Obama’s self-declared US Pivot to Asia. – Rappler.com

Curtis S. Chin, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush (2007-2010), is managing director of advisory firm RiverPeak Group, LLC. Follow him on Twitter at @CurtisSChin