Ted Cruz Blocks Hong Kong TPS Legislation Providing Immigration Amnesty to Chinese Citizens

Richard Moorhead

Dec 18, 2020

Sen. Ted Cruz answers questions from the press after the graduation ceremony of thirteen members of the first class of astronaut candidates under the Artemis program at the Johnson Space Center on Friday, Jan. 10, 2020, in Houston. After completing more than two years of training, the astronauts are now eligible for assignments, including going to the International Space Station, Artemis missions to the Moon and missions to Mars.

Senator Ted Cruz blocked legislation that would create an immigration carve-out to more than seven million Chinese nationals during Senate proceedings on Friday. Senator Cruz cited the national security threat that the Hong Kong People’s Freedom and Choice Act would represent.

The law would’ve enshrined residents of Hong Kong with permanent eligibility as US refugees. Proponents of the bill are citing Hong Kong’s tenuous relationship with mainland China, arguing that moving Hong Kongers who oppose Communism to the United States is necessary for the Chinese territory’s pro-freedom movement.

Supporters of the bill have argued that a free pass to Chinese nationals doesn’t represent a national security threat, even as Chinese state agents carry on campaign of corporate and state espionage in the United States that may be unprecedented in American history.

A Chinese citizen born in Hong Kong was arrested over the summer, having infiltrated the CIA and FBI to provide intelligence to officials of the People’s Republic of China. Alexander Yuk Ching Ma had secured a top secret security clearance, gaining employment with the CIA in 1982.

Just objected to Democrats’ exploiting the crisis in Hong Kong to advance their political agenda. We need to have a substantive, bipartisan conversation about standing up for our allies and countering the Chinese Communist Party. Democrats’ bill does not advance that objective. pic.twitter.com/sSNVBAdx9J

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) December 18, 2020

“Our Democratic colleagues embrace open borders. When it comes to illegal immigration, their preferences is to make all immigration legal. This bill advances that long-time partisan political agenda, that the Democrats have.”

Assertions of congressional liberals that Hong Kongers are exclusively freedom-loving classical liberals are largely incorrect. The special territory of the People’s Republic of China is politically diverse as anywhere else is, and a sizable contingent of the territory’s population are party members of the Communist Party of China.

Dan Cadman of the Center for Immigration Studies described the Hong Kong amnesty as “a potential national security disaster in the making for our country, and if it passes, the intelligence organs of the PRC and its People’s Liberation Army will be delighted at the opportunities it spawns.” The law had passed the House of Representatives unanimously, with not one congressional Republican opting to stand against an immigration amnesty giveaway to Chinese citizens.

The Temporary Protected Status amnesty program has proved anything but temporary, with citizens of nations such as Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador qualifying for the program for almost twenty years.

The amnesty bill will almost certainly have to be reintroduced in the House in the next legislative session.