#230 1/8 Meeting Summary; Foreign Ownership of US Farmland; Military-Industrial Complex; +

In This Issue #230

·       2024/01/08 APA Justice Monthly Meeting Summary

·       Foreign Ownership of US Farmland and Tracking "Alien Land Laws"

·       President Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Speech on "Military-Industrial Complex"

·       News and Activities for the Communities

2024/01/08 APA Justice Monthly Meeting Summary

The January 8, 2024, APA Justice monthly meeting summary is now available at https://bit.ly/3tQykpr. We thank the following speakers for their remarks and updates:

·       Congresswoman Judy Chu 赵美心, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), kicked off the new year with her review of 2023 and a look ahead to 2024.  Rep. Chu acknowledges the community's importance in addressing profiling issues and commends their leadership for raising awareness. Rep. Chu highlights the challenges faced by the Asian American scientific community, citing major wins in 2023.  She covers legislative challenges, focusing on bills restricting land ownership for Chinese and immigrant communities in various states. Rep. Chu shares the successful advocacy efforts in Texas but notes similar laws passing in other states. She emphasizes their negative impact on families and realtors and her joint effort with Rep. Al Green to introduce a federal bill countering such discriminatory laws.  Rep. Chu addresses successful advocacy against harmful language in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), emphasizing the importance of protecting the Asian American community. She underscores the need to recognize and preserve the resilient history of Asian American communities, mentioning regrets of both Senate and House resolutions on the historical discrimination of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Rep. Chu outlines future priorities, including combating anti-Asian discrimination and advocating for FISA Section 702 reform. A transcript of Rep. Chu’s remarks was published in Issue 229 of the APA Justice Newsletter at https://bit.ly/48AZIqx. A YouTube video of her remarks is posted at https://bit.ly/3tUixpp (11:56).

·       Hongwei Shang 商红伟, co-founder and vice president of the Florida Asian American Justice Alliance (FAAJA), described the significant growth of FAAJA since it was created in response to SB 264, a discriminatory bill prohibiting land and property ownership by Chinese and other nationals in Florida, especially after a memorable rally with prominent speakers and support from media groups, the Asian American, Latin American, black, and Jewish communities, and national organizations such as UCA, NAACP, LULAC, and AREAA in Miami on December 16, 2023.  FAAJA memberships is now about 500.  Haipei Shue 薛海培, President of United Chinese Americans (UCA) expresses gratitude to Congressman Judy Chu, Gene Wu, and Andrew Yang for speaking at the protest in Miami. Despite facing a major storm, the protest drew support from various minority groups serving as a model for moving forward.  Haipei acknowledges the vulnerability of the Chinese community and the challenges they will face in the next two decades, including civil rights issues and concerns about political extremism. UCA is working to launch a civil rights movement in response to these challenges.  Overall, Haipei remains optimistic that the Chinese community will overcome these challenges and see better days ahead.

·       Ted Gong, Executive Director, provides an overview of the 1882 Foundation, which began almost 12 years ago.  The importance of the Senate and House resolutions in 2011 and 2012 was not just to express regret of what Congress did with the Chinese Exclusion Act, but also to reaffirm that Congress has the responsibility to protect the rights of all people in the U.S.  The Foundation focuses on preserving oral histories and sites, working with school systems on lesson plans and curriculum, and collaborating with museums to spread awareness about the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.  Despite the recent 80th anniversary of its repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, issues like anti-Asian hate persist.  Ted and APA Justice are working on a potential series of webinars on immigration laws where Martin Gold, Pro Bono Counsel of the 1882 Project and Partner of Capitol Counsel, will provide historical insights.  Martin emphasizes that what was done in 2011 and 2012 should not gather dust on the shelf but be a point of ongoing education for the community and for others.  The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the third of 8 separate enactments of Congress.  It became permanent in 1904 and remained so until 1943 when the law was repealed in the middle of the Second World War as a war measure.  The Senate resolution sponsored by Senator Scott Brown passed by unanimous consent. The House resolution sponsored by Rep. Judy Chu passed under suspension of the rules.  At the time of their sponsorship, they were members of the minority party in their respective chambers.  Martin went on to explain how Scott Brown, a Republican Senator from Massachusetts, got to be the sponsor in the Senate.

·       Dr. Yawei Liu 刘亚伟, Senior Advisor, China Focus at the Carter Center, reported that the Carter Center was founded in 1982. Carter Center’s work in China started in the mid-1990s.  Although Kissinger went to China in 1971 and Nixon went to China in 1972. It was President Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 who made the joint decision to normalize the relationship in 1978.  Diplomatic relations were normalized on January 1, 1979.  Dr. Liu told the story of the first Carter Center project in China and how it pivoted to the mission of promoting a better understanding between the two countries and how to prevent conflicts in the Pacific and in East Asia after President Carter met the new leader Xi Jinping 习近平 in 2012.  Starting in December 2012, the inaugural Carter Center Forum on US China Relations was opened in Beijing. From 2012 to 2019, a total of 7 forums were held.  This year is the first in-person forum on US-China relations after the pandemic to be held at the Carter Center in Atlanta. It is also the first time the forum is named the Jimmy Carter Forum on US-China Relations.  In the US, the Carter Center is criticized as being too soft on China as well as colluding with the Chinese Communist Party.  In China, the Carter Center is blacklisted because of the government's belief that it is trying to promote human rights and political reform in China.  The most important mission for China Focus at the Carter Center is to wage peace between the 2 countries through better understanding of each other, through communicating with each other, and through recommendations on mechanisms to stabilize relationships.

·       Joanna YangQing Derman, Director, Anti-Profiling, Civil Rights & National Security Program, Advancing Justice | AAJC, provided three updates.  First, the discriminatory Rounds Amendment was stripped from the final version of the NDAA. It would have effectively prohibited foreign citizens including Chinese citizens from purchasing various forms of US land.  Second, a four-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was included in the NDAA which was signed by President Joe Biden.  Third, senators on both sides of the aisle are considering extreme permanent changes to US immigration law in exchange for Ukraine aid. These harmful immigration policy proposals include gutting the asylum system, locking up more immigrants and families in detention, and expedited removals that would endanger undocumented people across the country. 

·       Eri Andriola, Associate Director of Policy & Litigation for Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), substituted for Gisela Perez Kusakawa and provided three updates.   First. AASF is monitoring the impacts of Florida's SB 846, which restricts Florida's public colleges and universities from hiring researchers and graduate assistants from several “countries of concern,” which include China and Iran.  Second, on December 7, 2023, AASF sent a joint letter with 48 coalition partners to Congress to oppose language to reinstate the Department of Justice's China initiative in a House appropriations bill and any future iterations of the initiative.  The letter highlighted the lasting harms to scholars targeted, as well as the chilling effect on Asian American scholars and their leadership in science and technology.  Third, Eri also expressed thanks to APA Justice for co-hosting a community briefing webinar on FISA Section 702 on December 12, 2023. The briefing featured civil rights, national security, and policy experts, who broke down what FISA Section 702 is and how it impacts Asian American communities.

Read the 2024/01/08 monthly meeting summary: https://bit.ly/3tQykpr.  Read past monthly meeting summaries: https://bit.ly/3kxkqxP

On December 12, 2023, a coalition of five organizations hosted a Community Briefing on Section 702 of FISA: Sweeping Reforms to Warrantless Surveillance Initiative.  Panelists discussed the key reform bills at play, including the Government Surveillance Reform Act (GSRA) and the Protecting Liberty and Ending Warrantless Surveillance Act (PLEWSA), and how the Asian American community and advocates can get involved on this issue. Video of the webinar is posted here: https://bit.ly/3O4Lw0v (YouTube video 59:22).

Foreign Ownership of US Farmland and Tracking "Alien Land Laws"

As reported at the January 8 APA Justice monthly meeting, the Rounds Amendment was successfully kept out of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.  If enacted, it would have effectively prohibited foreign citizens including Chinese citizens from purchasing various forms of US land, very much in line with the resurgence of the discriminatory alien land laws at the state level. The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) became law in late 1978. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) maintains a nationwide system for the collection of information pertaining to foreign ownership in U.S. agricultural land and produces annual reports at: https://bit.ly/3u9DInv.  Detailed data with individual entries in Excel files are available at: https://bit.ly/47CxomkOn November 2, 2023, the American Farm Bureau Federation analyzed the 2021 AFIDA data and published a report with a series of maps and charts on Foreign Investment in U.S. Agricultural Land.

As of 2021, 40.83 million acres of U.S. agricultural land are owned by foreign investors and companies. This corresponds to 3.1% of all privately held agricultural land and 1.8% of all land in the United States.  Canadian investors own the largest portion of foreign-held U.S. agricultural land with 31% of the total and 0.97% of all U.S. agricultural land. Following Canada, investors from the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany own 0.37%, 0.21%, 0.19%, and 0.17% of U.S. agricultural land, respectively.  Figure 2 further breaks down foreign-investor-held land by predominant origin nation. 

Forestry and energy production are the main interests for foreign ownership of US agricultural land.  In 2021, 48% of reported foreign-held agricultural land was forestland, 29% was cropland, 18% was pastureland and 5% was other agricultural land and non-ag land, which accounts for factors like owner or worker housing and rural roads. These proportions vary widely depending on the state. Forestland, for instance, makes up 99%, 98%, 86% and 85% of foreign-held agricultural land in Maine, Alabama, Louisiana and Michigan, respectively. In states with significant timber industries, this land is primarily held by investors from Canada and the Netherlands. Of the top eight states with the highest concentrations of foreign-investor-held land, only two (Colorado and Oklahoma) have cropland as their largest foreign-held land category, with investors primarily from Canada, Italy, and Germany.  Between 1981 and 2021, foreign ownership of US. agricultural land increased from 1% to 3.1%.Many of the current concerns about foreign ownership of U.S. ag land have focused on China.  China is ranked 18th in the ownership of U.S. ag land with 383,000 acres, less than 1% of total foreign-owned U.S. ag land, or just 0.03% of all agricultural land in the U.S.   The combined total ownership by the other "countries of concern" - Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela - is about 95,000 acres of agricultural land in the U.S., which corresponds to 0.007%.The Land Report 100 produces a list of the 100 largest landowners in the U.S.  In 2024, America’s largest landowner is Red Emmerson.  He and his family own 2,411,000 acres in California, Oregon, and Washington through their timber-products company, Sierra Pacific Industries. The Emmersons became America’s largest landowners in 2021 when they acquired 175,000 acres in Oregon, surpassing Liberty Media chairman John Malone’s 2,200,000 acres. CNN founder Ted Turner is America’s third largest landowner with 2 million acres in the Southeast, on the Great Plains, and across the West.  Chinese entrepreneur Tianqiao Chen ranks 82 as the owner of 198,000 acres of Oregon timberland.

An ongoing onslaught of federal and state legislation prohibiting property ownership by citizens of foreign countries (i.e. “alien land laws”) has raised alarm throughout the Asian American community. In response, the Committee of 100 has created a database and interactive data visualization tool to help individuals and organizations identify and track related legislative activity by state governments and Congress, especially those related to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  The tracking results and interactive tools are available at https://bit.ly/3Hxta4B.

According to the Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance (CALDA) on January 17, 2024, the plaintiff's motion for an expedited appeal has been granted by the Appeals Court in Atlanta.  Oral argument and disposition have been ordered for the court's calendar.  A separate order will follow on the motion for injunction pending appeal to block the Florida alien land law SB 264, which went into effect in Florida on July 1, 2023. 

President Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Speech on "Military-Industrial Complex"

According to the National Archives, 63 years ago on January 17, 1961, in this farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex."  In a televised speech, he surprised many with his strong warnings which still ring true today.As President of the United States for two terms, Eisenhower had slowed the push for increased defense spending despite pressure to build more military equipment during the Cold War’s arms race. Until World War II, the United States had no armaments industry.  Nonetheless, the American military services and the defense industry had expanded a great deal in the 1950s. Eisenhower thought this growth was needed to counter the Soviet Union, but it confounded him.A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be might, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.... American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.... This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.... Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.... In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.... We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

President Eisenhower's warning remains a cautionary message against the undue concentration of power and influence within the military-industrial complex, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a balance between national security and the preservation of democratic values and institutions.President Eisenhower was the commanding general of the victorious forces in Europe during World War II.  He served as President of Columbia University in 1948-1953.  He obtained a truce in Korea and worked incessantly during his two terms as U.S. President (1953-1961) to ease the tensions of the Cold War.  The end of Eisenhower’s term as President not only marked the end of the 1950s, but also the end of an era in government.  A new, younger generation was rising to national power that would set a more youthful, vigorous course.  He died in 1969.Watch President Eisenhower's farewell address: https://bit.ly/3O6eeyq (video 16:03).  Read the National Archives transcript of his speech: https://bit.ly/47JdHZY

News and Activities for the Communities

1.  APA Justice Community Calendar

Upcoming Events:2024/01/22 White House Briefing on the 51st Anniversary of Roe v. Wade2024/02/04 Rep. Gene Wu's Town Hall Meeting2024/02/05 APA Justice Monthly Meeting2024/02/10 New Year's Day of the Year of the Dragon2024/03/03 Rep. Gene Wu's Town Hall Meeting2024/04/07 Rep. Gene Wu's Town Hall Meeting2024/04/19 Committee of 100 Annual Conference & GalaVisit https://bit.ly/45KGyga for event details.

2. Asian American gymnasts at University of Florida

According to the Alligator on January 18, 2024, Morgan Hurd, a redshirt sophomore at the University of Florida (UF), is a Chinese American and has competed in gymnastics since she was little. She shares similar identities with her teammates, senior Victoria Nguyen and junior Leanne Wong, who are also Asian Americans. Wong is also a Chinese American, and Nguyen is Vietnamese. In a sport that has recently seen a rise in prominence by Asian Americans like Suni Lee, who became the first Asian American woman to win gold in gymnastics all-around, student-athletes like Hurd still struggled for years to find their sense of belonging within sports because of her identity. In the NCAA and at the Division I level, where UF athletics compete, Asians make up just 2% of all student-athletes, according to a 2022-2023 report. The report stated there were just 11,326 (2.2%) Asian student-athletes out of 526,084 total across the NCAA. At the Division I level, there are 3,735 (2.0%) Asian student-athletes out of 188,485 total. While the figure of Asian American student-athletes in the NCAA has grown from 6,859 in 2012 to 11,326 in 2023, the percentage of Asian-American student-athletes has remained at just 2% despite the overall growth in numbers.  Of the more than 500 student-athletes at UF, only 16 are Asian.Despite the many challenges they face going back to when Nguyen was 7 years old and through the pandemic, they share similar cultures at UF and thrive at their sport.  “In the pandemic, I really found community in that,” Hurd said. “I realized there is no being ‘Asian enough,’ and I do belong in this [Asian American] community.”Although Hurd, Wong and Nguyen represent a small number of Asian student-athletes, their impact has gone a long way. The trio were key members of a Florida team that won the 2023 Southeastern Conference Championship and finished second in the 2023 National Championship.  Wong became the 2023 SEC balance beam champion. Nguyen was named a 2023 NCAA All-American, and the pair both claimed 2023 All-SEC honors.  Their strength in their identity has helped them grow as people and helped show others they can do it too. 

Read the Alligator report: https://bit.ly/3S9uXSq 

3.  One Year Anniversary of Monterey Park

January 21, 2024, marks one year since a gunman entered Star Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California, and opened fire, murdering 11 individuals and seriously wounding 9 others. The shooter then went on to Lai Lai Ballroom in Alhambra, attempted to enter and continue his killing spree, and was only stopped by the heroic actions of Brandon Tsay, who saved countless lives that day. This shooting, the worst in Los Angeles County history, occurred on the eve of Lunar New Year in a community that is majority Asian American and is considered the first suburban Chinatown in the nation. Read the CAPAC statement:  https://bit.ly/3O9WB0A.  Read the White House statement: https://bit.ly/4b1DGPbAccording to TIME, Monterey Park—typically the first in the region to kick off Lunar New Year celebrations— has pushed back its annual festival by a week, and plans to hold a vigil to honor the victims lost a year ago.  While the anniversary throws a spotlight on Monterey Park, healing has been an ongoing effort for residents over the past year.  A resiliency center was established by the Chinatown Service Center, an Los Angeles-based non-profit working to address the needs of Chinese immigrants in the region.  Read the TIME report: https://bit.ly/3HrVGVn