Six major flaws of the PAP’s immigration policies:
1. Too many, too soon:
Sg has been accepting immigrants since the 1980s and 1990s from Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan without causing much discomfort to the local population.
This is because the immigrants have come in smaller numbers and are similar to Sgans in terms of culture, language and beliefs and have few problems assimilating into Sg society.
The pace of immigration picked up when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong assumed office in 2003 and all of sudden the floodgates are opened to accept foreigners from all over the world especially China and India where the majority of the newcomers hail from.
In the span of less than 5 years, foreigners now make up 36 per cent of Sg’s population, up from 14 per cent in 1990. Of the remaining 64 per cent who are citizens, a significant proportion are new immigrants born overseas.
Does Sg really need to let so many foreigners into the country within such a short period of time?
In 2008 alone, there were over 90,000 PRs and 20,000 new citizens which is obviously stretching the nation’s infrastructure, such as public housing to accommodate all of them.
PM Lee now promised Sgans that the rate of immigration will be continued in a “measured and calibrated” manner. Is this a tacit admission that the uncontrolled influx of immigrants between the years 2003 – 2008 had been a mistake?
2. Inadequate infrastructure such as public housing to accommodate newcomers:
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that with so many foreigners flocking to study, work and live in Sg, one needs to increase the number of public amenities and upgrade the infrastructure to accommodate them such as public housing.
Only slightly more than 11,000 new flats were built between the years 2006 – 2008 when there were over 90,000 PRs and 20,000 new citizens alone in 2008:
The lack of foresight on the part of HDB to plan beforehand to build more new flats to house the immigrants is appalling and its failure to do so has led to sky-rocketing HDB flat prices today.
Due to the lack of new flats, especially those in the prime districts, Sgans have to compete with PRs in the resale flats which resulted naturally in the rise of the prices of resale flats.
Public transport such as buses and MRTs are also poorly prepared for the increase in population as evidenced by the packed buses and trains every morning.
3. Targeting the wrong people:
Sg should be targeting foreigners who can add value to Sg and not open its doors indiscriminately to every Tom, Dick or Harry.
Mainland China is one important source of immigrants for Sg, but we are not getting their cream of the crop.
According to a Gallup poll done in July 2009 among Chinese college students, their top emigration destination is the United States, followed by France and South Korea. Sg isn’t even featured among the top five.
Why isn’t Sg attracting the best Chinese talents? Instead of examining the cause, we settle for their “lesser talents”, many of whom are uncouth peasants from the poorer inland provinces.
What Sg is getting are not first class talents but economic migrants who cannot survive in their own countries and they are now competing with Sgans for limited jobs because they cost much less.
China is vast country with 23 provinces and more than 1 billion people of various races and religions.
The ethnic Chinese in Sg come mostly from the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.
Sg should be focusing on luring prospective migrants from these two provinces instead of allowing Chinese from all across the mainland to come here.
As they share the same dialect and culture as local Chinese, they will have fewer problems integrating into Sg society as compared to Chinese from far-flung inland provinces who come from a completely alien world altogether.
4. Ease of getting PR and citizenship:
Unlike countries, getting a PR and citizenship in Sg is incredibly easy without any major restrictions.
Most developed countries like Australia, Canada and U.K set an English proficiency test for immigrants and only those who pass the test are able to work and live there.
In Australia, one has to live there three out of a period of five years before they are eligible to become PRs.
However in Sg, the newcomers are “fast-tracked” to become PRs and citizens without first familiarizing themselves with the country first and spending adequate time to make the decision.
A Chinese national and Sg PR Zhang Yuanyuan who worked as a teacher in a private institution in Sg revealed to the media that she became a PR within 2 months of application.
Even construction workers, cleaners, masseurs and prostitutes are able to lay their lands on a Sg PR, the stepping stone for citizenship.
According to the Home Affairs Ministry, two out of every three PR applicants are successful, an astonishingly high success rate for a first world country.
Because citizenships are given out too soon to foreigners, there is insufficient time for both parties to assess if they are really “compatible” with each other.
5. Lack of a comprehensive plan to integrate the newcomers:
Due to the large number of unsuitable migrants who are given citizenships too soon, we now end up with the problem of having to integrate them.
Again, the ruling party did not come up with a comprehensive plan to integrate the newcomers when they embarked on their ambitious plan to increase Sg’s population via immigration way back in 2003.
It is now very difficult to integrate those who are already in Sg because they have come in such big numbers that they tend to congregate within their own communities than to reach out to the rest of Sg.
We are already seeing ethnic “enclaves” emerging in different parts of Sg such as the Chinese in Geylang, Indians in Punggol and Filipinos in Tampines.
Furthermore, as they share few similarities with the Chinese, Malays and Indians though they may be of the same race, it is near impossible to expect them to assimilate into our society any time soon.
As usual, the ruling party comes up with a grandiose $10 million Community Integration Fund to throw money at the problem.
How does organizing tea parties, community events and free language courses help to “integrate” the immigrants into Sg is anybody’s guess when they should have done their homework first before opening the floodgates to immigration.
