IS THIS ANOTHER CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT?
(Photo courtesy of The Hill.)
(The link at the bottom of this article opens a piece in The hill about state and federal legislation aimed at prohibiting Chinese citizens from owning land in america. It harkens back to the disgraceful chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.)
This ,is a complicated issue and it’s being distorted by the injection of racism.
Many nations have laws prohibiting foreigners from owning land . I lived in Thailand for several years, and in that country, no foreigner could own an inch of land, not even if married to a Thai citizen.
Foreigners could own condos, enter into long term leases. In my wife’s native country, the Philippines, there are similar prohibitions, though not as absolute. Many European nations have restrictions, and even our neighbor, Canada, recently imposed severe limitations on foreign ownership of land.
It’s understandable that nations want to protect their territory and don’t want their valuable resources used as trading options in an out-of-control real estate market. There are sound policy reasons for restricting foreign ownership of land.
The problem here is that it’s not really about protecting American sovereignty. There’s nothing to stop corrupt Russian oligarchs or medieval-style Middle Eastern monarchs or narco-terrorists from purchasing property. And there’s no reason to believe every single citizen of China is purchasing property for nefarious reasons.
Congress or could easily pass a bill that prevents ownership by foreign governments or their agents except as necessary in the course of business. (IMHO regulation of foreigners and immigrants is preempted by the federal government and all the state laws will be stricken on that basis.) They could prohibit ownership by people or entities reasonably suspected of having nefarious motives. Congress could probably ban all foreigners from owning real estate. What they can’t to and shouldn’t do is target one ethnic group and act like that’s a real solution to anything.
(Click below to read the article in the Hill.)
