Demonstrators protest Ohio land ownership measures that target Chinese immigrants
Recently, more than a hundred Ohioans demonstrated outside the Statehouse against a pair of bills that could effectively outlaw some immigrants from owning land in the state.
Ohio House Bill 1 and Ohio Senate Bill 88, prohibit citizens of countries designated “foreign adversaries” from owning land within 25 miles of “critical infrastructure.”
Although people from a variety of backgrounds spoke at the event, the effort is being led by people of Chinese descent. They note that the measure is meant to restrict their ability to own a home or a business.
Ying Wu described herself as a mother from Dublin, and “an Ohioan by choice.”
She explained that after her husband finished his medical training, they had several options on where they could live. They chose Ohio because they saw it as a good place to raise a family.
“This is not just where we live, it’s who we are,” she said. “But lately, this promise feels fragile.”
“Bills like HB 1 and SB 88 don’t see the life we built,” she went on. “They look at our family and see a label. They listen to our story, and they hear an accent. They send a message to us: You will always be other. You do not belong.”
The bills’ sponsors pitch their plan as a national security consideration, but critics like Wu say the proposals attempt to codify racism.
For instance, state law defines critical infrastructure so broadly — extending to power lines, telephone poles, and sewage pipes — that effectively the entire state would be off-limits.
Opponents see Ohio’s proposal, and similar efforts in states like Florida, as a return to the so-called alien land laws that sprung up in 1900s.
Those laws employed seemingly neutral language, applying to individuals “ineligible for citizenship,” to target Asian immigrants and bar them from purchasing land.
“While these laws did not explicitly target Asians, the purpose behind them was very clear,” explained Abby Chin, past president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Central Ohio.
Chin and others say Ohio’s “foreign adversaries” provision is another broad framing calibrated to achieve targeted ends.
Although the restrictions would likely apply to citizens of Iran, North Korea, and Russia, the sponsors make no secret that their primary concern is immigrants from China.
“The People’s Republic of China, Communist China, has not hidden the fact that their goal is not just to compete and outperform the United States, it is to take over the world — they actually meant this,” the bill’s sponsor state Sen. Terry Johnson, R-McDermott, claimed in a February committee hearing.
The Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment restricts the government from discriminating based on several protected classes, including national origin and alienage.
In February last year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals put Florida’s law barring foreign land ownership on hold.
In a concurrence, Judge Nancy Abudu specifically cited the Equal Protection Clause.
Rev. Dan Clark from the United Church of Granville called Ohio’s proposals “legalized xenophobia.”
“It is unconstitutional. It is un-American. It is unfaithful and it is immoral,” he said. “Our Constitution promises more than this. The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process. The 14th guarantees equal protection. The Fair Housing Act outlaws discrimination based on national origin. HB 1 and SB 88 tramples all of these protections.”
In addition to their dubious legality, Chin said the measures are misguided.
Taking a broadbrush approach ignores nuance. Immigrants in Ohio could be refugees or dissidents from a designated country, for instance, he noted.
“These bills equate innocent individuals with the governments of countries that they come from,” she said. “In other words, it sets restrictions without any evidence that the individual has done anything wrong.”
Because Bowling Green State University Professor Louisa Ha is a citizen, the proposals won’t affect her ability to own land. But she’s still worried about how the bills target immigrant communities.
She’s specifically concerned that the Ohio Secretary of State would regularly update the list of foreign adversaries.
“Depending on politics, any other country can be added to that list,” she said, “so all immigrants are vulnerable.”
Far from making the state more safe, Ha said, laws that single out specific communities breed mistrust and hostility.
“As an immigrant, I don’t want to live in a community that sees immigrants as enemies,” Ha said. “I don’t want my children, who grew up and (were) born here and speak English as their first language, (to) be seen as perpetual foreigners in their own country.”
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