Asian students in the Big Apple’s public schools are being forced to disclose their countries of origin when signing up for after-school activities — a controversial policy pushed by a Gov. Hochul aide now accused of being a Chinese spy.
Only Asian students are asked for such detail on where they came from, and critics say forcing them to list their homeland could endanger the families of dissidents and others.
“I bet the CCP would love to get their hands on a list like this,” said one parent, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
A 2021 law signed by Hochul — and promoted by her now disgraced former aide, Linda Sun — was supposed to restrict the data collection on city Department of Education forms to just a few, specific territories.
Instead, a DOE form this fall required applicants to check off which of 20 Asian countries the students’ families originated from.
The form includes politically sensitive countries such as Taiwan, Tibet and North and South Korea.
Sun was in meetings with parent activists who fought the overstepping legislation, and she was seen in photos leading sessions with them when the governor couldn’t make it. Asian activists who pushed back against the 2021 bill remember Sun advocating hard for the legislation.
Supporters of the bill claimed the data was needed for everything from combating anti-Asian hate crimes to community service organizations applying for funding.
Sun and her husband were arrested Sept. 3 on Long Island and charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, visa fraud, alien smuggling and money laundering conspiracy — a host of accusations that together depict them as Chinese foreign agents, critics charged. They have pleaded not guilty.
Tibet and Taiwan have long fought for independence from China, and immigrants in New York from those countries could be at risk if their data makes it into the wrong hands, advocates said.
“We are outraged that electeds and officials, especially those representing Asian neighborhoods, did little to no outreach to their constituency for input and feedback,” Yiatin Chu, president of the Asian Wave Alliance, told The Post when the DOE form surfaced in September.
Legislation that forces minorities to disclose countries of origin “perpetuates the myth of us as ‘forever foreigners’ when in fact, many Asian New Yorkers are multigenerational Americans,” Chu added.
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