UK politicians draw battle lines over immigration
The British government’s latest attempt to crack down on immigration has been denounced as “stupid and offensive” by one of its own ministers, as the issue again rises to the top of the political agenda.
Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat business secretary, fears that the coalition government’s attempt to reassure public opinion on immigration is damaging community relations as well as the UK’s economy and universities.
Mr Cable’s frustration boiled over after the launch of a mobile poster campaign across six London boroughs telling illegal immigrants to “go home or face arrest”.
“It is designed, apparently, to create a sense of fear in the British population that we have a vast problem of illegal immigration,” he told the BBC. “We have a problem – but not a vast one – and it’s got to be dealt with in a measured way.”
The UK has a longstanding tradition of tolerance towards immigrants and its economy has benefited from a vibrant and open labour market: the last census found that just 45 per cent of Londoners class themselves as “white British”.
But immigration is regularly listed as among the most important issues by voters: in May that concern rose to a three-year high with 57 per cent of respondents ranking it in their top three main worries.
The influx of hundreds of thousands of Polish and Lithuanian workers to Britain after their countries joined the EU in 2004 – far in excess of the numbers expected – has created a sense that the UK is no longer in control of its borders.
Public anxiety over immigration was stoked this week when MPs on the Commons public administration committee said the official migration figures were “little better than a best guess” based on random interviews with travellers. Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, said on Tuesday that formal exit checks should be introduced at ports and airports.
That sense has been exploited by the UK Independence party, which has combined an anti-European stance with warnings of a fresh surge of migrants from Bulgaria and Romania when work restrictions on those countries are lifted next year.
For years, mainstream politicians have shied away from confronting the issue of immigration but today there is an acceptance that the rise of Ukip is a manifestation of a failure to address something of genuine concern to ordinary voters.
Conservative party has responded by vowing to cut net migration to “tens of thousands” by the 2015 election.
That objective was seen by some as hopelessly optimistic, but figures released in May showed net migration was down by 80,000 – a fall of a third – to 153,000.
Mark Harper, immigration minister, claims this drop is down to the government “cutting out abuse” of the system, for instance by closing down “bogus colleges” – and therefore spurious student visas – or reforming the rules on work visas.
The Labour opposition argues that the main reason for the fall is the fact that more people are leaving the UK than before the last election, and fewer British people are returning home – a function of the “flatlining economy”.
While both claims have some truth to them, the immigration debate is not just about numbers: it also concerns whether a country with a previously liberal approach to the issue is turning its back on the world.
Mr Cable, whose first wife was Indian, fears the tone of the debate is deterring business people from applying for visas in the UK, even if the government insists its quotas for skilled workers are not being filled.
UK universities have suffered significant declines in the numbers of students from countries such as India, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia; a study found a 32 per cent drop in first-year students from India.
For Mr Cameron, who constantly proclaims Britain is engaged in a “global race” with other countries, this is somewhat embarrassing and a source of tension with trading partners.
He insisted on a visit to India this year that there was “no limit” on the number of Indian students who could come to Britain, provided they spoke English and had the offer of a place. Downing Street is also worried that visa red tape is deterring Chinese business leaders and tourists from coming to the UK.
Now Mr Cable has urged the government to scrap its £3,000 bond pilot for visitors from six countries – including India and Nigeria – because it sends out the “wrong message” about Britain. Asking visitors for a deposit before they enter the UK – to ensure they leave again – does not exactly sound welcoming.
But for the UK government, like many other western administrations, striking a balancing act between openness, global economic success and the concerns of austerity-weary domestic voters is proving a difficult one.
SOURCE
Immigrants have a lot to offer Britain, but those here illegally have no right to remain
Boris Johnson on "those" billboards
I took a while to focus on what she was saying, but I gathered that she was offended by the Home Office mobile posters that have been going around some boroughs, urging illegal immigrants to go home.
It was a scandal, she said; it was going to be damaging for race relations; and what, she wanted to know, was I doing about it? She was a barrister, she added, as if I wasn’t already apprehensive enough. As every politician knows, you cannot possibly hope to win in a position like this — the whole crowd listening as some well-spoken and well-educated woman decides to give you what for – and especially if she is armed with a lethal-looking glass of sangria.
“Er, I haven’t actually seen the posters,” I ventured, which was true — though I had been made vaguely aware of the controversy. That wasn’t good enough, she snapped. I should be speaking out, she said, witheringly, and so on and so forth. After about 10 rounds of pummelling, I was able to escape by promising to have a look at the offending propaganda, and to make up my own mind.
Well, I have — or at least, I have studied them online. The tone is certainly blunt. The message is uncompromising. “Go home or face arrest,” says the Home Office to illegal immigrants, in words that have even offended the tender sensibilities of Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip.
I suppose it could have been more gently drafted. How about: “Illegal immigrant? Worried about being arrested? Need help getting home? We can help! Just text HOME to 78070 and we will act as your personal travel agent.” That might have at least sounded a bit friendlier — but I wonder whether it would have appeased my angry friend with the sangria. As far as I could tell, she objected to the whole concept of urging illegal immigrants to do the right thing.
She seemed to think it wrong and downright racist even to point out that they were breaking the law. On that point I am afraid I have to disagree. Illegal immigrants have every opportunity to make their case to remain in Britain, and we have courts full of eloquent lefty lawyers — like, I very much suspect, my sangria-charged friend — taking prodigious sums of taxpayers’ money to vindicate the human rights of their clients.
Such is the ingenuity of these lawyers that all government strategies to deal with these illegals have so far failed. Indeed, we already have a de facto amnesty for all illegal immigrants who have been able to stay here for a long time. Ask the Home Office how many illegal immigrants have been deported, after being here for more than 10 years. The number is tiny. For most hard-working and otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants there is virtually no chance that they will be deported — and yet they cannot pay tax, cannot take part in the legal economy, and certainly cannot run for their country.
It is certainly not racist to point out this absurdity, since illegals come from all ethnic groups. It is not anti-immigrant to point this out, since illegals make a nonsense of the efforts of other immigrants to do the right thing and secure leave to remain. One way or another illegals need to regularise their position, and preferably to pay taxes like everyone else.
This poster campaign is unlikely, in itself, to solve the problem that expanded so massively under the last Labour government. But you surely can’t blame the Coalition for trying to enforce the law.
SOURCE
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Steve King is right about the KIDS Act
Tom Tancredo
Steve King has provoked the wrath of both the Democratic and Republican establishments over his statements about a proposed GOP bill that hasn’t even been formally introduced yet, the “KIDS Act.” The firestorm over King’s comments illustrates why honest talk about the consequences of another amnesty bill is so rare.
Like the DREAM Act, which Congress voted down on many occasions, the KIDS Act purports to only help the most sympathetic illegal immigrants, those whose parents brought them here as children. What critics do not want discussed is that such bills also grant amnesty to millions of others not so easily characterized as model citizens-in-waiting.
Proponents of these bills always trot out a few young illegal aliens who came to America as infants and later became high school valedictorians. That is supposed to suggest that most of, if not all, of the millions of illegal aliens who would be awarded the amnesty are just like those most sympathetic cases.
Representative King poked a hole in that pretty pink balloon, and for that, he is being attacked.
King stated that while “some of them are valedictorians — and their parents brought them in. It wasn’t their fault. It’s true in some cases, but they aren’t all valedictorians. They weren’t all brought in by their parents. For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act.”
As expected, the perpetually offended Democrats immediately expressed their outrage over King’s remarks. Obama’s press secretary called them “extremely unfortunate”, and, always eager to help Republicans win more votes, noted “They certainly don’t help any efforts by Republicans to improve their standing among Hispanic Americans.”
The GOP House Leadership, which is pushing this misguided bill, also attacked King. Eric Cantor said the comments were “inexcusable” and John Boehner said he used “hateful language.”
U.S. News and World Report characterized King as saying that “most immigrants were drug smugglers,” which is not the case. King was referring solely to young illegal aliens not all “immigrants.” Nor did King suggest most illegal aliens are drug smugglers. King said that far more entered the country as drug smugglers than ever became valedictorians, which is demonstrably true.
Since illegal aliens are by definition “undocumented” and neither the Obama administration nor anyone else is doing a statistical profile on their border-crossings, we have no way of knowing if King’s drug-smuggler to valedictorian ratio is correct. However, he did not make the claim out of thin air.
It has been common knowledge for a decade that both people smuggling and drug smuggling are controlled by the same Mexican drug cartels. The cartels’ use of thousands of teenagers and young adults to carry loads of marijuana across the border is well known and well documented. Illegals seeking to cross the southwest border are routinely required to carry drugs across the border as a partial payment of the $1500 price for the crossing.
Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle has pointed to an article by Lourdes Medrano entitled, “Along key stretch of US-Mexico border, more kids running drugs,” published just last week in the Christian Science Monitor. Medrano reports that “In 2012, 244 minors faced drug-smuggling charges in the Tucson sector.”
SOURCE
'Disney World can keep better track of its visitors than Britain'
Immigration policy attacked after report reveals figures rely on counting just 12 people a day
Britain is less able to keep track of its visitors than Disney World, it was claimed last night, as a scathing report exposed the failings of official immigration statistics.
Crucial estimates of arrivals from overseas rely on random interviews carried out with just 12 people passing through ports and airports each day – and even they may be lying, MPs said.
Ministers were warned they should not base their controversial immigration target – to limit population growth to the tens of thousands every year – on such shaky figures.
The Public Administration Select Committee urged the Home Office to combine its visa figures with forthcoming electronic data on visitors to build up a far more accurate picture of foreigner numbers.
Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin said: ‘Most people would be astonished to learn that there is no attempt to count people as they enter or leave the UK.
‘They are amazed when they are told that the Government merely estimates that there are half-a-million immigrants coming into the UK each year.’
Philippa Roe, leader of Westminster City Council, said: ‘When I gave evidence to this committee I said Disney World has better technology to keep track of its visitors than we do. I’m pleased this report accepts the current system is a blunt instrument which is patently not up to the job.’
The Coalition vowed to cut net migration – the number of new arrivals each year minus those who leave the country – from more than 150,000 a year to the ‘tens of thousands’ by granting fewer visas to foreign students and making it harder for families to settle here.
But today’s report reveals that the policy and the figures are not based on methodically counting everyone who arrives in the country or leaves it. Instead, officials rely on a sample of just under 5,000 migrants interviewed each year as they travel through UK air and sea ports, in what is known as the International Passenger Survey.
The risk of error in this poll is so great that annual net migration could be 35,000 higher or lower than is estimated.
Some advisers believe that, as a result, the Government should aim to reduce net migration to 50,000 rather than 100,000 in order to achieve its goal.
But the committee warned: ‘The Government should not base its target level of net migration on such an uncertain statistic as doing so could lead to inappropriate immigration policy.’
The passenger survey also relies on immigrants telling the truth about where they have come from and where they plan to settle.
A new system called e-Borders will record more detail on the identity of passengers travelling through British ports. But it will not be integrated into immigration statistics until 2018.
The Home Office counts the number of visas issued and asylum applications granted or received – but not people leaving unless they have broken the rules. The committee urged Ministers to integrate visa figures with port data ‘as rapidly as possible’.
Last night a Home Office spokesman said: ‘We disagree with the report’s conclusions. Government reforms on immigration are working and the statistics show that migration is at its lowest level for a decade.
SOURCE
Steve King is right about the KIDS Act
Tom Tancredo
Steve King has provoked the wrath of both the Democratic and Republican establishments over his statements about a proposed GOP bill that hasn’t even been formally introduced yet, the “KIDS Act.” The firestorm over King’s comments illustrates why honest talk about the consequences of another amnesty bill is so rare.
Like the DREAM Act, which Congress voted down on many occasions, the KIDS Act purports to only help the most sympathetic illegal immigrants, those whose parents brought them here as children. What critics do not want discussed is that such bills also grant amnesty to millions of others not so easily characterized as model citizens-in-waiting.
Proponents of these bills always trot out a few young illegal aliens who came to America as infants and later became high school valedictorians. That is supposed to suggest that most of, if not all, of the millions of illegal aliens who would be awarded the amnesty are just like those most sympathetic cases.
Representative King poked a hole in that pretty pink balloon, and for that, he is being attacked.
King stated that while “some of them are valedictorians — and their parents brought them in. It wasn’t their fault. It’s true in some cases, but they aren’t all valedictorians. They weren’t all brought in by their parents. For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act.”
As expected, the perpetually offended Democrats immediately expressed their outrage over King’s remarks. Obama’s press secretary called them “extremely unfortunate”, and, always eager to help Republicans win more votes, noted “They certainly don’t help any efforts by Republicans to improve their standing among Hispanic Americans.”
The GOP House Leadership, which is pushing this misguided bill, also attacked King. Eric Cantor said the comments were “inexcusable” and John Boehner said he used “hateful language.”
U.S. News and World Report characterized King as saying that “most immigrants were drug smugglers,” which is not the case. King was referring solely to young illegal aliens not all “immigrants.” Nor did King suggest most illegal aliens are drug smugglers. King said that far more entered the country as drug smugglers than ever became valedictorians, which is demonstrably true.
Since illegal aliens are by definition “undocumented” and neither the Obama administration nor anyone else is doing a statistical profile on their border-crossings, we have no way of knowing if King’s drug-smuggler to valedictorian ratio is correct. However, he did not make the claim out of thin air.
It has been common knowledge for a decade that both people smuggling and drug smuggling are controlled by the same Mexican drug cartels. The cartels’ use of thousands of teenagers and young adults to carry loads of marijuana across the border is well known and well documented. Illegals seeking to cross the southwest border are routinely required to carry drugs across the border as a partial payment of the $1500 price for the crossing.
Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle has pointed to an article by Lourdes Medrano entitled, “Along key stretch of US-Mexico border, more kids running drugs,” published just last week in the Christian Science Monitor. Medrano reports that “In 2012, 244 minors faced drug-smuggling charges in the Tucson sector.”
SOURCE
'Disney World can keep better track of its visitors than Britain'
Immigration policy attacked after report reveals figures rely on counting just 12 people a day
Britain is less able to keep track of its visitors than Disney World, it was claimed last night, as a scathing report exposed the failings of official immigration statistics.
Crucial estimates of arrivals from overseas rely on random interviews carried out with just 12 people passing through ports and airports each day – and even they may be lying, MPs said.
Ministers were warned they should not base their controversial immigration target – to limit population growth to the tens of thousands every year – on such shaky figures.
The Public Administration Select Committee urged the Home Office to combine its visa figures with forthcoming electronic data on visitors to build up a far more accurate picture of foreigner numbers.
Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin said: ‘Most people would be astonished to learn that there is no attempt to count people as they enter or leave the UK.
‘They are amazed when they are told that the Government merely estimates that there are half-a-million immigrants coming into the UK each year.’
Philippa Roe, leader of Westminster City Council, said: ‘When I gave evidence to this committee I said Disney World has better technology to keep track of its visitors than we do. I’m pleased this report accepts the current system is a blunt instrument which is patently not up to the job.’
The Coalition vowed to cut net migration – the number of new arrivals each year minus those who leave the country – from more than 150,000 a year to the ‘tens of thousands’ by granting fewer visas to foreign students and making it harder for families to settle here.
But today’s report reveals that the policy and the figures are not based on methodically counting everyone who arrives in the country or leaves it. Instead, officials rely on a sample of just under 5,000 migrants interviewed each year as they travel through UK air and sea ports, in what is known as the International Passenger Survey.
The risk of error in this poll is so great that annual net migration could be 35,000 higher or lower than is estimated.
Some advisers believe that, as a result, the Government should aim to reduce net migration to 50,000 rather than 100,000 in order to achieve its goal.
But the committee warned: ‘The Government should not base its target level of net migration on such an uncertain statistic as doing so could lead to inappropriate immigration policy.’
The passenger survey also relies on immigrants telling the truth about where they have come from and where they plan to settle.
A new system called e-Borders will record more detail on the identity of passengers travelling through British ports. But it will not be integrated into immigration statistics until 2018.
The Home Office counts the number of visas issued and asylum applications granted or received – but not people leaving unless they have broken the rules. The committee urged Ministers to integrate visa figures with port data ‘as rapidly as possible’.
Last night a Home Office spokesman said: ‘We disagree with the report’s conclusions. Government reforms on immigration are working and the statistics show that migration is at its lowest level for a decade.
SOURCE
Sunday, July 28, 2013
McClintock: If Senate Amnesty Bill Passes, ‘We’ll Never Secure the Border’
"The Senate pathway [to citizenship] . . . is going to make it very difficult to secure the border,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said during a “Conversations with Conservatives” panel discussion Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.
Insisting that border security remain a separate issue from immigration reform, McClintock added, “Until the government demonstrates a willingness to enforce the existing immigration law, I do not believe that it has any intention of enforcing stricter laws in the future.”
And if the House follows the Senate immigration bill’s pathway towards amnesty, he bluntly stated, “We’ll never secure the border.”
McClintock also criticized the Senate for giving illegal immigrants the impression that “if we just get there [the U.S.], we’re going to be eventually made legal.”
Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) agreed that without border security, the Senate bill fixes nothing and is “not worth doing.” But he harshly criticized Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) controversial statements about the potential legalization of drug mules.
In an interview with Newsmax, King said that “for everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act."
“Shame on him,” Labrador said. “Shame on the media for only concentrating on that aspect of it.”
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) noted that chain migration, in which family members are allowed to join legalized immigrants in the U.S., would increase the total number of immigrants eligible for legalization far beyond the currently estimated figure of 11 million and place an unprecedented burden on border communities, including his own district. “A pathway to citizenship is not the only answer,” he said.
Republican House members are considering an alternative to the DREAM Act that would provide illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as children options toward legalization.
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) are leading this initiative, but are being met with resistance by DREAM Act activists who do not support any legislation that does not include a way for illegal adult immigrants to achieve U.S. citizenship.
Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) criticized the “lack of press coverage over the last couple days of the reaction from the immigration activists” whom he said were “willing to throw the DREAMers under the bus because they had used them, exploited them for so long for their immigration agenda.”
“Where’s the discussion, where’s the analysis in your articles saying oh, by the way, now we’re finding out what the real agendas are?” Schweikert challenged reporters.
SOURCE
Obama to meet with Hill Democrats as immigration reform, agenda appears stalled
President Obama is headed to Capitol Hill Wednesday to meet with congressional Democrats on their legislative agenda, officials familiar with the meeting told Fox News.
The meetings with fellow Democrats in the House and Senate are scheduled to take place at a pivotal time in the president’s second term. The Obama-backed immigration reform bill that passed in the Senate is stalled in the Republican-controlled House and much of the rest of the president's agenda also appears to be stalled, including the full implementation of his signature health care law.
In addition, the clock is ticking on upcoming congressional deals on the federal debt ceiling and preventing a government shutdown.
Obama’s early second-term goal of passing comprehensive gun-control legislation failed this spring in the Senate.
One of the sources told Fox News that the president called for the meeting with House Democrats and that the full Democratic caucuses in both chambers have been invited.
SOURCE
McClintock: If Senate Amnesty Bill Passes, ‘We’ll Never Secure the Border’
"The Senate pathway [to citizenship] . . . is going to make it very difficult to secure the border,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said during a “Conversations with Conservatives” panel discussion Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.
Insisting that border security remain a separate issue from immigration reform, McClintock added, “Until the government demonstrates a willingness to enforce the existing immigration law, I do not believe that it has any intention of enforcing stricter laws in the future.”
And if the House follows the Senate immigration bill’s pathway towards amnesty, he bluntly stated, “We’ll never secure the border.”
McClintock also criticized the Senate for giving illegal immigrants the impression that “if we just get there [the U.S.], we’re going to be eventually made legal.”
Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) agreed that without border security, the Senate bill fixes nothing and is “not worth doing.” But he harshly criticized Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) controversial statements about the potential legalization of drug mules.
In an interview with Newsmax, King said that “for everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act."
“Shame on him,” Labrador said. “Shame on the media for only concentrating on that aspect of it.”
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) noted that chain migration, in which family members are allowed to join legalized immigrants in the U.S., would increase the total number of immigrants eligible for legalization far beyond the currently estimated figure of 11 million and place an unprecedented burden on border communities, including his own district. “A pathway to citizenship is not the only answer,” he said.
Republican House members are considering an alternative to the DREAM Act that would provide illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as children options toward legalization.
Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) are leading this initiative, but are being met with resistance by DREAM Act activists who do not support any legislation that does not include a way for illegal adult immigrants to achieve U.S. citizenship.
Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) criticized the “lack of press coverage over the last couple days of the reaction from the immigration activists” whom he said were “willing to throw the DREAMers under the bus because they had used them, exploited them for so long for their immigration agenda.”
“Where’s the discussion, where’s the analysis in your articles saying oh, by the way, now we’re finding out what the real agendas are?” Schweikert challenged reporters.
SOURCE
Obama to meet with Hill Democrats as immigration reform, agenda appears stalled
President Obama is headed to Capitol Hill Wednesday to meet with congressional Democrats on their legislative agenda, officials familiar with the meeting told Fox News.
The meetings with fellow Democrats in the House and Senate are scheduled to take place at a pivotal time in the president’s second term. The Obama-backed immigration reform bill that passed in the Senate is stalled in the Republican-controlled House and much of the rest of the president's agenda also appears to be stalled, including the full implementation of his signature health care law.
In addition, the clock is ticking on upcoming congressional deals on the federal debt ceiling and preventing a government shutdown.
Obama’s early second-term goal of passing comprehensive gun-control legislation failed this spring in the Senate.
One of the sources told Fox News that the president called for the meeting with House Democrats and that the full Democratic caucuses in both chambers have been invited.
SOURCE
Saturday, July 27, 2013
500,000 immigrants have been given British social housing in last decade as number of families on waiting list hits record high
Nearly half a million immigrants have been given taxpayer-funded homes over the past decade.
The revelation comes as the number of families on the waiting list for social housing hits a record 1.8million. Most are British born.
Of the four million migrants who arrived between 2001 and 2011, 469,843 were allocated council or housing association properties.
Around 1.2million foreigners now live in social housing – one in eight of the total. In London the figure is thought to be as high as one in five.
The national census statistics, which were released yesterday, highlight fears about increased pressure on public services when Romanians and Bulgarians win free access to jobs in this country in January.
The figures also show the effects of the large-scale immigration encouraged by the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments.
According to the census, 105,506 of the immigrants who found social housing after 2001 were from Eastern European states that joined the EU in 2004, most of them Poles.
In the mid-2000s, Whitehall officials estimated that the cost to taxpayers of maintaining a single social housing unit was £620 a year.
Assuming each unit is occupied by four people, that would put the housing costs of post-2001 migrants at between £5billion and £8billion.
Sir Andrew Green, of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘The figures serve to underline the huge costs of mass immigration – costs often ignored by the immigration lobby.’
In 2009, a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission claimed there was ‘no evidence to support the perception that new migrants are getting priority over UK-born residents’.
The research found no evidence of abuse of the system such as queue jumping or providing false information.
But in March David Cameron announced a clampdown, including plans for a local residence test. Local people will be given priority on waiting lists for social housing and migrants will become eligible only after two years.
Councils say the fundamental flaw in the plan is they will still be obliged to help any EU migrants who present themselves as homeless.
Mike Jones, of the Local Government Association, says: ‘If we don’t house them that means we are going to have to deal with them under the homeless laws which cost us a great deal more.’
SOURCE
British doctors could be forced to carry out immigration checks on patients
Doctors and nurses could be forced to check the immigration status of patients to see if they can be charged, official documents have disclosed, despite a Government pledge that NHS staff will not become “border guards”.
Ministers earlier this month announced controversial plans to crack down on “health tourism” by making foreigners pay a £200 levy for NHS care.
A consultation document released by the Department of Health makes clear that frontline NHS staff could “clearly have a role in identifying chargeable patients”.
Despite assurances from Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, that the new measures will not affect patient care, the consultation only makes it clear that doctors will not be “diverted wholesale” from looking after patients under the controversial plans.
Health campaigners last night warned that the scheme will be a “disaster” and could cause more scandals like those seen at the Mid Staffordshire and Morecambe Bay trusts, where thousands may have died needlessly.
Under the plans, foreigners from outside the European Union applying for visas lasting more than six months will have to pay the new “health care levy”. They are currently entitled to free treatment.
Shorter-term visitors will also face charges for their treatment. There are additional plans to make it easier for the NHS to recover the cost of treating EU nationals and to help doctors identify those eligible for treatment.
Nobody will be refused emergency care under the proposals.
The 60-page consultation document states that clinicians “are often well placed to identify visitors who are chargeable”.
It says that for the system to be adopted by the NHS, officials will have to ensure that “clinicians’ time must not be diverted wholesale from clinical matters”.
The consultation adds that “the new system must not compromise the safe, efficient and cost-effective delivery of healthcare, particularly in critical front line services including Accident & Emergency and GP practices”.
“Staff across the system will clearly have a role in identifying chargeable patients, but the rules and systems should be as straightforward as possible,” the document states.
“Clinicians are not expected to take on the role of immigration officials, but they are often well placed to identify visitors who are chargeable. The process we design will need to ensure there is no conflict with their professional obligations.”
Mr Hunt this month said it was only right for immigrants to have to contribute towards the NHS, which costs taxpayers around £5,000 per family.
Official figures show that about £33 million was spent last year on treating foreign nationals in hospital. About two thirds of this money was recovered.
The Department of Health believes that less than half of overseas visitors are currently identified.
The Health Secretary said that he wants “a system that is fair for the British taxpayer by ensuring that foreign nationals pay for their NHS treatment”.
He added: “No one expects health workers to become immigration guards and we want to work alongside doctors to bring about improvements, but I'm clear we must all work together to protect the NHS from costly abuse."
Julie Bailey, who set up the Cure The NHS group after her mother Bella died at Stafford Hospital in 2007, told the Telegraph "It would be a disaster. Doctors and nurses are trained to look after people - not to look at people's immigration status.
“We can not expect out doctors and nurses to do any more than they are doing already. “Whoever came up with this ridiculous idea needs to think again. It will lead to more scandals like Mid Staffs.”
The British Medical Association warned that the proposals will “divert valuable time away from treating patients”.
“NHS staff are already struggling to cope with rising patient demand and declining resources, especially in general practice and key hospital services like emergency care,” a spokesman said.
“Asking them to undertake complicated vetting checks would place another burden on overstretched services and divert valuable time away from treating patients.”
Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We agree that the health service must not be abused and that we must bring an end to health tourism, but it is the role of GPs and their teams to care for patients, not to be an arm of the border agency checking people's passports and collecting money at the till point.”
And Jamie Reed, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, added: “The NHS is not an International Health Service - but neither should it be a branch of the UK Border Agency.
“Unfortunately, this Government has a habit of announcing policies that sound good but prove to be completely unworkable.”
SOURCE
500,000 immigrants have been given British social housing in last decade as number of families on waiting list hits record high
Nearly half a million immigrants have been given taxpayer-funded homes over the past decade.
The revelation comes as the number of families on the waiting list for social housing hits a record 1.8million. Most are British born.
Of the four million migrants who arrived between 2001 and 2011, 469,843 were allocated council or housing association properties.
Around 1.2million foreigners now live in social housing – one in eight of the total. In London the figure is thought to be as high as one in five.
The national census statistics, which were released yesterday, highlight fears about increased pressure on public services when Romanians and Bulgarians win free access to jobs in this country in January.
The figures also show the effects of the large-scale immigration encouraged by the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments.
According to the census, 105,506 of the immigrants who found social housing after 2001 were from Eastern European states that joined the EU in 2004, most of them Poles.
In the mid-2000s, Whitehall officials estimated that the cost to taxpayers of maintaining a single social housing unit was £620 a year.
Assuming each unit is occupied by four people, that would put the housing costs of post-2001 migrants at between £5billion and £8billion.
Sir Andrew Green, of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘The figures serve to underline the huge costs of mass immigration – costs often ignored by the immigration lobby.’
In 2009, a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission claimed there was ‘no evidence to support the perception that new migrants are getting priority over UK-born residents’.
The research found no evidence of abuse of the system such as queue jumping or providing false information.
But in March David Cameron announced a clampdown, including plans for a local residence test. Local people will be given priority on waiting lists for social housing and migrants will become eligible only after two years.
Councils say the fundamental flaw in the plan is they will still be obliged to help any EU migrants who present themselves as homeless.
Mike Jones, of the Local Government Association, says: ‘If we don’t house them that means we are going to have to deal with them under the homeless laws which cost us a great deal more.’
SOURCE
British doctors could be forced to carry out immigration checks on patients
Doctors and nurses could be forced to check the immigration status of patients to see if they can be charged, official documents have disclosed, despite a Government pledge that NHS staff will not become “border guards”.
Ministers earlier this month announced controversial plans to crack down on “health tourism” by making foreigners pay a £200 levy for NHS care.
A consultation document released by the Department of Health makes clear that frontline NHS staff could “clearly have a role in identifying chargeable patients”.
Despite assurances from Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, that the new measures will not affect patient care, the consultation only makes it clear that doctors will not be “diverted wholesale” from looking after patients under the controversial plans.
Health campaigners last night warned that the scheme will be a “disaster” and could cause more scandals like those seen at the Mid Staffordshire and Morecambe Bay trusts, where thousands may have died needlessly.
Under the plans, foreigners from outside the European Union applying for visas lasting more than six months will have to pay the new “health care levy”. They are currently entitled to free treatment.
Shorter-term visitors will also face charges for their treatment. There are additional plans to make it easier for the NHS to recover the cost of treating EU nationals and to help doctors identify those eligible for treatment.
Nobody will be refused emergency care under the proposals.
The 60-page consultation document states that clinicians “are often well placed to identify visitors who are chargeable”.
It says that for the system to be adopted by the NHS, officials will have to ensure that “clinicians’ time must not be diverted wholesale from clinical matters”.
The consultation adds that “the new system must not compromise the safe, efficient and cost-effective delivery of healthcare, particularly in critical front line services including Accident & Emergency and GP practices”.
“Staff across the system will clearly have a role in identifying chargeable patients, but the rules and systems should be as straightforward as possible,” the document states.
“Clinicians are not expected to take on the role of immigration officials, but they are often well placed to identify visitors who are chargeable. The process we design will need to ensure there is no conflict with their professional obligations.”
Mr Hunt this month said it was only right for immigrants to have to contribute towards the NHS, which costs taxpayers around £5,000 per family.
Official figures show that about £33 million was spent last year on treating foreign nationals in hospital. About two thirds of this money was recovered.
The Department of Health believes that less than half of overseas visitors are currently identified.
The Health Secretary said that he wants “a system that is fair for the British taxpayer by ensuring that foreign nationals pay for their NHS treatment”.
He added: “No one expects health workers to become immigration guards and we want to work alongside doctors to bring about improvements, but I'm clear we must all work together to protect the NHS from costly abuse."
Julie Bailey, who set up the Cure The NHS group after her mother Bella died at Stafford Hospital in 2007, told the Telegraph "It would be a disaster. Doctors and nurses are trained to look after people - not to look at people's immigration status.
“We can not expect out doctors and nurses to do any more than they are doing already. “Whoever came up with this ridiculous idea needs to think again. It will lead to more scandals like Mid Staffs.”
The British Medical Association warned that the proposals will “divert valuable time away from treating patients”.
“NHS staff are already struggling to cope with rising patient demand and declining resources, especially in general practice and key hospital services like emergency care,” a spokesman said.
“Asking them to undertake complicated vetting checks would place another burden on overstretched services and divert valuable time away from treating patients.”
Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We agree that the health service must not be abused and that we must bring an end to health tourism, but it is the role of GPs and their teams to care for patients, not to be an arm of the border agency checking people's passports and collecting money at the till point.”
And Jamie Reed, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, added: “The NHS is not an International Health Service - but neither should it be a branch of the UK Border Agency.
“Unfortunately, this Government has a habit of announcing policies that sound good but prove to be completely unworkable.”
SOURCE
Friday, July 26, 2013
TX: Federal appeals court overturns housing ID ordinance
A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that landlords in a Texas suburb may not vet incoming tenants according to their immigration status, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“All of Texas benefits from the contributions of immigrants who live and work in our state,” ACLU of Texas legal and policy director Rebecca L. Robertson said in a statement. “We fervently hope that this case marks the end of the anti-immigrant laws that target our friends, our neighbors, and our family members for harsh treatment.”
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that an ordinance adopted in Farmers Branch in 2008 requiring renters to show legal residence in the country before becoming tenants conflicted with federal immigration law.
“The ordinance not only criminalizes occupancy of a rented apartment or single-family residence, but puts local officials in the impermissible position of arresting and detaining persons based on their immigration status without federal direction and supervision,” Judge Stephen A. Higginson wrote in the majority opinion (PDF).
The Dallas Morning News reported that Farmers Branch officials are unsure whether to continue their fight to uphold the measure. The Dallas County suburb has spent $6 million over the past seven years on legal fees connected to the ordinance.
“Obviously, I am disappointed,” City Council member Ben Robinson told the Morning News. “I didn’t read it that we were stepping on the shoes of the federal government. Anybody who rented an apartment had to make some statement about their nationality.”
SOURCE
Border emergency needs military -- says Australian conservative leader
PEOPLE smuggling is a national emergency that needs a senior military officer to control the response, the coalition says.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced that a coalition government will ask the defence force chief to appoint a three-star commander to lead a joint agency taskforce to deal with people smugglers and border protection.
Operation Sovereign Borders, as it would be known, would be established within 100 days of the coalition taking government and would involve all 12 agencies with direct involvement in border security.
The military commander in charge would report directly to the immigration minister.
Within its first 100 days a coalition government would also finalise and issue the protocols for Operation Relex II, to turn back asylum seeker boats when safe.
"This is one of the most serious external situations that we have faced in many a long year," Mr Abbott said on launching the policy in Brisbane on Thursday.
"It must be tackled with decisiveness, with urgency, with the appropriate level of seriousness.
"That's why we need to have a senior military officer in operational control of this very important national emergency."
Mr Abbott also pledged to quickly increase capacity at offshore processing centres.
He says the coalition will also lease and deploy additional vessels so that border protection patrol vessels can be relieved of passenger transfers.
Outspoken retired Major General Jim Molan joined Mr Abbott for the announcement, endorsing the policy and saying it set the stage for success.
He said he'd been brought on board to advise the opposition on how to conduct such operations.
"What I offer the coalition is a check on feasibility," he told reporters at the policy launch.
"The result is the coalition, if elected, will be able to give more refined direction to the agencies and the agencies' plans, when they come back for government approval, can be better understood.
"That thoroughness is far, far better than policy on the run."
He noted Operation Sovereign Borders would be a military-led operation rather than a military operation.
"It's certainly not an unusual circumstance for the military to be used in this way," he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has already dismissed Mr Abbott's new policy as another three word slogan: "Operation Sovereign something-or-other."
Mr Abbott pointed out that since Labor abolished the Howard government's border protection policies, 48,000 people have arrived on 800 boats and more than 1000 people have perished at sea.
Mr Abbott said that as a courtesy he had given Chief of Defence David Hurley and the Indonesian ambassador a heads-up about the announcement on Thursday morning.
He rejected suggestions he should have consulted with General Hurley while developing the policy.
"I'm very conscious of the proprieties here," he told reporters in Brisbane.
"The last thing I would want to do is get serving officers directly involved in advising the opposition."
General Hurley issued a statement saying that "contrary to media reporting" he did not advise Mr Abbott on the policy.
Mr Abbott said the coalition had informally consulted with serving officers as well as recently retired officers.
Asked about Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill's claim that the opposition had misrepresented his comments from a private briefing about control of foreign aid, Mr Abbott said he had a "good relationship" with Mr O'Neill.
Earlier this week the opposition claimed Mr O'Neill had said he was now in control of Australia's foreign aid money for PNG.
"What we've said ... is based on Mr O'Neill's public statements," Mr Abbott said.
"Yes we had a private meeting with Prime Minister O'Neill and what he said in private was consistent with what he said in public."
SOURCE
TX: Federal appeals court overturns housing ID ordinance
A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that landlords in a Texas suburb may not vet incoming tenants according to their immigration status, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“All of Texas benefits from the contributions of immigrants who live and work in our state,” ACLU of Texas legal and policy director Rebecca L. Robertson said in a statement. “We fervently hope that this case marks the end of the anti-immigrant laws that target our friends, our neighbors, and our family members for harsh treatment.”
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that an ordinance adopted in Farmers Branch in 2008 requiring renters to show legal residence in the country before becoming tenants conflicted with federal immigration law.
“The ordinance not only criminalizes occupancy of a rented apartment or single-family residence, but puts local officials in the impermissible position of arresting and detaining persons based on their immigration status without federal direction and supervision,” Judge Stephen A. Higginson wrote in the majority opinion (PDF).
The Dallas Morning News reported that Farmers Branch officials are unsure whether to continue their fight to uphold the measure. The Dallas County suburb has spent $6 million over the past seven years on legal fees connected to the ordinance.
“Obviously, I am disappointed,” City Council member Ben Robinson told the Morning News. “I didn’t read it that we were stepping on the shoes of the federal government. Anybody who rented an apartment had to make some statement about their nationality.”
SOURCE
Border emergency needs military -- says Australian conservative leader
PEOPLE smuggling is a national emergency that needs a senior military officer to control the response, the coalition says.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced that a coalition government will ask the defence force chief to appoint a three-star commander to lead a joint agency taskforce to deal with people smugglers and border protection.
Operation Sovereign Borders, as it would be known, would be established within 100 days of the coalition taking government and would involve all 12 agencies with direct involvement in border security.
The military commander in charge would report directly to the immigration minister.
Within its first 100 days a coalition government would also finalise and issue the protocols for Operation Relex II, to turn back asylum seeker boats when safe.
"This is one of the most serious external situations that we have faced in many a long year," Mr Abbott said on launching the policy in Brisbane on Thursday.
"It must be tackled with decisiveness, with urgency, with the appropriate level of seriousness.
"That's why we need to have a senior military officer in operational control of this very important national emergency."
Mr Abbott also pledged to quickly increase capacity at offshore processing centres.
He says the coalition will also lease and deploy additional vessels so that border protection patrol vessels can be relieved of passenger transfers.
Outspoken retired Major General Jim Molan joined Mr Abbott for the announcement, endorsing the policy and saying it set the stage for success.
He said he'd been brought on board to advise the opposition on how to conduct such operations.
"What I offer the coalition is a check on feasibility," he told reporters at the policy launch.
"The result is the coalition, if elected, will be able to give more refined direction to the agencies and the agencies' plans, when they come back for government approval, can be better understood.
"That thoroughness is far, far better than policy on the run."
He noted Operation Sovereign Borders would be a military-led operation rather than a military operation.
"It's certainly not an unusual circumstance for the military to be used in this way," he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has already dismissed Mr Abbott's new policy as another three word slogan: "Operation Sovereign something-or-other."
Mr Abbott pointed out that since Labor abolished the Howard government's border protection policies, 48,000 people have arrived on 800 boats and more than 1000 people have perished at sea.
Mr Abbott said that as a courtesy he had given Chief of Defence David Hurley and the Indonesian ambassador a heads-up about the announcement on Thursday morning.
He rejected suggestions he should have consulted with General Hurley while developing the policy.
"I'm very conscious of the proprieties here," he told reporters in Brisbane.
"The last thing I would want to do is get serving officers directly involved in advising the opposition."
General Hurley issued a statement saying that "contrary to media reporting" he did not advise Mr Abbott on the policy.
Mr Abbott said the coalition had informally consulted with serving officers as well as recently retired officers.
Asked about Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill's claim that the opposition had misrepresented his comments from a private briefing about control of foreign aid, Mr Abbott said he had a "good relationship" with Mr O'Neill.
Earlier this week the opposition claimed Mr O'Neill had said he was now in control of Australia's foreign aid money for PNG.
"What we've said ... is based on Mr O'Neill's public statements," Mr Abbott said.
"Yes we had a private meeting with Prime Minister O'Neill and what he said in private was consistent with what he said in public."
SOURCE
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Immigration is a constant drain on public services, says British PM as he attacks decade of 'completely lax' border policies
If all immigrants who came to Britain worked, that could well be beneficial to Britain, but large numbers do not. Claims about benefit from the Office for Budget Responsibility ignore that reality
Immigration is a ‘constant drain’ on public services in Britain, David Cameron conceded yesterday.
The Prime Minister said Britain had suffered a ‘frightening’ decade of ‘completely lax’ border policies, which had placed huge strain on communities.
And he hinted at further measures to cut the number of people arriving in the UK.
His comments come after the Office for Budget Responsibility warned Britain would need millions more immigrants in the coming decades to offset the effects of an ageing population.
But Mr Cameron made clear yesterday that he wants to accelerate progress towards meeting his pledge to slash annual net migration – the number by which the population grows after both immigration and emigration have been counted – to the ‘tens of thousands’.
During a question and answer session with workers at the headquarters of Bentley Motors in Crewe, Mr Cameron was asked why Britain lets in immigrants who are a ‘constant drain’ while others ‘work hard’.
He replied: ‘I basically agree with you. There are some benefits from being a country that welcomes people who want to come here and work hard. ‘But in the last decade we have had an immigration policy that’s completely lax. The pressure it puts on our public services and communities is too great.’
Mr Cameron said the Government has capped the number of migrants from outside the European Union by cracking down on bogus colleges.
He also highlighted action to reduce the so-called ‘pull factors’ that attract people to this country, such as restricting access to benefits and the NHS. But he added: ‘I want to see it [net migration] coming down faster.
‘On housing, health, education and legal aid we are showing we are not a soft touch.
‘By the end of this Government, we will be able to look back and say we may not have sorted out the whole problem, but we have got a much tougher approach to immigration that’s fair.’
In the run-up to the 2010 election Mr Cameron pledged to cut net migration by more than a half, from more than 200,000 a year to the ‘tens of thousands’.
Progress in reducing the numbers has been frustrated by resistance from the Liberal Democrats and by the difficulty of limiting immigration from the EU.
Last year the number of immigrants dropped by 89,000 to 153,000. But the fall was accompanied by warnings that limiting immigration could harm Britain’s economy in the long-term.
Earlier this month, an OBR report warned an extra seven million migrants would be needed over the next 50 years to balance the effects of an ageing population. The figure is equal to 140,000 migrants per year.
The report concluded that without a fresh wave of immigration to boost employment and tax receipts, Britain’s public finances could become ‘unsustainable’.
The OBR’s analysis suggests that Britain’s borrowing as a proportion of GDP would rise to 99 per cent if there is a steady flow of immigrants. But if there was a complete ban on immigrants, borrowing would rise to 174 per cent of GDP.
SOURCE
Nightmare on Immigration Street
Meet Sandra and Isaac (not their real names). Both hold advanced degrees and are in the United States on H-1B work permits, temporary workers’ visas which allow them to stay here as long as they are employed by a company that cannot find qualified Americans for their jobs. They pay income and social security taxes; they do not collect welfare or take advantage of other entitlement programs.
Sandra and Isaac, like many members of my church, are highly educated, law-abiding West Africans who would love to become Americans citizens or at least permanent legal residents. Unfortunately, their Green Card applications have been mired in decades of red tape. Yet a bill being debated in Congress right now would put 11 million people who entered the country illegally (or overstayed their initial visas illegally) on a “path to citizenship” that would add to Sandra and Isaac’s bureaucratic nightmare.
The proposed “reforms” being debated in Congress right now avoid the word “amnesty,” but would ultimately legalize over ten million illegal immigrants in exchange for a promise to increase border security. You do not have to be a policy expert to see that there are several problems with this approach. I will offer a partial list of my own concerns:
1. We’ve tried this before and it didn’t work. Our country actually enacted a similar “path to citizenship” under President Reagan. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act legalized over three million illegal immigrants with the promise that further entrance of illegals would be halted or at least significantly reduced. Instead, the number of people living here illegally has more than doubled since the passage of the law. Its original sponsors, Alan Simpson and Romano Mazzoli, have admitted that the law did not achieve its intended ends.
2. Allowing unlimited numbers of low-wage workers into the country will continue to undercut the wages and job prospects of the poorest Americans. It is not upper level managers or CEO’s who lose their jobs when we receive ten million low-wage laborers over our borders. Studies consistently demonstrate that black employment rises in response to enforcement of immigration law. While unemployment nationwide hovers around 8%, black unemployment remains 13.2%. Might employers find a way to hire some of those blacks if we decided to enforce our immigration laws instead of loosening them?
3. Many countries are using American money to prop up their own corrupt and incompetent governments. We all know that many illegal immigrants are sending money back to their home countries; the total amount is unknowable, but it is probably more than $30 billion a year. While this is a completely understandable and noble act on a personal level, its scale allows American prosperity to subsidize the often incompetent and corrupt leadership of illegals’ countries of origin. While this may bring some immediate relief to certain individuals, over the long term it merely prolongs the suffering of the masses of people who do not have relatives sending them money from more competently governed countries.
4. A new influx of individuals eligible for numerous federally funded entitlement programs will bankrupt our already strained system. Our entitlement system is already badly broken. According to a Congressional Research Service study released in 2012, Federal and State welfare spending was more than one trillion dollars in 2011. Obamacare is set to add 30 million new people (not including any newly legalized immigrants) to government funded health insurance. Even the most pro-amnesty advocates admit that the taxes paid by newly naturalized illegals will not come close to offsetting the federal and state benefits they are likely to receive.
5. Almost no one believes the bill will result in greater border security. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano admitted to Congress last year that terrorists who want to harm Americans enter the US from Mexico “from time to time.” A Rasmussen poll released in May showed that just 30% of American voters trust the government to take steps to secure the border if the immigration bill passes Congress.
6. The people who would be responsible for implementing and enforcing the new law oppose it. Representatives for employees of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services called proposed reforms “a dramatic step in the wrong direction.” The Senate bill, they say, does nothing to address border security, nor does it address how the millions of new citizenship applications can be processed in the timeframe required.
Why are both major parties toying with such a deeply flawed bill? Quite simply, Democrats will get a huge influx of voters, and Republicans will continue to provide various corporations with cheap labor. Republicans also hope to shed the image that they are anti-immigrant, although this is not what happened after the Reagan Amnesty in 1986. It is long past time for both parties to create an immigration strategy that can work.
Be sure to let your representatives know that they need to take a step back and apply real leadership and common sense, instead of pandering to various special interest lobbies. Your voice does have power – call or e-mail them today!
SOURCE
Immigration is a constant drain on public services, says British PM as he attacks decade of 'completely lax' border policies
If all immigrants who came to Britain worked, that could well be beneficial to Britain, but large numbers do not. Claims about benefit from the Office for Budget Responsibility ignore that reality
Immigration is a ‘constant drain’ on public services in Britain, David Cameron conceded yesterday.
The Prime Minister said Britain had suffered a ‘frightening’ decade of ‘completely lax’ border policies, which had placed huge strain on communities.
And he hinted at further measures to cut the number of people arriving in the UK.
His comments come after the Office for Budget Responsibility warned Britain would need millions more immigrants in the coming decades to offset the effects of an ageing population.
But Mr Cameron made clear yesterday that he wants to accelerate progress towards meeting his pledge to slash annual net migration – the number by which the population grows after both immigration and emigration have been counted – to the ‘tens of thousands’.
During a question and answer session with workers at the headquarters of Bentley Motors in Crewe, Mr Cameron was asked why Britain lets in immigrants who are a ‘constant drain’ while others ‘work hard’.
He replied: ‘I basically agree with you. There are some benefits from being a country that welcomes people who want to come here and work hard. ‘But in the last decade we have had an immigration policy that’s completely lax. The pressure it puts on our public services and communities is too great.’
Mr Cameron said the Government has capped the number of migrants from outside the European Union by cracking down on bogus colleges.
He also highlighted action to reduce the so-called ‘pull factors’ that attract people to this country, such as restricting access to benefits and the NHS. But he added: ‘I want to see it [net migration] coming down faster.
‘On housing, health, education and legal aid we are showing we are not a soft touch.
‘By the end of this Government, we will be able to look back and say we may not have sorted out the whole problem, but we have got a much tougher approach to immigration that’s fair.’
In the run-up to the 2010 election Mr Cameron pledged to cut net migration by more than a half, from more than 200,000 a year to the ‘tens of thousands’.
Progress in reducing the numbers has been frustrated by resistance from the Liberal Democrats and by the difficulty of limiting immigration from the EU.
Last year the number of immigrants dropped by 89,000 to 153,000. But the fall was accompanied by warnings that limiting immigration could harm Britain’s economy in the long-term.
Earlier this month, an OBR report warned an extra seven million migrants would be needed over the next 50 years to balance the effects of an ageing population. The figure is equal to 140,000 migrants per year.
The report concluded that without a fresh wave of immigration to boost employment and tax receipts, Britain’s public finances could become ‘unsustainable’.
The OBR’s analysis suggests that Britain’s borrowing as a proportion of GDP would rise to 99 per cent if there is a steady flow of immigrants. But if there was a complete ban on immigrants, borrowing would rise to 174 per cent of GDP.
SOURCE
Nightmare on Immigration Street
Meet Sandra and Isaac (not their real names). Both hold advanced degrees and are in the United States on H-1B work permits, temporary workers’ visas which allow them to stay here as long as they are employed by a company that cannot find qualified Americans for their jobs. They pay income and social security taxes; they do not collect welfare or take advantage of other entitlement programs.
Sandra and Isaac, like many members of my church, are highly educated, law-abiding West Africans who would love to become Americans citizens or at least permanent legal residents. Unfortunately, their Green Card applications have been mired in decades of red tape. Yet a bill being debated in Congress right now would put 11 million people who entered the country illegally (or overstayed their initial visas illegally) on a “path to citizenship” that would add to Sandra and Isaac’s bureaucratic nightmare.
The proposed “reforms” being debated in Congress right now avoid the word “amnesty,” but would ultimately legalize over ten million illegal immigrants in exchange for a promise to increase border security. You do not have to be a policy expert to see that there are several problems with this approach. I will offer a partial list of my own concerns:
1. We’ve tried this before and it didn’t work. Our country actually enacted a similar “path to citizenship” under President Reagan. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act legalized over three million illegal immigrants with the promise that further entrance of illegals would be halted or at least significantly reduced. Instead, the number of people living here illegally has more than doubled since the passage of the law. Its original sponsors, Alan Simpson and Romano Mazzoli, have admitted that the law did not achieve its intended ends.
2. Allowing unlimited numbers of low-wage workers into the country will continue to undercut the wages and job prospects of the poorest Americans. It is not upper level managers or CEO’s who lose their jobs when we receive ten million low-wage laborers over our borders. Studies consistently demonstrate that black employment rises in response to enforcement of immigration law. While unemployment nationwide hovers around 8%, black unemployment remains 13.2%. Might employers find a way to hire some of those blacks if we decided to enforce our immigration laws instead of loosening them?
3. Many countries are using American money to prop up their own corrupt and incompetent governments. We all know that many illegal immigrants are sending money back to their home countries; the total amount is unknowable, but it is probably more than $30 billion a year. While this is a completely understandable and noble act on a personal level, its scale allows American prosperity to subsidize the often incompetent and corrupt leadership of illegals’ countries of origin. While this may bring some immediate relief to certain individuals, over the long term it merely prolongs the suffering of the masses of people who do not have relatives sending them money from more competently governed countries.
4. A new influx of individuals eligible for numerous federally funded entitlement programs will bankrupt our already strained system. Our entitlement system is already badly broken. According to a Congressional Research Service study released in 2012, Federal and State welfare spending was more than one trillion dollars in 2011. Obamacare is set to add 30 million new people (not including any newly legalized immigrants) to government funded health insurance. Even the most pro-amnesty advocates admit that the taxes paid by newly naturalized illegals will not come close to offsetting the federal and state benefits they are likely to receive.
5. Almost no one believes the bill will result in greater border security. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano admitted to Congress last year that terrorists who want to harm Americans enter the US from Mexico “from time to time.” A Rasmussen poll released in May showed that just 30% of American voters trust the government to take steps to secure the border if the immigration bill passes Congress.
6. The people who would be responsible for implementing and enforcing the new law oppose it. Representatives for employees of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services called proposed reforms “a dramatic step in the wrong direction.” The Senate bill, they say, does nothing to address border security, nor does it address how the millions of new citizenship applications can be processed in the timeframe required.
Why are both major parties toying with such a deeply flawed bill? Quite simply, Democrats will get a huge influx of voters, and Republicans will continue to provide various corporations with cheap labor. Republicans also hope to shed the image that they are anti-immigrant, although this is not what happened after the Reagan Amnesty in 1986. It is long past time for both parties to create an immigration strategy that can work.
Be sure to let your representatives know that they need to take a step back and apply real leadership and common sense, instead of pandering to various special interest lobbies. Your voice does have power – call or e-mail them today!
SOURCE
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Australia's new rejectionist policy lifts vote for PM's party
KEVIN Rudd's tough new stance on asylum seekers has lifted Labor's ratings to its highest level since Julia Gillard's proposal for regional processing in East Timor during the 2010 election.
Mr Rudd announced on Friday that asylum seekers arriving by boat would not be settled in Australia.
Detainees who are found to be refugees could be permanently settled in PNG, while those found not to be refugees could be detained in PNG, returned home if possible or be sent to a third country.
The news has lifted Labor's standings, with the latest Newspoll, in The Australian newspaper on Tuesday, showing support for Labor rose six percentage points to 26 per cent, while the Coalition's dropped 14 points to 33 per cent, compared with February results.
The results were greatest in Sydney's western suburbs where there was a three percentage point rise among ALP voters who believe Labor is best able to handle the issue of asylum seekers.
There was a rise in coalition supporters who now favour the ALP, up from four per cent to seven per cent.
Labor supporters who believed the coalition was best able to handle the task also fell massively from 21 to five per cent.
"Coalition supporters remain overwhelmingly supportive of Tony Abbott's approach to asylum-seekers, with 71 per cent nominating the opposition as the best to handle the issue, down from 80 in February," The Australian said.
"Labor's 26 per cent is the highest in Newspoll surveys since August 2010 when it hit 29 per cent after Ms Gillard announced a plan to establish a regional asylum-seeker processing centre in Dili."
SOURCE
Australia: 'Creepy' photos of distraught asylum seekers?
It is just such photos that deter illegals
The Department of Immigration has published photographs of distraught asylum seekers heading for Papua New Guinea, prompting anger on social media, as a missing asylum seeker boat has been found on its way to Christmas Island.
The asylum seekers pictured were on the first boat - carrying 81 mostly Iranian nationals - to arrive in Australia after the new policy of processing and resettling asylum seekers on PNG took effect.
According to the Immigration Department, the group of asylum seekers were told of the new deal between Australia and PNG at North West Point Immigration Detention Centre at Christmas Island.
In a video of the scene at Christmas Island, the woman with her head in her hands in the photo can be seen wiping her eyes.
Immigration Department acting regional manager Steven Karras said the group listened calmly to the message. "It was apparent to me that they did understand what this message meant," he said.
"I'm sure they’re now thinking about whether it was wise to come in the first place. And I think in fact over the coming days … they will start to contemplate very seriously whether in fact returning home is a better option."
The move to publish the photographs was quickly questioned on Twitter. Asylum seeker NGO, House of Welcome, called the photos "creepy" and "upsetting".
Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the pictures were shameful.
Immigration Department spokesman Sandi Logan said that the department believed the images were "entirely appropriate".
Mr Logan said the department had taken the necessary steps to protect the identity of the asylum seekers involved.
"The opportunity to demonstrate graphically to people considering getting on the next boat is an absolutely vital opportunity for us," he told Fairfax Media.
Mr Logan said that the department regularly documented transfers and made them public, as it thought it was important to be "transparent in the way that we operate".
Mr Logan also said the images helped with the "believability factor" - getting the message of Australia's changed policy out to people smugglers and facilitators, those considering getting on a boat and disapora communities. "This is about saving lives at sea," he said.
The woman who is pictured with her head in her hands had been briefed within the previous hour about the transfer to PNG and was waiting for initial checks, Mr Logan said.
It is not known if she was upset because of the PNG transfer or another reason.
SOURCE
Australia's new rejectionist policy lifts vote for PM's party
KEVIN Rudd's tough new stance on asylum seekers has lifted Labor's ratings to its highest level since Julia Gillard's proposal for regional processing in East Timor during the 2010 election.
Mr Rudd announced on Friday that asylum seekers arriving by boat would not be settled in Australia.
Detainees who are found to be refugees could be permanently settled in PNG, while those found not to be refugees could be detained in PNG, returned home if possible or be sent to a third country.
The news has lifted Labor's standings, with the latest Newspoll, in The Australian newspaper on Tuesday, showing support for Labor rose six percentage points to 26 per cent, while the Coalition's dropped 14 points to 33 per cent, compared with February results.
The results were greatest in Sydney's western suburbs where there was a three percentage point rise among ALP voters who believe Labor is best able to handle the issue of asylum seekers.
There was a rise in coalition supporters who now favour the ALP, up from four per cent to seven per cent.
Labor supporters who believed the coalition was best able to handle the task also fell massively from 21 to five per cent.
"Coalition supporters remain overwhelmingly supportive of Tony Abbott's approach to asylum-seekers, with 71 per cent nominating the opposition as the best to handle the issue, down from 80 in February," The Australian said.
"Labor's 26 per cent is the highest in Newspoll surveys since August 2010 when it hit 29 per cent after Ms Gillard announced a plan to establish a regional asylum-seeker processing centre in Dili."
SOURCE
Australia: 'Creepy' photos of distraught asylum seekers?
It is just such photos that deter illegals
The Department of Immigration has published photographs of distraught asylum seekers heading for Papua New Guinea, prompting anger on social media, as a missing asylum seeker boat has been found on its way to Christmas Island.
The asylum seekers pictured were on the first boat - carrying 81 mostly Iranian nationals - to arrive in Australia after the new policy of processing and resettling asylum seekers on PNG took effect.
According to the Immigration Department, the group of asylum seekers were told of the new deal between Australia and PNG at North West Point Immigration Detention Centre at Christmas Island.
In a video of the scene at Christmas Island, the woman with her head in her hands in the photo can be seen wiping her eyes.
Immigration Department acting regional manager Steven Karras said the group listened calmly to the message. "It was apparent to me that they did understand what this message meant," he said.
"I'm sure they’re now thinking about whether it was wise to come in the first place. And I think in fact over the coming days … they will start to contemplate very seriously whether in fact returning home is a better option."
The move to publish the photographs was quickly questioned on Twitter. Asylum seeker NGO, House of Welcome, called the photos "creepy" and "upsetting".
Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the pictures were shameful.
Immigration Department spokesman Sandi Logan said that the department believed the images were "entirely appropriate".
Mr Logan said the department had taken the necessary steps to protect the identity of the asylum seekers involved.
"The opportunity to demonstrate graphically to people considering getting on the next boat is an absolutely vital opportunity for us," he told Fairfax Media.
Mr Logan said that the department regularly documented transfers and made them public, as it thought it was important to be "transparent in the way that we operate".
Mr Logan also said the images helped with the "believability factor" - getting the message of Australia's changed policy out to people smugglers and facilitators, those considering getting on a boat and disapora communities. "This is about saving lives at sea," he said.
The woman who is pictured with her head in her hands had been briefed within the previous hour about the transfer to PNG and was waiting for initial checks, Mr Logan said.
It is not known if she was upset because of the PNG transfer or another reason.
SOURCE
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Memo From Middle America: Lindsey Graham Wrong —Mexico Not A “Hellhole”, Doesn’t Need Northern “Safety Valve”
By Allan Wall
As long-time readers know, I resided for a decade and a half in Mexico. A few years ago, I moved back to the United States. Since my wife is from Mexico, we go back at Christmas and in the summer. Of course, I can follow Mexico on the internet, but these visits allow me to get a real feel for the country.
The violence in Mexico? It’s certainly a consideration for us. Coincidentally, it was getting worse about the time we moved to the U.S. Now, when we visit, we’re more careful than we used to be. We take toll roads and try not to drive at night. On this trip, there was violence in the metropolitan area where we used to live and now visit, but we did not personally encounter it.
But that’s what Mexican violence is like. It’s not like some imagine, with the whole country a free fire zone 24/7. It’s just that, in certain regions of the country, violence might erupt and you could be in the crossfire. The odds are quite low, but woe unto those to whom it happens.
Nevertheless, life goes on in Mexico. People live their lives and go about their daily business.
My family and I had a good summer visit. We spent time with my wife’s family, we saw old friends and neighbors.
We attended services in three different churches, two Protestant and one Catholic. I was even asked to preach a sermon in one of the Protestant churches, which I did, in Spanish of course.
We visited a children’s home, where we delivered sheets and towels that my church in the U.S. had donated.
We ate in favorite restaurants and bought things that aren’t available where we live
Lilia and the boys and I went to see the new Superman movie in a Mexican movie theater.
We also took a trip within a trip, by bus, to the city and state of Aguascalientes. Besides being a tranquil city, Aguascalientes has been called “The Cleanest City in Latin America,” and it may well be.
While there, I was asked by some Mexican pro-life activists to sign a petition. I told them that though I agree with them, since I’m not a Mexican citizen I shouldn’t sign it so as not to get them in trouble. (Mexico has a total ban on foreign participation in politics.)
Also in Aguascalientes, we visited a hunting supply store which was actually licensed to sell ammunition. There’s only one legal gun shop in all of Mexico, but there are stores licensed to sell ammo, and there are hunters in the region. (People who already have guns, that is. Guns, if properly maintained, last for many, many years.) The store’s manager lightheartedly told me he’d formerly been an illegal alien in the U.S. We bought our two sons bows and arrows.
Our bus was stopped by agents of the INM, (Instituto Nacional de Migración), Mexico’s immigration bureaucracy. We were sitting right at the front, and the agent got on and asked me for my identification. Fortunately, we had brought my Mexican visitor’s permit. No problem. I wasn’t offended at all. Why should I be, if I’m there legally?
At night, we watched the Mexican news broadcast.
(But before that we watched a rather silly but entertaining telenovela La Tempestad. As usual, the main characters were white, including former Miss Universe Jimena Navarrete—in her first regular televised thespian performance, pictured below. See its website here and the other major characters here.)Jimena Navarrete
The ongoing U.S. Amnesty/ Immigration Surge deliberations were widely reported and commented upon. I’ve noted some of that already
This is something I learned a long time ago: Mexican society supports illegal immigration to the United States. The common view is that illegal aliens are mistreated in the US, we owe the illegals, and haven’t done enough for them. There are dissenting voices, but most Mexicans side with their illegal countrymen north of the border.
In fact, when you get right down to it, anything we do to control our border or Mexican immigration is going to be criticized in Mexico.
Nevertheless, in another sense, it’s all very distant. What I mean is that life goes on in Mexico and I have a suspicion that support for the illegals is a mile wide but an inch deep. Most Mexicans aren’t really obsessed with the topic.
In other words, if the U.S. ever had a government that really cared about getting control of the border and controlling immigration—as, for example, Israel’s government does—there would certainly be plenty of screaming in the Mexican media and among Mexican politicians, and of course they would try to meddle. But if the U.S. had a resolute Netanyahu-type president who cared about our sovereignty (it’s been a while since we’ve have one of those), there’d be nothing that the Mexicans could do. And they would adjust.
Some people argue that if the U.S. were to shut down Mexican immigration, there would be some sort of revolution in Mexico. But I don’t think that that’s a foregone conclusion. The Mexican economy is doing well, and Mexicans are having smaller families (see my Mexico's Demographic Transition—America's Opportunity). Mexico can handle the shutting of its northern “safety valve”.
It’s funny, but Americans on both sides of the immigration debate frequently portray Mexico in as bad a light as possible.
Immigration patriots try to make Mexico look bad so we control that immigration and stop it coming here.
Open Border promoters also portray Mexico as horrible—Senator Lindsay Graham, one the Eight Gangsters, recently called it a “hell hole”—so they can make you feel guilty if you don’t support mass Mexican emigration to the U.S.
Of course, Mexico is poorer than the U.S.—but its standard of living is higher than the world average.
Indeed, my personal impression is that Mexicans, on average, may be happier than Americans. A lot of Americans may freak out to hear that, but it could be true.
An Ipsos poll released last year reported Mexicans did claim to be happier than Americans. Why not just take Mexicans’ word for it?
More recently, an OECD poll revealed a higher life satisfaction in Mexico than in the U.S. Respondents in 36 countries were asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale of 1 to 10. Mexico placed #10. The United States placed #14. (The Swiss were #1.)
Why should we encourage immigration from a happier country (Mexico) to a country that, according to polls, is not as happy (the U.S.)?
Consider, too, that in the past couple of years, Hispanics in the United States had the most precipitous drop in the Harris “Happiness Index” survey. [Harris Poll: Only A Third Of U.S. Adults Qualify As Very Happy, UPI June 1, 2013 ] Could it be that, when Mexicans are being Mexicans in Mexico, with all its problems, it’s still their country and they’re comfortable with it? But when they emigrate to the United States, although they earn more money, they’re in a different country and, at some level, they aren’t as comfortable.
To complicate matters further, we now have millions of Mexican-Americans born in the U.S. and many of them (especially the younger ones) don’t really identify with the historic American nation, and are in fact encouraged not to. It’s a ticking time bomb.
Mexico and the United States are (still) two separate countries. We ought to respect the differences. I don’t think we ought to be meddling in Mexican internal affairs. I don’t think we should be allowing them to meddle in ours.
And I don’t think we should allow Mexicans to conquer us demographically.
I like to visit Mexico. But I want Mexico to remain a foreign country. I don’t want Mexico to become part of the US, nor the US to become part of Mexico.
Good fences make good neighbors.
SOURCE
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
Media
1. CIS Video: DC March for Jobs Speakers Discuss S.744's Effect on American Workers
Blogs
2. A "What if..." Scenario about Congress and Immigration
3. The Australia-Papua New Guinea Refugee Resettlement Agreement
4. Government Defines Video Gamers as Athletes for Immigration Purposes
5. The GOP and Immigration: Death by Pandering
6. Even Safe Cities Need the SAFE Act
7. Surprise! Few "Dreamers" Use In-State Tuition Breaks
8. The GOP and Immigration
9. Widening Existing Vulnerabilities
10. Reviewing the Daily Beast's Story on the March for Jobs
11. The GOP and Immigration
12. Virginia, Not ICE, Closes Suspect University of Northern Virginia
13. Better SAFE than Sorry
14. Empty Seats and Lobbyists
15. Black Leaders at March for Jobs Invoke Civil Rights Struggle and the 1963 March
Led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
16. Immigration and the Death of the Republican Party
17. Interior Repatriation in Mexico: Baby Steps in the Right Direction
Memo From Middle America: Lindsey Graham Wrong —Mexico Not A “Hellhole”, Doesn’t Need Northern “Safety Valve”
By Allan Wall
As long-time readers know, I resided for a decade and a half in Mexico. A few years ago, I moved back to the United States. Since my wife is from Mexico, we go back at Christmas and in the summer. Of course, I can follow Mexico on the internet, but these visits allow me to get a real feel for the country.
The violence in Mexico? It’s certainly a consideration for us. Coincidentally, it was getting worse about the time we moved to the U.S. Now, when we visit, we’re more careful than we used to be. We take toll roads and try not to drive at night. On this trip, there was violence in the metropolitan area where we used to live and now visit, but we did not personally encounter it.
But that’s what Mexican violence is like. It’s not like some imagine, with the whole country a free fire zone 24/7. It’s just that, in certain regions of the country, violence might erupt and you could be in the crossfire. The odds are quite low, but woe unto those to whom it happens.
Nevertheless, life goes on in Mexico. People live their lives and go about their daily business.
My family and I had a good summer visit. We spent time with my wife’s family, we saw old friends and neighbors.
We attended services in three different churches, two Protestant and one Catholic. I was even asked to preach a sermon in one of the Protestant churches, which I did, in Spanish of course.
We visited a children’s home, where we delivered sheets and towels that my church in the U.S. had donated.
We ate in favorite restaurants and bought things that aren’t available where we live
Lilia and the boys and I went to see the new Superman movie in a Mexican movie theater.
We also took a trip within a trip, by bus, to the city and state of Aguascalientes. Besides being a tranquil city, Aguascalientes has been called “The Cleanest City in Latin America,” and it may well be.
While there, I was asked by some Mexican pro-life activists to sign a petition. I told them that though I agree with them, since I’m not a Mexican citizen I shouldn’t sign it so as not to get them in trouble. (Mexico has a total ban on foreign participation in politics.)
Also in Aguascalientes, we visited a hunting supply store which was actually licensed to sell ammunition. There’s only one legal gun shop in all of Mexico, but there are stores licensed to sell ammo, and there are hunters in the region. (People who already have guns, that is. Guns, if properly maintained, last for many, many years.) The store’s manager lightheartedly told me he’d formerly been an illegal alien in the U.S. We bought our two sons bows and arrows.
Our bus was stopped by agents of the INM, (Instituto Nacional de Migración), Mexico’s immigration bureaucracy. We were sitting right at the front, and the agent got on and asked me for my identification. Fortunately, we had brought my Mexican visitor’s permit. No problem. I wasn’t offended at all. Why should I be, if I’m there legally?
At night, we watched the Mexican news broadcast.
(But before that we watched a rather silly but entertaining telenovela La Tempestad. As usual, the main characters were white, including former Miss Universe Jimena Navarrete—in her first regular televised thespian performance, pictured below. See its website here and the other major characters here.)Jimena Navarrete
The ongoing U.S. Amnesty/ Immigration Surge deliberations were widely reported and commented upon. I’ve noted some of that already
This is something I learned a long time ago: Mexican society supports illegal immigration to the United States. The common view is that illegal aliens are mistreated in the US, we owe the illegals, and haven’t done enough for them. There are dissenting voices, but most Mexicans side with their illegal countrymen north of the border.
In fact, when you get right down to it, anything we do to control our border or Mexican immigration is going to be criticized in Mexico.
Nevertheless, in another sense, it’s all very distant. What I mean is that life goes on in Mexico and I have a suspicion that support for the illegals is a mile wide but an inch deep. Most Mexicans aren’t really obsessed with the topic.
In other words, if the U.S. ever had a government that really cared about getting control of the border and controlling immigration—as, for example, Israel’s government does—there would certainly be plenty of screaming in the Mexican media and among Mexican politicians, and of course they would try to meddle. But if the U.S. had a resolute Netanyahu-type president who cared about our sovereignty (it’s been a while since we’ve have one of those), there’d be nothing that the Mexicans could do. And they would adjust.
Some people argue that if the U.S. were to shut down Mexican immigration, there would be some sort of revolution in Mexico. But I don’t think that that’s a foregone conclusion. The Mexican economy is doing well, and Mexicans are having smaller families (see my Mexico's Demographic Transition—America's Opportunity). Mexico can handle the shutting of its northern “safety valve”.
It’s funny, but Americans on both sides of the immigration debate frequently portray Mexico in as bad a light as possible.
Immigration patriots try to make Mexico look bad so we control that immigration and stop it coming here.
Open Border promoters also portray Mexico as horrible—Senator Lindsay Graham, one the Eight Gangsters, recently called it a “hell hole”—so they can make you feel guilty if you don’t support mass Mexican emigration to the U.S.
Of course, Mexico is poorer than the U.S.—but its standard of living is higher than the world average.
Indeed, my personal impression is that Mexicans, on average, may be happier than Americans. A lot of Americans may freak out to hear that, but it could be true.
An Ipsos poll released last year reported Mexicans did claim to be happier than Americans. Why not just take Mexicans’ word for it?
More recently, an OECD poll revealed a higher life satisfaction in Mexico than in the U.S. Respondents in 36 countries were asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale of 1 to 10. Mexico placed #10. The United States placed #14. (The Swiss were #1.)
Why should we encourage immigration from a happier country (Mexico) to a country that, according to polls, is not as happy (the U.S.)?
Consider, too, that in the past couple of years, Hispanics in the United States had the most precipitous drop in the Harris “Happiness Index” survey. [Harris Poll: Only A Third Of U.S. Adults Qualify As Very Happy, UPI June 1, 2013 ] Could it be that, when Mexicans are being Mexicans in Mexico, with all its problems, it’s still their country and they’re comfortable with it? But when they emigrate to the United States, although they earn more money, they’re in a different country and, at some level, they aren’t as comfortable.
To complicate matters further, we now have millions of Mexican-Americans born in the U.S. and many of them (especially the younger ones) don’t really identify with the historic American nation, and are in fact encouraged not to. It’s a ticking time bomb.
Mexico and the United States are (still) two separate countries. We ought to respect the differences. I don’t think we ought to be meddling in Mexican internal affairs. I don’t think we should be allowing them to meddle in ours.
And I don’t think we should allow Mexicans to conquer us demographically.
I like to visit Mexico. But I want Mexico to remain a foreign country. I don’t want Mexico to become part of the US, nor the US to become part of Mexico.
Good fences make good neighbors.
SOURCE
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
Media
1. CIS Video: DC March for Jobs Speakers Discuss S.744's Effect on American Workers
Blogs
2. A "What if..." Scenario about Congress and Immigration
3. The Australia-Papua New Guinea Refugee Resettlement Agreement
4. Government Defines Video Gamers as Athletes for Immigration Purposes
5. The GOP and Immigration: Death by Pandering
6. Even Safe Cities Need the SAFE Act
7. Surprise! Few "Dreamers" Use In-State Tuition Breaks
8. The GOP and Immigration
9. Widening Existing Vulnerabilities
10. Reviewing the Daily Beast's Story on the March for Jobs
11. The GOP and Immigration
12. Virginia, Not ICE, Closes Suspect University of Northern Virginia
13. Better SAFE than Sorry
14. Empty Seats and Lobbyists
15. Black Leaders at March for Jobs Invoke Civil Rights Struggle and the 1963 March
Led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
16. Immigration and the Death of the Republican Party
17. Interior Repatriation in Mexico: Baby Steps in the Right Direction
Monday, July 22, 2013
Leahy: Senate Immigration Bill Says Forging Two Passports Is Not a Crime
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) admitted Wednesday that under the Senate immigration bill, forging up to two passports is not a crime, adding that the bill leaves the decision whether to charge someone with passport fraud up to the discretion of prosecutors.
On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, CNSNews.com asked Leahy, "One of the provisions has to do with passports, that’s an important component. Do you know how many passports someone is able to forge before it’s a crime?”
Leahy said, "Well, it depends upon which interpretation is being used. You could have one form which is two, but then there are other criminal conduct that would be involved with that."
"Cause you give prosecutors a certain amount of discretion, you have two or three different crimes you have committed, so then it's [up to] prosecutorial discretion which one they will charge. I mean, I spent eight years as a prosecutor. One of things you learn [is] the importance of that."
Leahy made the remarks in an interview with CNSNews.com after he was asked how many passports someone could forge before it was a crime under Senate Bill 744, which passed on a 68-to-32 vote June 27. All Senate Democrats and 14 Republicans voted for the bill.
While not a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" group of senators who sponsored the bill, Leahy was a staunch supporter and voted for passage.
“With this legislation, we honor our American values,” Leahy said in a press release on the day the bill cleared the Senate.
“We honor the search of our forbearers for freedom, for prosperity, and for the promise that America has held out to so many for so long. Today is a good day for the Senate, and for the country. Today, with the help of many Senators, we will address a complex problem that is hurting our families, stifling our economy and threatening our security.”
In June, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Ia.) introduced three amendments “that would tighten criminal laws that are being weakened in the comprehensive immigration bill being debated by the Senate,” but amendment #45 regarding passport fraud was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee on an 8-10 vote .
Title 18, Section 1541 of the U.S. Code provides for fines and imprisonment up to 25 years for granting, issuing, or verifying "any passport" without proper authority.
But Section 3707 of the nearly 1,200-page Senate immigration bill amends that section to impose criminal penalties only after a person fabricates "three or more" phony passports. (See S 744.pdf)
SOURCE
'Malta is small, we cannot cope with these migrants'
The tiny island of Malta has received 17,743 mainly African migrants this decade - the equivalent, in Britain, of 2.5 million people. And it is struggling to cope, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat says.
MOHAMMED ABDI, an asylum seeker from Somalia, counts himself to have made two new sets of friends this month. One is the "generous" people of Malta, who took him and 102 other African migrants in after their boat got into difficulties as it trafficked them towards Europe from Libya.
The other is the European Court of Human Rights, which stopped Malta's not-so-generous prime minister, Joseph Muscat, from flying them back to Libya after claiming the island could not cope with more illegal immigrants.
"It would have been wrong to send us back to Libya," beamed Abdi, 30, who now lives in a dormitory in an immigration detention centre surrounded by 20 foot high barbed wire fences. "We are sorry for the people of Malta, who are very generous, but we do need help as conditions are terrible in my country."
Perched on a tiny but strategic set of islands between Europe and Africa, the Maltese have long prided themselves on their ability to repel unwanted invaders. In the 1500s, their resident Knights of St John were the heroes of Europe after seeing off the Ottoman Turks, and in the Second World War, they won the George Cross for helping Britain to keep Hitler at bay.
Their latest efforts to turn back a foreign armada, however, are unlikely to win such plaudits. Or not from the European Union, anyway, which last week was embroiled in a bitter row with Mr Muscat's government over its plans to return Mr Abdi and his ilk to Libya, from where they came in a people-smuggling boat 12 days ago.
The boat, which was picked up by the Maltese Coastguard, was the 14th to arrive this year alone, and came just a week after another one carrying 290 people. Altogether, 1,079 refugees have arrived in similar fashion in Malta this year alone, and 17,743 in the last decade.
But in the EU's smallest state, which has just 400,000 people and is roughly the size of the Isle of Wight, that is a lot more than it might sound.
The equivalent in Britain would be 2,500,000 extra people - roughly the equivalent of two Birminghams - a point not lost on Mr Muscat, who last week accused Brussels of lecturing his country about human rights while doing nothing to share the burden.
"Right now we cannot cope with these numbers, they are unsustainable," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "Malta is the smallest state in the EU, and we are carrying a burden that is much bigger than any other country."
Mr Muscat, 39, who studied at Bristol University, was speaking during an official visit to Rome last week, shortly after the European Court of Human Rights had issued an interim order blocking any moves to fly the Somalis back to Libya.
Strasbourg's judges backed claims by Maltese human rights groups and EU commissioners that Mr Muscat was violating EU law by not allowing them to make asylum claims first, and that the move was an illegal "push-back".
"This is not push back, it is a message that we are not push-overs," retorted Mr Muscat. He added that as a contributor to the EU bailouts of its southern European neighbours, Malta should expect the EU to offer something in return. "People say solidarity, solidarity, but then nothing happens."
Whether Mr Muscat, whose centre-Left Labour Party resents the charges of xenophobia that have been thrown at it, really intended to carry out the "push back" is a matter of debate.
Some suspect it was just a stunt to force Brussels to give practical help rather than high-handed lectures. As Mr Muscat himself puts it: "We have stamped our feet to say look guys, don't leave us alone."
But either way, the row has highlighted how Malta - and nearby Italy - is struggling to reconcile their obligations as EU states with their unsought role as the doormat for illegal migrants from Africa seeking entry to Europe.
As Europe's most southerly nation - it lies level with Tunisia – Malta's immigration problems are not just about numbers. While Britain frets about an influx of educated, English-speaking Eastern Europeans, Malta contends mainly with arrivals from the poorest and most war-torn parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Most arrive largely destitute, having blown most of their savings on an €700 people's smuggler's fee and the gruelling 15-day trip by truck and foot across the Sahara. And although a certain resourcefulness is needed to make that journey in first place, many have little schooling and speak neither Maltese or English, the island's second language.
Hence the groups of Africans who gather at certain road junctions around the capital, Valletta, hoping for labouring work from passing builder and hoteliers. It can be a long wait.
"I have been here a month, and have found nothing," said Goodluck Ajeh, 25, a footballer originally from Nigeria. "I will take any job - right now I am just looking for my daily bread."
Unusually for an EU country, Malta makes all illegal immigrants stay in secure detention centres while their asylum claims are processed, a process that can take up to 18 months. But when that time expires, few in practice are sent back. Nearly 90 per cent are from Somalia and Eritrea, both countries deemed too dangerous for deportation to.
Libya is likewise deemed off-limits, because of a wave of reprisals carried out against black Africans for their role in fighting as mercenaries for Colonel Gaddafi in Libya's civil war.
Instead, they end up languishing in large, government-run hostels and overcrowded rented homes, where they stand out conspicuously. While the locals pride themselves on being a tolerant, cosmopolitan people - large numbers of Maltese live abroad as immigrants themselves - there are tensions in areas like Marsa, a shipyard town of 6,000.
"For a place our size to be invaded by about 1,000 immigrants in the last six or seven years is a big shock," said Marsa's Labour mayor, Francis Debona, 53. "It's not because they are black, it's just a matter of suddenly having another big population with cultures and practices that are very different to our own.
"It's all very for the European Court to say these people can't be sent back, but their judges don't live around here, do they?"
A straw poll by The Sunday Telegraph revealed a mixture of views around Marsa. Some insisted the migrants caused no particular trouble, a view backed by Andrew Seychell, Malta's senior immigration policeman, who says there is no sign of an associated crime wave. Others, though, accused them of unclean habits and blamed them for a drop in house prices.
"Every night you see them around here, drinking and making a mess," said Raymond Zammit, 51, pointing to stains on the pavement near his tyre business which he said were caused variously by beer, wine and urine.
"The kids feel afraid to play in the parks," added Gerard Camelleri, 59. "In another few years, Malta is going to be African."
In fact, few African immigrants seek to put down roots down in Malta, preferring instead to head to mainland Europe, where job prospects are better, and where they can legally go under the Schengen arrangements.
But that creates another problem. The rules insist they must return to the country where they first claimed asylum within three months, and while the majority simply overstay, every year hundreds are caught and forcibly returned to Malta from other Schengen countries.
As such, few the estimated 5,000 currently resident in Malta have any real interest in settling, and therefore little incentive to integrate.
"Some will try five times a year to leave Malta for somewhere better," said one refugee worker. "Then, every time they are sent back, they start at square one again."
This weekend, it seemed that Mr Muscat's outburst had achhieved some of the desired effect. Having ticked Malta off over the "push-back" talk, the European home affairs commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, offered to make extra emergency funds available and also pledged to do more to get other EU states to take some of Malta's immigrants.
A transfer scheme is already in place, but over the past decade other European nations have taken only 700 of Malta's arrivals, with the US taking 1,300.
At the same time, the government embarked on a public relations damage-limitation exercise, attempting to allay concerns about asylum seekers' treatment with a visit to the detention centre where the Somalis were being held.
Mr Abdi, the Somali who had dodged deportation, told The Sunday Telegraph he was "very happy with the conditions, and very happy to be here".
Whether his cheer will survive a stay in the detention centre and a spell of roadside job seeking is, however, another matter.
And likewise, if as expected more boats continue to arrive in Mr Abdi's wake, it may no longer just be Mr Muscat stamping his feet.
SOURCE
Leahy: Senate Immigration Bill Says Forging Two Passports Is Not a Crime
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) admitted Wednesday that under the Senate immigration bill, forging up to two passports is not a crime, adding that the bill leaves the decision whether to charge someone with passport fraud up to the discretion of prosecutors.
On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, CNSNews.com asked Leahy, "One of the provisions has to do with passports, that’s an important component. Do you know how many passports someone is able to forge before it’s a crime?”
Leahy said, "Well, it depends upon which interpretation is being used. You could have one form which is two, but then there are other criminal conduct that would be involved with that."
"Cause you give prosecutors a certain amount of discretion, you have two or three different crimes you have committed, so then it's [up to] prosecutorial discretion which one they will charge. I mean, I spent eight years as a prosecutor. One of things you learn [is] the importance of that."
Leahy made the remarks in an interview with CNSNews.com after he was asked how many passports someone could forge before it was a crime under Senate Bill 744, which passed on a 68-to-32 vote June 27. All Senate Democrats and 14 Republicans voted for the bill.
While not a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" group of senators who sponsored the bill, Leahy was a staunch supporter and voted for passage.
“With this legislation, we honor our American values,” Leahy said in a press release on the day the bill cleared the Senate.
“We honor the search of our forbearers for freedom, for prosperity, and for the promise that America has held out to so many for so long. Today is a good day for the Senate, and for the country. Today, with the help of many Senators, we will address a complex problem that is hurting our families, stifling our economy and threatening our security.”
In June, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Ia.) introduced three amendments “that would tighten criminal laws that are being weakened in the comprehensive immigration bill being debated by the Senate,” but amendment #45 regarding passport fraud was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee on an 8-10 vote .
Title 18, Section 1541 of the U.S. Code provides for fines and imprisonment up to 25 years for granting, issuing, or verifying "any passport" without proper authority.
But Section 3707 of the nearly 1,200-page Senate immigration bill amends that section to impose criminal penalties only after a person fabricates "three or more" phony passports. (See S 744.pdf)
SOURCE
'Malta is small, we cannot cope with these migrants'
The tiny island of Malta has received 17,743 mainly African migrants this decade - the equivalent, in Britain, of 2.5 million people. And it is struggling to cope, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat says.
MOHAMMED ABDI, an asylum seeker from Somalia, counts himself to have made two new sets of friends this month. One is the "generous" people of Malta, who took him and 102 other African migrants in after their boat got into difficulties as it trafficked them towards Europe from Libya.
The other is the European Court of Human Rights, which stopped Malta's not-so-generous prime minister, Joseph Muscat, from flying them back to Libya after claiming the island could not cope with more illegal immigrants.
"It would have been wrong to send us back to Libya," beamed Abdi, 30, who now lives in a dormitory in an immigration detention centre surrounded by 20 foot high barbed wire fences. "We are sorry for the people of Malta, who are very generous, but we do need help as conditions are terrible in my country."
Perched on a tiny but strategic set of islands between Europe and Africa, the Maltese have long prided themselves on their ability to repel unwanted invaders. In the 1500s, their resident Knights of St John were the heroes of Europe after seeing off the Ottoman Turks, and in the Second World War, they won the George Cross for helping Britain to keep Hitler at bay.
Their latest efforts to turn back a foreign armada, however, are unlikely to win such plaudits. Or not from the European Union, anyway, which last week was embroiled in a bitter row with Mr Muscat's government over its plans to return Mr Abdi and his ilk to Libya, from where they came in a people-smuggling boat 12 days ago.
The boat, which was picked up by the Maltese Coastguard, was the 14th to arrive this year alone, and came just a week after another one carrying 290 people. Altogether, 1,079 refugees have arrived in similar fashion in Malta this year alone, and 17,743 in the last decade.
But in the EU's smallest state, which has just 400,000 people and is roughly the size of the Isle of Wight, that is a lot more than it might sound.
The equivalent in Britain would be 2,500,000 extra people - roughly the equivalent of two Birminghams - a point not lost on Mr Muscat, who last week accused Brussels of lecturing his country about human rights while doing nothing to share the burden.
"Right now we cannot cope with these numbers, they are unsustainable," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "Malta is the smallest state in the EU, and we are carrying a burden that is much bigger than any other country."
Mr Muscat, 39, who studied at Bristol University, was speaking during an official visit to Rome last week, shortly after the European Court of Human Rights had issued an interim order blocking any moves to fly the Somalis back to Libya.
Strasbourg's judges backed claims by Maltese human rights groups and EU commissioners that Mr Muscat was violating EU law by not allowing them to make asylum claims first, and that the move was an illegal "push-back".
"This is not push back, it is a message that we are not push-overs," retorted Mr Muscat. He added that as a contributor to the EU bailouts of its southern European neighbours, Malta should expect the EU to offer something in return. "People say solidarity, solidarity, but then nothing happens."
Whether Mr Muscat, whose centre-Left Labour Party resents the charges of xenophobia that have been thrown at it, really intended to carry out the "push back" is a matter of debate.
Some suspect it was just a stunt to force Brussels to give practical help rather than high-handed lectures. As Mr Muscat himself puts it: "We have stamped our feet to say look guys, don't leave us alone."
But either way, the row has highlighted how Malta - and nearby Italy - is struggling to reconcile their obligations as EU states with their unsought role as the doormat for illegal migrants from Africa seeking entry to Europe.
As Europe's most southerly nation - it lies level with Tunisia – Malta's immigration problems are not just about numbers. While Britain frets about an influx of educated, English-speaking Eastern Europeans, Malta contends mainly with arrivals from the poorest and most war-torn parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Most arrive largely destitute, having blown most of their savings on an €700 people's smuggler's fee and the gruelling 15-day trip by truck and foot across the Sahara. And although a certain resourcefulness is needed to make that journey in first place, many have little schooling and speak neither Maltese or English, the island's second language.
Hence the groups of Africans who gather at certain road junctions around the capital, Valletta, hoping for labouring work from passing builder and hoteliers. It can be a long wait.
"I have been here a month, and have found nothing," said Goodluck Ajeh, 25, a footballer originally from Nigeria. "I will take any job - right now I am just looking for my daily bread."
Unusually for an EU country, Malta makes all illegal immigrants stay in secure detention centres while their asylum claims are processed, a process that can take up to 18 months. But when that time expires, few in practice are sent back. Nearly 90 per cent are from Somalia and Eritrea, both countries deemed too dangerous for deportation to.
Libya is likewise deemed off-limits, because of a wave of reprisals carried out against black Africans for their role in fighting as mercenaries for Colonel Gaddafi in Libya's civil war.
Instead, they end up languishing in large, government-run hostels and overcrowded rented homes, where they stand out conspicuously. While the locals pride themselves on being a tolerant, cosmopolitan people - large numbers of Maltese live abroad as immigrants themselves - there are tensions in areas like Marsa, a shipyard town of 6,000.
"For a place our size to be invaded by about 1,000 immigrants in the last six or seven years is a big shock," said Marsa's Labour mayor, Francis Debona, 53. "It's not because they are black, it's just a matter of suddenly having another big population with cultures and practices that are very different to our own.
"It's all very for the European Court to say these people can't be sent back, but their judges don't live around here, do they?"
A straw poll by The Sunday Telegraph revealed a mixture of views around Marsa. Some insisted the migrants caused no particular trouble, a view backed by Andrew Seychell, Malta's senior immigration policeman, who says there is no sign of an associated crime wave. Others, though, accused them of unclean habits and blamed them for a drop in house prices.
"Every night you see them around here, drinking and making a mess," said Raymond Zammit, 51, pointing to stains on the pavement near his tyre business which he said were caused variously by beer, wine and urine.
"The kids feel afraid to play in the parks," added Gerard Camelleri, 59. "In another few years, Malta is going to be African."
In fact, few African immigrants seek to put down roots down in Malta, preferring instead to head to mainland Europe, where job prospects are better, and where they can legally go under the Schengen arrangements.
But that creates another problem. The rules insist they must return to the country where they first claimed asylum within three months, and while the majority simply overstay, every year hundreds are caught and forcibly returned to Malta from other Schengen countries.
As such, few the estimated 5,000 currently resident in Malta have any real interest in settling, and therefore little incentive to integrate.
"Some will try five times a year to leave Malta for somewhere better," said one refugee worker. "Then, every time they are sent back, they start at square one again."
This weekend, it seemed that Mr Muscat's outburst had achhieved some of the desired effect. Having ticked Malta off over the "push-back" talk, the European home affairs commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, offered to make extra emergency funds available and also pledged to do more to get other EU states to take some of Malta's immigrants.
A transfer scheme is already in place, but over the past decade other European nations have taken only 700 of Malta's arrivals, with the US taking 1,300.
At the same time, the government embarked on a public relations damage-limitation exercise, attempting to allay concerns about asylum seekers' treatment with a visit to the detention centre where the Somalis were being held.
Mr Abdi, the Somali who had dodged deportation, told The Sunday Telegraph he was "very happy with the conditions, and very happy to be here".
Whether his cheer will survive a stay in the detention centre and a spell of roadside job seeking is, however, another matter.
And likewise, if as expected more boats continue to arrive in Mr Abdi's wake, it may no longer just be Mr Muscat stamping his feet.
SOURCE
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Voice of the American Worker Raised in Protest
Americans Need Jobs, Not Increased Competition for Jobs
Earlier this week the Black American Leadership Alliance hosted the DC March for Jobs, a rally in Washington to show support for the 22 million Americans who are presently out of work or underemployed. The Center for Immigration Studies is providing video of the speakers who voiced concern over the reduced wages and increased unemployment which would result from amnesty for the 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. and the doubling of legal immigration proposed by the Senate.
In speaking of the displacement of American workers by millions of illegal immigrants, the extraordinary unemployment rate of young blacks, double the national average, was emphasized. Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s former executive director and CIS board member Frank Morris told the crowd that the racism of U.S. immigration policy lies in the fact that "non-citizens, who have violated and benefited from the violation of our laws, are having a new bill that Congress is proposing for them, that gives them more benefits, while our own citizens are tragically suffering more."
View videos of the event’s speakers: http://cis.org/Videos/DC-March-for-Jobs
Many members of Congress, like Senators Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz and Representatives Mo Brooks and Steve King, and community leaders of all races addressed the crowd. But the most powerful voices were those of black leaders, of whom Senator Elbert Guillory, the Rev. O’Neal Dozier, former Florida Republican Congressman Allen West, and TheBlackSphere.net’s Kevin Jackson, were just a few of the names participating.
View the Senate bill, CIS Senate testimony and commentary at: http://cis.org/Border-Security-Economic-Opportunity-Immigration-Modernization-Act
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Now GERMANY admits mass immigration threatens 'social peace'
A new report leaked in Germany chronicles the disintegration of communities under the massive influx of Romanian and Bulgarian economic migrants while warning of possible civil disturbances unless the tide is checked.
Germany is experiencing what the UK can expect next year when restrictions covering the two EU countries come to an end and waves of job and benefit seekers are expected to pour across the channel.
In its report, Germany warns of the threat to the 'social peace' of its cities and towns.
Until January 1, 2014, Bulgarian and Romanian access to the German - and British - labour market is still limited and they can legally remain longer than three months if they have a trade and a job.
But a loophole in the law makes large families eligible for massive child benefits which can mean up to £2,000 a month for large families.
Interior expert Stephan Mayer of the conservative CSU party in Bavaria said: 'The abuse of German social security benefits under the guise of freedom of movement in the EU must be stopped. 'If necessary through a change in the European treaties.'
Germany's Federal Statistics Offices says 437,000 Romanians and Bulgarians have flooded into the country in the past three years.
In some towns, like Duisburg, the mayor has complained of gypsy families living in ghetto-style blocks sending out gangs of children to commit crimes.
Some 176,000 arrived last year alone, 40,000 up on 2011, and an internal paper of the interior ministry leaked to the media said Duisburg, Dortmund, Berlin, Hannover, Munich, Mannheim, Offenbach and Frankfurt are among the most severely affected cities.
'The paper explicitly warns of the consequences for the social peace,' said Bild, the country's biggest selling paper today.
The document warns of 'extreme occupancy of dilapidated, uninhabitable properties with illegal dormitories' where people often sleep 20 to a room, 'dirty patios, overfilled garbage bins' and 'noisy crowds into the small hours.'
The report also chronicles the chaos caused in schools where 'children who speak no German from Bulgaria and Romania' are holding back the native speakers.
Crime is on the way up in the areas where the newcomers have settled - particularly prostitution.
Germany's overall crime rate has been falling in recent years - but crimes relating to Bulgarian and Romanian criminals is on the rise.
One fast-growing category is pickpocketing. In Berlin last year robbery involving tricks - such as children asking for help while an accomplice robs the target - rose by 39 per cent. And break-ins of single-family houses, rising since 2006, increased by 32 per cent, with every 76th house affected.
Christian Pfeiffer, director of the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony in Hanover, says the eastward expansion of the European Union, with full rights of free movement, is largely to blame.
'Romania and Bulgaria, in particular, have sophisticated crime syndicates, with training and scouting networks reaching deep into the nearest rich EU countries, Germany and Austria,' said a recent article in the Economist. 'Of the suspects in Berlin’s trick-robbery cases last year, 75 per cent were non-German; 31 per cent came from Romania.
'These eastern syndicates have local contacts and mark their targets, especially along motorway or railway escape routes. Then they strike with stunning professionalism,' says Mr Pfeiffer.
'They go where the return on risk is highest. They avoid Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, where homes are wealthier but better protected with alarms and there is a faster police response. Instead they go north, where police are overwhelmed and the risk of being caught and convicted is about one in 100.'
In Berlin the tricksters are brought in by fleets of mini buses pretending to be tourists. They are then housed in terrible conditions by organised gangs who get them registered as self employed businessmen which then leads on to the benefits that they so desperately need.
One media report said that each family that arrives has at least three children and some as many as ten. 'For each child the parents get more money than a teacher earns back in Romania,' said the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
SOURCE
Voice of the American Worker Raised in Protest
Americans Need Jobs, Not Increased Competition for Jobs
Earlier this week the Black American Leadership Alliance hosted the DC March for Jobs, a rally in Washington to show support for the 22 million Americans who are presently out of work or underemployed. The Center for Immigration Studies is providing video of the speakers who voiced concern over the reduced wages and increased unemployment which would result from amnesty for the 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. and the doubling of legal immigration proposed by the Senate.
In speaking of the displacement of American workers by millions of illegal immigrants, the extraordinary unemployment rate of young blacks, double the national average, was emphasized. Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s former executive director and CIS board member Frank Morris told the crowd that the racism of U.S. immigration policy lies in the fact that "non-citizens, who have violated and benefited from the violation of our laws, are having a new bill that Congress is proposing for them, that gives them more benefits, while our own citizens are tragically suffering more."
View videos of the event’s speakers: http://cis.org/Videos/DC-March-for-Jobs
Many members of Congress, like Senators Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz and Representatives Mo Brooks and Steve King, and community leaders of all races addressed the crowd. But the most powerful voices were those of black leaders, of whom Senator Elbert Guillory, the Rev. O’Neal Dozier, former Florida Republican Congressman Allen West, and TheBlackSphere.net’s Kevin Jackson, were just a few of the names participating.
View the Senate bill, CIS Senate testimony and commentary at: http://cis.org/Border-Security-Economic-Opportunity-Immigration-Modernization-Act
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Now GERMANY admits mass immigration threatens 'social peace'
A new report leaked in Germany chronicles the disintegration of communities under the massive influx of Romanian and Bulgarian economic migrants while warning of possible civil disturbances unless the tide is checked.
Germany is experiencing what the UK can expect next year when restrictions covering the two EU countries come to an end and waves of job and benefit seekers are expected to pour across the channel.
In its report, Germany warns of the threat to the 'social peace' of its cities and towns.
Until January 1, 2014, Bulgarian and Romanian access to the German - and British - labour market is still limited and they can legally remain longer than three months if they have a trade and a job.
But a loophole in the law makes large families eligible for massive child benefits which can mean up to £2,000 a month for large families.
Interior expert Stephan Mayer of the conservative CSU party in Bavaria said: 'The abuse of German social security benefits under the guise of freedom of movement in the EU must be stopped. 'If necessary through a change in the European treaties.'
Germany's Federal Statistics Offices says 437,000 Romanians and Bulgarians have flooded into the country in the past three years.
In some towns, like Duisburg, the mayor has complained of gypsy families living in ghetto-style blocks sending out gangs of children to commit crimes.
Some 176,000 arrived last year alone, 40,000 up on 2011, and an internal paper of the interior ministry leaked to the media said Duisburg, Dortmund, Berlin, Hannover, Munich, Mannheim, Offenbach and Frankfurt are among the most severely affected cities.
'The paper explicitly warns of the consequences for the social peace,' said Bild, the country's biggest selling paper today.
The document warns of 'extreme occupancy of dilapidated, uninhabitable properties with illegal dormitories' where people often sleep 20 to a room, 'dirty patios, overfilled garbage bins' and 'noisy crowds into the small hours.'
The report also chronicles the chaos caused in schools where 'children who speak no German from Bulgaria and Romania' are holding back the native speakers.
Crime is on the way up in the areas where the newcomers have settled - particularly prostitution.
Germany's overall crime rate has been falling in recent years - but crimes relating to Bulgarian and Romanian criminals is on the rise.
One fast-growing category is pickpocketing. In Berlin last year robbery involving tricks - such as children asking for help while an accomplice robs the target - rose by 39 per cent. And break-ins of single-family houses, rising since 2006, increased by 32 per cent, with every 76th house affected.
Christian Pfeiffer, director of the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony in Hanover, says the eastward expansion of the European Union, with full rights of free movement, is largely to blame.
'Romania and Bulgaria, in particular, have sophisticated crime syndicates, with training and scouting networks reaching deep into the nearest rich EU countries, Germany and Austria,' said a recent article in the Economist. 'Of the suspects in Berlin’s trick-robbery cases last year, 75 per cent were non-German; 31 per cent came from Romania.
'These eastern syndicates have local contacts and mark their targets, especially along motorway or railway escape routes. Then they strike with stunning professionalism,' says Mr Pfeiffer.
'They go where the return on risk is highest. They avoid Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, where homes are wealthier but better protected with alarms and there is a faster police response. Instead they go north, where police are overwhelmed and the risk of being caught and convicted is about one in 100.'
In Berlin the tricksters are brought in by fleets of mini buses pretending to be tourists. They are then housed in terrible conditions by organised gangs who get them registered as self employed businessmen which then leads on to the benefits that they so desperately need.
One media report said that each family that arrives has at least three children and some as many as ten. 'For each child the parents get more money than a teacher earns back in Romania,' said the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
SOURCE
Friday, July 19, 2013
The Strange Case of Mexican Emigration
Victor Davis Hanson
There are many strange elements in the current debate over illegal immigration, but none stranger than the mostly ignored role of Mexico.
Are millions of Mexican citizens still trying to cross the U.S. border illegally because there is dismal economic growth and a shortage of jobs in Mexico?
Not anymore. In terms of the economy, Mexico has rarely done better, and the United State rarely worse.
The Mexican unemployment rate is currently below 5 percent. North of the border it remains stuck at over 7 percent for the 53rd consecutive month of the Obama presidency. The American gross domestic product has been growing at a rate of less than 2 percent annually. In contrast, a booming Mexico almost doubled that in 2012, its GDP growing at a robust clip of nearly 4 percent.
Is elemental hunger forcing millions of Mexicans to flee north, as it may have in the past?
Not necessarily. According to a recent United Nations study, an estimated 70 percent of Mexico's citizens are overweight and suffer from the same problems of diet, health concerns and lack of exercise shared by other more affluent Western societies.
Mexico is a severe critic of U.S. immigration policy, often damning Americans as ruthlessly insensitive for trying to close our border. It has gone so far as to join lawsuits against individual American states to force relaxation of our border enforcement. Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon sharply criticized the United States for trying to "criminalize migration."
Is Mexico, then, a model of immigration tolerance?
Far from it.
Until 2011, when it passed reforms, Mexico had among the most draconian immigration laws in the world. Guatemala has criticized Mexico for initiating construction of a fence along its southern border.
Mexico has zero tolerance for illegal immigrants who seek to work inside Mexico, happen to break Mexican law or go on public assistance -- or any citizens who aid them.
In Mexico, legal immigration is aimed at privileging lawful arrivals with skill sets that aid the Mexican economy and, according to the country's immigration law, who have the "necessary funds for their sustenance" -- while denying entry to those who are not healthy or would upset the "equilibrium of the national demographics." Translated, that idea of demographic equilibrium apparently means that Mexico tries to withhold citizen status from those who do not look like Mexicans or have little skills to make money.
If the United States were to treat Mexican nationals in the same way that Mexico treats Central American nationals, there would be humanitarian outrage.
In 2005, the Mexican government published a "Guide for the Mexican Migrant" -- in comic book form. The pictographic manual instructed its own citizens how best to cross illegally into, and stay within, the United States. Did Mexico assume that its departing citizens were both largely illiterate and without worry about violating the laws of a foreign country?
Yet Mexico counts on these expatriate poor to send back well over $20 billion in annual remittances -- currently the third-largest source of Mexican foreign exchange.
Multibillion-dollar annual remittances from America fill a void that the Mexican government has created by not extending the sort of housing, education or welfare help to its own citizens that America provides to foreign residents.
In truth, many thousands of Mexicans flee northward not necessarily because there are no jobs, or because they are starving at home. America offers them far more upward mobility and social justice than does their own homeland. And for all the immigration rhetoric about race and class, millions of Mexicans vote with their feet to enjoy the far greater cultural tolerance found in the U.S.
Indigenous people make up a large part of the most recent wave of Mexican arrivals. Those who leave provinces like Oaxaca or Chiapas apparently find the English-speaking, multiracial U.S. a fairer place than the hierarchical and often racially stratified society of Mexico.
People should be a nation's greatest resource. Fairly or not, Mexico has long been seen to view its own citizens in rather cynical terms as a valuable export commodity, akin to oil or food. When they are young and healthy, Mexican expatriates are expected to scrimp, save and support their poorer relatives back in Mexico. When these Mexican expats are ill and aged, then the U.S should pick up the tab for their care.
The current problem for Mexico is that the U.S. might soon deal with illegal immigration in the way Mexico does. But for now, to the extent that Mexican citizens can potentially make, rather than cost, Mexico money, there is little reason for our southern neighbor to discourage its citizens from leaving the country -- by hook, crook or comic book.
SOURCE
Australian PM faces uphill election battle on asylum seeker issue
AFTER his quick political fix on the carbon tax, Kevin Rudd must now turn his attention to the tougher problem of asylum seeker policy. But this could prove a unsolvable dilemma.
Rudd was always planning to announce a crackdown on refugees soon after seizing back the nation's top job.
The new Prime Minister knows he has to find some way of distancing himself from the policy failure that is emphasised every time another boatload of asylum seekers arrives in Australian waters.
The latest deaths at sea after another boat disaster have only heightened the urgency for Rudd to convince voters he has a solution.
At a policy level, the Government needs to find a way of meeting its aim of stopping asylum seekers arriving by boat.
But at a political level, Labor needs to ensure the debate does not dominate the election campaign.
Labor has learned through bitter experience that it has little to gain from electoral battles over border protection.
The Coalition already has an natural advantage on the issue because voters tend to trust them more on national security.
When his opponents can point to a history of stemming boat arrivals the last time they were in government, Rudd's task is even tougher.
So Rudd is under immense pressure to neutralise the Coalition's campaign on asylum seeker boat arrivals before calling the election. But that is easier said than done.
The Prime Minister's chief problem could come down to one of believability. He has changed his position on asylum seeker policy before.
And the government he was a part of has gone through a series of policy contortions without finding a solution.
Unauthorised boat arrivals ballooned under Rudd's last time in power, after he dismantled the Howard government's Pacific Solution and moved asylum seekers into the community.
Rudd has since blamed other "push" factors of conflicts in other countries increasing the numbers of people willing to risk their lives on a boat to escape persecution.
The closest he has come to admitting to a mistake was "in perhaps not being quick enough to respond to the new change in external circumstances with an outflow from Sri Lanka from a civil war in 2009-10".
He has not accepted that changes in Australian laws when he was the leader have acted as "pull" factors by making Australia a more marketable destination for people smugglers.
But this is the focus of the Opposition's criticism that, in the reported words of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Australia needs to take "the sugar off the table" for people smugglers.
Julia Gillard appeared to admit the Rudd government had made mistakes on border protection when she rolled him as prime minister.
Asylum seeker policy was one of the three areas where Gillard said the government had "lost its way" and required a change of leader.
But after Gillard's failed ideas of sending asylum seekers to East Timor and swapping them with refugees in Malaysia - and a series of capitulations to the Opposition by reopening processing centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island - the Government has little credibility left.
Rudd's political effort so far has been twofold. First, he has accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of lying when he says he can stop the boats.
Rudd used his first press conference after becoming prime minister to lambast Mr Abbott for using meaningless three-word slogans, and raise the spectre of a conflict with Indonesia if a Coalition government enacted its threat to turn around boats at sea.
Rudd is now entering the second phase of his attempt to take the sting out of the issue for Labor.
He has flagged new policies to make it harder for asylum seekers to be assessed as refugees in Australia, suggested he could change Australia's application of the Refugee Convention, and will push for better regional co-operation on people smuggling.
He has raised concerns in recent trips to Indonesia and PNG, and he could make another visit to Jakarta to take part in a planned summit with source countries including Iran, Afghanistan and Myanmar.
We are likely to soon see the Government announce a tougher process for weeding out economic refugees from those genuinely in fear of persecution.
Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr has been laying the groundwork for his change, and has recently claimed the vast majority of recent asylum seekers are "economic migrants".
But none of these options is likely to have any immediate impact on the rate of boat arrivals. Labor has made similar suggestions before. Now the Government is running out of time.
SOURCE
The Strange Case of Mexican Emigration
Victor Davis Hanson
There are many strange elements in the current debate over illegal immigration, but none stranger than the mostly ignored role of Mexico.
Are millions of Mexican citizens still trying to cross the U.S. border illegally because there is dismal economic growth and a shortage of jobs in Mexico?
Not anymore. In terms of the economy, Mexico has rarely done better, and the United State rarely worse.
The Mexican unemployment rate is currently below 5 percent. North of the border it remains stuck at over 7 percent for the 53rd consecutive month of the Obama presidency. The American gross domestic product has been growing at a rate of less than 2 percent annually. In contrast, a booming Mexico almost doubled that in 2012, its GDP growing at a robust clip of nearly 4 percent.
Is elemental hunger forcing millions of Mexicans to flee north, as it may have in the past?
Not necessarily. According to a recent United Nations study, an estimated 70 percent of Mexico's citizens are overweight and suffer from the same problems of diet, health concerns and lack of exercise shared by other more affluent Western societies.
Mexico is a severe critic of U.S. immigration policy, often damning Americans as ruthlessly insensitive for trying to close our border. It has gone so far as to join lawsuits against individual American states to force relaxation of our border enforcement. Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon sharply criticized the United States for trying to "criminalize migration."
Is Mexico, then, a model of immigration tolerance?
Far from it.
Until 2011, when it passed reforms, Mexico had among the most draconian immigration laws in the world. Guatemala has criticized Mexico for initiating construction of a fence along its southern border.
Mexico has zero tolerance for illegal immigrants who seek to work inside Mexico, happen to break Mexican law or go on public assistance -- or any citizens who aid them.
In Mexico, legal immigration is aimed at privileging lawful arrivals with skill sets that aid the Mexican economy and, according to the country's immigration law, who have the "necessary funds for their sustenance" -- while denying entry to those who are not healthy or would upset the "equilibrium of the national demographics." Translated, that idea of demographic equilibrium apparently means that Mexico tries to withhold citizen status from those who do not look like Mexicans or have little skills to make money.
If the United States were to treat Mexican nationals in the same way that Mexico treats Central American nationals, there would be humanitarian outrage.
In 2005, the Mexican government published a "Guide for the Mexican Migrant" -- in comic book form. The pictographic manual instructed its own citizens how best to cross illegally into, and stay within, the United States. Did Mexico assume that its departing citizens were both largely illiterate and without worry about violating the laws of a foreign country?
Yet Mexico counts on these expatriate poor to send back well over $20 billion in annual remittances -- currently the third-largest source of Mexican foreign exchange.
Multibillion-dollar annual remittances from America fill a void that the Mexican government has created by not extending the sort of housing, education or welfare help to its own citizens that America provides to foreign residents.
In truth, many thousands of Mexicans flee northward not necessarily because there are no jobs, or because they are starving at home. America offers them far more upward mobility and social justice than does their own homeland. And for all the immigration rhetoric about race and class, millions of Mexicans vote with their feet to enjoy the far greater cultural tolerance found in the U.S.
Indigenous people make up a large part of the most recent wave of Mexican arrivals. Those who leave provinces like Oaxaca or Chiapas apparently find the English-speaking, multiracial U.S. a fairer place than the hierarchical and often racially stratified society of Mexico.
People should be a nation's greatest resource. Fairly or not, Mexico has long been seen to view its own citizens in rather cynical terms as a valuable export commodity, akin to oil or food. When they are young and healthy, Mexican expatriates are expected to scrimp, save and support their poorer relatives back in Mexico. When these Mexican expats are ill and aged, then the U.S should pick up the tab for their care.
The current problem for Mexico is that the U.S. might soon deal with illegal immigration in the way Mexico does. But for now, to the extent that Mexican citizens can potentially make, rather than cost, Mexico money, there is little reason for our southern neighbor to discourage its citizens from leaving the country -- by hook, crook or comic book.
SOURCE
Australian PM faces uphill election battle on asylum seeker issue
AFTER his quick political fix on the carbon tax, Kevin Rudd must now turn his attention to the tougher problem of asylum seeker policy. But this could prove a unsolvable dilemma.
Rudd was always planning to announce a crackdown on refugees soon after seizing back the nation's top job.
The new Prime Minister knows he has to find some way of distancing himself from the policy failure that is emphasised every time another boatload of asylum seekers arrives in Australian waters.
The latest deaths at sea after another boat disaster have only heightened the urgency for Rudd to convince voters he has a solution.
At a policy level, the Government needs to find a way of meeting its aim of stopping asylum seekers arriving by boat.
But at a political level, Labor needs to ensure the debate does not dominate the election campaign.
Labor has learned through bitter experience that it has little to gain from electoral battles over border protection.
The Coalition already has an natural advantage on the issue because voters tend to trust them more on national security.
When his opponents can point to a history of stemming boat arrivals the last time they were in government, Rudd's task is even tougher.
So Rudd is under immense pressure to neutralise the Coalition's campaign on asylum seeker boat arrivals before calling the election. But that is easier said than done.
The Prime Minister's chief problem could come down to one of believability. He has changed his position on asylum seeker policy before.
And the government he was a part of has gone through a series of policy contortions without finding a solution.
Unauthorised boat arrivals ballooned under Rudd's last time in power, after he dismantled the Howard government's Pacific Solution and moved asylum seekers into the community.
Rudd has since blamed other "push" factors of conflicts in other countries increasing the numbers of people willing to risk their lives on a boat to escape persecution.
The closest he has come to admitting to a mistake was "in perhaps not being quick enough to respond to the new change in external circumstances with an outflow from Sri Lanka from a civil war in 2009-10".
He has not accepted that changes in Australian laws when he was the leader have acted as "pull" factors by making Australia a more marketable destination for people smugglers.
But this is the focus of the Opposition's criticism that, in the reported words of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Australia needs to take "the sugar off the table" for people smugglers.
Julia Gillard appeared to admit the Rudd government had made mistakes on border protection when she rolled him as prime minister.
Asylum seeker policy was one of the three areas where Gillard said the government had "lost its way" and required a change of leader.
But after Gillard's failed ideas of sending asylum seekers to East Timor and swapping them with refugees in Malaysia - and a series of capitulations to the Opposition by reopening processing centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island - the Government has little credibility left.
Rudd's political effort so far has been twofold. First, he has accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of lying when he says he can stop the boats.
Rudd used his first press conference after becoming prime minister to lambast Mr Abbott for using meaningless three-word slogans, and raise the spectre of a conflict with Indonesia if a Coalition government enacted its threat to turn around boats at sea.
Rudd is now entering the second phase of his attempt to take the sting out of the issue for Labor.
He has flagged new policies to make it harder for asylum seekers to be assessed as refugees in Australia, suggested he could change Australia's application of the Refugee Convention, and will push for better regional co-operation on people smuggling.
He has raised concerns in recent trips to Indonesia and PNG, and he could make another visit to Jakarta to take part in a planned summit with source countries including Iran, Afghanistan and Myanmar.
We are likely to soon see the Government announce a tougher process for weeding out economic refugees from those genuinely in fear of persecution.
Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr has been laying the groundwork for his change, and has recently claimed the vast majority of recent asylum seekers are "economic migrants".
But none of these options is likely to have any immediate impact on the rate of boat arrivals. Labor has made similar suggestions before. Now the Government is running out of time.
SOURCE
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Who'll pick our crops?
ON a windy morning in California's Salinas Valley, a tractor pulled a wheeled, metal contraption over rows of budding iceberg lettuce plants.
Engineers from Silicon Valley tinkered with the software on a laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds.
The engineers were testing the Lettuce Bot, a machine that can "thin'' a field of lettuce in the time it takes about 20 workers to do the job by hand.
The thinner is part of a new generation of machines that target the last frontier of agricultural mechanization - fruits and vegetables destined for the fresh market, not processing, which have thus far resisted mechanization because they're sensitive to bruising.
Researchers are now designing robots for these most delicate crops by integrating advanced sensors, powerful computing, electronics, computer vision, robotic hardware and algorithms, as well as networking and high precision GPS localization technologies. Most ag robots won't be commercially available for at least a few years.
In this region known as America's Salad Bowl, where for a century fruits and vegetables have been planted, thinned and harvested by an army of migrant workers, the machines could prove revolutionary.
Farmers say farm robots could provide relief from recent labour shortages, lessen the unknowns of immigration reform, even reduce costs, increase quality and yield a more consistent product.
"There aren't enough workers to take the available jobs, so the robots can come and alleviate some of that problem,'' said Ron Yokota, a farming operations manager at Tanimura & Antle, the Salinas-based fresh produce company that owns the field where the Lettuce Bot was being tested.
Many sectors in US agriculture have relied on machines for decades and even the harvesting of fruits and vegetables meant for processing has slowly been mechanized. But nationwide, the vast majority of fresh-market fruit is still harvested by hand.
Research into fresh produce mechanization was dormant for years because of an over-abundance of workers and pressures from farmworker labour unions.
In recent years, as the labour supply has tightened and competition from abroad has increased, growers have sought out machines to reduce labour costs and supplement the nation's unstable agricultural workforce. The federal government, venture capital companies and commodity boards have stepped up with funding.
"We need to increase our efficiency, but nobody wants to work in the fields,'' said Stavros G. Vougioukas, professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of California, Davis.
But farmworker advocates say mechanization would lead to workers losing jobs, growers using more pesticides and the food supply becoming less safe.
"The fundamental question for consumers is who and, now, what do you want picking your food; a machine or a human, who with the proper training and support, can'' ... take significant steps to ensure a safer, higher quality product, said Erik Nicholson, national vice president of the United Farm Workers of America.
On the Salinas Valley farm, entrepreneurs with Mountain View-based startup Blue River Technology are trying to show that the Lettuce Bot can not only replace two dozen workers, but also improve production.
"Using Lettuce Bot can produce more lettuce plants than doing it any other way,'' said Jorge Heraud, the company's co-founder and CEO.
After a lettuce field is planted, growers typically hire a crew of farmworkers who use hoes to remove excess plants to give space for others to grow into full lettuce heads. The Lettuce Bot uses video cameras and visual-recognition software to identify which lettuce plants to eliminate with a squirt of concentrated fertilizer that kills the unwanted buds while enriching the soil.
Blue River, which has raised more than $3 million in venture capital, also plans to develop machines to automate weeding - and eventually harvesting - using many of the same technologies.
Another company, San Diego-based Vision Robotics, is developing a similar lettuce thinner as well as a pruner for wine grapes. The pruner uses robotic arms and cameras to photograph and create a computerized model of the vines, figure out the canes' orientation and the location of buds - all to decide which canes to cut down.
Fresh fruit harvesting remains the biggest challenge.
Machines have proved not only clumsy, but inadequate in selecting ripe produce. In addition to blunders in deciphering color and feel, machines have a hard time distinguishing produce from leaves and branches. And most importantly, matching the dexterity and speed of farmworkers has proved elusive.
"The hand-eye coordination workers have is really amazing, and they can pick incredibly fast. To replicate that in a machine, at the speed humans do and in an economical manner, we're still pretty far away,'' said Daniel L. Schmoldt at the US Agriculture Department's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
In southern California, engineers with the Spanish company Agrobot are taking on the challenge by working with local growers to test a strawberry harvester.
The machine is equipped with 24 arms whose movement is directed through an optical sensor; it allows the robot to make a choice based on fruit color, quality and size. The berries are plucked and placed on a conveyor belt, where the fruit is packed by a worker.
Still, the harvester collects only strawberries that are hanging on the sides of the bed, hence California's strawberry fields would have to be reshaped to accommodate the machine, including farming in single rows, raising the beds and even growing varieties with fewer clusters.
Experts say it will take at least 10 years for harvesters to be available commercially for most fresh-market fruit - not a moment too soon for farmers worried about the availability of workers, said Lupe Sandoval, managing director of the California Farm Labor Contractor Association.
"If you can put a man on the moon,'' Sandoval said, "you can figure out how to pick fruit with a machine.''
SOURCE
Australia: Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr warns of new breed of asylum seeker, driven by economic factors
Big backpedal now Viets are coming. Viets mostly vote conservative. Muslims vote Leftist
FOREIGN Affairs Minister Bob Carr fears asylum-seeker numbers could double unless a new approach is found to stop the influx of boats.
Senator Carr's warning comes as a new breed of asylum seekers - not linked to conflict zones - is heading to Australia.
Senator Carr told a function in Sydney last night that the numbers would continue to grow - and be driven by economic factors - unless Australia found new solutions to stem the flow.
"The nature of the challenge has changed for us," he said. "It's no longer a tiny number, it's 3000 or more a month - that's 40,000 a year - it could go higher, and that's 20 per cent of the Australian migrant intake.
"And I just think people with humanitarian instincts, we've got to start thinking about fresh answers on this because if it can be 40,000 a year without a major upset in the region ... then that 50,000 a year, 40,000 a year could very easily double."
Senator Carr said it was a "different quality of the problem" faced by Australian between 2001 and 2004.
"It really is," he said. "We've got a capacity to turn Australians xenophobic against immigration because of the mounting numbers and the fact that - yes I will insist on this - we're getting many advise that it is economic pressure (and) economic aspirations (driving the arrivals)."
The latest boat, carrying 84 people, sailed directly from Vietnam, where there has been no conflict for 30 years.
Already this year, 759 Vietnamese boat people have come to Australia - the largest group to turn up since just after the Vietnam War - and more than four times the total number that has arrived in the three previous years.
The unexpected influx will put increasing pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to toughen up his asylum-seeker policies.
More than 17,000 boatpeople arrived last year, but already 14,500 have landed on our shores this year.
The new Vietnamese rush came as Mr Rudd left PNG with no breakthrough on the asylum crisis. There had been speculation of a new deal but Mr Rudd said the countries would "continue to strengthen and to further our practical co-operation against our common enemy, people smugglers".
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa left open the prospect of accepting the Opposition's tow-back boat policy yesterday and said a conference to combating people smuggling would take place next month.
He also dealt the Government a blow after it had seized on Indonesia's insistence no country should take "unilateral action" as evidence it would reject the Opposition's policy.
"Well, I think the first point that must be underscored is that when we used the term 'unilateral action' it is not to deny the fact that there are things that countries can do at the national level," Mr Natalegawa said.
"We have had good communication, including with the Opposition party in terms of where they wish to take the discussion forward."
SOURCE
July 16, 2013
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
Media
1. Op-ed: A Political Train Wreck: Long before the first amnesty recipient casts a vote, the Senate bill will be a political disaster for the GOP
Blogs
2. Frank Morris Calls Rep. John Conyers "Blind" to the Negative Effects of Immigration on Workers
3. Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia, Immigration Edition
4. New Ad Pushes Amnesty via Promises of Enforcement
5. Time for an Illegal Alien Amendment to the Farm Bill
6. Immigration Implications of the Demise of DOMA
7. What's Wrong with Immigration Policy Conventional Wisdom
8. Widening Existing Vulnerabilities
9. Senate Immigration Reform Bill: Winners and Losers
10. Match #3 in Internal H-1B Squabble Goes to the Body Shops: Microsoft et al. Lose
Now, Australia tightens work visa to restrict skilled immigration
It isn't just the US that is creating difficulties for skilled immigrants. Australia is, and so is Canada. Australia has tightened its work visa programme that could hurt Indian IT companies, driving up costs for them and compelling local hiring in the near term.
The country's senate late last month made changes to the 457 visa programme (for skilled immigrants) that requires companies to prove that they have considered local hires and advertised in newspapers before sponsoring workers from outside of Australia.
Indian IT companies like Infosys, TCSBSE 2.11 % and Tech MahindraBSE -0.29 % (Satyam) have 8%-9% of their revenues coming from the region. The country's largest software exporter TCS services over 40 clients from Australia and New Zealand, including Telstra, Australian Gas Light Company, Qantas, Foxtel and Lloyds.
Infosys' Australian and New Zealand operations have over 2,000 people to deliver IT-enabled business solutions to clients. Infosys, which also services Telstra, is said to have recently won another small contract from the telecom company. Media reports have said Telstra has moved 170 jobs to Infosys. In 2009, Telstra awarded a $450-million application and development maintenance contract that was shared by InfosysBSE -1.83 % and EDS.
Many changes have been effected to 457 visas effective July 1 following a crackdown on visas issued in areas that don't seem to be experiencing skills shortages.
"While most employers are using the subclass 457 appropriately, there is a concern that certain employers in some industries are sourcing their skilled labour needs outside of Australia without first checking the availability of labour locally. While not unlawful, these actions are not in line with the principles of the subclass 457 program," says the Australia's Department of Immigration and Citizenship website.
"While the UK imposed a bond on Indian visitors, the Australian press has also been alleging the misuse of visa by one of the large Indian IT companies . While we have been expecting protectionist noises to go up given the tough employment scenarios in lot of local markets, this could impact execution ability and cost structures in the near term," wrote Surendra Goyal and Rishi Iyer of Citi Research in a recent note on Indian IT services.
Sajan Poovayya, managing partner in law firm Poovayya & Co, said the medium-term impact might be significant for the large IT players. "The changes proposed in the 457 regime will necessitate increased local hiring that will have a direct impact on costs. For players, who have significant US and Australian presence, a combination of the tight H-1 B and 457 regimes may add further stress to their bottomlines," he said.
Sajai Singh, partner in law firm J Sagar Associates, said the slow economic recovery has put pressure on governments to generate more local jobs. "I think the whole idea of body shopping is under scrutiny as hiring overseas employees had made locals redundant. This may force IT companies to rework their business model and increase their offshoring component," he said.
Canadian government too
The Canadian government too is taking steps to tighten the provisions of their programme to ensure that only genuine skill shortages are being filled by temporary overseas labour. In April, the government announced changes that will require employers to pay temporary foreign workers at the prevailing wage and have a plan to transition to a Canadian workforce over time.
Royal Bank of Canada faced criticisms after media reported on an outsourcing arrangement for technology services that affected some bank employees. Infosys CEO S D Shibulal on Friday said the immigration walls being raised by the US, Australia and Canada will compel Indian IT companies to make changes to deal with them.
SOURCE
Who'll pick our crops?
ON a windy morning in California's Salinas Valley, a tractor pulled a wheeled, metal contraption over rows of budding iceberg lettuce plants.
Engineers from Silicon Valley tinkered with the software on a laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds.
The engineers were testing the Lettuce Bot, a machine that can "thin'' a field of lettuce in the time it takes about 20 workers to do the job by hand.
The thinner is part of a new generation of machines that target the last frontier of agricultural mechanization - fruits and vegetables destined for the fresh market, not processing, which have thus far resisted mechanization because they're sensitive to bruising.
Researchers are now designing robots for these most delicate crops by integrating advanced sensors, powerful computing, electronics, computer vision, robotic hardware and algorithms, as well as networking and high precision GPS localization technologies. Most ag robots won't be commercially available for at least a few years.
In this region known as America's Salad Bowl, where for a century fruits and vegetables have been planted, thinned and harvested by an army of migrant workers, the machines could prove revolutionary.
Farmers say farm robots could provide relief from recent labour shortages, lessen the unknowns of immigration reform, even reduce costs, increase quality and yield a more consistent product.
"There aren't enough workers to take the available jobs, so the robots can come and alleviate some of that problem,'' said Ron Yokota, a farming operations manager at Tanimura & Antle, the Salinas-based fresh produce company that owns the field where the Lettuce Bot was being tested.
Many sectors in US agriculture have relied on machines for decades and even the harvesting of fruits and vegetables meant for processing has slowly been mechanized. But nationwide, the vast majority of fresh-market fruit is still harvested by hand.
Research into fresh produce mechanization was dormant for years because of an over-abundance of workers and pressures from farmworker labour unions.
In recent years, as the labour supply has tightened and competition from abroad has increased, growers have sought out machines to reduce labour costs and supplement the nation's unstable agricultural workforce. The federal government, venture capital companies and commodity boards have stepped up with funding.
"We need to increase our efficiency, but nobody wants to work in the fields,'' said Stavros G. Vougioukas, professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of California, Davis.
But farmworker advocates say mechanization would lead to workers losing jobs, growers using more pesticides and the food supply becoming less safe.
"The fundamental question for consumers is who and, now, what do you want picking your food; a machine or a human, who with the proper training and support, can'' ... take significant steps to ensure a safer, higher quality product, said Erik Nicholson, national vice president of the United Farm Workers of America.
On the Salinas Valley farm, entrepreneurs with Mountain View-based startup Blue River Technology are trying to show that the Lettuce Bot can not only replace two dozen workers, but also improve production.
"Using Lettuce Bot can produce more lettuce plants than doing it any other way,'' said Jorge Heraud, the company's co-founder and CEO.
After a lettuce field is planted, growers typically hire a crew of farmworkers who use hoes to remove excess plants to give space for others to grow into full lettuce heads. The Lettuce Bot uses video cameras and visual-recognition software to identify which lettuce plants to eliminate with a squirt of concentrated fertilizer that kills the unwanted buds while enriching the soil.
Blue River, which has raised more than $3 million in venture capital, also plans to develop machines to automate weeding - and eventually harvesting - using many of the same technologies.
Another company, San Diego-based Vision Robotics, is developing a similar lettuce thinner as well as a pruner for wine grapes. The pruner uses robotic arms and cameras to photograph and create a computerized model of the vines, figure out the canes' orientation and the location of buds - all to decide which canes to cut down.
Fresh fruit harvesting remains the biggest challenge.
Machines have proved not only clumsy, but inadequate in selecting ripe produce. In addition to blunders in deciphering color and feel, machines have a hard time distinguishing produce from leaves and branches. And most importantly, matching the dexterity and speed of farmworkers has proved elusive.
"The hand-eye coordination workers have is really amazing, and they can pick incredibly fast. To replicate that in a machine, at the speed humans do and in an economical manner, we're still pretty far away,'' said Daniel L. Schmoldt at the US Agriculture Department's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
In southern California, engineers with the Spanish company Agrobot are taking on the challenge by working with local growers to test a strawberry harvester.
The machine is equipped with 24 arms whose movement is directed through an optical sensor; it allows the robot to make a choice based on fruit color, quality and size. The berries are plucked and placed on a conveyor belt, where the fruit is packed by a worker.
Still, the harvester collects only strawberries that are hanging on the sides of the bed, hence California's strawberry fields would have to be reshaped to accommodate the machine, including farming in single rows, raising the beds and even growing varieties with fewer clusters.
Experts say it will take at least 10 years for harvesters to be available commercially for most fresh-market fruit - not a moment too soon for farmers worried about the availability of workers, said Lupe Sandoval, managing director of the California Farm Labor Contractor Association.
"If you can put a man on the moon,'' Sandoval said, "you can figure out how to pick fruit with a machine.''
SOURCE
Australia: Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr warns of new breed of asylum seeker, driven by economic factors
Big backpedal now Viets are coming. Viets mostly vote conservative. Muslims vote Leftist
FOREIGN Affairs Minister Bob Carr fears asylum-seeker numbers could double unless a new approach is found to stop the influx of boats.
Senator Carr's warning comes as a new breed of asylum seekers - not linked to conflict zones - is heading to Australia.
Senator Carr told a function in Sydney last night that the numbers would continue to grow - and be driven by economic factors - unless Australia found new solutions to stem the flow.
"The nature of the challenge has changed for us," he said. "It's no longer a tiny number, it's 3000 or more a month - that's 40,000 a year - it could go higher, and that's 20 per cent of the Australian migrant intake.
"And I just think people with humanitarian instincts, we've got to start thinking about fresh answers on this because if it can be 40,000 a year without a major upset in the region ... then that 50,000 a year, 40,000 a year could very easily double."
Senator Carr said it was a "different quality of the problem" faced by Australian between 2001 and 2004.
"It really is," he said. "We've got a capacity to turn Australians xenophobic against immigration because of the mounting numbers and the fact that - yes I will insist on this - we're getting many advise that it is economic pressure (and) economic aspirations (driving the arrivals)."
The latest boat, carrying 84 people, sailed directly from Vietnam, where there has been no conflict for 30 years.
Already this year, 759 Vietnamese boat people have come to Australia - the largest group to turn up since just after the Vietnam War - and more than four times the total number that has arrived in the three previous years.
The unexpected influx will put increasing pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to toughen up his asylum-seeker policies.
More than 17,000 boatpeople arrived last year, but already 14,500 have landed on our shores this year.
The new Vietnamese rush came as Mr Rudd left PNG with no breakthrough on the asylum crisis. There had been speculation of a new deal but Mr Rudd said the countries would "continue to strengthen and to further our practical co-operation against our common enemy, people smugglers".
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa left open the prospect of accepting the Opposition's tow-back boat policy yesterday and said a conference to combating people smuggling would take place next month.
He also dealt the Government a blow after it had seized on Indonesia's insistence no country should take "unilateral action" as evidence it would reject the Opposition's policy.
"Well, I think the first point that must be underscored is that when we used the term 'unilateral action' it is not to deny the fact that there are things that countries can do at the national level," Mr Natalegawa said.
"We have had good communication, including with the Opposition party in terms of where they wish to take the discussion forward."
SOURCE
July 16, 2013
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
Media
1. Op-ed: A Political Train Wreck: Long before the first amnesty recipient casts a vote, the Senate bill will be a political disaster for the GOP
Blogs
2. Frank Morris Calls Rep. John Conyers "Blind" to the Negative Effects of Immigration on Workers
3. Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia, Immigration Edition
4. New Ad Pushes Amnesty via Promises of Enforcement
5. Time for an Illegal Alien Amendment to the Farm Bill
6. Immigration Implications of the Demise of DOMA
7. What's Wrong with Immigration Policy Conventional Wisdom
8. Widening Existing Vulnerabilities
9. Senate Immigration Reform Bill: Winners and Losers
10. Match #3 in Internal H-1B Squabble Goes to the Body Shops: Microsoft et al. Lose
Now, Australia tightens work visa to restrict skilled immigration
It isn't just the US that is creating difficulties for skilled immigrants. Australia is, and so is Canada. Australia has tightened its work visa programme that could hurt Indian IT companies, driving up costs for them and compelling local hiring in the near term.
The country's senate late last month made changes to the 457 visa programme (for skilled immigrants) that requires companies to prove that they have considered local hires and advertised in newspapers before sponsoring workers from outside of Australia.
Indian IT companies like Infosys, TCSBSE 2.11 % and Tech MahindraBSE -0.29 % (Satyam) have 8%-9% of their revenues coming from the region. The country's largest software exporter TCS services over 40 clients from Australia and New Zealand, including Telstra, Australian Gas Light Company, Qantas, Foxtel and Lloyds.
Infosys' Australian and New Zealand operations have over 2,000 people to deliver IT-enabled business solutions to clients. Infosys, which also services Telstra, is said to have recently won another small contract from the telecom company. Media reports have said Telstra has moved 170 jobs to Infosys. In 2009, Telstra awarded a $450-million application and development maintenance contract that was shared by InfosysBSE -1.83 % and EDS.
Many changes have been effected to 457 visas effective July 1 following a crackdown on visas issued in areas that don't seem to be experiencing skills shortages.
"While most employers are using the subclass 457 appropriately, there is a concern that certain employers in some industries are sourcing their skilled labour needs outside of Australia without first checking the availability of labour locally. While not unlawful, these actions are not in line with the principles of the subclass 457 program," says the Australia's Department of Immigration and Citizenship website.
"While the UK imposed a bond on Indian visitors, the Australian press has also been alleging the misuse of visa by one of the large Indian IT companies . While we have been expecting protectionist noises to go up given the tough employment scenarios in lot of local markets, this could impact execution ability and cost structures in the near term," wrote Surendra Goyal and Rishi Iyer of Citi Research in a recent note on Indian IT services.
Sajan Poovayya, managing partner in law firm Poovayya & Co, said the medium-term impact might be significant for the large IT players. "The changes proposed in the 457 regime will necessitate increased local hiring that will have a direct impact on costs. For players, who have significant US and Australian presence, a combination of the tight H-1 B and 457 regimes may add further stress to their bottomlines," he said.
Sajai Singh, partner in law firm J Sagar Associates, said the slow economic recovery has put pressure on governments to generate more local jobs. "I think the whole idea of body shopping is under scrutiny as hiring overseas employees had made locals redundant. This may force IT companies to rework their business model and increase their offshoring component," he said.
Canadian government too
The Canadian government too is taking steps to tighten the provisions of their programme to ensure that only genuine skill shortages are being filled by temporary overseas labour. In April, the government announced changes that will require employers to pay temporary foreign workers at the prevailing wage and have a plan to transition to a Canadian workforce over time.
Royal Bank of Canada faced criticisms after media reported on an outsourcing arrangement for technology services that affected some bank employees. Infosys CEO S D Shibulal on Friday said the immigration walls being raised by the US, Australia and Canada will compel Indian IT companies to make changes to deal with them.
SOURCE
Monday, July 15, 2013
Only 16% Of Republicans and 29% of Democrats Want Increased Immigration
Despite the international heritage of the United States, Americans are not eager for more immigrants. A new Gallup poll finds that only 16 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of Democrats think that immigration “should be increased.” The good news is that this paltry support is a record high and continues to grow. “Support for increasing immigration remains the minority view, but one that has steadily gained support, not only from Democrats and nonwhites, but among whites and across the political spectrum,” writes Gallup.
We’ve written about why the most unproductive Congress in history could kill immigration reform this year. This is mostly because the most anti-reform Republicans in the House of Representatives live in heavily white districts, and they are likely rewarded more for inaction than finding some kind of compromise.
As is typical in surveys, respondents give a completely different impression when they are asked about specific reforms. In a Gallup poll last February, an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats supported every major provision of comprehensive immigration reform.
Unfortunately, the poll about detailed provisions will probably mean less for a candidate’s re-election. You’d have to believe that the average citizen holds sophisticated views in the voting booth and wouldn’t be duped by political ads that swipe an incumbent for “increasing immigration.”
More HERE
Republicans Say Bill Needs Tough Border Security
Congressional Republicans and Democrats clashed on Sunday over whether tightening security along the U.S. border would satisfy Republican concerns enough to advance an immigration overhaul in the House of Representatives.
While the Senate passed an immigration overhaul package on a bipartisan basis, House Speaker John Boehner has said that he won’t bring it to the House floor, and that any measure approved by his chamber must have support from a majority of Republicans.
Mistrust of the Obama administration runs through the House GOP caucus. Some Republican lawmakers say they are doubtful that President Barack Obama will forcefully administer any border security laws.
“There’s nothing we can do to pass a law to force the president to enforce a law he doesn’t like,” said Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa) on “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s proven it over and over again.”
House Democrats challenge the claim and say that, in any event, the current immigration system is in such disrepair that Congress must act.
“Is this immigration system and enforcement really working?” said Rep. Steve Israel (D., N.Y.), also on Fox. “No, it’s broken. Which means we need to solve it and solve it on a bipartisan basis.”
Democrats say Mr. Boehner’s options are constrained by conservatives in the House Republican conference and that he is unwilling to buck them by bringing the Senate bill to a vote.
“John Boehner should let the House vote,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “If the House voted, it would pass overwhelmingly.”
Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.) backed up Mr. Boehner’s strategy, saying on ABC’s “This Week” that the Senate bill shouldn’t be brought to a vote on the House floor. “House Republicans have to produce a bill,” Mr. Cole said. “And it’s got to command a majority of the majority.”
The Senate bill contains a set of border-security provisions that were toughened just before the bill passed in order to bring on additional GOP senators. It would double the number of border-control agents to nearly 40,000, require 700 miles of fencing along the border with Mexico and put other security measures in place. The Congressional Budget Office said the bill’s border-control efforts would add about $40 billion in federal spending over 10 years.
On “Meet the Press,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said that the “the question is can we actually get the border secure and not have this happen again? We need to seriously beef up the border security part. I think that’s the key to getting a final outcome.”
SOURCE
Only 16% Of Republicans and 29% of Democrats Want Increased Immigration
Despite the international heritage of the United States, Americans are not eager for more immigrants. A new Gallup poll finds that only 16 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of Democrats think that immigration “should be increased.” The good news is that this paltry support is a record high and continues to grow. “Support for increasing immigration remains the minority view, but one that has steadily gained support, not only from Democrats and nonwhites, but among whites and across the political spectrum,” writes Gallup.
We’ve written about why the most unproductive Congress in history could kill immigration reform this year. This is mostly because the most anti-reform Republicans in the House of Representatives live in heavily white districts, and they are likely rewarded more for inaction than finding some kind of compromise.
As is typical in surveys, respondents give a completely different impression when they are asked about specific reforms. In a Gallup poll last February, an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats supported every major provision of comprehensive immigration reform.
Unfortunately, the poll about detailed provisions will probably mean less for a candidate’s re-election. You’d have to believe that the average citizen holds sophisticated views in the voting booth and wouldn’t be duped by political ads that swipe an incumbent for “increasing immigration.”
More HERE
Republicans Say Bill Needs Tough Border Security
Congressional Republicans and Democrats clashed on Sunday over whether tightening security along the U.S. border would satisfy Republican concerns enough to advance an immigration overhaul in the House of Representatives.
While the Senate passed an immigration overhaul package on a bipartisan basis, House Speaker John Boehner has said that he won’t bring it to the House floor, and that any measure approved by his chamber must have support from a majority of Republicans.
Mistrust of the Obama administration runs through the House GOP caucus. Some Republican lawmakers say they are doubtful that President Barack Obama will forcefully administer any border security laws.
“There’s nothing we can do to pass a law to force the president to enforce a law he doesn’t like,” said Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa) on “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s proven it over and over again.”
House Democrats challenge the claim and say that, in any event, the current immigration system is in such disrepair that Congress must act.
“Is this immigration system and enforcement really working?” said Rep. Steve Israel (D., N.Y.), also on Fox. “No, it’s broken. Which means we need to solve it and solve it on a bipartisan basis.”
Democrats say Mr. Boehner’s options are constrained by conservatives in the House Republican conference and that he is unwilling to buck them by bringing the Senate bill to a vote.
“John Boehner should let the House vote,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “If the House voted, it would pass overwhelmingly.”
Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.) backed up Mr. Boehner’s strategy, saying on ABC’s “This Week” that the Senate bill shouldn’t be brought to a vote on the House floor. “House Republicans have to produce a bill,” Mr. Cole said. “And it’s got to command a majority of the majority.”
The Senate bill contains a set of border-security provisions that were toughened just before the bill passed in order to bring on additional GOP senators. It would double the number of border-control agents to nearly 40,000, require 700 miles of fencing along the border with Mexico and put other security measures in place. The Congressional Budget Office said the bill’s border-control efforts would add about $40 billion in federal spending over 10 years.
On “Meet the Press,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said that the “the question is can we actually get the border secure and not have this happen again? We need to seriously beef up the border security part. I think that’s the key to getting a final outcome.”
SOURCE
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Yet Another Deceptive Amnesty Ad
Conservative Group Makes Misleading Claims about S.744
The Center for Immigration Studies finds that a new advertisement created by the American Action Network, a group advocating amnesty and higher levels of immigration, mischaracterizes the Senate’s immigration bill (S.744) as the “toughest border security plan ever passed by Congress.” In fact, all provisions are “goals” rather than requirements and would thus not have to be met before illegal immigrants acquire legal status, green cards, and eventual U.S. citizenship.
Jon Feere, the Center’s Legal Analyst and author of the article, said: “The Senate’s immigration bill was written to benefit illegal immigrants and special interest groups, and is not a serious effort to stop illegal immigration. It is not surprising that the Congressional Budget Office found that anywhere from half to 2/3 of illegal immigration would continue if the bill became law.”
View the complete article at: https://www.cis.org/feere/new-ad-pushes-amnesty-promises-enforcement
Described in the ad as the “border surge”, the Corker-Hoeven amendment does nothing to change the flawed architecture of the immigration bill: All illegal immigrants become eligible for legal status six months after the bill is signed, well before any enforcement provisions are to take effect.
If fully enacted, the provision would roughly double the size of the Border Patrol by adding 20,000 agents and would finish the 700 miles of fencing requested by Congress in 2006. But failure to achieve these goals would not affect the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. The provision also grants wide discretion to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who told Congress in 2011 that she believes DHS already has “effective control over the great majority” of the northern and southern borders of the United States. Furthermore, nothing prevents the provisions from being amended, narrowed administratively, or outright eliminated through a court ruling.
“Only until the enforcement provisions are fully up and running should discussion of legalization begin,” said Feere. “Otherwise, we risk making the same mistake of the 1986 amnesty: mass legalization coupled with promised enforcement that never materializes.”
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Migrant backlog in Britain soars to 500,000... and it will take 37 years to clear, say MPs
It will take nearly four decades to clear up the mess left by Labour’s ‘open-door’ immigration policy, a devastating report reveals today.
The true scale of the backlog in the immigration system is exposed by MPs who conclude it now tops more than 500,000 cases.
The total is the equivalent of a city the size of Manchester. And at current rates of progress it will take 37 years to deal with, the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee said.
A paper, published by the Office for National Statistics, has acknowledged for the first time that the majority of the people who slipped through the net were Eastern European migrants
Since its last report only three months ago its estimate of the backlog has increased by 190,000 after officials revealed a previously undocumented number of cases.
Astonishingly, officials could not be sure that more backlogs would not be uncovered.
The report prompted calls for an end to spending cuts to the immigration system to ensure further backlogs do not develop.
The committee’s chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, said that despite the abolition of the UK Border Agency and immigration moving back under the remit of the Home Office, nothing appeared to have changed ‘apart from the name’.
He called for the replacement of senior staff and for a moratorium on bonuses for top Home Office officials until the backlogs were cleared.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think-tank, warned of the dangers of cuts in the number of border and immigration staff. The total is expected to fall by more than one fifth by 2015, equivalent to around 5,200 individuals.
Sir Andrew said: ‘Given that the previous government admitted four million immigrants and left the immigration system in chaos, it is no surprise that it is not yet fixed.
‘Nor will it be fixed until the Government takes an entirely different view of the importance of border controls. Given the billions that we throw at Afghanistan and more billions at the aid budget, the amount spent on the border is trivial. This cannot continue.’
Immigration Minister Mark Harper said the decision to kill off the ‘troubled’ UK Border Agency and take immigration back inside the Home Office would pay dividends.
‘The new UK Visa and Immigration Service has a clear focus to improve visa performance and customer service, while the Immigration Enforcement command concentrates on those who break our immigration laws,’ he said. ‘Both now report directly to ministers, delivering greater transparency and accountability.’
The committee concluded that the backlog of cases stands at 502,467. That includes 33,500 ‘legacy’ asylum cases and 7,000 ‘legacy’ immigration cases, the remnants of the backlog of 450,000 cases discovered in 2006.
Another 190,615 cases are contained in the so-called Migration Refusal Pool. It holds previously legal migrants whose visas have expired but where there is no record of them leaving the country.
In addition, officials are considering more than 16,000 applications to stay in Britain as a result of marriage or civil partnership.
Among the backlogs uncovered are rising numbers of foreign criminals who have been released on to the streets as they await deportation. That figure was up 122 in three months, and now tops 4,000.
The new 190,000 cases are classed as ‘temporary and permanent migration’ and are applications for visa extensions and leave to remain from those who are already in Britain.
There are also some 61,000 cases waiting to be loaded on to an internal computer system, the Case Information Database.
SOURCE
Yet Another Deceptive Amnesty Ad
Conservative Group Makes Misleading Claims about S.744
The Center for Immigration Studies finds that a new advertisement created by the American Action Network, a group advocating amnesty and higher levels of immigration, mischaracterizes the Senate’s immigration bill (S.744) as the “toughest border security plan ever passed by Congress.” In fact, all provisions are “goals” rather than requirements and would thus not have to be met before illegal immigrants acquire legal status, green cards, and eventual U.S. citizenship.
Jon Feere, the Center’s Legal Analyst and author of the article, said: “The Senate’s immigration bill was written to benefit illegal immigrants and special interest groups, and is not a serious effort to stop illegal immigration. It is not surprising that the Congressional Budget Office found that anywhere from half to 2/3 of illegal immigration would continue if the bill became law.”
View the complete article at: https://www.cis.org/feere/new-ad-pushes-amnesty-promises-enforcement
Described in the ad as the “border surge”, the Corker-Hoeven amendment does nothing to change the flawed architecture of the immigration bill: All illegal immigrants become eligible for legal status six months after the bill is signed, well before any enforcement provisions are to take effect.
If fully enacted, the provision would roughly double the size of the Border Patrol by adding 20,000 agents and would finish the 700 miles of fencing requested by Congress in 2006. But failure to achieve these goals would not affect the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. The provision also grants wide discretion to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who told Congress in 2011 that she believes DHS already has “effective control over the great majority” of the northern and southern borders of the United States. Furthermore, nothing prevents the provisions from being amended, narrowed administratively, or outright eliminated through a court ruling.
“Only until the enforcement provisions are fully up and running should discussion of legalization begin,” said Feere. “Otherwise, we risk making the same mistake of the 1986 amnesty: mass legalization coupled with promised enforcement that never materializes.”
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Migrant backlog in Britain soars to 500,000... and it will take 37 years to clear, say MPs
It will take nearly four decades to clear up the mess left by Labour’s ‘open-door’ immigration policy, a devastating report reveals today.
The true scale of the backlog in the immigration system is exposed by MPs who conclude it now tops more than 500,000 cases.
The total is the equivalent of a city the size of Manchester. And at current rates of progress it will take 37 years to deal with, the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee said.
A paper, published by the Office for National Statistics, has acknowledged for the first time that the majority of the people who slipped through the net were Eastern European migrants
Since its last report only three months ago its estimate of the backlog has increased by 190,000 after officials revealed a previously undocumented number of cases.
Astonishingly, officials could not be sure that more backlogs would not be uncovered.
The report prompted calls for an end to spending cuts to the immigration system to ensure further backlogs do not develop.
The committee’s chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, said that despite the abolition of the UK Border Agency and immigration moving back under the remit of the Home Office, nothing appeared to have changed ‘apart from the name’.
He called for the replacement of senior staff and for a moratorium on bonuses for top Home Office officials until the backlogs were cleared.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think-tank, warned of the dangers of cuts in the number of border and immigration staff. The total is expected to fall by more than one fifth by 2015, equivalent to around 5,200 individuals.
Sir Andrew said: ‘Given that the previous government admitted four million immigrants and left the immigration system in chaos, it is no surprise that it is not yet fixed.
‘Nor will it be fixed until the Government takes an entirely different view of the importance of border controls. Given the billions that we throw at Afghanistan and more billions at the aid budget, the amount spent on the border is trivial. This cannot continue.’
Immigration Minister Mark Harper said the decision to kill off the ‘troubled’ UK Border Agency and take immigration back inside the Home Office would pay dividends.
‘The new UK Visa and Immigration Service has a clear focus to improve visa performance and customer service, while the Immigration Enforcement command concentrates on those who break our immigration laws,’ he said. ‘Both now report directly to ministers, delivering greater transparency and accountability.’
The committee concluded that the backlog of cases stands at 502,467. That includes 33,500 ‘legacy’ asylum cases and 7,000 ‘legacy’ immigration cases, the remnants of the backlog of 450,000 cases discovered in 2006.
Another 190,615 cases are contained in the so-called Migration Refusal Pool. It holds previously legal migrants whose visas have expired but where there is no record of them leaving the country.
In addition, officials are considering more than 16,000 applications to stay in Britain as a result of marriage or civil partnership.
Among the backlogs uncovered are rising numbers of foreign criminals who have been released on to the streets as they await deportation. That figure was up 122 in three months, and now tops 4,000.
The new 190,000 cases are classed as ‘temporary and permanent migration’ and are applications for visa extensions and leave to remain from those who are already in Britain.
There are also some 61,000 cases waiting to be loaded on to an internal computer system, the Case Information Database.
SOURCE
Friday, July 12, 2013
Malta forced to cancel two flights repatriating more than 400 Somalian and Eritrean migrants after human rights court order
Malta cancelled two flights to return migrants to Libya after the European Court of Human Rights issued an interim measure banning repatriation.
The court's written decision was handed to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Tuesday evening as he addressed parliament about his concern over a growing migration crisis.
He said more than 400 migrants, many from Somalia and Eritrea, had arrived on the island of 400,000 people in less than a week, with many having started their journey across the Mediterranean in Libya.
Another three boats were being monitored, he said.
The summer months usually see a steady stream of often rickety migrant boats arriving on the shores of Malta and the island of Lampedusa, off Sicily, seen as a gateway to Europe for migrants fleeing war and poverty at home.
The European court's order was issued on Tuesday after an emergency request by non-governmental organisations citing media reports that the government was planning to send the migrants back to Libya.
The groups said this amounted to so-called 'push back' - a practice declared illegal by the court last year after it was used by Italy in 2009 under then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Muscat said Malta would respect the decisions of the court and international treaties but would consider all options to safeguard its interests.
He confirmed his government had been in contact with the Libyan authorities about sending the migrants back to Libya, but denied it amounted to 'push back'. 'This is not push back, it is a message that we are not push-overs,' he told the Times of Malta website.
Muscat accused the European Union was not showing solidarity with Malta over issue and had earlier warned that Malta was prepared to use its veto on unrelated issues in EU matters to bring about a change.
The EU commissioner for home affairs, Cecilia Malmstrom, said that, according to EU and international obligations, all people arriving in EU territory were entitled to file an asylum request and to have a proper assessment of their situation.
She said the EU stood ready to increase support to Malta if it should face growing pressure from the influx.
SOURCE
Plenty of words but still no plan to protect Australia's borders
OF all the policy failures, disappointments and mistakes under the federal Labor governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, the inability to adequately protect Australia's maritime borders from boats commanded by people smugglers has been the greatest source of disappointment and anger with the public.
After inheriting a policy from John Howard which was having maximum impact by deterring almost all people smugglers and adventurous asylum seekers, the first Rudd administration set about winding back both the harsher elements of the Coalition's approach and dismantling the core of the national response.
Mr Howard had already started taking the uncompromising elements out of his plan, scaling back some of the inhospitable detention centres and placing many children and families into community accommodation.
Mr Rudd, with strong public backing, went further and set about getting all young people out of detention and closed down off shore processing. He also took away the prohibitive temporary protection visas, giving those granted asylum full access to work and family reunion.
Mr Howard's tow-back policy, implemented after a spike in arrivals in 2002/03, was used sparingly but to great effect. By turning around a handful of vessels, the lottery was weighted against the people smugglers and their clients. The armed forces might not have liked it - and neither did the Indonesians - but as some retired officers have said in recent days, it can be done with a degree of difficulty.
Mr Rudd's new response is to dismiss Tony Abbott's plans to revive what Mr Howard did as unworkable in changed circumstances, to admit mistakes in not adjusting to what he says were evolving international conditions in 2009 and arrange a regional summit through the good offices of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The Australian public, alarmed and frustrated at the thousands of asylum seekers arriving on boats being intercepted at the rate of more than one a day, wants more than just talk. Mr Rudd must in the days and weeks left before the election spell out a comprehensive plan.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke has given the government's current position some clarity, including an admission of failure on the ill-thought out Malaysian plan. The next step has to clarity around the way ahead. The public knows where we've been on this.
At the same time Mr Abbott needs to give more detail and explanation of his approach to solving these problems. He might have found comfort in his three line mantra while he was facing Ms Gillard but the arrival of Mr Rudd back on the scene has changed the game.
Yesterday's Newspoll take the major parties back to where they were at the 2010 election and makes what was a very lops-sided contest a real and unpredictable competition. Mr Rudd is within striking distance, having won himself back into the hearts of many voters - some of whom seem foolishly ready to either forget or forgive what were grievous policy failures and mistakes between 2007 and 2010.
Mr Abbott cannot - and should not - get away with the wishful claim that because Mr Howard did it, he could do it again. If that was his guiding principle, he would be embracing genuine and urgently necessary workplace reform and not squibbing it for three more years. Mr Abbott and his immigrations spokesman Scott Morrison protest their position is well known but the backstop to any hard questions is that because it worked under the last Coalition Government, it will work again. We do need greater certainty about what Mr Abbott will do and how these plans meet the changes that have occurred in our region since 2007.
If Mr Abbott doesn't flesh out his plans and priorities across the board - not just in relation to asylum seekers - he could see the gap between his standing and that of Mr Rudd grow even greater and allow the Labor Party to sneak back into office with a cheap coat of paint and some tricked up rhetoric. Mr Abbott has often said this election is vital to the nation's future. He has to demonstrate he takes that sentiment seriously and bring the electorate into his confidence. The voters are ready for some plain speaking.
SOURCE
Malta forced to cancel two flights repatriating more than 400 Somalian and Eritrean migrants after human rights court order
Malta cancelled two flights to return migrants to Libya after the European Court of Human Rights issued an interim measure banning repatriation.
The court's written decision was handed to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Tuesday evening as he addressed parliament about his concern over a growing migration crisis.
He said more than 400 migrants, many from Somalia and Eritrea, had arrived on the island of 400,000 people in less than a week, with many having started their journey across the Mediterranean in Libya.
Another three boats were being monitored, he said.
The summer months usually see a steady stream of often rickety migrant boats arriving on the shores of Malta and the island of Lampedusa, off Sicily, seen as a gateway to Europe for migrants fleeing war and poverty at home.
The European court's order was issued on Tuesday after an emergency request by non-governmental organisations citing media reports that the government was planning to send the migrants back to Libya.
The groups said this amounted to so-called 'push back' - a practice declared illegal by the court last year after it was used by Italy in 2009 under then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Muscat said Malta would respect the decisions of the court and international treaties but would consider all options to safeguard its interests.
He confirmed his government had been in contact with the Libyan authorities about sending the migrants back to Libya, but denied it amounted to 'push back'. 'This is not push back, it is a message that we are not push-overs,' he told the Times of Malta website.
Muscat accused the European Union was not showing solidarity with Malta over issue and had earlier warned that Malta was prepared to use its veto on unrelated issues in EU matters to bring about a change.
The EU commissioner for home affairs, Cecilia Malmstrom, said that, according to EU and international obligations, all people arriving in EU territory were entitled to file an asylum request and to have a proper assessment of their situation.
She said the EU stood ready to increase support to Malta if it should face growing pressure from the influx.
SOURCE
Plenty of words but still no plan to protect Australia's borders
OF all the policy failures, disappointments and mistakes under the federal Labor governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, the inability to adequately protect Australia's maritime borders from boats commanded by people smugglers has been the greatest source of disappointment and anger with the public.
After inheriting a policy from John Howard which was having maximum impact by deterring almost all people smugglers and adventurous asylum seekers, the first Rudd administration set about winding back both the harsher elements of the Coalition's approach and dismantling the core of the national response.
Mr Howard had already started taking the uncompromising elements out of his plan, scaling back some of the inhospitable detention centres and placing many children and families into community accommodation.
Mr Rudd, with strong public backing, went further and set about getting all young people out of detention and closed down off shore processing. He also took away the prohibitive temporary protection visas, giving those granted asylum full access to work and family reunion.
Mr Howard's tow-back policy, implemented after a spike in arrivals in 2002/03, was used sparingly but to great effect. By turning around a handful of vessels, the lottery was weighted against the people smugglers and their clients. The armed forces might not have liked it - and neither did the Indonesians - but as some retired officers have said in recent days, it can be done with a degree of difficulty.
Mr Rudd's new response is to dismiss Tony Abbott's plans to revive what Mr Howard did as unworkable in changed circumstances, to admit mistakes in not adjusting to what he says were evolving international conditions in 2009 and arrange a regional summit through the good offices of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The Australian public, alarmed and frustrated at the thousands of asylum seekers arriving on boats being intercepted at the rate of more than one a day, wants more than just talk. Mr Rudd must in the days and weeks left before the election spell out a comprehensive plan.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke has given the government's current position some clarity, including an admission of failure on the ill-thought out Malaysian plan. The next step has to clarity around the way ahead. The public knows where we've been on this.
At the same time Mr Abbott needs to give more detail and explanation of his approach to solving these problems. He might have found comfort in his three line mantra while he was facing Ms Gillard but the arrival of Mr Rudd back on the scene has changed the game.
Yesterday's Newspoll take the major parties back to where they were at the 2010 election and makes what was a very lops-sided contest a real and unpredictable competition. Mr Rudd is within striking distance, having won himself back into the hearts of many voters - some of whom seem foolishly ready to either forget or forgive what were grievous policy failures and mistakes between 2007 and 2010.
Mr Abbott cannot - and should not - get away with the wishful claim that because Mr Howard did it, he could do it again. If that was his guiding principle, he would be embracing genuine and urgently necessary workplace reform and not squibbing it for three more years. Mr Abbott and his immigrations spokesman Scott Morrison protest their position is well known but the backstop to any hard questions is that because it worked under the last Coalition Government, it will work again. We do need greater certainty about what Mr Abbott will do and how these plans meet the changes that have occurred in our region since 2007.
If Mr Abbott doesn't flesh out his plans and priorities across the board - not just in relation to asylum seekers - he could see the gap between his standing and that of Mr Rudd grow even greater and allow the Labor Party to sneak back into office with a cheap coat of paint and some tricked up rhetoric. Mr Abbott has often said this election is vital to the nation's future. He has to demonstrate he takes that sentiment seriously and bring the electorate into his confidence. The voters are ready for some plain speaking.
SOURCE
Thursday, July 11, 2013
For Immigration Reform, House Republicans Could Learn a Thing or Two From 'Angry Birds'
House Republicans on Wednesday will hold the most consequential backroom skull session on the domestic issue that will define President Obama’s second term.
If immigration reform passes, Obama will remain a powerful legislative force, and prospects for additional accomplishments on budget, taxes, and national security (though difficult) will be enhanced. If immigration reform fails, Obama’s lame-duck status will commence and irreversibly limit White House legislative ambitions.
This was true before Obama decided to delay for one year mandatory business compliance with the individual mandate in his health care law. But that delay has not only raised questions about the scope of presidential power (how often can Obama whimsically waive or ignore portions of a law he or a special-interest group find discomforting?), it also has solidified opposition throughout the House Republican Conference to any form of comprehensive immigration reform.
The piecemeal approach in the House is the only path to an immigration deal. That means the chamber will not complete its work until late this year at the earliest and probably not until early next year—if ever.
Setting aside politics for a moment, the process may matter more. Because if Republicans want to go to conference with the Senate on immigration, the means by which they get there will, in large measure, determine the outcome. That’s where Angry Birds, at least metaphorically, comes in.
House Republicans will start this month with a border-security bill drafted by Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas. McCaul echoes his colleagues’ sentiments when he derides the last-minute Senate border-security amendment as a “bunch of candy” thrown in to “attract votes.” The core of the House GOP approach to immigration reform will start with border security. If it achieves coherence and success there, it may set the table for action for other parts of immigration reform.
But the House GOP will start slowly and see if it can generate more momentum. Think of it as renewable energy Republicans might actually like. One experienced GOP lobbyist very close to the House GOP leadership approach described matters this way: “They have to start with the easiest (relatively speaking) parts and move onto the next level of difficulty. It’s a little like a legislative game of Angry Birds, where each stage gets progressively more complicated and dangerous. And the pigs get bigger. But to win you have to earn more stars.”
As with most important cultural trends in America, I know little about and have no experience with Angry Birds. But as I understand it, the game requires birds to destroy pigs in pursuit of eggs. As things get more difficult, more birds with varied skills and talents become available, but the pigs grow larger and more resilient. But let me also focus on the “Angry” side of the metaphor, because it’s crucial to understanding the gut-level attitude that House Republicans have toward the Senate immigration bill.
“The Senate bill has zero momentum,” a top House GOP leadership aide told me. “We will not rush through a massive bill that hands massive new resources and powers over to a federal government that has shown itself unable to guard civil liberties or effectively manage those powers and resources.”
That sounds angry.
At this stage, other top House GOP aides will only predict passage of a border-security bill. They are uncertain about the other policy dimensions—any other dimension of immigration reform—including some form of a Dream Act, future flow for legal workers in agriculture, service or high-tech sectors, student visas, or employer verification.
House Speaker John Boehner has declared nothing will move off the floor without a majority of votes from the 234-member Republican conference. That is known as the “Hastert Rule,” for the former GOP speaker. Right now, border security appears to be the only bill that can meet that test.
At this stage, no one knows what the House will send the Senate for a conference committee to settle all immigration issues. If the House passes only border security, it concedes a vast array of policy to the Senate bill. That may be where House GOPers land, staking everything on border security to drive the hardest bargain. A very limited game of Angry Birds.
Complicating these strategic decisions is the embedded sense among House Republicans that House Democrats want immigration reform to fail.
“Nothing will go far enough for them,” another House GOP aide told me. “[House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi either wants a total victory or an issue to beat us up with. It is clear the House Democrats want to tank this.”
More anger.
Whether this is true or not does not seem to matter. That House Republicans believe it to be true means it will to some degree guide their decisions on timing, policy, and politics.
One last thought on politics. House Republicans see a 70-70 rule guiding their political calculations. One Republican summarized it this way: Trying to woo roughly 10 percent of the electorate (Latinos) that voted 70 percent for Democrats is not as wise as working in common cause with 70 percent of the electorate that voted 70 percent for Republicans (whites).
House Democrats see the problem differently, of course, and believe that Boehner’s fate hangs in the balance.
“Boehner will not be speaker anymore if he breaks the Hastert Rule,” a top House Democratic leadership aide told me. “I think that is absolute. I also believe Boehner will have to get very close on a conference report on a majority of House Republicans or his speakership is over. Given the nature of the House GOP membership, that would make any meaningful bill extremely unlikely.”
The last important question is whether outside pressure can or will nudge House Republicans toward the Senate bill. “The idea that any entity in the business community, or all business entities combined, can force us in a direction we do not want to go is laughable,” said a House GOP legislative strategist. “They have absolutely zero juice compared to Republican primary voters. If this is what [Sen. Chuck] Schumer [of New York] and his crew believe, they have zero idea of the thought process in our conference and, as a result, zero endgame.”
Zero endgame. I don’t know if that is a category in Angry Birds. But it is one in legislative politics, and it doesn’t portend success.
SOURCE
Heat builds on Australian Prime Minister over asylum boat tow-backs
LABOR is facing increasing pressure to reconsider turning back asylum-seeker boats and stare down threats of self-harm from passengers demanding they be taken to Australia.
Former high-level military officers have declared that turning back asylum-seeker boats en route to Australia is possible and would send a message to Jakarta that it needed to crack down on the people-smuggling trade.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke yesterday warned asylum-seekers who seized control of ships at sea by any means should face a criminal investigation and potential rejection of their asylum applications. His warning came after The Australian revealed that an attempt to return a group of asylum-seekers to Indonesia was aborted last week when they threatened to kill themselves. The group had been picked up in international waters by a Maltese-flagged oil and chemical tanker, the Sichem Hawk.
As Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison raised the issue of the Tampa in 2001 and flagged using Australia's elite SAS troops to secure vessels being confronted with such threats, Tony Abbott reiterated the Coalition would turn back boats where it was safe to do so.
"What we will ensure is that we are not played for mugs by the people smugglers and their customers. We will not be played for mugs," the Opposition Leader said. If it wins government at the election later this year, the Coalition will reintroduce the Howard-era policy of towing asylum-seeker boats back to Indonesian waters.
A joint communique issued after talks between Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week - warning against "unilateral actions which might jeopardise such a comprehensive regional approach and which might cause operational or other difficulties to any party" - did not mention the Coalition but has been interpreted as criticism of its proposed tow-back policy.
Mr Burke said Mr Morrison had acknowledged "that when they say they'll tow the boats to Indonesia, they'll actually only go to the edge of Indonesian territory". And Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said that under John Howard only five or six of the 250 boats that arrived when he was prime minister were successfully turned back.
"Most of the other times when they tried to turn back boats, they couldn't," Mr Clare said. "The boat was sabotaged and the people (aboard) ended up going to Nauru or Christmas Island. The second problem is it's not safe."
But Mr Abbott told the ABC's 7.30 program last night that Indonesia had never explicitly approved the Howard government's turning around of asylum-seeker boats. "I'm not saying it's hazard-free but what has been done in the past can be done in the future," he said. He said the most dangerous thing of all was to do nothing, leading to more deaths at sea.
Former senior military officers yesterday insisted that because boats had been turned back before, it could be done again.
Retired major general Jim Molan told The Australian turning back the boats would send a strong signal to Jakarta that Australia was serious about stopping them.
General Molan, who served in Jakarta for five years and worked closely with the Indonesian national security system, said Indonesia could stop the boats fairly quickly if it wanted to. "The main reason to (send back boats) is as a signal to everyone involved, especially the Indonesian government," he said. "Indonesia just needs to know that the Australian government is serious about what it's doing."
Former navy chief Vice Admiral David Ritchie told The Australian that while the practice would be risky, it could be done. If the government told the navy to turn the boats back the navy would do it and do it well, he said.
He said attempts were made to sabotage boats in the past but that did not stop the process working.
"Of course (sabotage) is going to happen," he said. "Those people are desperate to get to Australia and you're trying to stop them so they'll do whatever they can."
Admiral Ritchie said he would probably agree with those who argued that Indonesia could not legally protest against boats being turned back by Australia if the people smugglers were using Indonesian-flagged boats with Indonesian crews.
General Molan said the most effective measure against the flow of boats was for Indonesia to use its existing laws against people smugglers. Indonesia had clamped down very effectively on terrorism within its borders and could do the same for the people-smuggling trade, he said. "They are not interested in doing it at the moment," he said. "Our challenge is to make them interested in doing it.
"We make them interested in doing it by encouraging them, by working co-operatively, by showing our resolve and by impressing on them the magnitude of the problem for Australia."
Current navy chief, Ray Griggs, who commanded a frigate during the 2001 border protection operations, has warned that turning back boats could prove dangerous for both the Australian crews and the people smugglers.
Vice Admiral Griggs is also known to be concerned about high levels of post traumatic stress among crews on border protection operations, particularly those who have had to repeatedly recover bodies from the ocean after asylum boat sinkings.
Former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie said yesterday that because the opposition had so publicly declared its turn back the boats policy, it would be very difficult to do and the consequences could be "terrible".
Admiral Barrie said the people smugglers were very likely to sabotage boats by sinking them or setting fire to them.
He said the Howard government's policy was brought into effect without being "declared" and caught the people-smugglers by surprise. While it had worked for a time in the past, it would be very difficult and risky to do now, he said. "All of the safety conditions for saving life at sea must be met before you could even consider implementing such a policy," Admiral Barrie said.
SOURCE
For Immigration Reform, House Republicans Could Learn a Thing or Two From 'Angry Birds'
House Republicans on Wednesday will hold the most consequential backroom skull session on the domestic issue that will define President Obama’s second term.
If immigration reform passes, Obama will remain a powerful legislative force, and prospects for additional accomplishments on budget, taxes, and national security (though difficult) will be enhanced. If immigration reform fails, Obama’s lame-duck status will commence and irreversibly limit White House legislative ambitions.
This was true before Obama decided to delay for one year mandatory business compliance with the individual mandate in his health care law. But that delay has not only raised questions about the scope of presidential power (how often can Obama whimsically waive or ignore portions of a law he or a special-interest group find discomforting?), it also has solidified opposition throughout the House Republican Conference to any form of comprehensive immigration reform.
The piecemeal approach in the House is the only path to an immigration deal. That means the chamber will not complete its work until late this year at the earliest and probably not until early next year—if ever.
Setting aside politics for a moment, the process may matter more. Because if Republicans want to go to conference with the Senate on immigration, the means by which they get there will, in large measure, determine the outcome. That’s where Angry Birds, at least metaphorically, comes in.
House Republicans will start this month with a border-security bill drafted by Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas. McCaul echoes his colleagues’ sentiments when he derides the last-minute Senate border-security amendment as a “bunch of candy” thrown in to “attract votes.” The core of the House GOP approach to immigration reform will start with border security. If it achieves coherence and success there, it may set the table for action for other parts of immigration reform.
But the House GOP will start slowly and see if it can generate more momentum. Think of it as renewable energy Republicans might actually like. One experienced GOP lobbyist very close to the House GOP leadership approach described matters this way: “They have to start with the easiest (relatively speaking) parts and move onto the next level of difficulty. It’s a little like a legislative game of Angry Birds, where each stage gets progressively more complicated and dangerous. And the pigs get bigger. But to win you have to earn more stars.”
As with most important cultural trends in America, I know little about and have no experience with Angry Birds. But as I understand it, the game requires birds to destroy pigs in pursuit of eggs. As things get more difficult, more birds with varied skills and talents become available, but the pigs grow larger and more resilient. But let me also focus on the “Angry” side of the metaphor, because it’s crucial to understanding the gut-level attitude that House Republicans have toward the Senate immigration bill.
“The Senate bill has zero momentum,” a top House GOP leadership aide told me. “We will not rush through a massive bill that hands massive new resources and powers over to a federal government that has shown itself unable to guard civil liberties or effectively manage those powers and resources.”
That sounds angry.
At this stage, other top House GOP aides will only predict passage of a border-security bill. They are uncertain about the other policy dimensions—any other dimension of immigration reform—including some form of a Dream Act, future flow for legal workers in agriculture, service or high-tech sectors, student visas, or employer verification.
House Speaker John Boehner has declared nothing will move off the floor without a majority of votes from the 234-member Republican conference. That is known as the “Hastert Rule,” for the former GOP speaker. Right now, border security appears to be the only bill that can meet that test.
At this stage, no one knows what the House will send the Senate for a conference committee to settle all immigration issues. If the House passes only border security, it concedes a vast array of policy to the Senate bill. That may be where House GOPers land, staking everything on border security to drive the hardest bargain. A very limited game of Angry Birds.
Complicating these strategic decisions is the embedded sense among House Republicans that House Democrats want immigration reform to fail.
“Nothing will go far enough for them,” another House GOP aide told me. “[House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi either wants a total victory or an issue to beat us up with. It is clear the House Democrats want to tank this.”
More anger.
Whether this is true or not does not seem to matter. That House Republicans believe it to be true means it will to some degree guide their decisions on timing, policy, and politics.
One last thought on politics. House Republicans see a 70-70 rule guiding their political calculations. One Republican summarized it this way: Trying to woo roughly 10 percent of the electorate (Latinos) that voted 70 percent for Democrats is not as wise as working in common cause with 70 percent of the electorate that voted 70 percent for Republicans (whites).
House Democrats see the problem differently, of course, and believe that Boehner’s fate hangs in the balance.
“Boehner will not be speaker anymore if he breaks the Hastert Rule,” a top House Democratic leadership aide told me. “I think that is absolute. I also believe Boehner will have to get very close on a conference report on a majority of House Republicans or his speakership is over. Given the nature of the House GOP membership, that would make any meaningful bill extremely unlikely.”
The last important question is whether outside pressure can or will nudge House Republicans toward the Senate bill. “The idea that any entity in the business community, or all business entities combined, can force us in a direction we do not want to go is laughable,” said a House GOP legislative strategist. “They have absolutely zero juice compared to Republican primary voters. If this is what [Sen. Chuck] Schumer [of New York] and his crew believe, they have zero idea of the thought process in our conference and, as a result, zero endgame.”
Zero endgame. I don’t know if that is a category in Angry Birds. But it is one in legislative politics, and it doesn’t portend success.
SOURCE
Heat builds on Australian Prime Minister over asylum boat tow-backs
LABOR is facing increasing pressure to reconsider turning back asylum-seeker boats and stare down threats of self-harm from passengers demanding they be taken to Australia.
Former high-level military officers have declared that turning back asylum-seeker boats en route to Australia is possible and would send a message to Jakarta that it needed to crack down on the people-smuggling trade.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke yesterday warned asylum-seekers who seized control of ships at sea by any means should face a criminal investigation and potential rejection of their asylum applications. His warning came after The Australian revealed that an attempt to return a group of asylum-seekers to Indonesia was aborted last week when they threatened to kill themselves. The group had been picked up in international waters by a Maltese-flagged oil and chemical tanker, the Sichem Hawk.
As Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison raised the issue of the Tampa in 2001 and flagged using Australia's elite SAS troops to secure vessels being confronted with such threats, Tony Abbott reiterated the Coalition would turn back boats where it was safe to do so.
"What we will ensure is that we are not played for mugs by the people smugglers and their customers. We will not be played for mugs," the Opposition Leader said. If it wins government at the election later this year, the Coalition will reintroduce the Howard-era policy of towing asylum-seeker boats back to Indonesian waters.
A joint communique issued after talks between Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week - warning against "unilateral actions which might jeopardise such a comprehensive regional approach and which might cause operational or other difficulties to any party" - did not mention the Coalition but has been interpreted as criticism of its proposed tow-back policy.
Mr Burke said Mr Morrison had acknowledged "that when they say they'll tow the boats to Indonesia, they'll actually only go to the edge of Indonesian territory". And Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said that under John Howard only five or six of the 250 boats that arrived when he was prime minister were successfully turned back.
"Most of the other times when they tried to turn back boats, they couldn't," Mr Clare said. "The boat was sabotaged and the people (aboard) ended up going to Nauru or Christmas Island. The second problem is it's not safe."
But Mr Abbott told the ABC's 7.30 program last night that Indonesia had never explicitly approved the Howard government's turning around of asylum-seeker boats. "I'm not saying it's hazard-free but what has been done in the past can be done in the future," he said. He said the most dangerous thing of all was to do nothing, leading to more deaths at sea.
Former senior military officers yesterday insisted that because boats had been turned back before, it could be done again.
Retired major general Jim Molan told The Australian turning back the boats would send a strong signal to Jakarta that Australia was serious about stopping them.
General Molan, who served in Jakarta for five years and worked closely with the Indonesian national security system, said Indonesia could stop the boats fairly quickly if it wanted to. "The main reason to (send back boats) is as a signal to everyone involved, especially the Indonesian government," he said. "Indonesia just needs to know that the Australian government is serious about what it's doing."
Former navy chief Vice Admiral David Ritchie told The Australian that while the practice would be risky, it could be done. If the government told the navy to turn the boats back the navy would do it and do it well, he said.
He said attempts were made to sabotage boats in the past but that did not stop the process working.
"Of course (sabotage) is going to happen," he said. "Those people are desperate to get to Australia and you're trying to stop them so they'll do whatever they can."
Admiral Ritchie said he would probably agree with those who argued that Indonesia could not legally protest against boats being turned back by Australia if the people smugglers were using Indonesian-flagged boats with Indonesian crews.
General Molan said the most effective measure against the flow of boats was for Indonesia to use its existing laws against people smugglers. Indonesia had clamped down very effectively on terrorism within its borders and could do the same for the people-smuggling trade, he said. "They are not interested in doing it at the moment," he said. "Our challenge is to make them interested in doing it.
"We make them interested in doing it by encouraging them, by working co-operatively, by showing our resolve and by impressing on them the magnitude of the problem for Australia."
Current navy chief, Ray Griggs, who commanded a frigate during the 2001 border protection operations, has warned that turning back boats could prove dangerous for both the Australian crews and the people smugglers.
Vice Admiral Griggs is also known to be concerned about high levels of post traumatic stress among crews on border protection operations, particularly those who have had to repeatedly recover bodies from the ocean after asylum boat sinkings.
Former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie said yesterday that because the opposition had so publicly declared its turn back the boats policy, it would be very difficult to do and the consequences could be "terrible".
Admiral Barrie said the people smugglers were very likely to sabotage boats by sinking them or setting fire to them.
He said the Howard government's policy was brought into effect without being "declared" and caught the people-smugglers by surprise. While it had worked for a time in the past, it would be very difficult and risky to do now, he said. "All of the safety conditions for saving life at sea must be met before you could even consider implementing such a policy," Admiral Barrie said.
SOURCE
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
Media
1. Op-ed: Amnesty Bill No Benefit to American Workers
2. Op-ed: Senate (again) passes amnesty. High court decides marriage, voting rights.
3. TV: Mark Krikorian Interviewed on Outlook in the House
4. Video: An Interview with Frank Morris
5. Video: An Interview with Vernon Briggs
Publications
6. Immigrant Gains and Native Losses In the Job Market, 2000 to 2013
7. Biblical Prudence and the Senate Amnesty Bill
8. The Life of Julia, Amnesty Applicant
Blogs
9. Double Standard in Obamacare Favors Illegals
10. CEO's Bloated Pay Used to Increase Immigration, Depress Middle Class Incomes
11. Bipartisan Immigration Conventional Wisdom: Caveat Emptor
12. Uncle Sam Unwittingly Helps Fund Immigration-Related Marriage Fraud
13. President Obama's Big Bang Theory of Hispanic Reelection Support: Part 2
14. House Committee Votes to Admit More STEM Workers than the Supply of Them
Did Obamacare's Runaway Train Just Flatten Immigration Reform?
The lawlessness of a Democrat administration over healthcare makes trust in it impossible for rational actors
Flattened for good? Probably not. But the ongoing, slow-motion train wreck known as "Obamacare implementation" has dealt a body blow to Washington's latest massive undertaking. Here's Chuck Todd on Sunday's Meet the Press:
“Let me tell you something else, David. The White House had been so confident that they were going to sign immigration reform this year. But for the first time I am hearing that there is some doubt seeping in, that they think that maybe the House won’t act … The problem is there’s no trigger at the end of this year. … So I don’t know how this happens by the end of this year and suddenly now the White House doesn’t see a path to how this happens.”
What changed? First off, there's been the intense grassroots backlash against guys like Marco Rubio. Many House Republicans want no part of that. Then there's the updated CBO score of the Senate-passed bill, which projected that for all the many billions in new resources, the border enforcement mechanisms would only stem the tide of illegal crossings by 33 to 50 percent. Add these new millions to the millions of illegal immigrants already here who won't qualify for legalization, and you've got yourself a brand new "permanent underclass."
Even supporters of reform like yours truly can't stomach a comprehensive solution ostensibly designed to tackle this problem "once and for all" when it will do nothing of the sort as currently constituted.
Finally, we have the ever-present trust deficit. Americans -- especially conservatives -- simply do not trust the federal government to accomplish massive and complex projects with an adequate degree of competence or accountability. Enter Obamacare. That enormous and costly nascent government program has already reached a seminal moment of reckoning.
Facing a growing insurrection from businesses over the employer mandate's deleterious effects on hiring, the White House has bowed to economic reality by delaying a (second) significant Obamacare provision. This decision has ramifications beyond the employer mandate, of course, which is why healthcare analysts are on the "unintended consequences" lookout.
But buried in the weekend news dump was another jaw-dropper -- the "honor system" subsidy-allocation farce, which Kevin covered here. The Wall Street Journal explains why this additional punt represents another discrete and gargantuan Obamacare failure:
"HHS now says it will no longer attempt to verify individual eligibility for insurance subsidies and instead will rely on self-reporting, with minimal efforts to verify if the information consumers provide is accurate...HHS calls this "a slight technical correction" though it is much more than that. The exchanges will not only start dispensing benefits "based on an applicant's attestation" about his employment insurance status. HHS is also handing the exchanges "temporarily expanded discretion to accept an attestation of projected annual household income without further verification." In other words, anyone can receive subsidies tied to income without judging the income they declare against the income data the Internal Revenue Service collects. This change has nothing to do with the employer mandate, even tangentially. HHS is disowning eligibility quality control because pre-clearance is "not feasible" as a result of "operational barriers" and "a large amount of systems development on both the state and federal side, which cannot occur in time for October 1, 2013."
In other words, the employer mandate explains part of the coming verification-free subsidy bonanza, but not all of it. The income-related "pre-clearance" system -- aka, the much-balleyhooed 'Expedia-style' exchange that will instantaneously determine someone's eligibility for taxpayer subsidies -- "cannot occur in time" to meet the law's deadline. Rather than suffer another black eye by delaying a third huge piece of the law, the administration is ditching crucial operational safeguards in favor of handing out taxpayer subsidies like candy -- and hoping everyone is totally above-board about it.
We've been predicting for months that many of the exchanges wouldn't be ready for action once the Obamacare curtain went up. I guess it follows that the administration would broom the "cost-saving" measures (many Democrats have started abandoning the "affordable" part of the Affordable Care Act) in an effort to get as much money out the door as quickly as possible, in order to let the dependency take root. But what does any of this have to do with immigration reform? Well, aside from the fact that President Obama's signature "reform" is splattered all over a brick wall of federal incompetence and missed deadlines?
Two words: Executive discretion. Well-meaning actors like Rubio insist that the Senate bill ties the administration's hands and forces them to satisfy certain requirements that they would never abide otherwise. Even if DHS and other officials have technically been stripped of fairly wide-ranging authority, who's to say that the Obama administration will enforce any "draconian" elements of a hypothetical immigration law?
Think of it this way: Obamacare is 100% their baby; written by Democrats without Republican input, passed by Congressional Democrats without any Republican votes, and signed into law by the Democrat-in-chief. Even so, the president is unilaterally postponing and ignoring substantial sections of his own signature law. He's doing so both for political reasons and because implementation is a genuine debacle, but the "why" isn't important in this context.
The Obama administration has decided it can disregard mandatory, clearly-written provisions of a law it likes. Many Americans and their representatives in the House are left wondering why this administration should be trusted to faithfully execute elements of any immigration law they might oppose -- especially when the president already conspicuously ceased enforcement of an existing immigration law in a transparent election-year pander. To say nothing of other brazen acts of ideology-driven lawlessness.
Sweeping immigration reforms may not be down for the count, but in a delicious twist, it looks as though one Obama legacy project (Obamacare) is undercutting another (immigration reform) with each passing day. I'll leave you with the president offering a stirring ode to the wonders of government effectiveness (!) including this immortal line: "We all have a stake in government’s success, because the government is us, and we’re doing things right."
SOURCE
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
Media
1. Op-ed: Amnesty Bill No Benefit to American Workers
2. Op-ed: Senate (again) passes amnesty. High court decides marriage, voting rights.
3. TV: Mark Krikorian Interviewed on Outlook in the House
4. Video: An Interview with Frank Morris
5. Video: An Interview with Vernon Briggs
Publications
6. Immigrant Gains and Native Losses In the Job Market, 2000 to 2013
7. Biblical Prudence and the Senate Amnesty Bill
8. The Life of Julia, Amnesty Applicant
Blogs
9. Double Standard in Obamacare Favors Illegals
10. CEO's Bloated Pay Used to Increase Immigration, Depress Middle Class Incomes
11. Bipartisan Immigration Conventional Wisdom: Caveat Emptor
12. Uncle Sam Unwittingly Helps Fund Immigration-Related Marriage Fraud
13. President Obama's Big Bang Theory of Hispanic Reelection Support: Part 2
14. House Committee Votes to Admit More STEM Workers than the Supply of Them
Did Obamacare's Runaway Train Just Flatten Immigration Reform?
The lawlessness of a Democrat administration over healthcare makes trust in it impossible for rational actors
Flattened for good? Probably not. But the ongoing, slow-motion train wreck known as "Obamacare implementation" has dealt a body blow to Washington's latest massive undertaking. Here's Chuck Todd on Sunday's Meet the Press:
“Let me tell you something else, David. The White House had been so confident that they were going to sign immigration reform this year. But for the first time I am hearing that there is some doubt seeping in, that they think that maybe the House won’t act … The problem is there’s no trigger at the end of this year. … So I don’t know how this happens by the end of this year and suddenly now the White House doesn’t see a path to how this happens.”
What changed? First off, there's been the intense grassroots backlash against guys like Marco Rubio. Many House Republicans want no part of that. Then there's the updated CBO score of the Senate-passed bill, which projected that for all the many billions in new resources, the border enforcement mechanisms would only stem the tide of illegal crossings by 33 to 50 percent. Add these new millions to the millions of illegal immigrants already here who won't qualify for legalization, and you've got yourself a brand new "permanent underclass."
Even supporters of reform like yours truly can't stomach a comprehensive solution ostensibly designed to tackle this problem "once and for all" when it will do nothing of the sort as currently constituted.
Finally, we have the ever-present trust deficit. Americans -- especially conservatives -- simply do not trust the federal government to accomplish massive and complex projects with an adequate degree of competence or accountability. Enter Obamacare. That enormous and costly nascent government program has already reached a seminal moment of reckoning.
Facing a growing insurrection from businesses over the employer mandate's deleterious effects on hiring, the White House has bowed to economic reality by delaying a (second) significant Obamacare provision. This decision has ramifications beyond the employer mandate, of course, which is why healthcare analysts are on the "unintended consequences" lookout.
But buried in the weekend news dump was another jaw-dropper -- the "honor system" subsidy-allocation farce, which Kevin covered here. The Wall Street Journal explains why this additional punt represents another discrete and gargantuan Obamacare failure:
"HHS now says it will no longer attempt to verify individual eligibility for insurance subsidies and instead will rely on self-reporting, with minimal efforts to verify if the information consumers provide is accurate...HHS calls this "a slight technical correction" though it is much more than that. The exchanges will not only start dispensing benefits "based on an applicant's attestation" about his employment insurance status. HHS is also handing the exchanges "temporarily expanded discretion to accept an attestation of projected annual household income without further verification." In other words, anyone can receive subsidies tied to income without judging the income they declare against the income data the Internal Revenue Service collects. This change has nothing to do with the employer mandate, even tangentially. HHS is disowning eligibility quality control because pre-clearance is "not feasible" as a result of "operational barriers" and "a large amount of systems development on both the state and federal side, which cannot occur in time for October 1, 2013."
In other words, the employer mandate explains part of the coming verification-free subsidy bonanza, but not all of it. The income-related "pre-clearance" system -- aka, the much-balleyhooed 'Expedia-style' exchange that will instantaneously determine someone's eligibility for taxpayer subsidies -- "cannot occur in time" to meet the law's deadline. Rather than suffer another black eye by delaying a third huge piece of the law, the administration is ditching crucial operational safeguards in favor of handing out taxpayer subsidies like candy -- and hoping everyone is totally above-board about it.
We've been predicting for months that many of the exchanges wouldn't be ready for action once the Obamacare curtain went up. I guess it follows that the administration would broom the "cost-saving" measures (many Democrats have started abandoning the "affordable" part of the Affordable Care Act) in an effort to get as much money out the door as quickly as possible, in order to let the dependency take root. But what does any of this have to do with immigration reform? Well, aside from the fact that President Obama's signature "reform" is splattered all over a brick wall of federal incompetence and missed deadlines?
Two words: Executive discretion. Well-meaning actors like Rubio insist that the Senate bill ties the administration's hands and forces them to satisfy certain requirements that they would never abide otherwise. Even if DHS and other officials have technically been stripped of fairly wide-ranging authority, who's to say that the Obama administration will enforce any "draconian" elements of a hypothetical immigration law?
Think of it this way: Obamacare is 100% their baby; written by Democrats without Republican input, passed by Congressional Democrats without any Republican votes, and signed into law by the Democrat-in-chief. Even so, the president is unilaterally postponing and ignoring substantial sections of his own signature law. He's doing so both for political reasons and because implementation is a genuine debacle, but the "why" isn't important in this context.
The Obama administration has decided it can disregard mandatory, clearly-written provisions of a law it likes. Many Americans and their representatives in the House are left wondering why this administration should be trusted to faithfully execute elements of any immigration law they might oppose -- especially when the president already conspicuously ceased enforcement of an existing immigration law in a transparent election-year pander. To say nothing of other brazen acts of ideology-driven lawlessness.
Sweeping immigration reforms may not be down for the count, but in a delicious twist, it looks as though one Obama legacy project (Obamacare) is undercutting another (immigration reform) with each passing day. I'll leave you with the president offering a stirring ode to the wonders of government effectiveness (!) including this immortal line: "We all have a stake in government’s success, because the government is us, and we’re doing things right."
SOURCE
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
As the immigration debate in Congress moves from the Senate to the House, the Republican pointman for those who want to give citizenship to illegal immigrants is also switching from the Senate's most-likely White House 2016 candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to the House's, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
"We need to enforce our laws," Ryan told the City Club of Chicago on April 22. "We need to let legal immigrants come here legally. ... You have to have a system where you can get agricultural demand met. You have to have a system, going forward, that deals with future flow, so that we don't wind up like we did after 1996 and 1986 with broken immigration going into the future."
Ryan is right about one thing: How America handles the future flow of immigrants is essential to making sure that we do not repeat the mistake of the 1986 amnesty, which is what makes what he said next so nonsensical.
"We have to offer people a path to earned citizenship," Ryan said, "We have to invite people to come out of the shadows. We have to have a system that people have confidence in. It is a system whereby people who have been contributing here can get right with the law. It is a system that still respects the rule of law."
Again, Ryan should be congratulated for identifying the principle that must be at the center of any good immigration reform policy: respect for the rule of law.
Unfortunately, any policy that gives citizenship to illegal immigrants now, while pretending that future enforcement efforts will guarantee no illegal immigration in the future, will only guarantee the rule of law is undermined.
Just look at S. 744, the bill passed by the Senate and largely embraced by Ryan. Not only does S. 744 set strict immigration quotas for each sector of the economy for the next couple of years, it even sets wages for entire job categories. "Agricultural equipment operators" are to be paid exactly $11.30, under S. 744, while crop harvesters are set to make $9.17. There simply is no free-market justification for any of these wage controls.
And, while these initial quotas and controls do eventually expire, what replaces them is no better from a conservative free-market perspective. S. 744 creates a brand new government bureaucracy, called the Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research, charged with setting brand new quotas and wage controls for the future.
Does Ryan believe that the existing quotas and wage controls in S. 744 will properly manage future agricultural labor demand now? How much confidence does he have in Washington bureaucrats properly setting those quotas and wage controls in the future?
And, if Ryan is not a sudden convert to top-down government control of the economy, then what does he think will happen when the Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research misses its mark? That's right. More illegal immigration.
In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, even after S. 744 spends more than $46 billion on border security over the next ten years, including doubling the border patrol, there will still be about 7.5 million illegal immigrants left in the country.
And that assumes Obama actually follows through with the creation of a brand new E-verify system, which is highly doubtful considering he just unilaterally delayed implementation of Obamacare's equally burdensome employer mandate.
And what will Ryan suggest we do with that new illegal immigrant population 10 years from now? Self-deport? Of course not.
Instead, another "path to citizenship" will have to offered, more confidence will be lost in the system, and the rule of law will be undermined again.
SOURCE
Australian Labor Party government unveils hard line on asylum seekers who destroy passports
Long overdue
ASYLUM seekers who fly to Indonesia and dump their passports and identity papers before boarding people-smuggling boats to Australia will have their applications "sent to the back of the queue".
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will also unveil before the election a tougher test for refugee applications, and there are hopes of expanding the fly-home deportation policy for bogus asylum seekers that exists with Sri Lanka to new countries, including Indonesia.
But the get-tough approach will be balanced with an immediate order to free as many children as possible as the number of minors in detention climbs to 1800.
Under the new rules, which come into force immediately, applicants with identification papers will be dealt with first while those who destroy their papers or refuse to co-operate will be considered last.
Why we'll fight people smugglers
Immigration Minister Tony Burke confirmed the changes would apply to 20,000 asylum seekers who would now be processed after their applications had been kept in limbo for months. The changes did not require new legislation.
“If you refuse to co-operate in providing documents you're right at the back of the queue. That starts now,’’ Mr Burke said.
But Labor's shift in asylum-seeker policy falls short of the Coalition's previously announced position that there would be a "strong presumption that illegal boat people who have destroyed their documents not be given refugee status".In an exclusive column for The Sunday Telegraph today, Foreign Minister Bob Carr warned Australia's immigration policy risked being outsourced to criminals.
Senator Carr said: "If this persists we would see arrivals of close to 40,000 a year. That would be equivalent to nearly 20 per cent of our annual migration program - 20 per cent of our intake now being delivered by people smugglers.
"Do people smugglers screen out customers and only take those fleeing persecution? Don't be ridiculous. They're interested in $10,000 a head.
"Are we really prepared to allow criminal rackets to control a significant slice of our immigration program? To see that 40,000 figure rise higher?"
There are hopes a deal could be struck with Indonesia and other countries to deport failed asylum seekers, like the one already in place with Sri Lanka.
Senator Carr and Mr Burke signalled a willingness to consider the ideas of Jesuit law professor Father Frank Brennan, a confidant of Mr Rudd, who proposed flying failed asylum seekers "safely" back to Indonesia. While that would require a deal with Indonesia, Mr Burke said the scheme was working well with Sri Lanka, with 1200 flown back this year.
``If you don't activate our legal obligations I want you on a plane as quick as we can find one," Mr Burke said.
Senator Carr said: “Father Frank Brennan's contribution to the debate is welcome. With a humanitarian instinct and a concern for human rights, he recognises we need to break the people smugglers business model. That was behind his suggestion that Australia and Indonesia could enter into an arrangement to return asylum seekers from Australia to Indonesia for processing provided they had no fear of persecution in Indonesia.”
But he also confirmed he had ordered the release of 18 minors from a Tasmanian centre holding 300 children and teenagers. "I want children out of detention," Mr Burke said.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison rejected Indonesia's attack on Tony Abbott's "unilateral" policy to turn back boats. "We will make the decisions on our sides of the border," he said. But he said the Coalition was unhappy with the current situation where Australian vessels were rescuing asylum seekers in Indonesian waters then processing them under Australian law.
SOURCE
July 8, 2013
The population of Romania has shrunk by nearly eight per cent in a decade, largely thanks to emigration. Figures from the country’s latest census showed yesterday that numbers have fallen by 1.5million over the last ten years.
The key reason is that many younger Romanians have departed to work in countries including Spain and Italy, leaving behind an ageing population and falling birthrates.
The census figures were published in advance of the new wave of emigration expected at the end of the year. In January Britain will open its labour market to citizens of Romania and Bulgaria.
More than 100,000 Romanians and Bulgarians have already come to live in this country, but under EU freedom of labour rules their citizens will be able to take British jobs without restrictions from January.
In 1989, when Romania emerged from the Ceausescu communist dictatorship, the population was 23million.
David Cameron has come under pressure to maintain restrictions next year in spite of EU rules. Ministers are deeply aware of powerful indications that Britain faces a large new influx of migrants.
Romania and Bulgaria are both deeply mired in poverty compared to most EU countries.
A BBC Newsnight poll indicated in April that 8.2 per cent of Romanians and 13.6 per cent of Bulgarians are ready to consider travelling to Britain as a migration destination this year or next.
Britain is a much more likely destination country than Italy or Spain, which are both suffering very high unemployment as their governments enforce austerity to deal with the euro crisis.
Last month Police and immigration officials moved in to clear a ‘shanty town’ built by Romanian migrants in a leafy London suburb.
A total of 68 mainly Romanian squatters were found living in huts built from waste wood and plastic amid the filth of a tip at the former Hendon FC ground.
Many were given papers ordering them to leave but the deportation orders cannot be enforced for 30 days
The Roma travellers were given papers ordering them to leave the site which had 'danger' notices written in Romanian
Just five of those at the camp, which was featured in the Daily Mail earlier this month, were found to have the right to work in the UK.
The rest were offered flights back to Romania at a cost of £50 per ticket to the taxpayer. Only 19 took up the offer.
Those who didn't take the ticket were told they would have to leave the country within 30 days, but were released on to the street to live rough or in shelters.
It could cost up to £15,000 for police to find each of them, monitor them and eventually remove them.
London mayor Boris Johnson recently said that the country should give illegal immigrants amnesty.
He said the government had to be 'honest' that when someone has been in Britain for 15 or 20 years 'authorities no longer really pursue you'.
But the Prime Minister has rejected the idea, warning last week that it would send out a ‘terrible signal of Britain as a soft touch’.
The coalition has sought to take a tougher line on immigration, unveiling a raft of measures to curb benefit tourism and deport people in the UK illegally.
Appearing on his new monthly radio phone-in on LBC 97.3, the London Mayor said: 'This is a chronic problem and if you look at what has happened in this country over the last 20 years, we have continuously failed to evict anybody.
‘If you look at the number of people who are staying here illegally and you measure that against the number that are meant to be on planes, it is absolutely astonishingly small.
‘The culture of human rights, the immense power of the ambulance-chasing lawyers who immediately come in and offer people protection against eviction, insert all sorts of delays into the procedure. It is blindingly difficult to get people on to planes.
‘They melt away into the maquis, into the undergrowth, and they are lost again. It is one of the reasons people lost confidence in the immigration system.’
SOURCE
Australia: Boats rancour must be cured
THE domestic political poison that contaminates asylum-seeker policy has seen its latest manifestation with Kevin Rudd's absurd claim that a change of government in Australia could risk armed conflict between Australia and Indonesia.
Rudd would know this is a blunder. He can be expected to change his language while insisting he is not retreating. It is a reminder of the sustained Australian ineptitude that Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has stoically tolerated in recent years and the complacency in our attitudes towards Jakarta.
The destructiveness in the domestic debate virtually guarantees that Australia cannot stop the boats. The payback mentality is desperate and ferocious. The political purpose on both sides is to prove the other side cannot stem boat arrivals. By seeking to ensure each side is doomed to policy failure that mutual failure becomes a national failure.
Hopefully, Indonesia will have the maturity to handle Australia's immaturity on this issue. When Rudd travels to Indonesia this week he should be ruthlessly assessed by one test only: his ability to pursue Australia's national interest, not the Labor Party's election interest.
Tony Abbott has previously failed that test. But that failure does not constitute an exemption for Rudd. In 2011 Abbott deliberately destroyed Julia Gillard's main effort to halt the boats.
This was the Malaysian deal negotiated by former minister Chris Bowen based on a consensus of advice from our border control, immigration and national security officials.
Returning boat arrivals to Malaysia by plane within hours of their arrival would have been a lethal disincentive.
Abbott sabotaged the bill to re-establish this policy after the High Court's decision against it, with most judges embracing a false view of the Migration Act and a false reading of earlier parliamentary intentions.
It is probably the most irresponsible single action by Abbott in the 2010-13 parliament.
It guaranteed that Gillard would not stop the boats and this failure became integral to her removal as PM. Destroying the Malaysian policy was second only to his carbon tax campaign in Abbott's dismantling of Gillard's authority.
The Coalition's justification was human rights. It refused to accept the Malaysian policy for humanitarian reasons and it went further, insisting it would enter offshore processing deals only with nations that committed to the UN Refugee Convention.
It was obvious that Abbott, sooner or later, would pay a price for such sabotage in the name of humanitarianism.
An angry Gillard began a political campaign against Abbott's pledge in January last year that he would turn the boats back to Indonesia. "It is time for Australia to adopt turning the boats as its core policy," Abbott said.
He was influenced by three factors: official advice that turning boats, if possible, was the single most effective response; the fact that the Howard government did this for a time without formal political approval; and the obvious point that Indonesia could do more to stem the boats.
Labor has been deeply hostile to Abbott's policy because of the risks involved, its belief Indonesia will not agree and its view that Abbott is a hypocrite rejecting its own Malaysian policy but declaring he will turn boats on the water.
The stakes are high. If Abbott succeeded Labor would suffer the ignominy for years. Abbott and his spokesman, Scott Morrison have defined the terms: they will not infringe Indonesian sovereignty or territorial waters; there is no tow back to Indonesian ports; Abbott will fly to Jakarta within days of any election victory for talks with President Yudhoyono; and this is the sort of policy you only address from office, not opposition.
This highlights Rudd's advantage as incumbent. If Indonesia will acquiesce in turning some boats then why wouldn't Rudd try it first? Alternatively, will Rudd return from this week's Indonesian visit asserting he knows that President Yudhoyono won't wear Abbott's policy?
That would represent an unwise injection by Rudd of Indonesia into our election campaign. If combined with more warnings that Abbott's policy would risk armed conflict it would be a reckless danger to bilateral relations.
Rudd needs to be careful. Labor's management of Indonesian relations is unimpressive; witness his fiasco over the Oceanic Viking and Gillard's contemptuous ban on the live export trade, which personally dismayed the President and was an insult to the Indonesian nation.
Moreover, if Rudd maintains his line of attack, Abbott has the obvious reply: that Rudd has given up and thinks the boats cannot be stopped.
Morrison's message from his Indonesian visit is that "the (boat) problem is getting worse". In this situation Australia needs a decisive shift in policy.
The firm signal by the Rudd government of a tougher refugee determination process is an essential step: witness the public endorsement by Rudd and former minister Bowen of the position enunciated by Bob Carr that boat arrivals are mainly economic migrants.
This is largely accepted in the case of Sri Lankans with the evidence overwhelming in the case of Iranians. An analysis shows low rates of refugee approvals at the initial stage with the high approval rate (upwards of 90 per cent) the result of multiple appeal stages.
In a paper delivered last week, refugee activist and lawyer Frank Brennan confirmed the need for a fresh approach. Brennan advocated a policy of returning asylum-seekers to Indonesia based on mutual co-operation.
Brennan said: "The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees does not confer a right on asylum-seekers to enter the country of their choice or to choose the country which is to process their refugee claims."
He says the key provision is that contracting states cannot impose penalties on refugees because of "their illegal entry" provided they are "coming directly" from a territory where they were threatened.
In short, countries such as Australia have a "defensible view" to decide an asylum-seeker falls outside the scope for protection if such a person spends more than a short period in a third country.
Brennan said: "We are entitled to return safely to Indonesia persons who, when departing Indonesia for Australia, were no longer in direct flight but rather were engaged in secondary movement seeking a more favourable refugee status outcome or a more benign migration outcome." It is a critical point.
Brennan wants Australia to make its big play with Indonesia, not Malaysia. But that needs a new spirit of co-operation.
SOURCE
The path to citizenship vs. the rule of law
As the immigration debate in Congress moves from the Senate to the House, the Republican pointman for those who want to give citizenship to illegal immigrants is also switching from the Senate's most-likely White House 2016 candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to the House's, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
"We need to enforce our laws," Ryan told the City Club of Chicago on April 22. "We need to let legal immigrants come here legally. ... You have to have a system where you can get agricultural demand met. You have to have a system, going forward, that deals with future flow, so that we don't wind up like we did after 1996 and 1986 with broken immigration going into the future."
Ryan is right about one thing: How America handles the future flow of immigrants is essential to making sure that we do not repeat the mistake of the 1986 amnesty, which is what makes what he said next so nonsensical.
"We have to offer people a path to earned citizenship," Ryan said, "We have to invite people to come out of the shadows. We have to have a system that people have confidence in. It is a system whereby people who have been contributing here can get right with the law. It is a system that still respects the rule of law."
Again, Ryan should be congratulated for identifying the principle that must be at the center of any good immigration reform policy: respect for the rule of law.
Unfortunately, any policy that gives citizenship to illegal immigrants now, while pretending that future enforcement efforts will guarantee no illegal immigration in the future, will only guarantee the rule of law is undermined.
Just look at S. 744, the bill passed by the Senate and largely embraced by Ryan. Not only does S. 744 set strict immigration quotas for each sector of the economy for the next couple of years, it even sets wages for entire job categories. "Agricultural equipment operators" are to be paid exactly $11.30, under S. 744, while crop harvesters are set to make $9.17. There simply is no free-market justification for any of these wage controls.
And, while these initial quotas and controls do eventually expire, what replaces them is no better from a conservative free-market perspective. S. 744 creates a brand new government bureaucracy, called the Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research, charged with setting brand new quotas and wage controls for the future.
Does Ryan believe that the existing quotas and wage controls in S. 744 will properly manage future agricultural labor demand now? How much confidence does he have in Washington bureaucrats properly setting those quotas and wage controls in the future?
And, if Ryan is not a sudden convert to top-down government control of the economy, then what does he think will happen when the Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research misses its mark? That's right. More illegal immigration.
In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, even after S. 744 spends more than $46 billion on border security over the next ten years, including doubling the border patrol, there will still be about 7.5 million illegal immigrants left in the country.
And that assumes Obama actually follows through with the creation of a brand new E-verify system, which is highly doubtful considering he just unilaterally delayed implementation of Obamacare's equally burdensome employer mandate.
And what will Ryan suggest we do with that new illegal immigrant population 10 years from now? Self-deport? Of course not.
Instead, another "path to citizenship" will have to offered, more confidence will be lost in the system, and the rule of law will be undermined again.
SOURCE
Australian Labor Party government unveils hard line on asylum seekers who destroy passports
Long overdue
ASYLUM seekers who fly to Indonesia and dump their passports and identity papers before boarding people-smuggling boats to Australia will have their applications "sent to the back of the queue".
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will also unveil before the election a tougher test for refugee applications, and there are hopes of expanding the fly-home deportation policy for bogus asylum seekers that exists with Sri Lanka to new countries, including Indonesia.
But the get-tough approach will be balanced with an immediate order to free as many children as possible as the number of minors in detention climbs to 1800.
Under the new rules, which come into force immediately, applicants with identification papers will be dealt with first while those who destroy their papers or refuse to co-operate will be considered last.
Why we'll fight people smugglers
Immigration Minister Tony Burke confirmed the changes would apply to 20,000 asylum seekers who would now be processed after their applications had been kept in limbo for months. The changes did not require new legislation.
“If you refuse to co-operate in providing documents you're right at the back of the queue. That starts now,’’ Mr Burke said.
But Labor's shift in asylum-seeker policy falls short of the Coalition's previously announced position that there would be a "strong presumption that illegal boat people who have destroyed their documents not be given refugee status".In an exclusive column for The Sunday Telegraph today, Foreign Minister Bob Carr warned Australia's immigration policy risked being outsourced to criminals.
Senator Carr said: "If this persists we would see arrivals of close to 40,000 a year. That would be equivalent to nearly 20 per cent of our annual migration program - 20 per cent of our intake now being delivered by people smugglers.
"Do people smugglers screen out customers and only take those fleeing persecution? Don't be ridiculous. They're interested in $10,000 a head.
"Are we really prepared to allow criminal rackets to control a significant slice of our immigration program? To see that 40,000 figure rise higher?"
There are hopes a deal could be struck with Indonesia and other countries to deport failed asylum seekers, like the one already in place with Sri Lanka.
Senator Carr and Mr Burke signalled a willingness to consider the ideas of Jesuit law professor Father Frank Brennan, a confidant of Mr Rudd, who proposed flying failed asylum seekers "safely" back to Indonesia. While that would require a deal with Indonesia, Mr Burke said the scheme was working well with Sri Lanka, with 1200 flown back this year.
``If you don't activate our legal obligations I want you on a plane as quick as we can find one," Mr Burke said.
Senator Carr said: “Father Frank Brennan's contribution to the debate is welcome. With a humanitarian instinct and a concern for human rights, he recognises we need to break the people smugglers business model. That was behind his suggestion that Australia and Indonesia could enter into an arrangement to return asylum seekers from Australia to Indonesia for processing provided they had no fear of persecution in Indonesia.”
But he also confirmed he had ordered the release of 18 minors from a Tasmanian centre holding 300 children and teenagers. "I want children out of detention," Mr Burke said.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison rejected Indonesia's attack on Tony Abbott's "unilateral" policy to turn back boats. "We will make the decisions on our sides of the border," he said. But he said the Coalition was unhappy with the current situation where Australian vessels were rescuing asylum seekers in Indonesian waters then processing them under Australian law.
SOURCE
July 8, 2013
How 1.5MILLION Romanians have left their homeland in a decade as immigrants head west in droves. Britain concerned about new exodus
The population of Romania has shrunk by nearly eight per cent in a decade, largely thanks to emigration. Figures from the country’s latest census showed yesterday that numbers have fallen by 1.5million over the last ten years.
The key reason is that many younger Romanians have departed to work in countries including Spain and Italy, leaving behind an ageing population and falling birthrates.
The census figures were published in advance of the new wave of emigration expected at the end of the year. In January Britain will open its labour market to citizens of Romania and Bulgaria.
More than 100,000 Romanians and Bulgarians have already come to live in this country, but under EU freedom of labour rules their citizens will be able to take British jobs without restrictions from January.
In 1989, when Romania emerged from the Ceausescu communist dictatorship, the population was 23million.
David Cameron has come under pressure to maintain restrictions next year in spite of EU rules. Ministers are deeply aware of powerful indications that Britain faces a large new influx of migrants.
Romania and Bulgaria are both deeply mired in poverty compared to most EU countries.
A BBC Newsnight poll indicated in April that 8.2 per cent of Romanians and 13.6 per cent of Bulgarians are ready to consider travelling to Britain as a migration destination this year or next.
Britain is a much more likely destination country than Italy or Spain, which are both suffering very high unemployment as their governments enforce austerity to deal with the euro crisis.
Last month Police and immigration officials moved in to clear a ‘shanty town’ built by Romanian migrants in a leafy London suburb.
A total of 68 mainly Romanian squatters were found living in huts built from waste wood and plastic amid the filth of a tip at the former Hendon FC ground.
Many were given papers ordering them to leave but the deportation orders cannot be enforced for 30 days
The Roma travellers were given papers ordering them to leave the site which had 'danger' notices written in Romanian
Just five of those at the camp, which was featured in the Daily Mail earlier this month, were found to have the right to work in the UK.
The rest were offered flights back to Romania at a cost of £50 per ticket to the taxpayer. Only 19 took up the offer.
Those who didn't take the ticket were told they would have to leave the country within 30 days, but were released on to the street to live rough or in shelters.
It could cost up to £15,000 for police to find each of them, monitor them and eventually remove them.
London mayor Boris Johnson recently said that the country should give illegal immigrants amnesty.
He said the government had to be 'honest' that when someone has been in Britain for 15 or 20 years 'authorities no longer really pursue you'.
But the Prime Minister has rejected the idea, warning last week that it would send out a ‘terrible signal of Britain as a soft touch’.
The coalition has sought to take a tougher line on immigration, unveiling a raft of measures to curb benefit tourism and deport people in the UK illegally.
Appearing on his new monthly radio phone-in on LBC 97.3, the London Mayor said: 'This is a chronic problem and if you look at what has happened in this country over the last 20 years, we have continuously failed to evict anybody.
‘If you look at the number of people who are staying here illegally and you measure that against the number that are meant to be on planes, it is absolutely astonishingly small.
‘The culture of human rights, the immense power of the ambulance-chasing lawyers who immediately come in and offer people protection against eviction, insert all sorts of delays into the procedure. It is blindingly difficult to get people on to planes.
‘They melt away into the maquis, into the undergrowth, and they are lost again. It is one of the reasons people lost confidence in the immigration system.’
SOURCE
Australia: Boats rancour must be cured
THE domestic political poison that contaminates asylum-seeker policy has seen its latest manifestation with Kevin Rudd's absurd claim that a change of government in Australia could risk armed conflict between Australia and Indonesia.
Rudd would know this is a blunder. He can be expected to change his language while insisting he is not retreating. It is a reminder of the sustained Australian ineptitude that Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has stoically tolerated in recent years and the complacency in our attitudes towards Jakarta.
The destructiveness in the domestic debate virtually guarantees that Australia cannot stop the boats. The payback mentality is desperate and ferocious. The political purpose on both sides is to prove the other side cannot stem boat arrivals. By seeking to ensure each side is doomed to policy failure that mutual failure becomes a national failure.
Hopefully, Indonesia will have the maturity to handle Australia's immaturity on this issue. When Rudd travels to Indonesia this week he should be ruthlessly assessed by one test only: his ability to pursue Australia's national interest, not the Labor Party's election interest.
Tony Abbott has previously failed that test. But that failure does not constitute an exemption for Rudd. In 2011 Abbott deliberately destroyed Julia Gillard's main effort to halt the boats.
This was the Malaysian deal negotiated by former minister Chris Bowen based on a consensus of advice from our border control, immigration and national security officials.
Returning boat arrivals to Malaysia by plane within hours of their arrival would have been a lethal disincentive.
Abbott sabotaged the bill to re-establish this policy after the High Court's decision against it, with most judges embracing a false view of the Migration Act and a false reading of earlier parliamentary intentions.
It is probably the most irresponsible single action by Abbott in the 2010-13 parliament.
It guaranteed that Gillard would not stop the boats and this failure became integral to her removal as PM. Destroying the Malaysian policy was second only to his carbon tax campaign in Abbott's dismantling of Gillard's authority.
The Coalition's justification was human rights. It refused to accept the Malaysian policy for humanitarian reasons and it went further, insisting it would enter offshore processing deals only with nations that committed to the UN Refugee Convention.
It was obvious that Abbott, sooner or later, would pay a price for such sabotage in the name of humanitarianism.
An angry Gillard began a political campaign against Abbott's pledge in January last year that he would turn the boats back to Indonesia. "It is time for Australia to adopt turning the boats as its core policy," Abbott said.
He was influenced by three factors: official advice that turning boats, if possible, was the single most effective response; the fact that the Howard government did this for a time without formal political approval; and the obvious point that Indonesia could do more to stem the boats.
Labor has been deeply hostile to Abbott's policy because of the risks involved, its belief Indonesia will not agree and its view that Abbott is a hypocrite rejecting its own Malaysian policy but declaring he will turn boats on the water.
The stakes are high. If Abbott succeeded Labor would suffer the ignominy for years. Abbott and his spokesman, Scott Morrison have defined the terms: they will not infringe Indonesian sovereignty or territorial waters; there is no tow back to Indonesian ports; Abbott will fly to Jakarta within days of any election victory for talks with President Yudhoyono; and this is the sort of policy you only address from office, not opposition.
This highlights Rudd's advantage as incumbent. If Indonesia will acquiesce in turning some boats then why wouldn't Rudd try it first? Alternatively, will Rudd return from this week's Indonesian visit asserting he knows that President Yudhoyono won't wear Abbott's policy?
That would represent an unwise injection by Rudd of Indonesia into our election campaign. If combined with more warnings that Abbott's policy would risk armed conflict it would be a reckless danger to bilateral relations.
Rudd needs to be careful. Labor's management of Indonesian relations is unimpressive; witness his fiasco over the Oceanic Viking and Gillard's contemptuous ban on the live export trade, which personally dismayed the President and was an insult to the Indonesian nation.
Moreover, if Rudd maintains his line of attack, Abbott has the obvious reply: that Rudd has given up and thinks the boats cannot be stopped.
Morrison's message from his Indonesian visit is that "the (boat) problem is getting worse". In this situation Australia needs a decisive shift in policy.
The firm signal by the Rudd government of a tougher refugee determination process is an essential step: witness the public endorsement by Rudd and former minister Bowen of the position enunciated by Bob Carr that boat arrivals are mainly economic migrants.
This is largely accepted in the case of Sri Lankans with the evidence overwhelming in the case of Iranians. An analysis shows low rates of refugee approvals at the initial stage with the high approval rate (upwards of 90 per cent) the result of multiple appeal stages.
In a paper delivered last week, refugee activist and lawyer Frank Brennan confirmed the need for a fresh approach. Brennan advocated a policy of returning asylum-seekers to Indonesia based on mutual co-operation.
Brennan said: "The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees does not confer a right on asylum-seekers to enter the country of their choice or to choose the country which is to process their refugee claims."
He says the key provision is that contracting states cannot impose penalties on refugees because of "their illegal entry" provided they are "coming directly" from a territory where they were threatened.
In short, countries such as Australia have a "defensible view" to decide an asylum-seeker falls outside the scope for protection if such a person spends more than a short period in a third country.
Brennan said: "We are entitled to return safely to Indonesia persons who, when departing Indonesia for Australia, were no longer in direct flight but rather were engaged in secondary movement seeking a more favourable refugee status outcome or a more benign migration outcome." It is a critical point.
Brennan wants Australia to make its big play with Indonesia, not Malaysia. But that needs a new spirit of co-operation.
SOURCE
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Foreign-born employment up 5.3 million since 2000,
US-born down 1.3 million
A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of government data shows that from the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2013 the number of native-born Americans holding a job fell by 1.3 million, even though the overall size of the working-age (16 to 65) native population increased by 16.4 million. Over the same time period, the number of immigrants (legal and illegal) working increased 5.3 million. There has also been a broad decline in the percentage of natives holding a job, impacting almost every age, education level, and race.
The main justification for the large increases in permanent immigration and guest workers in the Schumer-Rubio bill (S.744) is that the nation does not have enough workers. But in the first quarter of this year nearly 59 million working-age natives were not working - unemployed or entirely out of the labor force. This figure is little changed in the last three years and is almost 18 million larger than in 2000.
"Given the employment situation, the dramatic increases in legal immigration in the Gang of Eight immigration bill seems grossly out of touch with the realities of the U.S. labor market," observed Steven Camarota, the report's co-author and the Center's Director of Research.
Among the report's findings (all figures compare first quarter employment): http://www.cis.org/immigrant-gains-native-losses-in-the-job-market-2000-to-2013
* The overall size of the working-age (16 to 65) native-born population increased by 16.4 million from 2000 to 2013, yet the number of natives actually holding a job was 1.3 million lower in 2013 than 2000.
* The total number of working-age immigrants (legal and illegal) increased 8.8 million, and the number working rose 5.3 million between 2000 and 2013.
* Since the jobs recovery began in 2010, about half the employment growth has gone to immigrants. However the share of working-age (16 to 65) natives holding a job has remained virtually unchanged and as has the number not working - nearly 59 million.
* The decline in the share of natives working, also referred as the employment rate, began before the 2007 recession. In 2000 74 percent of working-age natives had a job, by 2007 at the peak of the last expansion just 71 percent worked, and in the first quarter of 2013 66 percent had a job.
* The decline in employment rates for working-age natives has been nearly universal. The share of native teenagers as well as those in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s declined from 2000 to 2007 and from 2007 to 2013. The decline for those under 30 has been especially pronounced.
* The employment rate declined for natives of virtually every education level from 2000 to 2007 and from 2007 to 2013.
* The number of adult natives with no more than a high school education not working is up 4.9 million since 2000, it is up 6.8 million for those with some college and up 3.8 million for those with at least a bachelor's degree.
* The decline in work, which began before 2007, has impacted men and women; as well as blacks, Hispanics and whites. Native-born men, blacks, and Hispanics have been hit the hardest.
* During the five years prior to 2013 (2008-2012), about 5.4 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) of all ages arrived in the United States. In the 5 years prior to 2007, about 6.6 million new immigrants arrived. Thus during the worst economic slowdown in the last 75 years, immigration fell by only 17 percent compared to the expansion of 2002-2006.
View the Senate bill, CIS Senate testimony and commentary at: http://cis.org/Border-Security-Economic-Opportunity-Immigration-Modernization-Act
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Australia: Refugee claims reopen as Labor Party admits mistakes
IMMIGRATION officials have begun assessing asylum-seekers' refugee claims for the first time since processing was suspended almost 12 months ago, a move that created a backlog of more than 22,000 cases.
As Kevin Rudd prepared to fly to Jakarta today for talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that will cover trade and asylum-seekers, Immigration Minister Tony Burke yesterday admitted Labor had been too slow to act on people-smuggling as it took hold in 2009, and distanced the government from Julia Gillard's Malaysia Solution.
In an interview with The Australian yesterday, Mr Burke said asylum-seeker processing resumed on Monday and he flagged changes to the no-advantage test, a cornerstone of Labor's policy that requires boat arrivals to wait for at least as long as those seeking refugee status through official UN channels.
The Prime Minister last night joined his new Immigration Minister in admitting his government got things wrong in 2009 when it failed to stop the burgeoning people-smuggling trade.
Mr Rudd said Labor's softening of the Howard-era policies a year earlier, which most agree spurred the revival of the smuggling trade, was consistent with an election promise Labor made in opposition.
But that promise had been offered at a time when the international refugee situation was more benign.
"If we've made a mistake, let me just say this, it was in perhaps not being quick enough to respond to the new change in external circumstances, with an outflow from Sri Lanka from a civil war in 2009-10," Mr Rudd told the ABC's 7.30.
Mr Burke was more blunt, saying Labor "didn't get the policy right" in 2009. "At that point, we needed to change our policy settings to match and anticipate the changed international situation and we didn't," he said. "And that is where I believe the error was made."
Mr Burke played down suggestions the Malaysian people swap agreement, which was negotiated during Ms Gillard's prime ministership, might play a role in Labor's future asylum policy.
"Malaysia, for when it was announced, would have worked for the problem that we had in front of us then," Mr Burke said.
"The problem that we have as a result of it being blocked by the Liberal Party teaming up with the Greens, we have a situation now where the problem is much worse."
Mr Burke warned the opposition was making the same mistake Labor had made in 2009 by assuming that policies of the past were suited to the problems of the present. "The suggestion from Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison that you can simply photocopy the 2001 policy setting and they'll work for the modern world is just plain wrong and absurd," he said.
The remarks by the Prime Minister and the Immigration Minister are clear signs Labor is looking to fight back on the asylum-seeker issue, which has dragged down Labor's vote across the country, particularly in western Sydney, where Mr Burke holds his seat.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa last night made clear the Yudhoyono administration would not accept proposals for any Indonesia-focused "solution" to Australia's asylum-seekers problem at tomorrow's summit with Mr Rudd.
Mr Natalegawa underlined Jakarta's rejection of suggestions surfacing in Canberra this week that Mr Rudd might pursue options such as an Indonesian processing centre for asylum-seekers.
"Historically, various options have been put forward by Australia," he said after a briefing with President Yudhoyono on the agenda for the Bogor summit.
"There is the so-called Pacific Solution, Malaysia Solution, Timor Leste Solution and so on, but we are consistent that resolution of this problem cannot be carried by one country."
Indonesia would continue to press for an integrated approach to irregular immigration that engaged all countries: origin, transit and destination.
As part of Labor's renewed push on the issue, Mr Rudd yesterday wrote to Mr Abbott offering the Opposition Leader a series of high-level, confidential briefings with intelligence agencies on the subject of people-smuggling.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr has been leading the charge on behalf of the government, saying asylum-seeker boats are increasingly stocked with economic migrants rorting the refugee system.
Critics have said the government's claims are speculative as it cannot claim any real insight into who is arriving or why, as claims have not been processed.
Mr Burke said as Immigration Minister he was the ultimate decision-maker in refugee applications, meaning he was constrained in what he could say on the subject. But he had "absolutely no doubt" some were trying to game the system.
"The points that (Bob Carr) has raised match what's been said to me during briefings in terms of some of the key examples of people attempting to rort the system," Mr Burke said.
He flagged changes to the no-advantage test, saying he expected to offer a clearer definition of the principles behind it.
The test has been criticised as too vague, with critics pointing out that wait-times for Australian permanent residency visas vary from region to region, making its practical application difficult.
SOURCE
All U.S. Employment Growth in Last Decade Went to Immigrants
Foreign-born employment up 5.3 million since 2000,
US-born down 1.3 million
A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of government data shows that from the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2013 the number of native-born Americans holding a job fell by 1.3 million, even though the overall size of the working-age (16 to 65) native population increased by 16.4 million. Over the same time period, the number of immigrants (legal and illegal) working increased 5.3 million. There has also been a broad decline in the percentage of natives holding a job, impacting almost every age, education level, and race.
The main justification for the large increases in permanent immigration and guest workers in the Schumer-Rubio bill (S.744) is that the nation does not have enough workers. But in the first quarter of this year nearly 59 million working-age natives were not working - unemployed or entirely out of the labor force. This figure is little changed in the last three years and is almost 18 million larger than in 2000.
"Given the employment situation, the dramatic increases in legal immigration in the Gang of Eight immigration bill seems grossly out of touch with the realities of the U.S. labor market," observed Steven Camarota, the report's co-author and the Center's Director of Research.
Among the report's findings (all figures compare first quarter employment): http://www.cis.org/immigrant-gains-native-losses-in-the-job-market-2000-to-2013
* The overall size of the working-age (16 to 65) native-born population increased by 16.4 million from 2000 to 2013, yet the number of natives actually holding a job was 1.3 million lower in 2013 than 2000.
* The total number of working-age immigrants (legal and illegal) increased 8.8 million, and the number working rose 5.3 million between 2000 and 2013.
* Since the jobs recovery began in 2010, about half the employment growth has gone to immigrants. However the share of working-age (16 to 65) natives holding a job has remained virtually unchanged and as has the number not working - nearly 59 million.
* The decline in the share of natives working, also referred as the employment rate, began before the 2007 recession. In 2000 74 percent of working-age natives had a job, by 2007 at the peak of the last expansion just 71 percent worked, and in the first quarter of 2013 66 percent had a job.
* The decline in employment rates for working-age natives has been nearly universal. The share of native teenagers as well as those in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s declined from 2000 to 2007 and from 2007 to 2013. The decline for those under 30 has been especially pronounced.
* The employment rate declined for natives of virtually every education level from 2000 to 2007 and from 2007 to 2013.
* The number of adult natives with no more than a high school education not working is up 4.9 million since 2000, it is up 6.8 million for those with some college and up 3.8 million for those with at least a bachelor's degree.
* The decline in work, which began before 2007, has impacted men and women; as well as blacks, Hispanics and whites. Native-born men, blacks, and Hispanics have been hit the hardest.
* During the five years prior to 2013 (2008-2012), about 5.4 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) of all ages arrived in the United States. In the 5 years prior to 2007, about 6.6 million new immigrants arrived. Thus during the worst economic slowdown in the last 75 years, immigration fell by only 17 percent compared to the expansion of 2002-2006.
View the Senate bill, CIS Senate testimony and commentary at: http://cis.org/Border-Security-Economic-Opportunity-Immigration-Modernization-Act
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Australia: Refugee claims reopen as Labor Party admits mistakes
IMMIGRATION officials have begun assessing asylum-seekers' refugee claims for the first time since processing was suspended almost 12 months ago, a move that created a backlog of more than 22,000 cases.
As Kevin Rudd prepared to fly to Jakarta today for talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that will cover trade and asylum-seekers, Immigration Minister Tony Burke yesterday admitted Labor had been too slow to act on people-smuggling as it took hold in 2009, and distanced the government from Julia Gillard's Malaysia Solution.
In an interview with The Australian yesterday, Mr Burke said asylum-seeker processing resumed on Monday and he flagged changes to the no-advantage test, a cornerstone of Labor's policy that requires boat arrivals to wait for at least as long as those seeking refugee status through official UN channels.
The Prime Minister last night joined his new Immigration Minister in admitting his government got things wrong in 2009 when it failed to stop the burgeoning people-smuggling trade.
Mr Rudd said Labor's softening of the Howard-era policies a year earlier, which most agree spurred the revival of the smuggling trade, was consistent with an election promise Labor made in opposition.
But that promise had been offered at a time when the international refugee situation was more benign.
"If we've made a mistake, let me just say this, it was in perhaps not being quick enough to respond to the new change in external circumstances, with an outflow from Sri Lanka from a civil war in 2009-10," Mr Rudd told the ABC's 7.30.
Mr Burke was more blunt, saying Labor "didn't get the policy right" in 2009. "At that point, we needed to change our policy settings to match and anticipate the changed international situation and we didn't," he said. "And that is where I believe the error was made."
Mr Burke played down suggestions the Malaysian people swap agreement, which was negotiated during Ms Gillard's prime ministership, might play a role in Labor's future asylum policy.
"Malaysia, for when it was announced, would have worked for the problem that we had in front of us then," Mr Burke said.
"The problem that we have as a result of it being blocked by the Liberal Party teaming up with the Greens, we have a situation now where the problem is much worse."
Mr Burke warned the opposition was making the same mistake Labor had made in 2009 by assuming that policies of the past were suited to the problems of the present. "The suggestion from Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison that you can simply photocopy the 2001 policy setting and they'll work for the modern world is just plain wrong and absurd," he said.
The remarks by the Prime Minister and the Immigration Minister are clear signs Labor is looking to fight back on the asylum-seeker issue, which has dragged down Labor's vote across the country, particularly in western Sydney, where Mr Burke holds his seat.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa last night made clear the Yudhoyono administration would not accept proposals for any Indonesia-focused "solution" to Australia's asylum-seekers problem at tomorrow's summit with Mr Rudd.
Mr Natalegawa underlined Jakarta's rejection of suggestions surfacing in Canberra this week that Mr Rudd might pursue options such as an Indonesian processing centre for asylum-seekers.
"Historically, various options have been put forward by Australia," he said after a briefing with President Yudhoyono on the agenda for the Bogor summit.
"There is the so-called Pacific Solution, Malaysia Solution, Timor Leste Solution and so on, but we are consistent that resolution of this problem cannot be carried by one country."
Indonesia would continue to press for an integrated approach to irregular immigration that engaged all countries: origin, transit and destination.
As part of Labor's renewed push on the issue, Mr Rudd yesterday wrote to Mr Abbott offering the Opposition Leader a series of high-level, confidential briefings with intelligence agencies on the subject of people-smuggling.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr has been leading the charge on behalf of the government, saying asylum-seeker boats are increasingly stocked with economic migrants rorting the refugee system.
Critics have said the government's claims are speculative as it cannot claim any real insight into who is arriving or why, as claims have not been processed.
Mr Burke said as Immigration Minister he was the ultimate decision-maker in refugee applications, meaning he was constrained in what he could say on the subject. But he had "absolutely no doubt" some were trying to game the system.
"The points that (Bob Carr) has raised match what's been said to me during briefings in terms of some of the key examples of people attempting to rort the system," Mr Burke said.
He flagged changes to the no-advantage test, saying he expected to offer a clearer definition of the principles behind it.
The test has been criticised as too vague, with critics pointing out that wait-times for Australian permanent residency visas vary from region to region, making its practical application difficult.
SOURCE
Friday, July 5, 2013
Ann Coulter
We keep hearing insistent claims that if Republicans don't pass amnesty yesterday it will be the end of the party.
Can I see the math on that? I can see why bringing in 30 million new Democratic voters would be good for the Democrats, but how does it help Republicans? Maybe conservatives shouldn't blindly trust the calculations of the guy who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy.
If I were a Democrat, I would have tried to sneak this bill past Republicans by proposing amnesty only after reaching some easily rigged benchmarks. But, apparently, Chuck Schumer knows elected Republicans better than I do.
Step One: Everyone's amnestied. Step Two: After they're amnestied, they can bring in all their relatives.
If Hispanics voted 50.1 percent for Democrats, amnesty would be a bad deal for Republicans. But, in fact, they vote 70 percent to 80 percent for Democrats. How did it become an urgent priority for Republicans to bring in 30 million new voters, 80 percent of whom will vote Democratic?
Democrats want 30 million new voters and they will say anything to get there:
-- It's a crisis! Illegal immigrants are "living in the shadows"!
That's not a "crisis." At most -- and this is highly dubious -- it's a crisis for the illegal immigrants. But evidently, "living in the shadows" is at least better than living in Guadalajara. Otherwise, there's an easy solution.
We're told, "You don't know what it's like to live in the shadows!" Yes, you're right, and that proves it's not a crisis.
Sorry to sound legalistic, illegal aliens, but you broke the law and -- look me in the eye -- you know you broke the law. You hid in the backs of trucks, traveled across remote desert locations, ran from U.S. agents and stole American IDs.
It's supposed to be uncomfortable to break the law. We aren't required to grant amnesty to people just because they've put themselves in the awkward position of being here illegally. (Or because the Democrats need 30 million new voters.)
SOURCE
True toll of mass migration on UK life: Half of Britons suffer under strain placed on schools, police, NHS and housing
The full impact of mass immigration on British life was laid bare last night by a Home Office report.
It said that half the population lives in a town or city which has experienced high levels of immigration over the past decade.
Ministers said this ‘uncontrolled’ flow had caused a number of problems for wider society, ranging from pressure on maternity services, high rates of infectious diseases and a squeeze on school places, to disproportionate levels of some types of crime, inflated rents and immigrants living in ‘beds in sheds’.
In the landmark report, Home Office researchers studied every one of the 348 local authority areas in the country.
Each was examined to see if it had accommodated high levels of asylum seekers, low-skilled workers, foreign students and other migrant groups.
Overall, migration was found to have had a major impact in 127 of the areas, covering half of the total population.
These ranged from areas of London used to coping with large influxes of newcomers to small market towns.
The report was published as ministers promised tough action to reduce the ‘pull factors’ that draw migrants to Britain.
Landlords will be fined up to £3,000 if they rent a property to an illegal immigrant. Homeowners who simply rent out a spare room to them could be fined £80 for a first offence.
Non-EU migrants will be expected to pay a health levy of £200 a year to access the NHS if they do not have private healthcare.
There will be an extra charge for maternity care and sick migrants could even be denied access to organ transplants.
Immigration Minister Mark Harper said: ‘This report highlights the significant impact high levels of migration have had on UK communities.
‘It emphasises the importance of protecting our public services and taking a robust approach against those who come here to exploit our welfare system.’
The report – titled Social and Public Service Impacts of International Migration at the Local Level – says that every year since 1998 net migration has been above 100,000, peaking at 255,000 in 2010.
In only seven years, between 2004 and 2011, the number of Poles living in the UK leapt from 69,000 to 687,000.
The report studies the impact different groups of immigrants are having on health, education, social services, housing, policing and the jobs market.
While acknowledging the hugely important work carried out by foreign doctors and nurses, researchers revealed a string of pressures on the NHS.
They said that, in a single year, 73 per cent of TB cases reported in the UK, almost 60 per cent of newly diagnosed cases of HIV, and 80 per cent of hepatitis B-infected UK blood donors were from those who were born outside of the UK.
It also says foreign-born women are having more children, an average of 2.28 each compared to 1.89 for UK-born women.
Experts questioned by the Home Office agreed the ‘high birth rates of some migrant groups produce additional demands on midwifery, maternity and health visiting services’.
Health staff said that appointments and visits could take twice as long where patients had poor English, putting significant pressure on other workloads.
On schools, it said the presence of some groups of migrant children had helped to drive up standards, but warned that some areas were finding the ‘churn’ of pupils hard to cope with.
Researchers also said that, in some areas, ‘demand for primary school places outstrips, or almost outstrips, supply’ for migrant children.
Social services said that ‘interpretation costs for migrants who cannot speak English are high due to the need for confidentiality and accuracy’.
In housing, large numbers of low-skilled migrants wanting to rent in the private sector is driving up prices.
Researchers warned of ‘inflated rents, unregistered houses of multiple occupation, exploitation by unscrupulous landlords, waste management and pest control issues that can quickly spread’.
They also highlighted the problem of so-called ‘beds in sheds’.
Yesterday, seven men including illegal immigrants were arrested in West London as part of a series of immigration raids on properties where migrants were living in out-houses.
On crime, the study found that some groups, such as failed asylum seekers who could not be sent home and jobless eastern Europeans, were ‘disproportionately involved in crimes like shoplifting and disorderly behaviour’.
However, it added that destitute Britons were also likely to be ‘disproportionately’ involved in these offences.
Police said it was clear that some migrants who entered the UK on a student visa were not actually studying and were instead working illegally.
On jobs, researchers highlighted findings by the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee of the potential for migrants to displace non-migrant labour.
MAC found that for every 100 non-EU workers employed in the UK, the number of UK workers fell by 23.
Mr Harper said net migration had now been reduced to 163,000 a year, and added: ‘If we do not implement the proper controls, communities can be damaged, resources will be stretched and the benefits that immigration can bring are lost or forgotten.’
SOURCE
I Got 30 Million Reasons
Ann Coulter
We keep hearing insistent claims that if Republicans don't pass amnesty yesterday it will be the end of the party.
Can I see the math on that? I can see why bringing in 30 million new Democratic voters would be good for the Democrats, but how does it help Republicans? Maybe conservatives shouldn't blindly trust the calculations of the guy who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy.
If I were a Democrat, I would have tried to sneak this bill past Republicans by proposing amnesty only after reaching some easily rigged benchmarks. But, apparently, Chuck Schumer knows elected Republicans better than I do.
Step One: Everyone's amnestied. Step Two: After they're amnestied, they can bring in all their relatives.
If Hispanics voted 50.1 percent for Democrats, amnesty would be a bad deal for Republicans. But, in fact, they vote 70 percent to 80 percent for Democrats. How did it become an urgent priority for Republicans to bring in 30 million new voters, 80 percent of whom will vote Democratic?
Democrats want 30 million new voters and they will say anything to get there:
-- It's a crisis! Illegal immigrants are "living in the shadows"!
That's not a "crisis." At most -- and this is highly dubious -- it's a crisis for the illegal immigrants. But evidently, "living in the shadows" is at least better than living in Guadalajara. Otherwise, there's an easy solution.
We're told, "You don't know what it's like to live in the shadows!" Yes, you're right, and that proves it's not a crisis.
Sorry to sound legalistic, illegal aliens, but you broke the law and -- look me in the eye -- you know you broke the law. You hid in the backs of trucks, traveled across remote desert locations, ran from U.S. agents and stole American IDs.
It's supposed to be uncomfortable to break the law. We aren't required to grant amnesty to people just because they've put themselves in the awkward position of being here illegally. (Or because the Democrats need 30 million new voters.)
SOURCE
True toll of mass migration on UK life: Half of Britons suffer under strain placed on schools, police, NHS and housing
The full impact of mass immigration on British life was laid bare last night by a Home Office report.
It said that half the population lives in a town or city which has experienced high levels of immigration over the past decade.
Ministers said this ‘uncontrolled’ flow had caused a number of problems for wider society, ranging from pressure on maternity services, high rates of infectious diseases and a squeeze on school places, to disproportionate levels of some types of crime, inflated rents and immigrants living in ‘beds in sheds’.
In the landmark report, Home Office researchers studied every one of the 348 local authority areas in the country.
Each was examined to see if it had accommodated high levels of asylum seekers, low-skilled workers, foreign students and other migrant groups.
Overall, migration was found to have had a major impact in 127 of the areas, covering half of the total population.
These ranged from areas of London used to coping with large influxes of newcomers to small market towns.
The report was published as ministers promised tough action to reduce the ‘pull factors’ that draw migrants to Britain.
Landlords will be fined up to £3,000 if they rent a property to an illegal immigrant. Homeowners who simply rent out a spare room to them could be fined £80 for a first offence.
Non-EU migrants will be expected to pay a health levy of £200 a year to access the NHS if they do not have private healthcare.
There will be an extra charge for maternity care and sick migrants could even be denied access to organ transplants.
Immigration Minister Mark Harper said: ‘This report highlights the significant impact high levels of migration have had on UK communities.
‘It emphasises the importance of protecting our public services and taking a robust approach against those who come here to exploit our welfare system.’
The report – titled Social and Public Service Impacts of International Migration at the Local Level – says that every year since 1998 net migration has been above 100,000, peaking at 255,000 in 2010.
In only seven years, between 2004 and 2011, the number of Poles living in the UK leapt from 69,000 to 687,000.
The report studies the impact different groups of immigrants are having on health, education, social services, housing, policing and the jobs market.
While acknowledging the hugely important work carried out by foreign doctors and nurses, researchers revealed a string of pressures on the NHS.
They said that, in a single year, 73 per cent of TB cases reported in the UK, almost 60 per cent of newly diagnosed cases of HIV, and 80 per cent of hepatitis B-infected UK blood donors were from those who were born outside of the UK.
It also says foreign-born women are having more children, an average of 2.28 each compared to 1.89 for UK-born women.
Experts questioned by the Home Office agreed the ‘high birth rates of some migrant groups produce additional demands on midwifery, maternity and health visiting services’.
Health staff said that appointments and visits could take twice as long where patients had poor English, putting significant pressure on other workloads.
On schools, it said the presence of some groups of migrant children had helped to drive up standards, but warned that some areas were finding the ‘churn’ of pupils hard to cope with.
Researchers also said that, in some areas, ‘demand for primary school places outstrips, or almost outstrips, supply’ for migrant children.
Social services said that ‘interpretation costs for migrants who cannot speak English are high due to the need for confidentiality and accuracy’.
In housing, large numbers of low-skilled migrants wanting to rent in the private sector is driving up prices.
Researchers warned of ‘inflated rents, unregistered houses of multiple occupation, exploitation by unscrupulous landlords, waste management and pest control issues that can quickly spread’.
They also highlighted the problem of so-called ‘beds in sheds’.
Yesterday, seven men including illegal immigrants were arrested in West London as part of a series of immigration raids on properties where migrants were living in out-houses.
On crime, the study found that some groups, such as failed asylum seekers who could not be sent home and jobless eastern Europeans, were ‘disproportionately involved in crimes like shoplifting and disorderly behaviour’.
However, it added that destitute Britons were also likely to be ‘disproportionately’ involved in these offences.
Police said it was clear that some migrants who entered the UK on a student visa were not actually studying and were instead working illegally.
On jobs, researchers highlighted findings by the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee of the potential for migrants to displace non-migrant labour.
MAC found that for every 100 non-EU workers employed in the UK, the number of UK workers fell by 23.
Mr Harper said net migration had now been reduced to 163,000 a year, and added: ‘If we do not implement the proper controls, communities can be damaged, resources will be stretched and the benefits that immigration can bring are lost or forgotten.’
SOURCE
Thursday, July 4, 2013
BBC did not reflect public view on immigration because of 'deep liberal bias', says review
The BBC did not accurately reflect the public's growing concern about immigration because of a "deep liberal bias", an official review has found.
The report, commissioned by the BBC Trust, found the broadcaster had been "slow" to catch up with public opinion on immigration and leaving the European Union.
Stuart Prebble, a former ITV television executive, said the BBC had probably been too swayed by the views of politicians, who were also reluctant to discuss immigration for fear of causing offence.
It said Helen Boaden, the former director of BBC News, "accepts that when she came into her role in September 2004 there had been a problem in the BBC's coverage of immigration. She was aware, she told us, of a 'deep liberal bias' in the way that the BBC approached the topic".
The review also heard evidence that the BBC is hamstrung by a "fundamental niceness" and reluctance to give offence.
"The BBC was slow to reflect the weight of concern in the wider community about issues arising from immigration. It remains the case that the agenda of debate is probably too driven by the views of politicians.
"However, overall the breadth of opinion reflected by the BBC on this subject is broad and impressive, and no persuasive evidence was found that significant areas of opinion are not given due weight today."
It also said the BBC was "slow to give appropriate prominence to the growing weight of opinion opposing UK membership of the EU, but in more recent times has achieved a better balance".
The review also identified problems with so many BBC journalists working in a big building and reinforcing each other's prejudices.
"A large group of people working together are in danger of becoming more homogenous in their thinking, not less, and so less able to see when the output reflects a narrow outlook," he said.
The BBC Trust said it takes seriously the challenge of being "constantly alert to changing public opinion".
David Liddiment, BBC Trust member, said: "We deliberately chose some complex and controversial subject areas for the review in immigration, religion, and the EU, and our generally positive findings are testament to programme-makers across the corporation. It is clear that there is more to do and we will look to the executive to deliver on this."
A spokesman for the BBC said: "We are pleased our coverage has been deemed 'remarkable' and 'impressive'."
"Stuart Prebble has concluded, overall, that our coverage of immigration is 'broad and impressive', that on the EU we offer 'a wide and comprehensive range of information and viewpoints' and that the BBC’s coverage of religion is 'comprehensive and impressive.' He also states that the overwhelming number of journalists within the BBC leave their personal politics at home.
"However the report provides some interesting insights. We agree it is always vital to guard against unconscious bias or 'group think' and will continue to do so and we’ve committed to a number of actions to improve our coverage even further."
SOURCE
A dangerous pinata for the GOP
BBC did not reflect public view on immigration because of 'deep liberal bias', says review
The BBC did not accurately reflect the public's growing concern about immigration because of a "deep liberal bias", an official review has found.
The report, commissioned by the BBC Trust, found the broadcaster had been "slow" to catch up with public opinion on immigration and leaving the European Union.
Stuart Prebble, a former ITV television executive, said the BBC had probably been too swayed by the views of politicians, who were also reluctant to discuss immigration for fear of causing offence.
It said Helen Boaden, the former director of BBC News, "accepts that when she came into her role in September 2004 there had been a problem in the BBC's coverage of immigration. She was aware, she told us, of a 'deep liberal bias' in the way that the BBC approached the topic".
The review also heard evidence that the BBC is hamstrung by a "fundamental niceness" and reluctance to give offence.
"The BBC was slow to reflect the weight of concern in the wider community about issues arising from immigration. It remains the case that the agenda of debate is probably too driven by the views of politicians.
"However, overall the breadth of opinion reflected by the BBC on this subject is broad and impressive, and no persuasive evidence was found that significant areas of opinion are not given due weight today."
It also said the BBC was "slow to give appropriate prominence to the growing weight of opinion opposing UK membership of the EU, but in more recent times has achieved a better balance".
The review also identified problems with so many BBC journalists working in a big building and reinforcing each other's prejudices.
"A large group of people working together are in danger of becoming more homogenous in their thinking, not less, and so less able to see when the output reflects a narrow outlook," he said.
The BBC Trust said it takes seriously the challenge of being "constantly alert to changing public opinion".
David Liddiment, BBC Trust member, said: "We deliberately chose some complex and controversial subject areas for the review in immigration, religion, and the EU, and our generally positive findings are testament to programme-makers across the corporation. It is clear that there is more to do and we will look to the executive to deliver on this."
A spokesman for the BBC said: "We are pleased our coverage has been deemed 'remarkable' and 'impressive'."
"Stuart Prebble has concluded, overall, that our coverage of immigration is 'broad and impressive', that on the EU we offer 'a wide and comprehensive range of information and viewpoints' and that the BBC’s coverage of religion is 'comprehensive and impressive.' He also states that the overwhelming number of journalists within the BBC leave their personal politics at home.
"However the report provides some interesting insights. We agree it is always vital to guard against unconscious bias or 'group think' and will continue to do so and we’ve committed to a number of actions to improve our coverage even further."
SOURCE
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
2 videos lament flooding of less-skilled job market
The Center for Immigration Studies has published two interviews highlighting liberal voices concerned about immigration’s impact on the American worker and income inequality. As the debate on immigration reform intensifies in the Senate and the House, these videos make clear that immigration reform is not a liberal vs. conservative issue but rather one that sets the elite against the public.
The first set of videos feature Dr. Vernon Briggs, Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics at Cornell University, who has been studying immigration’s impact on American workers and the labor market since the 1960s. Noting that there is a disproportionate flow of immigrant workers, particularly illegal immigrants, into the less-skilled segment of the labor market, Dr. Briggs comments, “if [this were] happening in upper-income jobs it wouldn’t be tolerated for a minute.”
The second set features Frank Morris, the former Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and former Dean of Graduate Studies at Morgan State University. In lamenting the long history of America giving preferential treatment to immigrants over African-Americans, Mr. Morris states, “nobody really speaks for many of the grassroot, poor, less-educated working class Americans.”
To view these videos go to:
http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews/Vernon-Briggs-Cornell-University
http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews/Frank-Morris
The concern voiced regarding immigration’s impact on the labor market has intensified with the Center for Immigration Studies’ recent analysis of the Schumer-Rubio bill finding that, in the first year, the bill (S.744) would admit nearly 1.6 million more temporary workers than currently allowed. After that initial spike, the bill would increase annual temporary worker admissions by more than 600,000 each year over the current level, resulting in roughly a doubling of the number of temporary workers admitted each year (nearly 700,000 in 2012). These workers are classified as "non-immigrants" and would be in addition to S.744's large proposed increase in annual permanent legal immigrants competing for jobs (more than 30 million green cards issued in the next decade).
View prior CIS interview of Don Crocetti, architect and former Chief of the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service at:
http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Rubio's Immigration Strategy Worked Brilliantly, But Disappointed Many
In the end, immigration reform really was a done deal in the Senate. Debates come down to numbers on Capitol Hill, and the Gang of Eight reform team had the numbers. Needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, they started with the Senate's 54 Democrats and then added the four Republican Gang members. With 58 votes in the bag, it wasn't hard to get to 60. So most of the 14 Republicans who ultimately voted for the bill were extras, not needed for passage but helpful to allow the reformers to claim a broad mandate.
From the beginning, many Senate Republicans were terrified of immigration reform. They knew a large part of their base opposed any measure that smelled of "amnesty." But they were also deeply shaken by last November's election results, in which Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote. Some GOP strategists, and some Senate colleagues, told them the Republican Party would be finished unless it supported reform.
What to do? First, they tried not to stick their necks out. For several months, if you asked a Republican senator a substantive question about immigration, the answer was, "Let's see what Marco comes up with."
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has been more than the GOP point man on immigration. From January, when the Gang of Eight announced its intentions, until April, when it unveiled its bill, Rubio was the man Republicans hid behind. "We're waiting for Marco" became the Senate Republican caucus's unofficial position on immigration.
After the Gang unveiled its bill, one might have expected GOP lawmakers to take a stand. Instead, many still deferred to Rubio, saying they were waiting to see what kind of improvements he might deliver.
Republicans were able to keep their heads down in part because there wasn't a lot of pressure coming from the anti-reform conservative base. And that owed a great deal to the Gang's decision to dispatch Rubio, elected as a Tea Party favorite in 2010 and viewed as a future leader of the Republican Party, on a mission to allay conservative suspicions about the bill.
"Menendez told me that Rubio's role was to 'work over the conservative universe, particularly the conservative opinion-maker universe,' in order to 'neutralize them' and, in some cases, 'proselytize them,'" The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza reported recently, referring to Democratic Gang member Robert Menendez. The leader of the Gang, Democrat Charles Schumer, "was delighted to have a Tea Party conservative who could sell an immigration bill to the right," Lizza wrote.
The plan worked brilliantly. Conservative talk-radio hosts who might have instinctively opposed immigration reform as conceived by Schumer gave Rubio a respectful hearing and a lot of room. When Rubio told them the bill would secure the border first, they believed him.
Later, when it became unavoidably clear that, in fact, the bill would first legalize millions of currently illegal immigrants, and only after that start the work of securing the border, some conservatives began to express skepticism, disappointment and opposition. But Rubio's neutralization campaign had bought the Gang precious months to write the bill and gather momentum before conservatives began to realize what was actually in it.
The Gang also got lucky. During the time the bill was under consideration, a lot of Republicans became distracted by various Obama administration troubles -- IRS targeting of conservatives, Justice Department spying on the press, NSA spying on everyone else, Benghazi. Immigration reform was simply less exciting than the latest scandal that might bring down the president. Then came Edward Snowden's catch-me-if-you-can flight, and, lastly, two big Supreme Court decisions that overshadowed immigration reform's final week in the Senate.
All that news tended to obscure the deep divisions inside the GOP over reform. Even with 14 Republicans voting yes on the Gang bill, more than twice that number, 32, voted no. And then, of course, there is the GOP-controlled House, where reform might well die.
But the Senate is finished, at least for now. Over the last several months, beyond deferring to Rubio, the only other thing some Republicans would say about immigration was, "We need to put this issue behind us." They were speaking politically, in the hope that they could vote for the Gang of Eight bill and then begin to reap benefits with Hispanic voters.
That's highly unlikely, but one thing is for sure: They have disappointed a lot of their conservatives supporters, most likely for a long time.
SOURCE
Liberal Voices on Immigration & U.S. Workers
2 videos lament flooding of less-skilled job market
The Center for Immigration Studies has published two interviews highlighting liberal voices concerned about immigration’s impact on the American worker and income inequality. As the debate on immigration reform intensifies in the Senate and the House, these videos make clear that immigration reform is not a liberal vs. conservative issue but rather one that sets the elite against the public.
The first set of videos feature Dr. Vernon Briggs, Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics at Cornell University, who has been studying immigration’s impact on American workers and the labor market since the 1960s. Noting that there is a disproportionate flow of immigrant workers, particularly illegal immigrants, into the less-skilled segment of the labor market, Dr. Briggs comments, “if [this were] happening in upper-income jobs it wouldn’t be tolerated for a minute.”
The second set features Frank Morris, the former Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and former Dean of Graduate Studies at Morgan State University. In lamenting the long history of America giving preferential treatment to immigrants over African-Americans, Mr. Morris states, “nobody really speaks for many of the grassroot, poor, less-educated working class Americans.”
To view these videos go to:
http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews/Vernon-Briggs-Cornell-University
http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews/Frank-Morris
The concern voiced regarding immigration’s impact on the labor market has intensified with the Center for Immigration Studies’ recent analysis of the Schumer-Rubio bill finding that, in the first year, the bill (S.744) would admit nearly 1.6 million more temporary workers than currently allowed. After that initial spike, the bill would increase annual temporary worker admissions by more than 600,000 each year over the current level, resulting in roughly a doubling of the number of temporary workers admitted each year (nearly 700,000 in 2012). These workers are classified as "non-immigrants" and would be in addition to S.744's large proposed increase in annual permanent legal immigrants competing for jobs (more than 30 million green cards issued in the next decade).
View prior CIS interview of Don Crocetti, architect and former Chief of the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service at:
http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews
The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Rubio's Immigration Strategy Worked Brilliantly, But Disappointed Many
In the end, immigration reform really was a done deal in the Senate. Debates come down to numbers on Capitol Hill, and the Gang of Eight reform team had the numbers. Needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, they started with the Senate's 54 Democrats and then added the four Republican Gang members. With 58 votes in the bag, it wasn't hard to get to 60. So most of the 14 Republicans who ultimately voted for the bill were extras, not needed for passage but helpful to allow the reformers to claim a broad mandate.
From the beginning, many Senate Republicans were terrified of immigration reform. They knew a large part of their base opposed any measure that smelled of "amnesty." But they were also deeply shaken by last November's election results, in which Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote. Some GOP strategists, and some Senate colleagues, told them the Republican Party would be finished unless it supported reform.
What to do? First, they tried not to stick their necks out. For several months, if you asked a Republican senator a substantive question about immigration, the answer was, "Let's see what Marco comes up with."
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has been more than the GOP point man on immigration. From January, when the Gang of Eight announced its intentions, until April, when it unveiled its bill, Rubio was the man Republicans hid behind. "We're waiting for Marco" became the Senate Republican caucus's unofficial position on immigration.
After the Gang unveiled its bill, one might have expected GOP lawmakers to take a stand. Instead, many still deferred to Rubio, saying they were waiting to see what kind of improvements he might deliver.
Republicans were able to keep their heads down in part because there wasn't a lot of pressure coming from the anti-reform conservative base. And that owed a great deal to the Gang's decision to dispatch Rubio, elected as a Tea Party favorite in 2010 and viewed as a future leader of the Republican Party, on a mission to allay conservative suspicions about the bill.
"Menendez told me that Rubio's role was to 'work over the conservative universe, particularly the conservative opinion-maker universe,' in order to 'neutralize them' and, in some cases, 'proselytize them,'" The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza reported recently, referring to Democratic Gang member Robert Menendez. The leader of the Gang, Democrat Charles Schumer, "was delighted to have a Tea Party conservative who could sell an immigration bill to the right," Lizza wrote.
The plan worked brilliantly. Conservative talk-radio hosts who might have instinctively opposed immigration reform as conceived by Schumer gave Rubio a respectful hearing and a lot of room. When Rubio told them the bill would secure the border first, they believed him.
Later, when it became unavoidably clear that, in fact, the bill would first legalize millions of currently illegal immigrants, and only after that start the work of securing the border, some conservatives began to express skepticism, disappointment and opposition. But Rubio's neutralization campaign had bought the Gang precious months to write the bill and gather momentum before conservatives began to realize what was actually in it.
The Gang also got lucky. During the time the bill was under consideration, a lot of Republicans became distracted by various Obama administration troubles -- IRS targeting of conservatives, Justice Department spying on the press, NSA spying on everyone else, Benghazi. Immigration reform was simply less exciting than the latest scandal that might bring down the president. Then came Edward Snowden's catch-me-if-you-can flight, and, lastly, two big Supreme Court decisions that overshadowed immigration reform's final week in the Senate.
All that news tended to obscure the deep divisions inside the GOP over reform. Even with 14 Republicans voting yes on the Gang bill, more than twice that number, 32, voted no. And then, of course, there is the GOP-controlled House, where reform might well die.
But the Senate is finished, at least for now. Over the last several months, beyond deferring to Rubio, the only other thing some Republicans would say about immigration was, "We need to put this issue behind us." They were speaking politically, in the hope that they could vote for the Gang of Eight bill and then begin to reap benefits with Hispanic voters.
That's highly unlikely, but one thing is for sure: They have disappointed a lot of their conservatives supporters, most likely for a long time.
SOURCE
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Real Immigration Reform
Steve Deace
For months now I have written extensively in numerous national publications about the treacherous legislation that is the “scamnesty” bill that will pass out of the U.S. Senate this week. When you have a “gang” writing legislation you get gangster government just like this.
All of the people -- and by all I mean all -- claiming to be conservative who are either still advocating scamnesty or defending those that are fall into one of four categories:
1) Woefully uninformed to the point that they should no longer criticize anyone else for being a low information voter, and should perhaps have to pass a drug test before ever voting on anything other than a chili cook-off ever again.
2) More concerned about preserving their seat at the GOP establishment table than they are the future of our Constitutional Republic.
3) More concerned about preserving Marco Rubio’s flailing presidential ambitions than they are the future of our Constitutional Republic.
4) Traitors to the cause actively looking to undermine the base of patriotic Americans that put them there, so they can stuff the ballot box with more Government-Americans that won’t stand in the way of more gangster government.
This legislation is so bad it’s actually worse than Obamacare and TARP, because it takes the gangster government, anti-Constitutional principles of both and then registers to vote millions more people who will just turn right around and vote for more of the same until the light of liberty is lost for good.
So what should we do instead?
We are in dire need of immigration reform in this country. But this scamnesty will not reform anything, for anything that locks in amnesty before promises of future border enforcement (which have always been broken in the past) are fulfilled will just make the situation worse.
If I were advising the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives this would be what I urge them to do next:
1) Whatever you do, do not pass any comprehensive immigration reform package out of the House of Representatives this year. Not even a good one.
The reason for this is that any House version of comprehensive immigration reform will then be sent to Conference Committee where the details of it will be hashed out alongside the Senate’s scamnesty plan. That means even a good plan out of the House will be polluted with the Senate version, and a little bit of leaven ruins the whole loaf.
2) It’s not border enforcement first -- it’s border enforcement only.
Instead of a comprehensive immigration reform package, the GOP-controlled House should instead pass a stand-alone bill that puts teeth on real border enforcement and send it to the Senate to call their bluff prior to the 2014 election cycle. By teeth I mean public Congressional certification within one year that our borders are secure, and that requires a secondary and unanimous assent from all border state governors and state legislatures as well.
3) Promote a Meritocracy.
We do have demographic reality to confront, and that demographic reality is created by the more affluent and educated having fewer and fewer children as well as erasing over 50 million Americans before they were born. We have corporations running commercials on television begging for more skilled workers. We also have a bevy of labor the American people no longer want, or no longer want to do for the job’s current price point. Given those two realities, there are no good reasons to have 10-20 million illegals living and working in the country while at least 4 million are waiting to immigrate here legally. We need to modernize and streamline our legal immigration system, where waits currently last years if not decades, and we should give preferential treatment to those whose skills are proficient in what our industries need (especially math and science). At a time when our government indoctrination system is producing a generation of Government-Americans believing they’re entitled to other people’s prosperity, an import of those who obey the rule of law and have a skill-set to offer would promote American Exceptionalism.
4) Only after these measures are met should the question of what to do with those already in the country illegally be confronted.
The idea that we have to deal with this right now is a childish premise put forth by gangster government politicians who never want to let a good (phony) crisis go to waste. It’s been six years since we last had this argument in 2007, so if this was really a cataclysmic event, how come it took us six years to have it again?
This has been a problem for decades going back to the Reagan amnesty of 1986, so I doubt setting it aside for a few more years until we adequately put the foundation in place will be the end of the world. Once those real solutions are implemented, then and only then should there be a conversation about what to do with the illegals already here.
I suggest a four-point plan:
1) Instant and irrevocable deportation for all illegals that have committed any additional serious misdemeanors or felonies during their stay other than breaking the law by coming here in the first place.
2) Instant and irrevocable lifetime disqualification of welfare state benefits (including so-called “Dream Acts”) for all illegals except as it directly relates to emergency life-or-death situations.
3) The establishment of a real national guest-worker program complete with e-verify so that folks who are just working here and sending money home can be accounted for and regulated. Furthermore, there should be punitive punishment for corporations caught hiring illegals once this program is implemented.
4) Any current illegals who wish to still become citizens after all these measures are taken, and who can speak English as well as prove they have a skill or trade to offer, are then put into the legal immigration system starting at the back of the line. Of course, given that all their welfare state benefits have evaporated, it’s highly unlikely this number will be nearly as high as it currently is. If they make it through the process and are naturalized they are then barred from ever voting in any election for as long as they live as restitution for breaking the law.
This is a better idea of restitution than having them pay fines that will just confiscate their productivity and make them more a drain on the system. I don’t believe mass deportations are either practical or moral.
I believe this plan is a mixture of both grace and law. There are both consequences for breaking the law and mercy for those whose intent wasn’t malevolent but only to escape the kind of squalor blessedly most Americans can’t even fathom. On the other hand, the rule of law must be upheld, and the productivity and prosperity of the American people must be protected.
I believe this plan does that.
SOURCE
Australian conservatives to deport most foreign criminals
The federal Coalition has said that if it was elected, foreigners would have their visas cancelled automatically if convicted of crimes punishable by more than a year's prison in Australia - regardless of the length of their actual sentence - with a view to deporting them. Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said convicted refugees' cases would be considered on their circumstances but that they could be sent back to their countries or imprisoned indefinitely. No foreigner would have a right to appeal the decision to cancel their visas.
Most crimes carry a maximum sentence of more than one year's imprisonment.
Yet the Coalition's policy statement said: ''This rule will not apply to a limited number of crimes as defined by [the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification], including some minor public order offences or other miscellaneous offences.''
The body's miscellaneous offences include commercial, industry and financial regulation offences. Crimes against the Corporations Act that are punishable by more than a year range from administrative errors to more serious offences such as insider trading and publishing false accounts.
Criminal defence lawyer Paul Galbally said that directors and secretaries of companies, including small businesses, could be found guilty of such crimes.
Mr Galbally said that lower-level offences could also carry maximum punishments of more than a year. ''It's the public at large who are the shareholders and the public must have confidence in public companies and directors and the only way to ensure that is to ensure directors are abiding by their responsibilities,'' he said.
The policy distinguished between refugees and other foreigners in allowing white-collar criminals to stay in Australia.
A spokesman for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission declined to comment.
A spokesman for Mr Morrison has repeatedly refused to answer requests for more information on the exceptions to its rule.
SOURCE
July 1, 2013
The violent criminal Britain can't deport because of his seven children by three different women
A violent foreign criminal who held a knife to the throat of a victim has overturned a government attempt to deport him due to his “right to family life”.
Lee Corbin, 50, has been allowed to stay in Britain because of what a court described as his “amazing” relationship with seven children he has fathered by three different women.
Corbin has 75 criminal convictions to his name and has been handed jail sentences totalling more than 16 years since he came to this country in 1978.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, began a legal bid to send him back to Barbados after he had served his latest four-year jail term for an attempted knife-point robbery.
The immigration tribunal agreed Corbin poses a danger to the public, and to his partner, and that he poses a “high risk of committing further offences”.
However, the judges concluded his human rights, enshrined in European legislation, outweigh the danger he poses to the public.
The panel ruled that Corbin’s “amazing (sic) strong family life” meant that he should be allowed to stay.
Mrs May appealed against the decision but lost, and Corbin will now be able to stay in Britain permanently.
MPs described Corbin’s case as “scandalous” and said it highlighted an urgent need for reform of human rights laws.
Corbin, 50, came to Britain from Barbados in 1978 aged 16 and was granted indefinite leave to remain.
He was convicted of robbery at Bristol Crown Court in 1997 and jailed for six years.
In 2005, he was jailed for eight weeks for a number of motoring offences and resisting a constable, and the following year the Home Office warned him that he would be liable for deportation if he got into trouble again.
Despite this, in 2010 he was convicted of attempted robbery and possession of an offensive weapon and jailed for four years.
The crime involved Corbin placing a knife at his victim’s throat.
Any foreign criminal jailed for more than 12 months is subject to automatic deportation and, therefore, the Home Secretary wrote to Corbin to tell him she was going to attempt to have him removed from Britain.
Corbin’s lawyers warned the home secretary they would fight the case under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the “right to private and family life”.
Mrs May went ahead and the criminal appealed to the immigration tribunal.
“He relied upon his private life formed over 34 years in the UK and also family life which he had formed with seven children who had been born to three different partners in the UK,” said the court papers.
“The first-tier tribunal allowed the appeal under the rules and also under Article 8.”
The Home Secretary lodged her own appeal against the decision, arguing the judges had failed to take into account the “high risk of reoffending” and the fact that Corbin had received 24 convictions for 75 separate criminal offences.
She also argued the lower court had failed to apply new rules she introduced last summer which set out that foreign criminals should only be able to make successful claims under Article 8 in “exceptional” cases.
However, Upper Tribunal Judge Andrew Grubb said the original judges did not make any mistakes and upheld the decision, dismissing the Home Secretary’s appeal.
Priti Patel, a Conservative MP, said: “This is a scandalous example of how human rights legislation is being used and abused by criminals who have no regard for conventional family life.
“This is a very clear example of why we need the Home Office and the British Parliament to have the final say on such cases.”
David Davies, the MP for Monmouth who also works as a special constable, said: “This man is a walking example of what’s wrong with human rights in this country.
“It is outrageous that a load of human rights judges give more credibility to his right to stay in Britain committing acts of violence and robbery, rather than the rights of his innocent victims.”
A Home Office spokeswoman said: “This kind of case is precisely why we are looking to change the law in the new Immigration Bill which will be introduced later this year.
“We want to ensure the courts properly reflect Parliament’s view that serious criminals should be deported unless there are very exceptional circumstances.”
SOURCE
UN convention turns Australia into a magnet for asylum-seekers
by Greg Sheridan
IS the Refugee Convention itself now the problem? The convention dates from 1951 and was designed to deal with people fleeing persecution across land borders in Europe. It had the Holocaust in mind. The idea was that if someone, generally a government, was trying to kill you because of your race or religion and you fled to escape death, you would not then be forced back to your persecutor.
Sadly, like most things associated with the UN, it has grown into a sort of grotesque parody of itself, with vast unintended consequences.
The actual wording of the convention is not too bad. The obligations it imposes on signatories are reasonably limited. The main one is that a country may not return a refugee to the place from which he has fled persecution. Nothing John Howard did, nothing that Tony Abbott proposes, contravenes the convention.
It is clear, and sometimes explicit, in the convention's wording that it envisages people fleeing directly from persecution in one country to haven, temporary or permanent, in an adjacent neighbour. So how is it that, ostensibly under the auspices of the convention, there are now Iranians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Somalis, Afghans, Pakistanis and others arriving in Australia's north and claiming to be refugees?
No provision of the convention allows a refugee to "forum shop", that is, to use their status to claim immigration rights in any country they choose.
The convention talks of people directly fleeing persecution. But the folks arriving in Australia use, or misuse, a technicality in the convention.
Technically, they have not passed through another country which is a convention signatory. This is only possible because almost all of Southeast Asia is, very sensibly, not signed up to the convention. Only Cambodia, East Timor and The Philippines are signatories.
Therefore, if a person who wants to live in Australia can get on a direct flight to Indonesia, or even Malaysia, they can get to Australia without passing through any signatory countries. Given the flying range of jumbo jets, this is now possible for virtually anyone in the world. Of course, to do this means flying away from all sorts of convention signatory countries next door. Afghanistan, for instance, has a slew of signatory countries on or near its borders - Kyrgistan, Kazakhstan and lots of others. But who would want to live there?
Iran, similarly, has the signatory country Turkey, until recently a good friend of Iran's, virtually next door. And a whole swath of European and other convention signatories much closer than Australia. But if an Iranian flies direct to Malaysia, where he gets visa free entry, he can get to Australia without, technically, going through another signatory country.
This shouldn't really make any difference, because the only real obligation under the convention is not to return a genuine refugee to the land of his persecution. This is regarded as being now part of customary international law for all nations. And some countries that are signatories to the convention, such as China, do not observe this rule, as when it forces North Koreans attempting to flee back to their homeland.
But the convention operates now in three ways that are extremely bad for Australia.
First, because it is a treaty we have signed, it has been substantially imported into our domestic law. But because some of its language is imprecise and aspirational, an imperial judiciary can steal much of the power from the parliament by interpreting such language expansively.
Second, Australia's status as a signatory to the convention acts as an enormously powerful magnet, attracting all manner of aspirational immigrants, drawn by Australia's material riches and generous welfare, who can then use the convention to qualify for immigration status they would never get otherwise.
And third, it allows the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to play a wholly inappropriate part in our domestic politics. The UNHCR regional director was lambasting Australia this week for trying to control its borders by reducing the incentive of quick, permanent resettlement and endless welfare. Why isn't the UNHCR making a song and dance about getting Indonesia and Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia even to sign up to the convention? In truth there is not another country in Southeast Asia, or in Northeast Asia, remotely as generous to illegal arrivals claiming refugee status as Australia is.
All talk of Australia damaging its reputation by its treatment of illegal arrivals is nonsense. Insofar as we have a splenetic internal debate, in which the champions of faux compassion accuse everyone else of heartlessness, other nations will notice this debate and repeat some of our own criticisms of ourselves. But no sane comparison of the treatment of illegal arrivals in any nation in our region is remotely to Australia's disadvantage. We are the softest touch in the region, and everyone in the region knows it. Increasingly, everyone in the world knows it, which is why illegal immigration to Australia is becoming such a big, well financed, global, criminal business.
So, should we leave the convention altogether? I don't think so. It would be too difficult and controversial and we would still face the obligations of customary law anyway. But we should completely decouple domestic law from the convention. An Abbott government will face an enormous challenge in this area and will have to do a lot of tough legislating if it is to prevail.
The Liberals' one big strategic mistake so far was to block the Malaysia swap deal. This deal wouldn't have stopped the boats but the legislation the government offered would have allowed offshore processing anywhere an Australian government wanted it to happen. This sort of power will be vital if an Abbott government is to win the looming, epic battle of wills against the people-smuggling industry, and their Australian supporters. And by insisting Malaysia was no good because it was not a signatory to the convention, the Liberals reinforced the false moral authority of the convention, and of the UNHCR.
SOURCE
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: You usually CAN buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
Real Immigration Reform
Real Immigration Reform
Steve Deace
For months now I have written extensively in numerous national publications about the treacherous legislation that is the “scamnesty” bill that will pass out of the U.S. Senate this week. When you have a “gang” writing legislation you get gangster government just like this.
All of the people -- and by all I mean all -- claiming to be conservative who are either still advocating scamnesty or defending those that are fall into one of four categories:
1) Woefully uninformed to the point that they should no longer criticize anyone else for being a low information voter, and should perhaps have to pass a drug test before ever voting on anything other than a chili cook-off ever again.
2) More concerned about preserving their seat at the GOP establishment table than they are the future of our Constitutional Republic.
3) More concerned about preserving Marco Rubio’s flailing presidential ambitions than they are the future of our Constitutional Republic.
4) Traitors to the cause actively looking to undermine the base of patriotic Americans that put them there, so they can stuff the ballot box with more Government-Americans that won’t stand in the way of more gangster government.
This legislation is so bad it’s actually worse than Obamacare and TARP, because it takes the gangster government, anti-Constitutional principles of both and then registers to vote millions more people who will just turn right around and vote for more of the same until the light of liberty is lost for good.
So what should we do instead?
We are in dire need of immigration reform in this country. But this scamnesty will not reform anything, for anything that locks in amnesty before promises of future border enforcement (which have always been broken in the past) are fulfilled will just make the situation worse.
If I were advising the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives this would be what I urge them to do next:
1) Whatever you do, do not pass any comprehensive immigration reform package out of the House of Representatives this year. Not even a good one.
The reason for this is that any House version of comprehensive immigration reform will then be sent to Conference Committee where the details of it will be hashed out alongside the Senate’s scamnesty plan. That means even a good plan out of the House will be polluted with the Senate version, and a little bit of leaven ruins the whole loaf.
2) It’s not border enforcement first -- it’s border enforcement only.
Instead of a comprehensive immigration reform package, the GOP-controlled House should instead pass a stand-alone bill that puts teeth on real border enforcement and send it to the Senate to call their bluff prior to the 2014 election cycle. By teeth I mean public Congressional certification within one year that our borders are secure, and that requires a secondary and unanimous assent from all border state governors and state legislatures as well.
3) Promote a Meritocracy.
We do have demographic reality to confront, and that demographic reality is created by the more affluent and educated having fewer and fewer children as well as erasing over 50 million Americans before they were born. We have corporations running commercials on television begging for more skilled workers. We also have a bevy of labor the American people no longer want, or no longer want to do for the job’s current price point. Given those two realities, there are no good reasons to have 10-20 million illegals living and working in the country while at least 4 million are waiting to immigrate here legally. We need to modernize and streamline our legal immigration system, where waits currently last years if not decades, and we should give preferential treatment to those whose skills are proficient in what our industries need (especially math and science). At a time when our government indoctrination system is producing a generation of Government-Americans believing they’re entitled to other people’s prosperity, an import of those who obey the rule of law and have a skill-set to offer would promote American Exceptionalism.
4) Only after these measures are met should the question of what to do with those already in the country illegally be confronted.
The idea that we have to deal with this right now is a childish premise put forth by gangster government politicians who never want to let a good (phony) crisis go to waste. It’s been six years since we last had this argument in 2007, so if this was really a cataclysmic event, how come it took us six years to have it again?
This has been a problem for decades going back to the Reagan amnesty of 1986, so I doubt setting it aside for a few more years until we adequately put the foundation in place will be the end of the world. Once those real solutions are implemented, then and only then should there be a conversation about what to do with the illegals already here.
I suggest a four-point plan:
1) Instant and irrevocable deportation for all illegals that have committed any additional serious misdemeanors or felonies during their stay other than breaking the law by coming here in the first place.
2) Instant and irrevocable lifetime disqualification of welfare state benefits (including so-called “Dream Acts”) for all illegals except as it directly relates to emergency life-or-death situations.
3) The establishment of a real national guest-worker program complete with e-verify so that folks who are just working here and sending money home can be accounted for and regulated. Furthermore, there should be punitive punishment for corporations caught hiring illegals once this program is implemented.
4) Any current illegals who wish to still become citizens after all these measures are taken, and who can speak English as well as prove they have a skill or trade to offer, are then put into the legal immigration system starting at the back of the line. Of course, given that all their welfare state benefits have evaporated, it’s highly unlikely this number will be nearly as high as it currently is. If they make it through the process and are naturalized they are then barred from ever voting in any election for as long as they live as restitution for breaking the law.
This is a better idea of restitution than having them pay fines that will just confiscate their productivity and make them more a drain on the system. I don’t believe mass deportations are either practical or moral.
I believe this plan is a mixture of both grace and law. There are both consequences for breaking the law and mercy for those whose intent wasn’t malevolent but only to escape the kind of squalor blessedly most Americans can’t even fathom. On the other hand, the rule of law must be upheld, and the productivity and prosperity of the American people must be protected.
I believe this plan does that.
SOURCE
Australian conservatives to deport most foreign criminals
The federal Coalition has said that if it was elected, foreigners would have their visas cancelled automatically if convicted of crimes punishable by more than a year's prison in Australia - regardless of the length of their actual sentence - with a view to deporting them. Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said convicted refugees' cases would be considered on their circumstances but that they could be sent back to their countries or imprisoned indefinitely. No foreigner would have a right to appeal the decision to cancel their visas.
Most crimes carry a maximum sentence of more than one year's imprisonment.
Yet the Coalition's policy statement said: ''This rule will not apply to a limited number of crimes as defined by [the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification], including some minor public order offences or other miscellaneous offences.''
The body's miscellaneous offences include commercial, industry and financial regulation offences. Crimes against the Corporations Act that are punishable by more than a year range from administrative errors to more serious offences such as insider trading and publishing false accounts.
Criminal defence lawyer Paul Galbally said that directors and secretaries of companies, including small businesses, could be found guilty of such crimes.
Mr Galbally said that lower-level offences could also carry maximum punishments of more than a year. ''It's the public at large who are the shareholders and the public must have confidence in public companies and directors and the only way to ensure that is to ensure directors are abiding by their responsibilities,'' he said.
The policy distinguished between refugees and other foreigners in allowing white-collar criminals to stay in Australia.
A spokesman for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission declined to comment.
A spokesman for Mr Morrison has repeatedly refused to answer requests for more information on the exceptions to its rule.
SOURCE
July 1, 2013
The violent criminal Britain can't deport because of his seven children by three different women
A violent foreign criminal who held a knife to the throat of a victim has overturned a government attempt to deport him due to his “right to family life”.
Lee Corbin, 50, has been allowed to stay in Britain because of what a court described as his “amazing” relationship with seven children he has fathered by three different women.
Corbin has 75 criminal convictions to his name and has been handed jail sentences totalling more than 16 years since he came to this country in 1978.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, began a legal bid to send him back to Barbados after he had served his latest four-year jail term for an attempted knife-point robbery.
The immigration tribunal agreed Corbin poses a danger to the public, and to his partner, and that he poses a “high risk of committing further offences”.
However, the judges concluded his human rights, enshrined in European legislation, outweigh the danger he poses to the public.
The panel ruled that Corbin’s “amazing (sic) strong family life” meant that he should be allowed to stay.
Mrs May appealed against the decision but lost, and Corbin will now be able to stay in Britain permanently.
MPs described Corbin’s case as “scandalous” and said it highlighted an urgent need for reform of human rights laws.
Corbin, 50, came to Britain from Barbados in 1978 aged 16 and was granted indefinite leave to remain.
He was convicted of robbery at Bristol Crown Court in 1997 and jailed for six years.
In 2005, he was jailed for eight weeks for a number of motoring offences and resisting a constable, and the following year the Home Office warned him that he would be liable for deportation if he got into trouble again.
Despite this, in 2010 he was convicted of attempted robbery and possession of an offensive weapon and jailed for four years.
The crime involved Corbin placing a knife at his victim’s throat.
Any foreign criminal jailed for more than 12 months is subject to automatic deportation and, therefore, the Home Secretary wrote to Corbin to tell him she was going to attempt to have him removed from Britain.
Corbin’s lawyers warned the home secretary they would fight the case under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the “right to private and family life”.
Mrs May went ahead and the criminal appealed to the immigration tribunal.
“He relied upon his private life formed over 34 years in the UK and also family life which he had formed with seven children who had been born to three different partners in the UK,” said the court papers.
“The first-tier tribunal allowed the appeal under the rules and also under Article 8.”
The Home Secretary lodged her own appeal against the decision, arguing the judges had failed to take into account the “high risk of reoffending” and the fact that Corbin had received 24 convictions for 75 separate criminal offences.
She also argued the lower court had failed to apply new rules she introduced last summer which set out that foreign criminals should only be able to make successful claims under Article 8 in “exceptional” cases.
However, Upper Tribunal Judge Andrew Grubb said the original judges did not make any mistakes and upheld the decision, dismissing the Home Secretary’s appeal.
Priti Patel, a Conservative MP, said: “This is a scandalous example of how human rights legislation is being used and abused by criminals who have no regard for conventional family life.
“This is a very clear example of why we need the Home Office and the British Parliament to have the final say on such cases.”
David Davies, the MP for Monmouth who also works as a special constable, said: “This man is a walking example of what’s wrong with human rights in this country.
“It is outrageous that a load of human rights judges give more credibility to his right to stay in Britain committing acts of violence and robbery, rather than the rights of his innocent victims.”
A Home Office spokeswoman said: “This kind of case is precisely why we are looking to change the law in the new Immigration Bill which will be introduced later this year.
“We want to ensure the courts properly reflect Parliament’s view that serious criminals should be deported unless there are very exceptional circumstances.”
SOURCE
UN convention turns Australia into a magnet for asylum-seekers
by Greg Sheridan
IS the Refugee Convention itself now the problem? The convention dates from 1951 and was designed to deal with people fleeing persecution across land borders in Europe. It had the Holocaust in mind. The idea was that if someone, generally a government, was trying to kill you because of your race or religion and you fled to escape death, you would not then be forced back to your persecutor.
Sadly, like most things associated with the UN, it has grown into a sort of grotesque parody of itself, with vast unintended consequences.
The actual wording of the convention is not too bad. The obligations it imposes on signatories are reasonably limited. The main one is that a country may not return a refugee to the place from which he has fled persecution. Nothing John Howard did, nothing that Tony Abbott proposes, contravenes the convention.
It is clear, and sometimes explicit, in the convention's wording that it envisages people fleeing directly from persecution in one country to haven, temporary or permanent, in an adjacent neighbour. So how is it that, ostensibly under the auspices of the convention, there are now Iranians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Somalis, Afghans, Pakistanis and others arriving in Australia's north and claiming to be refugees?
No provision of the convention allows a refugee to "forum shop", that is, to use their status to claim immigration rights in any country they choose.
The convention talks of people directly fleeing persecution. But the folks arriving in Australia use, or misuse, a technicality in the convention.
Technically, they have not passed through another country which is a convention signatory. This is only possible because almost all of Southeast Asia is, very sensibly, not signed up to the convention. Only Cambodia, East Timor and The Philippines are signatories.
Therefore, if a person who wants to live in Australia can get on a direct flight to Indonesia, or even Malaysia, they can get to Australia without passing through any signatory countries. Given the flying range of jumbo jets, this is now possible for virtually anyone in the world. Of course, to do this means flying away from all sorts of convention signatory countries next door. Afghanistan, for instance, has a slew of signatory countries on or near its borders - Kyrgistan, Kazakhstan and lots of others. But who would want to live there?
Iran, similarly, has the signatory country Turkey, until recently a good friend of Iran's, virtually next door. And a whole swath of European and other convention signatories much closer than Australia. But if an Iranian flies direct to Malaysia, where he gets visa free entry, he can get to Australia without, technically, going through another signatory country.
This shouldn't really make any difference, because the only real obligation under the convention is not to return a genuine refugee to the land of his persecution. This is regarded as being now part of customary international law for all nations. And some countries that are signatories to the convention, such as China, do not observe this rule, as when it forces North Koreans attempting to flee back to their homeland.
But the convention operates now in three ways that are extremely bad for Australia.
First, because it is a treaty we have signed, it has been substantially imported into our domestic law. But because some of its language is imprecise and aspirational, an imperial judiciary can steal much of the power from the parliament by interpreting such language expansively.
Second, Australia's status as a signatory to the convention acts as an enormously powerful magnet, attracting all manner of aspirational immigrants, drawn by Australia's material riches and generous welfare, who can then use the convention to qualify for immigration status they would never get otherwise.
And third, it allows the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to play a wholly inappropriate part in our domestic politics. The UNHCR regional director was lambasting Australia this week for trying to control its borders by reducing the incentive of quick, permanent resettlement and endless welfare. Why isn't the UNHCR making a song and dance about getting Indonesia and Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia even to sign up to the convention? In truth there is not another country in Southeast Asia, or in Northeast Asia, remotely as generous to illegal arrivals claiming refugee status as Australia is.
All talk of Australia damaging its reputation by its treatment of illegal arrivals is nonsense. Insofar as we have a splenetic internal debate, in which the champions of faux compassion accuse everyone else of heartlessness, other nations will notice this debate and repeat some of our own criticisms of ourselves. But no sane comparison of the treatment of illegal arrivals in any nation in our region is remotely to Australia's disadvantage. We are the softest touch in the region, and everyone in the region knows it. Increasingly, everyone in the world knows it, which is why illegal immigration to Australia is becoming such a big, well financed, global, criminal business.
So, should we leave the convention altogether? I don't think so. It would be too difficult and controversial and we would still face the obligations of customary law anyway. But we should completely decouple domestic law from the convention. An Abbott government will face an enormous challenge in this area and will have to do a lot of tough legislating if it is to prevail.
The Liberals' one big strategic mistake so far was to block the Malaysia swap deal. This deal wouldn't have stopped the boats but the legislation the government offered would have allowed offshore processing anywhere an Australian government wanted it to happen. This sort of power will be vital if an Abbott government is to win the looming, epic battle of wills against the people-smuggling industry, and their Australian supporters. And by insisting Malaysia was no good because it was not a signatory to the convention, the Liberals reinforced the false moral authority of the convention, and of the UNHCR.
SOURCE
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: You usually CAN buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.