This page is a backup. The primary version of this blog is HERE. The Blogroll. My Home Page. Email John Ray here. My other blogs: "Tongue Tied" "Dissecting Leftism" "Australian Politics" "Education Watch International"
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June 25, 2024

Polls: Biden Is Turning Voters Against Immigration

On June 17, I analyzed the results of a recent poll from UK periodical The Economist and opinion outfit YouGov that showed the president’s support on immigration dropping after his latest “border security” proclamation. I left out one other key response in that poll, showing that increasing numbers of U.S. voters are taking a dour view of immigration generally, almost definitely in response to the impact of Biden’s border policies.

“Barbara Jordan Vindicated”. In August 2022 I published a piece captioned “Barbara Jordan Vindicated as Americans’ Perceptions of Immigration Take a Negative Turn”.

Jordan, as you may know, was a liberal Democrat and civil rights icon who became the first African-American woman elected to Congress from the South (from Texas in 1972). More saliently, she was appointed in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton to be chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, serving until her untimely death in January 1996.

In that capacity, Jordan testified extensively on the commission’s findings, which undercut many of the tropes peddled by open-borders progressives today to such a degree that there is a veritable cottage industry for soi-disant “elites” willing to assert that Jordan didn’t really say what she then said.

In any event, while presenting the initial findings of her committee to Congress in September 1994, Jordan explained that:

If we cannot control illegal immigration, we cannot sustain our national interest in legal immigration. Those who come here illegally, and those who hire them, will destroy the credibility of our immigration policies and their implementation. In the course of that, I fear, they will destroy our commitment to immigration itself.

She doubled down on that statement in the next paragraph of her testimony:

For immigration to serve our national interest, it must be lawful. There are people who argue that some illegal aliens contribute to our economy because they work, pay taxes, send their children to our schools, and in all respects except one, obey the law. Let me be clear: that is not enough.

You’ll notice the exact same arguments Jordan dismissed out of hand about the economic and fiscal benefits provided by “illegal aliens” continue to be offered by the vast majority of “experts” cited by the Federal Reserve chairman (for what that’s worth) with respect to the impacts of the border surge, which is why to the degree her conclusions are mentioned today, it’s to deny the clear intent of her conclusions.

So, were Jordan’s conclusions about unfettered illegal immigration adversely affecting the credibility of our immigration policies correct — that is, can they be empirically proven? As it turns out, the answer is “Yes.”

July 2022 Economist/YouGov Poll. In July 2022, The Economist and YouGov polled 1,500 U.S. adults and asked them: “In general, do you think immigration makes the U.S. better off or worse off, or does it not make much difference?”

In response, 31 percent of those polled asserted immigration makes the country better off, 35 percent said it made the United States worse off, 22 percent opined that it didn’t make much difference one way or the other, and 12 percent weren’t sure.

That’s U.S. adults generally, but when the question was asked of the registered voters in that poll, the results were a little closer.

Among those who participate in the franchise, again 35 percent believed that immigration made the country worse off, while 34 percent believed it made the country a better place (20 percent didn’t think it made much difference and 11 percent were unsure).

Looking just at those registered voters, however, two things were clear: (1) a plurality of the electorate had turned on immigration; and (2) 55 percent of registered voters in this “nation of immigrants” had either a dour or neutral view of immigration itself.

June 2024 Economist/YouGov Poll. Which brings me to the latest Economist/YouGov poll to ask that question, conducted between June 9 and 11 and which this time surveyed 1,595 U.S. adults.

In the latest poll, sentiments surrounding immigration took an even more negative turn, as just 28 percent of respondents overall believed immigration made the country better off, 18 percent didn’t think it made much of a difference, and 38 percent thought it made the United States “worse off” (15 percent weren’t sure).

Again — that’s American adults generally, not registered voters. And therein hangs a tale, because it turns out that the electorate has really begun to sour on immigration. Here are the results among just those who have signed up to cast ballots in November:

Better off: 32 percent
Does not make much difference: 16 percent
Not sure: 10 percent
Worse off: 42 percent

Thus, among both Americans generally and voters in particular, there is a 10-point margin between those who view immigration as making the country worse off and those who believe it makes the country better off — but when it comes to the latter cohort, the ones whose opinions really count, more than four in 10 think immigration is a “bad thing” for the country’s welfare.

Critically, the percentage of registered voters who think immigration is making the country “worse off” have increased by seven points in less than two years, while the percentage of voters who think immigration has made the country better off has fallen two points in the same period.

The reason why voters’ sentiments about immigration have taken a negative turn is clear: Americans see the adverse impacts of illegal migration in cities and towns across the Republic under Biden, and they don’t like it.

Note that in the July 2022 poll, “immigration” was identified as the “most important issue” by just 4 percent of registered voters, tied for eighth place with such issues as “guns” and “crime” and trailing the leading issues — “climate change” and “health care” (respectively) — by eight points.

In the June 2024 poll, immigration at 16 percent is the second-leading issue among registered voters, trailing just “inflation/prices” (and even then, by just four points), and leading abortion by seven points and climate change by eight.

Most importantly, and just as Jordan warned, voters’ concerns about illegal immigration are “destroying” Americans’ commitment to immigration itself”. Today, a solid majority — 58 percent — of voting Americans either think immigration makes the United States worse off or that it just doesn’t make much difference at all, meaning they are “decommitting” from immigration as a national value.

https://cis.org/Arthur/Polls-Biden-Turning-Voters-Against-Immigration

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June 24, 2024

Migrant Medicaid costs cut in half in Florida following DeSantis' policy change: report

The amount of Medicaid money Florida has paid out to undocumented migrants has been cut by over half after a new law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida’s Emergency Medical Assistance program for undocumented immigrants has had a 54% reduction in spending this year, falling from $148.4 million to $67 million with two months to go in the fiscal year, according to a report from Politico.

The dramatic drop comes after DeSantis signed a law last year that directed hospitals that accept Medicaid to ask patients about their immigration status, the report notes, though the law does not require migrants to provide the hospitals with an answer.

While federal law does ban undocumented migrants from being eligible for Medicaid, it provides a carveout that requires states to offer limited coverage to migrants facing a medical emergency.

Immigrant advocacy groups raised fears the new law would scare away migrants from seeking emergency medical attention in the state, the report notes, though the DeSantis administration has touted the results as a sign his policies are working.

The law has been part of the Republican governor’s overall crackdown on illegal immigration, moves he claims have been made necessary by the Biden administration's policies at the southern border.

Critics of the law have claimed that there is no evidence it is responsible for the drop in spending, citing an exodus of migrants from the state and data that shows spending on migrant emergency care had been decreasing since FY 2022. That year, the state spent $171.4 million, a number that dropped to $148.4 million in FY 2023.

The state approved over 147,000 emergency authorizations in FY 2022, dropping to 116,000 in 2023. With two months to go before the end of FY 2024, the station has only made 99,000 similar authorizations.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/florida-medicaid-spending-migrants-plummets-after-desantis-law-report

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June 23, 2024

Governor Abbott Flames Biden's Mass Amnesty Policy

President Biden announced executive action that creates mass amnesty for illegal aliens who are married to American citizens. It also gives mass amnesty to the children of illegal aliens under age 21 whose parents are married to American citizens.

This is the ultimate political pander by Biden, who is seeking re-election. He is hemorrhaging support from Hispanic voters. Biden often credits Hispanic voters for playing a big role in his 2020 victory.

The plan will affect 500,000 illegal aliens who have lived in the United States for at least 10 years and meet some legal requirements. The order also protects 50,000 young people under the age of 21. That's a total of 550,000 in one order.  

Texas Governor Abbott released a statement that said Biden's unconstitutional amnesty political pander will be struck down, just as former President Obama's DAPA and DACA actions were.

“President Biden's mass amnesty announcement is blatantly illegal and is a desperate pandering for votes in his failing reelection bid. President Biden’s amnesty proposal, just like President Obama’s DAPA and DACA proposals, will be stricken down by the courts for a simple reason: it is Congress, not the President, that has the authority to make or change immigration laws. Rather than solving the border crisis he caused, President Biden’s mass amnesty will be another magnet to attract migrants to flood across our border illegally. President Biden needs to stop rewriting immigration law and start enforcing it.
 
President Biden gaslighted the American people into thinking that he is taking real action to secure the border by issuing a hollow executive order that will instead invite thousands of unvetted illegal immigrants to continue crossing our southern border daily. He is now doubling down by offering mass amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants already in the country. President Biden’s reckless policies have already allowed over 11 million illegal immigrants—including dangerous criminals, gang members, and terrorists—into America. Our country can’t survive four more years of these dangerous open border policies.”

This week marks the 12th anniversary of DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order by Obama. Obama, who Democrats called a Constitutional expert (!), said at the time that he had no constitutional authority to do so but he went ahead anyway. Just like Biden's move five months out from election day, Obama did it as he was looking for a pander to Hispanic voters in an election year, in 2012.

This is what Democrats do. Those who are getting amnesty now have been in the United States for at least ten years, violating U.S. law every day by being in our country illegally. Their first action was to violate U.S. immigration law by arrogantly crossing the border without using a legal port of entry. Now they are being rewarded. This is political pandering at its most cynical.

Governor Abbott points out that the executive action will be struck down in court.

Biden (and Obama) don't care. They focus on winning elections above law and order. They blame Congress when Congress doesn't act on what they want. Then they move on their own.

Democrats are hysterical that former President Trump may win the election in November. They claim he will seize power and do whatever he pleases once he is in office again. The truth is that Democrats always accuse Republicans of doing exactly what they are doing. This is a good example. Trump promises to begin securing the border on day one of his second term in office, as he did during his first term. He did it before, he can do it again.

Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, blasted the move as a political pander, too.

"President Biden’s election-year, 11th-hour ploy for mass amnesty is not surprising, but it is an important reminder for anyone who doubted: This administration was never serious about securing the border," House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital.

"By allowing otherwise inadmissible aliens to remain in the country indefinitely through a ‘parole-in-place’ sleight of hand and to receive generous, taxpayer-funded benefits, this president is sending a loud and clear message to any would-be border crosser that the door is not only wide open, there’s a welcome mat."

We need change in November. The Biden border crisis is a threat to national security. It will take the next president some time to clean up Biden's mess. The sooner that begins, the better.

https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2024/06/19/governor-abbott-flames-bidens-mass-amnesty-policy-n3790556

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June 20, 2024

To Justify His New Border Rule, Mayorkas Fesses Up to the Harm Caused by His Mass Releases

Summary

In order to make the case for his June “Securing the Border” rule — “urgently needed to avert significant public harm” — DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had no choice but to admit to the harm caused by the mass release of aliens apprehended at the border. He had to disavow positions he has consistently taken, positions grounded in his “detention is morally inexcusable” mindset.

Consequently, the narrative of the rule reads like a case-study in cognitive dissonance — “the unpleasant mental state that may result if someone really does have certain beliefs but thinks or acts in a way that contradicts them”.

Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Secretary Mayorkas in part precisely because his “unlawful mass release of apprehended aliens … ha[s] enticed an increasing number of aliens to make the dangerous journey to our Southwest border”. Mayorkas has long known the deleterious effects of mass release. But this rule is the first time I know of that he has actually admitted the harm.

Mass release creates a de facto open border, which is at the core of the alien smugglers’ open-border narrative that Secretary Mayorkas has long attacked as a lie. In actuality, the smugglers have been more truthful about the state of the border than has Mayorkas and he needed to admit to the truthfulness of their narrative, to admit that their “lies” were in fact true. But this made Mayorkas uncomfortable, so elsewhere in the rule he seemed to implicitly question the narrative or even return to calling the smugglers liars.

There is another explanation for the peculiar manner in which the rule was written. It is possible that Secretary Mayorkas never even read the rule that he signed. If so, the staff tasked with writing the rule was simply trying to perform an incredibly difficult balancing act: justifying the rule by admitting where necessary to inconvenient truths, while also not too openly contradicting past statements by their boss.

https://cis.org/Fishman/Justify-His-New-Border-Rule-Mayorkas-Fesses-Harm-Caused-His-Mass-Releases

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June 19, 2024

500,000 immigrants offered path to US citizenship in Biden election-year gambit

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a new effort to provide a path to citizenship to hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the US illegally who are married to US citizens, an election-year move that contrasts sharply with Republican rival Donald Trump’s plan for mass deportations.

At a White House event, Biden criticised Trump for separating migrant families at the US-Mexico border and using incendiary language about immigrants in the US illegally, including comments that they were “poisoning the blood of our country”.

“It’s hard to believe it’s being said, but he’s actually saying these things out loud. And it’s outrageous,” Biden said. “I’m not interested in playing politics with border or immigration. I’m interested in fixing it.”

The program will be open to an estimated 500,000 spouses who have lived in the US for at least 10 years as of June 17, the White House and US Department of Homeland Security said in statements on Tuesday. Some 50,000 children under age 21 with a US-citizen parent also will be eligible.

Biden, a Democrat seeking a second term in November’s presidential election, took office vowing to reverse many restrictive immigration policies of his predecessor Trump, who is also looking to return to the White House. But faced with record levels of migrant arrests at the US-Mexico border, Biden has toughened his approach in recent months.

Earlier this month, Biden barred most migrants crossing the US-Mexico border from requesting asylum, a policy that mirrored a similar Trump-era asylum ban and drew criticism from immigration advocates and some Democrats.

Biden’s planned legalisation program for spouses of US citizens could reinforce his campaign message that he supports a more humane immigration system and show how he differs from Trump, who has long had a hardline stance on both legal and illegal immigration.

The US already provides a path to citizenship for immigrants who are married to Americans and entered the country legally on a visa. But in most cases, those who enter illegally must first go back to their home country for years before being allowed to return legally.

The new program will allow the spouses and their children to apply for permanent residence without leaving the US, removing a potentially lengthy process and family separation. If they are granted green cards, they could eventually apply for US citizenship.

People who are considered public security threats or who have disqualifying criminal history would not be eligible.

The implementation will roll out in coming months and the majority of likely beneficiaries would be Mexicans, senior Biden administration officials said on a call with reporters.

Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday said the decision to regularise Mexican families’ migratory status in the United States is “very good news”, celebrating Biden’s announcement during a press conference.

Biden spoke at an event at the White House tied to the anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Former President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Biden launched the DACA program in 2012, another major legalisation effort that currently grants deportation relief and work permits to 528,000 people brought to the US as children.

The Biden administration also announced on Tuesday guidance to make it easier for DACA recipients to obtain skilled-work visas.

US Representative Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat attending Tuesday’s event, said the relief for spouses is a way for the administration to balance recent border enforcement measures.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/biden-offers-path-to-citizenship-to-spouses-of-us-citizens-in-election-year-gambit-20240618-p5jmwb.html

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June 18, 2024

Unjustifiable damage to Australia: Elite universities lash caps on student arrivals

This is typical  Leftist stupidity: Introducing a new stupid policy to correct a previous stupid policy.

After Tony Abbott wiped out the "boat people" trade, Australia is one of the few Western countries to have complete control over its immigrant arrivals.  Yet the Leftist Albanese government has presided over a huge influx of LEGAL immigration. Every Tomaso, Ricardo and Arroldo seems to get a visa just for asking.  And that has led to all sorts of problems -- a housing shortage in particular.  

So Albanese knows he has goofed and now badly wants to cut immigration back.  But instead of doing the hard yards and looking in detail at why so many people have been allowed in he has just seized on just one large category of immigrants and cut them back.  

But that category is exactly the wrong one.  Education is one of Australia' biggest exports, accounting for a huge flow of money comng into Australia, mostly from China.  So  he is going to cut THAT  back.  Insane.  He is going to cut by far the most beneficial group of immigrants into Australia. It takes a Leftist!  

I don't suppose he would instead implement a complete stop on arrivals from the Middle-East.  Middle-Eastern parasites = good;  Hard-working Chinese = bad, no doubt


Elite universities have attacked the government’s plan to cap international students as an “unjustifiable risk to the nation” and warn tens of thousands of enrolments for next year are in limbo.

The Group of Eight – which includes the University of Sydney, Melbourne University and the University of NSW – has accused the federal government of creating a lasting legacy of political interference in the $48 billion higher education export market.

Top universities have warned that curbing international students would create multimillion-dollar holes in their finances.

In a submission to the government’s draft framework, the universities opposed the international student cap for public universities and TAFEs and instead proposed growth targets for individual institutions.

They criticised the government for introducing a bill into parliament, describing the move as a breach of good faith during the consultation process.

“The central ‘command-and-control’ approach to international education ... represents an unjustifiable risk to the nation,” the submission said.

“There is no evidence the approach will work – and significant evidence that it will fail.

The submission said the plan could not be implemented by the proposed 2025 date and would cause “significant financial damage” to the higher education sector and the Australian economy.

“It is founded on a false conflation of international students and Australia’s housing crisis. And it will leave a long-term legacy of political interference in a $48 billion export industry.”

The comments mark a significant escalation in the rhetoric of the influential group, signifying deep concern within the universities, which are highly reliant on international students to prop up teaching and research.

The eight universities control more than a quarter of the country’s lucrative international education market.

The government in May announced it would cap international student numbers as a key mechanism to halve migration by 260,000, in what was a dramatic intensification of its efforts to stem an influx of foreign students.

Enrolments in the sector were steadily increasing year-on-year before the COVID pandemic. Student numbers plummeted after border closures but quickly rebounded after the Morrison government introduced cheaper visas and better working rights to help stem workforce shortages.

At Sydney University, the largest educator of foreign students in the country, 46 per cent of its cohort comes from overseas, and it relies heavily on the Chinese market. Among its postgraduate degrees, most students are from overseas.

In 2023, it made more than $1.4 billion from foreign students and was the only NSW university to report a surplus.

At the University of Melbourne, 45 per cent of its students were from overseas in 2023, up from 41 per cent the previous year.

Education Minister Jason Clare said the government intended to set limits for every university, higher education and vocational education provider that educates international students.

“This is a really important national asset, and we need to ensure it maintains its social licence,” he said. “We are consulting the international education sector to make sure we get the design and implementation of these critical reforms right, with implementation to begin in 2025.”

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson said the group was happy to discuss managed growth across the whole sector with the government.

“It’s a very easy political hit to just say cut student numbers as part of a broader migration strategy,” she said.

“What the government has failed to do is address to us why would you go so hard on our universities when all of the evidence points to the absolutely devastating effect this will have.”

Thomson said should the caps be implemented, the 2025 start date would be unworkable given the long lead times in the recruitment of international students.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/unjustifiable-risk-to-the-nation-elite-universities-lash-student-caps-20240616-p5jm76.html

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June 17, 2024

In late 2022 and early 2023, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security launched one of the most unusual humanitarian programs in U.S. immigration history: it unilaterally began authorizing inadmissible Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (thus the shorthand name CHNV Program) and their immediate family members to fly commercially from foreign countries into more than 40 American airports.

The administration has used this legally dubious program to authorize more than 460,000 ostensibly endangered nationals of those four countries to fly directly from undisclosed airports abroad into some 45 U.S. airports from October 2022 through May 2024. They are then released on temporary humanitarian parole of renewable two-year periods with work permits, during which time they are assumed (but not required) to be applying for asylum.

From this massive “rescue” program’s inception, the Biden administration has claimed that its purpose was to provide temporary U.S. sanctuary “for urgent humanitarian reasons” for those facing persecution in their native countries, and thus reduce the incentive to pass through Mexico on “dangerous routes that pose serious risks to migrant’s lives and safety” on their way to illegally cross the U.S. border.

But new information that the Center for Immigration Studies has forced from the government through litigation now reveals that, while all participants are nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, or Venezuela, many are flying to the United States from 73 other nations. (See the list of countries provided by DHS here.)

The departure country list casts serious doubt on whether the Biden administration has used the humanitarian rescue flights program as it was sold to the American public. In fact, the new departure country information shows that many migrants from these four nationalities have been heading to the U.S. from some of the safest, most prosperous nations on Earth, some heralded worldwide as vacation wonderlands. They could not have been suffering urgent humanitarian problems there, nor were they anywhere near dangerous migration trails.

Economic Giants and Vacation Hotspots

CHNV nationals are flying to the U.S. from Iceland and from Fiji and from Greece.

They are flying from the wealthy European Union countries of France and Germany, from Finland and Norway, from the Netherlands and Switzerland, and from Sweden and Italy. They are flying from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Presumably, many Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans have reached these countries to settle and work.

The government’s list of 77 departure countries shows that, yes, ostensibly rescue-worthy Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans are indeed flying in from their own troubled countries to take their U.S. humanitarian protection, as most observers would presume.

But they are also getting authorizations to fly from beautiful Caribbean vacation hotspots like Barbados, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Martinique, St. Lucia. St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The publicly stated purposes of the CHNV program, also called the Advanced Travel Authorization (ATA) program, are at odds with the reality that many are departing from models of prosperous stability and safety, whose own residents could never possibly qualify for U.S. humanitarian protection, nor would ask for it.

“I would say this data is evidence that the parole program is not being used to help aliens flee to safety but, rather, as a secondary immigration system that has not been authorized by Congress,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, Director of Regulatory Affairs for the Center for Immigration Studies, who served as Senior Advisor in the Office of the Chief Counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“The Biden administration is likely paroling in aliens who are already ‘firmly resettled’ in safe and orderly countries but are nevertheless benefitting under the guise of urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit reasons,” Jacobs said.

https://cis.org/Bensman/New-Data-Many-Migrants-Bidens-Humanitarian-Flights-Scheme-Coming-Safe-Countries-and

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June 16, 2024

Border Security Wildly Popular as Vast Majority of Americans Support Deportation and Curbing Asylum Seeking at Border

By Manzanita Miller

Americans have had enough with the Open Borders agenda, and polls show a vast spoke in the share of Americans supporting the deportation of illegals and a reduction in asylum processing along the border. In other words, Americans now favor significantly stricter immigration policy than just a few years ago – including a majority of independents, Hispanics, and college-educated Americans.   

The latest YouGov survey shows Americans would favor a deportation program to deport all illegal immigrants by a broad 24-point margin, or 62 percent to 38 percent. This represents a vast spike in the share of Americans favoring a deportation effort compared to just two months ago.

An NPR / Marist poll from April found that Americans supported the deportation of all illegals by just three percentage points, 51 percent to 48 percent. Now, Americans support deportation by 24-points.

Fox News analysis in February found that nearly 7.3 million illegals have crossed the U.S.-Mexican border under President Joe Biden, a number larger than the population of most U.S. states. Americans are aware of the strain the migrant crisis is putting on the country and are increasingly supportive of deportation efforts to reduce illegal immigration.

While a majority of Democrats (62 percent) oppose deporting all illegals according to the survey, a full 38 percent support deportation. Independents support deportation of all illegals by a 20-point margin, 60 percent to 40 percent, and Republicans support deportation by a 76-point margin, 88 percent to 12 percent.  

Even college-educated Americans – who tend to lean left and favor Biden – support the deportation of all illegal aliens by a 16-point margin, 58 percent to 42 percent. Hispanics – another group to whom deportation could be construed as controversial – also support deportation of illegals by a six-point margin, 53 percent to 47 percent.    

Similarly, a full 70 percent of Americans say they support a recent executive order partially shutting down asylum processing along the U.S.-Mexico border, which will allow U.S. immigration officials to quickly deport migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally. A full 76 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents approve of the order. In addition, 69 percent of Hispanics and 67 percent of college-educated voters support the effort to minimize migrant crossings.    

These views are in-line with YouGov / CBS News polling from January which found dwindling support for allowing illegals to remain in the U.S., with most Americans (57%) saying asylum seekers should either remain in Mexico and wait for a hearing or be deported permanently.

Voters in the January poll also held a distinctly negative view of immigration’s long-term impact on the country, with the public saying 48% to 22% that the influx of migrants will make society worse in the long term.

Those views appear to have intensified over the past five months, with stronger favorability for deportation in the latest YouGov survey. With a reckless and unsustainable Open Borders agenda that threatens civil society and national security, the political elites have pushed Americans to the brink. Even left leaning groups including many Democrats and college-educated voters are expressing deep dissatisfaction with Biden’s border crisis and a desire to deport illegal immigrants.

https://dailytorch.com/2024/06/border-security-wildy-popular-as-vast-majority-of-americans-support-deportation-and-curbing-asylum-seeking-at-border/

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June 13, 2024

Migrants continue to stream into Boston airport as more than 100 sleep on the floor

More than 100 migrants are sleeping on the floors of Boston's Logan International Airport as more continue to stream in and use the facility as a shelter.

A police source confirmed to Fox News that the hundreds of people pictured lining the floors of Boston's main air hub with makeshift beds and air mattresses are migrants that have been using the facility as a shelter.

The number of migrants being housed at the airport has increased in recent weeks, according to a report from the New York Post, increasing from only a few dozen who were at the facility a few months ago.


"We continue to see migrants at the airport. They come to Logan a number of ways. They also arrive at Logan at all hours," a representative from MassPort said of the situation, according to the report.

Compounding the issue is a lack of staff and resources at surrounding facilities, the representative said, causing migrants to be bussed to state welcome centers during the day, only to be transported back to the airport at night.

Migrants staying at the airport have been living in poor conditions, the report notes, sleeping on hard and cold floors, facing up at lights that are always on, and being constantly awakened by airport announcements.

The migrants have been forced to stay at the airport after state shelters reached their maximum capacity of 7,500 families in November, with those at the airport sitting on a wait list for shelter room to open.

While Massachusetts does not have any laws making the state a sanctuary jurisdiction, many local cities, including Boston, have some form of sanctuary laws on the books.

Nevertheless, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has attempted to address the lack of room in state shelters, announcing in May that a former prison south of Boston would be converted into a shelter that could host 400 homeless families, including 150 migrant families.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/migrants-continue-stream-boston-airport-more-than-100-sleep-floor

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June 12, 2024

NYC Common Sense Caucus proposes legislation to end sanctuary city status amid migrant crisis

The Common Sense Caucus, a group of city council members focused on safety and essential services, has introduced the legislation Intro 945, aimed at repealing the statutes that designate New York City as a sanctuary city.

The push from the city council group to revoke sanctuary policies comes at the heels of the migrant crisis and a growing concern over the constraint of local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, the group made clear in a release last week.

Specifically, the proposed legislation aims to repeal certain sections of New York City’s administrative code that pertain to non-detainment and immigration enforcement policies.

Council Member Robert Holden, who represents D-30, which includes Glendale, Maspeth, Middle Village and parts of Ridgewood, says he has had enough of criminal activity stemming from migrants coming into the city.

“We have enough criminals in this city; we don’t need to import more and protect them as well,” said Holden, who serves as co-chair of the caucus. “Repealing the laws that have created a sanctuary city status is common sense. Those who are wanted for heinous crimes back home or commit crimes in our country should be deported without hesitation. We aim to end this reckless social experiment once and for all.”

Members of the Common Sense Caucus collectively claim the repeal of sanctuary status will enhance law enforcement’s ability to ensure the safety and security of all New Yorkers.

“New York City has always been a safe haven for immigrants seeking better lives, and there have long been policies in place to protect those who follow the rule of law and want to contribute to our great city,” said Minority Leader and co-chair of the caucus Joe Borelli. “But the so-called ‘Sanctuary City’ laws that have been enacted over the past few decades under the single-party rule are a cynical distortion of those policies and have only served to protect dangerous criminals who simply do not belong in our country – and all New Yorkers are paying the price.”

A majority of Republican legislators from all parts of the city have joined this effort, including Council Member Joann Ariola, who represents Southern and Central Queens neighborhoods such as Howard Beach and Ozone Park.

https://qns.com/2024/06/nyc-common-sense-caucus-proposes-legislation-end-sanctuary-city-status-migrant-crisis/

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June 11, 2024

Australia: Workers call on home affairs boss to fix mismanaged border force unit

The Community and Public Sector Union has requested Home Affairs secretary Stephanie Foster intervene in the Australian Border Force’s mismanagement of the National Marine Unit.

On Monday, this masthead revealed a man who helped 39 asylum seekers reach the mainland in February was deported without charge.

The joint media investigation also revealed long-running issues with Border Force’s Cape-class patrol fleet. One vessel, the Cape York, caught on fire and was out of action at the same time as the Indonesian people smuggler’s boatload reached the West Australian shore.

National secretary of the CPSU Melissa Donnelly said the union has repeatedly raised workplace health and safety issues with the Australian Border Force which has been repeatedly ignored:

The media investigation into the Marine Unit shone a light on our union’s uphill battle with border force in our mission to make our members safe at work,” she said.

The CPSU should immediately be permitted to participate in the Marine Workplace Health and Safety Committee, which we have so far been denied access to.

I have written to the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, requesting she step in and protect our members.

I have outlined in that letter, issues including workplace health and safety, the proliferation of outsourcing and a lack of workforce planning.

On matters of outsourcing and workplace health and safety, there is no doubt in my mind that the introduction of a profit motive into the maintenance of Cape Class vessels has compromised these vessels and the safety of the mariners aboard them.”

https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-news-live-defence-minister-enforces-veto-on-israel-exports-climate-wars-reignite-20240611-p5jkqs.html

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June 10, 2024

Most Employment Growth Since Pandemic Has Gone to Immigrants

President Biden claimed in April that the United States has “the best economy in the world”, with a job market that the New York Times calls “historically strong”. Unfortunately, too many U.S.-born are missing out on the supposed “job-creation boom.” It is true that the country has added millions of jobs since the height of Covid. However, most of that employment growth has gone to immigrants, both legal and illegal. The government’s household survey shows that there were only 971,000 more U.S.-born Americans employed in May 2024 compared to May 2019 prior to the pandemic, while the number of employed immigrants has increased by 3.2 million.

It is certainly true that the unemployment rate is low, but “unemployed” people include only those who have looked for a job in the past four weeks. As we have discussed in prior publications, the labor force participation rate — the share working or looking for work — has declined dramatically among U.S.-born men since the 1960s, particularly for those without a bachelor’s degree. While labor force participation among these groups has roughly returned to pre-pandemic levels, the rate in 2024 remains at or near an historical low relative to other peaks in the business cycle. This is true even for U.S.-born men who are in the “prime” 25-54 age range for working.

Advocates insist there are simply not enough workers without immigrants. This argument ignores the long-term deterioration in labor force participation among U.S.-born men. Moreover, there is a significant literature showing that being out of the labor force is associated with social pathologies such as crime, social isolation, overdose deaths, and welfare dependency. Policymakers should consider encouraging work among the millions of working-age Americans on the economic sidelines rather than ignoring the problem and continuing to allow in large numbers of legal and illegal immigrants.

https://cis.org/Camarota/Most-Employment-Growth-Pandemic-Has-Gone-Immigrants

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June 9, 2024

Incentives Matter at the Border

Good public policy recognizes that people respond to incentives. In the case of the Southern border, inadmissible migrants will continue trying to cross as long as they believe the benefits of an attempt outweigh the costs. Of course, part of the migrant’s cost-benefit analysis is beyond the influence of U.S. policy. There is generally little the U.S. can do to end the episodes of recession, instability, or lawlessness in foreign countries that may push residents into leaving. Where border policy can affect the migration calculus is in the probability of success and the consequences of failure. If inadmissible migrants come to believe they are unlikely to gain entry, either at or between ports of entry, and that they will face significant penalties if they attempt to enter without inspection, then illegal immigration will decline.

A clear example of changing the probability of success occurred in 2019. As the border became inundated with migrants claiming asylum in order to gain immediate entry, the Trump administration began requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases were adjudicated. Because most of these asylum seekers were actually economic migrants who would not ultimately win their cases, eliminating the possibility of immediate entry reduced their incentive to make claims. DHS subsequently observed “a rapid and substantial decline in apprehensions in those areas where the most amenable aliens have been processed and returned to Mexico”.

When President Biden moved to abandon the Remain in Mexico policy upon taking office, he helped spark new migrant waves. The administration’s policies have been “akin to posting a flashing ‘Come In, We’re Open’" sign on the southern border, as one federal judge put it, and this week’s executive order on the border will do little to change that.

Nevertheless, immigration advocates tend to downplay the role of U.S. policy in incentivizing migration. For example, at a recent Center for Migration Studies event, Donald Kerwin rejected alternative explanations for the border surge and instead cited the difficult situations in sending countries:

I think the list of the top 10 [recent sending] countries tells its own story. You have Venezuela's economic collapse and criminality, Nicaragua's descent into authoritarianism, Haiti really a failed state whose prime minister is in hiding and just resigned, Ecuador becoming a major drug hub, Peru with its political unrest and highest fatality rate in the world from Covid, climate displacement in Guatemala and the like.

Outside events do help motivate particular migrant groups, but that doesn’t mean border enforcement is ineffective or irrelevant. By way of analogy, imagine a city driver who parks his car with the windows open and the keys on the dashboard. After his car is stolen, he could blame the theft on failing schools, industrial decline, and skill-biased technological change — but none of these “root causes” alters the fact that he would probably still have his car had he closed and locked it. Just as the careless driver incentivizes auto theft, our lax border policy incentivizes illegal immigration.

The claim that enforcement is ineffective as a deterrent sometimes finds its way into academic journals, but the supporting evidence is weak. For example, a 2018 study in Latin American Research Review uses survey data to show that Central Americans who are more aware that the U.S. has increased border enforcement are no less likely to consider migrating. If border enforcement does not affect the migration decision, the authors reason, then there must be no deterrence. This conclusion has two problems. First, although knowledge of enforcement measures may deter some migrants, the Central Americans who want to migrate are the most likely to research those measures in the first place, leaving the expected relationship between enforcement knowledge and intent-to-migrate ambiguous. Second, a deterrence policy will work only to the extent that it actually does raise the costs and lower the benefits of migrating. Empty gestures — e.g., “drones on the border” — will show equally empty results.

A more informative study of the impact of border enforcement appeared in the American Economic Journal in 2021. The authors found that apprehended migrants who are eligible for “sanctions” — which could include restrictions on future visa eligibility, relocation far from the point of apprehension, and criminal prosecution — are much less likely to be re-apprehended, which implies they make fewer attempts. The analysis is based on actual apprehension data — not surveys where potential migrants merely speculate about how enforcement may affect their decisions. The results show that enforcement can indeed alter the incentive structure in ways that discourage migration.

Steps to discourage illegal immigration need not stop at the border. Enforcing laws against hiring unauthorized workers can also change the cost-benefit calculus for potential migrants. The most effective worksite tool is E-Verify, which employers can use to check whether their employees are authorized to work in the U.S. A study published in the academic journal Policy Studies in 2021 found that mandatory E-Verify stood out during the 2005-2010 period of analysis as the policy most strongly associated with lower numbers of illegal immigrants within a state. One need not rely entirely on econometrics to assess E-Verify, however, because intense opposition from employers of illegal labor is its own kind of evidence. These employers are not nearly so exercised about drones on the border!

Policymakers could go much further to disincentivize illegal immigration by mandating nationwide E-Verify, restoring Remain in Mexico, tightening asylum eligibility rules, ending catch and release, and restricting parole. The policy levers are available, but, as of this moment, the political will is not.

https://cis.org/Richwine/Incentives-Matter-Border

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June 6, 2024

California Forced To Repay Millions After Giving Taxpayer-Funded Healthcare To 'Noncitizens'

California owes the federal government tens of millions of dollars for incorrectly claiming medical care reimbursements for noncitizens, a federal audit found.

The Golden State must repay nearly $53 million to the federal government after it “improperly” claimed reimbursements from the Medicaid program for illegal immigrants and other noncitizens, according to a recent report by the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The findings emerge as California grapples with a massive budget deficit in the tens of billions of dollars.

The issue surrounds how California officials calculated federal reimbursements for noncitizen medical care.

States are largely prohibited from claiming Medicaid reimbursement for treating foreign nationals who do not meet federal requirements, with some exceptions for medical emergency situations, according to the audit. The federal government refers to this prohibited category as “noncitizens with unsatisfactory immigration status,” a group that does not include migrants who have been granted asylum, refugees, or were given legal permanent residence status.

However, states are allowed to expand their Medicaid programs to provide additional coverage to other noncitizens, as long as it is fully funded by the state government, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. California has largely done so with their own state program, known as Medi-Cal, which gives coverage to illegal immigrants.

California used a formula to determine how much its Medi-Cal program spent on “nonemergency services” for illegal immigrants and other noncitizens not covered by the federal government, and then subtracted it from the total spent on emergency care — ultimately calculating a price tag that was reimbursed under Medicaid, according to the report.

Federal auditors found the calculation method used by California to be incorrect, determining it had not been updated in years. The report found that, of the nearly $373 million in Medicaid reimbursements for noncitizens who did not meet the federal threshold, California “improperly” claimed $52.7 million between October 2018 and June 2019.

“California improperly claimed $52.7 million in Federal Medicaid reimbursement because it continued to use the proxy percentage that was developed in the early 2000s without assessing whether the percentage correctly accounted for the costs of providing nonemergency services to noncitizens with UIS under managed care,” the audit found. “In addition, California did not have any policies and procedures for assessing and periodically reassessing the proxy percentage.”

The report recommended California officials refund the money to the federal government and coordinate with regulators to determine how much other federal money may have been incorrectly claimed in other years not covered by the audit.

The report emerged just weeks after California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom announced hundreds of spending reductions in order to deal with a near $45 billion dollar state deficit. Budget cut proposals were made to the state’s healthcare workforce, housing development, education facilities, scholarships, among other proposals.

“The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) does not contest the findings of the report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and plans to repay the federal government in full by June 30, 2024,” DHCS said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Additionally, DHCS has worked with the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to develop and implement a more refined service identification methodology with updated payment and claiming processes.”

https://dailycaller.com/2024/06/05/california-to-pay-millions-for-noncitizen-medical-care/

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June 5, 2024

Yogis to be rushed into Australia ahead of tradies under draft policy

Incredible.  Leftists at work

The federal opposition and housing industry bodies have hit out at a draft policy that would see migrant yoga and martial arts instructors rushed into Australia ahead of some skilled construction workers.

Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) has released its draft core skills occupations list – essentially the types of workers that could be prioritised for temporary skilled visas.

According to the draft, JSA is confident that yoga and martial arts instructors, dog handlers and jewellery designers will be included on the priority list.

While some construction workers like carpenters and electricians are included on the provisional "on" list, others, such as plumbers, roof tilers and bricklayers are slated for further consideration.

That's despite Australia needing an extra 90,000 skilled tradespeople to meet the government's target of 1.2 newly built homes over the next five years.

That goal looks increasingly challenging with home approvals falling and the construction industry facing significant business pressures – which are driven in part by skilled labour shortages.

"All of the trades need to be on the definite list," Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn said.

"We can't understand why they weren't there in the first place.

"It is totally against the overwhelming evidence we have before us about our needs to house all Australians."

The opposition, which has pledged to drastically cut migration levels if it wins office at next year's federal election, has also hit out at the list.

"We have a housing crisis in this country because we cannot get houses built quickly enough," Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said.

"And the dog handler, the martial arts specialists are not going to get this done."

JSA has made clear its draft list is "for consultation only" and is not its final advice to the government.

"It does not represent the final advice that Jobs and Skills Australia will provide to government, nor is it a decision of government," it states.

JSA's final list will be provided to the government later this year before Immigration Minister Andrew Giles decides on the official core skills occupations list.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/yogis-to-be-rushed-into-australia-ahead-of-tradies-under-draft-policy/ar-BB1nzYxU

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June 4, 2024

The US town living under the shadow of a silent invasion

More than 11.2 million people, almost the equivalent of the population of Bolivia, have crossed the US border without documentation in the three years since Joe Biden became President, an extraordinary human tidal wave that has triggered a constitutional crisis and left Americans angry, worried and willing to embrace extreme countermeasures.

While the media and political class have fixated on Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, ordinary Americans have remained more concerned about illegal immigration, which overtook inflation and the economy as voters’ No.1 concern in February.

The surge in arrivals, more than 3 per cent of the US population, has fuelled fears of a crime wave after a 26-year-old Venezuelan man who crossed the border illegally in 2022 was charged with murdering 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley in February.

It also even has fed fears of a fifth column. The number of Chinese nationals, almost exclusively young men, crossing the southern border illegally has reached 27,500 since October 1 last year, up almost 8000 per cent since 2021.

A young Turkish immigrant, stopped by media at the border, said Americans were right to worry about the motivations of individuals, who typically paid many thousands of dollars to criminal cartel members.

“American people (are) right (to worry) who comes into this country. They don’t know. OK, I’m good. But (what if) they’re not good? How if they’re killers, psychopaths? No guarantee of that,” he told Fox News in San Diego County last week.

Last year US law enforcement seized more than 27,000 pounds (more than 12.2 tonnes) of the deadly synthetic drug fentanyl, up almost 500 per cent from 2020 – enough to kill the entire population of the US.

The influx has strained resources across the nation, pushing up hotel prices as state governments and cities scramble to house thousands of immigrants after furious Republican governors started bussing them to Chicago, New York, Washington and other big Democrat-run cities.

For the first time, the average price of a hotel room in New York City, which is expecting to spend $US10bn ($15bn) across three years paying hotels to house about 65,000 migrants, shot above $US300 last year. Of the 135 hotels used for migrant shelters, out of a total of 680 hotels in the city, none has been converted back for use as tourist lodgings.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has promised a sweeping deportation of illegal immigrants if he wins in November, a policy embraced by more than half of Americans (including 42 per cent of Democrats), according to an Axios poll conducted in April.

“Many of those people are coming from prisons, many of those people frankly are murderers, and they’re drug dealers, and they’re coming from mental institutions,” the former president told an audience of Libertarians last weekend, suggesting he would expel at least 15 million immigrants with the help of local police.

In recent months President Joe Biden, who immediately relaxed several Trump immigration orders that had discouraged would-be arrivals, has tried to blame Republicans for the surge because they refuse, at Trump’s insistence, to legislate a new, supposedly tougher, immigration law.

“We gave Republicans a second chance to show where they stand,” Democrat Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said last week, referring to a proposed law some Republicans had earlier expressed interest in supporting but that failed to pass the Senate a second time.

Of the 9.6 million immigrants who have been apprehended by law enforcement authorities trying to enter the US since January 2021, when Biden became president, almost 7.9 million crossed the southern border with Mexico.

Few border towns have borne the brunt of the influx as much as Eagle Pass, Texas, whose proximity to a relatively shallow part of the Rio Grande made it the epicentre for border crossings over the northern winter months, when thousands of immigrants were streaming across the river every day.

About 3½ hours drive from the state capital, Austin, Eagle Pass, a town of about 30,000 people, became a national flashpoint in February after a furious Texas government sent thousands of National Guard members and state troopers to secure the river, setting up a confrontation – and potential constitutional crisis – with the federal government’s Customs and Border Protection agents.

Republican Governor Greg Abbott banned federal government employees from a 2½-mile stretch of the river on either side of the town, including Shelby Park, 19ha of fields along the river, installing giant shipping containers and barbed wire to make entering the US almost impossible.

The number of arrivals has dropped markedly since – down more than 50 per cent in April around Eagle Pass to 10,300 compared with the same month last year – suggesting the tough measures have worked for now.

But the town still lives under the shadow of a silent invasion.

“Last week we caught 23 immigrants in a house; the smugglers knew it was empty,” says Maverick County sheriff Tom Schmerber, fresh from winning a fourth four-year term and whose face is plastered on billboards throughout Eagle Pass.

A local Pizza Hut waiter, who doesn’t want to be named, tells me his girlfriend came upon two illegal immigrants hiding in a garbage bin.

Eagle Pass is swarming with police, state troopers and National Guard members from numerous Republican states that have joined forces across the Mexican border to staunch a flow they argue the Biden administration cannot or will not stem. Every car leaving the town on the one road to San Antonio, three hours away, is checked.

“These are some of the worst of the worst folks,” says Robert Danley, the chief patrol agent for US Customs and Border Protection for the Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass.

Danley and colleagues unveiled photographs of eight potentially violent criminals at an event on the outskirts of Eagle Pass early last month, part of a joint effort with the Mexican government dubbed Se Busca Informacion to encourage locals to help authorities find hardened criminals.

The human traffic is a multimillion-dollar business for the Mexican transnational cartels, which determine who can cross.

“It’s about $US22m a week that the cartels and smuggling organisations are making here, which obviously brings a tremendous amount of resources so they can fight against us,” Danley says. Those who try to cross without paying up to $US10,000 a person are often killed by the gangs.

Sergeant Eric Allen of the Texas National Guard, who escorts me along the river when Inquirer visits last month, says two of his colleagues recently were imprisoned in US jail after authorities caught them turning a blind eye to crossings for a few thousand dollars each. They had been “honey-potted” by Mexican women working for the cartels.

“When the girls ask you on dating apps more about your job than your hobbies, you know it could be a problem,” Allen tells Inquirer.

Local authorities aren’t so sure the drop in crossings is entirely owing to Texas or US policy, for all the relentless media attention and political partisanship.

“They’re going to do it; you build a 10-foot wall and they’re just going to build an 11-foot ladder; or they can literally walk to the end of the wall and go around it,” Eagle Pass police officer Humberto Garza says.

Veteran Val Verde County sheriff Joe Martinez reckons all the wire and containers can’t explain it. “I think that this administration, the Biden administration, and the Mexican administration got together,” he tells Inquirer. “Something’s happening behind the scenes to explain this.”

Indeed, in late April Biden and his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, had a rare phone conversation.

“The two leaders ordered their national security teams to work together to immediately implement concrete measures to significantly reduce irregular border crossings while protecting human rights,” the White House said.

“I’m pretty sure all the big companies in Mexico started going up complaining to their government,” says Schmerber, the Maverick County sheriff, suggesting the closure of the bridges over the river joining Eagle Pass and the much larger Piedras Negras on the other side by US authorities in response to the winter surge had hit Mexican businesses.

Local emergency services chief Jesus Rodriguez agrees. “My understanding is that Mexico has been more proactive in trying to curtail people coming through,” he tells me.

Less remarked than the surge or the sudden drop in illegal migrant numbers around Eagle Pass – the same can’t be said for California, where numbers have soared – are the benefits the crisis has delivered to the local community.

Nightly hotel rates exceeded $US400 a night earlier this year, when the international media descended at the peak of the surge.

Eagle Pass Chamber of Commerce chief executive Jorge Barrera says the closure of car and pedestrian bridges over the river to Mexico, which occurred during the height of the influx, frustrated locals and damaged business.

“But now more restaurants, hotels are coming in, we hear a lot of people wanting to move here, there’s more retail, Eagle Pass is becoming like a hub,” he tells Inquirer, rattling off the names of new businesses that have emerged.

“I’m in the perfect place to see it because I can see the meters,” he adds, referring to his full-time job as head of the local water utility.

It’s not only new businesses. The state government is building a huge facility nearby to house up to 1800 National Guard members permanently.

“Local people here started making apartments, too, because we had all the troopers and guardsmen here, so yes, it’s been great for the economy,” Schmerber says. “Remember the immigrants don’t really want to be here, they want to head up north.”

Local police officer Garza tells me his force lost three officers recently, explaining how the crisis has injected extra money into the community.

“Any local entity like a city or a county cannot compete with what the state offers; these guys are making, you know, with all their overtime, in the six figures,” he says.

That’s a sum of money that goes a long way in Eagle Pass, where tacos are available in restaurants for less than $US2 – perhaps a fifth of what the same item would cost in Washington DC.

The decline in migrant numbers around Eagle Pass could be a calm before the storm.

“I heard rumours that some of the countries down there (in South America) were releasing their prisoners and encouraging them to come up here,” says Garza, echoing claims Trump has made in recent weeks that Inquirer can’t substantiate.

Val Verde County sheriff Martinez fears a “rush to the border nearer to November” if it looks as if Trump could win.

The issue remains as politically divisive as ever. Would-be Republican congressman Jay Furman, who won preselection for Texas congressional district 28 last week, says the US should learn from Australia’s response to illegal immigration.

“I always draw people’s attention back to how you used to deal with this, correctly, you deported them to your own prison island,” he tells Inquirer.

Furman is part of a new breed of Republicans who trenchantly disavow the old GOP attitude to relatively free immigration over the southern border, which was praised as a source of cheap labour and economic growth.

“One side is corrupted by a desire for ‘voter replacement’, and the other side is toeing the line for the Fortune 500 and chamber of commerce, wanting lower wages,” Furman says.

The Biden administration’s tolerance for such a huge and unpopular spike in illegal immigration is puzzling. It has the same tools available as the previous administration.

Schmerber sees some merit in the “voter replacement” arguments – a popular conspiracy theory that says Democrats welcome such large numbers of migrants in the hope they will vote Democrat one day.

Or perhaps the two parties have simply switched roles.

“The economy of the United States would end in three days,” Democrat congressman Eric Sorensen has said, making arguments once more typically made by Republicans, who argued the economic benefits of cheap labour for US farms, households and small businesses.

What’s clear is it’s not the border towns that are suffering so much from the so-called border crisis but, rather, Americans in the rest of the country who are competing for jobs or enduring a spike in crime.

“After the immigrants are here for six, eight months they find out they need to do something to make money, and if they don’t have skills the only options are burglarising or drug,” Schmerber says.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/the-texas-town-living-under-the-shadow-of-a-silent-invasion/news-story/ef08cf2413aa5ec69569ff64865c2459

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June 3, 2024

Australians say migration is 'too high' as the housing crisis worsens

Almost half of Australians believe there are too many migrants moving to Australia, even though the vast majority say cultural diversity is a boon for the nation.

A new poll released by the Lowy Institute on Australian attitudes revealed 48 per cent of respondents said the total number of migrants coming to Australia each year was too high.

This result was a slight increase from the last time the question was asked in 2019, and remains six percentage points lower than its 2018 peak, but still reflects an 11-point rise since 2014, months after the government launched its infamous Stop the Boats campaign.

The number of people who believed the migration intake was 'about right' has also dropped from 47 per cent in 2014 to 40 per cent in 2024.

Despite this, nine in 10 Australians still believe the nation's culturally diverse population has been positive for Australia, when multiculturalism is a product of decades of immigration, report author Ryan Neelam said.

'We find that people can hold contradictory views in their mind at the same time, but it may not be explained as a contradiction,' he said.

'People see the country's identity as being a multicultural one, but when it comes to the immigration rate it looks like they've become less open towards that.

'It is such a large, complex issue... depending on which part of the issue you ask about, people could have views that seem quite different.'

This political debate is now playing out as the nation endures a cost of living crisis, with the major parties introducing policies that link migration to economic impacts and housing issues.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13486789/Australians-say-migration-high-housing-crisis-worsens.html

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June 2, 2024

The Massive Immigration Wave Hitting America’s Classrooms

Eighth-grader Sandla Desir spoke softly in a classroom recently while reading the Dr. Seuss book, “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish,” aloud in accented English.

The book isn’t typical material for a 13-year-old. But when Sandla started at O’Donnell Middle School in September, the native Haitian Creole speaker could barely read.

“Her fluency is remarkable,” said Amy Quealy, who directs English Language Education for the school district in Stoughton, Mass., a suburb south of Boston.

Sandla’s progress illustrates the mix of triumphs and challenges for an influx of young migrants around the country that is unprecedented in recent history.

Millions of migrants, most seeking asylum, have crossed the border in recent years and have been allowed to settle in the U.S. until a federal immigration judge decides their fate, a process that can take years. Among the record numbers, federal data suggest, are as many as one million children who have arrived with their families or on their own since 2021.

They are settling in cities and entering public schools around the U.S., adding financial and logistical strains in communities where they have arrived in large numbers. Districts are faced with the need for additional teachers and staff who can teach English and space for new students, often while waiting for promised supplemental federal or state funding.

Denver schools, for example, earlier this year announced a $17.5 million budget shortfall because of new migrant students.

There were recently more than 500 English learners in Stoughton schools, double the number from three years ago. The increase was fueled partly by 90 students, ranging from kindergarten to high school, placed by the state in two nearby hotels serving as homeless shelters. Many are from recently arrived Haitian migrant families.

Haitians have flocked to Massachusetts, which has an established population from the long-troubled Caribbean country.

Increased costs

Adding the 90 shelter students has cost Stoughton, which teaches a total of 3,740 students, at least $500,000 for increased staff and busing costs. The state said it has reimbursed nearly all of that money. But the lag time and uncertainty about how much would be paid back has challenged the district’s ability to plan, said Joseph Baeta, Stoughton’s superintendent.

The most immediate upfront costs this year were hiring five new staff members, including two teachers, and contracting for a bus to shuttle students to and from the hotel shelters, Baeta said. The district has gone from seven to 17 English-as-a-second-language teachers in the past five years.

Massachusetts is legally mandated to offer shelter to any family that seeks it. Migrant families recently comprised about half of the 7,477 homeless families recently living in state shelters, which are at capacity. The state since October 2022 has spent roughly $26 million to reimburse school districts for costs associated with students living in shelters.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-massive-immigration-wave-hitting-america-s-classrooms/ar-BB1n2grP

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