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31 August, 2007

IMMIGRATION TO ADD 100+ MILLION TO U.S. POPULATION BY 2060

New Report Takes Detailed Look at Different Levels of Admissions. CIS press release below

A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies projects how different levels of immigration would impact the future size of America's population. The findings, carefully modeled on earlier projections by the Census Bureau, show that the current level of immigration will add 105 million to the population by 2060, while having a small effect on the aging of society.

The report, entitled ''100 Million More: Projecting the Impact of Immigration on the U.S. Population, 2007 to 2060,'' will be online at http://www.cis.org . Among the other findings:

* Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in net immigration of 1.25 million.

* If immigration continues at current levels, the nation's population will increase from 301 million today to 468 million in 2060 -- a 167 million (or 56 percent) increase. Future immigrants plus their descendants will account for 105 million (or 63 percent) of the increase.

* The total projected growth of 167 million is equal to the combined populations of Great Britain, France, and Spain. The 105 million from immigration by itself is equal to 13 additional New York Cities.

* If the annual level of net immigration was reduced to 300,000, future immigration would add 25 million people to the population by 2060 -- 80 million fewer than the current level would add.

* The above projection follows exactly the Census Bureau's assumptions about future birth and death rates, including a decline in the birth rate for Hispanics, who comprise the largest share of immigrants.

* Net immigration has been increasing for five decades; if that trends continues, the increase caused by immigration will be higher than the projected 105 million.

* While immigration has a very large impact on the size of the nation's population, it has only a small effect in slowing the aging of American society.

* At the current level of net immigration (1.25 million a year), 61 percent of the nation's population will be of working age (15 to 66) in 2060, compared to 60 percent if net immigration were reduced to 300,000 a year.

* If net immigration was doubled to 2.5 million a year it would raise the working-age share of the population by one additional percentage point, to 62 percent, by 2060. But that level of immigration would create a U.S. population of 573 million, double its size in the 2000 Census.

Policy Discussion: The findings of this study make clear that the debate over immigration should not be whether it makes for a much larger population -- without question it does. Consistent with the findings of the Census Bureau, these projections also show that the debate over immigration should not be whether it has a large impact on the aging of society -- without question it does not. The central question this study raises and that Americans must answer is what costs and benefits come with having a much larger population and a more densely settled country. Some see a deteriorating quality of life with a larger population, including its impact on such things as pollution, congestion, loss of open spaces, and sprawl. Others may feel that a much larger population will create more opportunities for businesses, workers, and consumers. These projections do not resolve those questions. What the projections do tell us is where we are headed as a country. The question for the nation is: Do we wish to go there?

Methodology: This report uses the Census Bureau's assumptions about future birth and death rates from its most recent projections and then simply varies the immigration component. The last Census Bureau projection, released in March 2004, incorporated only one immigration scenario into the projection, so immigration's impact was unclear. The new Center for Immigration Studies report is the first to show the impact of so many different levels of immigration. At present, elected officials have no way of knowing how 200,000 immigrants a year versus two million immigrants a year might affect the population in, say, a 20- or 50-year time period. These projections provide the answers. The new projections are based on the most recent immigration data, whereas the March 2004 Census Bureau projections were based on data collected in the 1990s prior to the results of the 2000 Census, and assumed a much lower level of immigration than was actually the case.



Neither Big Business nor Big Labor respect the law

Planned Crackdown on Illegals Denounced

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO this week separately assailed a new White House-backed crackdown on illegal immigration, warning of massive disruptions to the economy and headaches for U.S. citizens if the proposal goes ahead as planned in the coming days. The Bush administration intends to begin writing to 140,000 employers on Tuesday regarding suspect Social Security numbers used by an estimated 8.7 million workers, as a way of pressuring them to fire illegal immigrants. President Bush disclosed the plan three weeks ago as part of a repackaged, 26-point enforcement program after Congress failed to overhaul U.S. immigration laws this summer.

But leaders of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of trade groups representing the politically influential construction, lodging, farming, meatpacking, restaurant, retail and service industries appealed on Monday to the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to postpone the plan's implementation for six months. Raising the possibility of plant closings, autumn-harvest interruptions and other destabilizing consequences for the U.S. economy, 50 business organization members of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition signed a letter warning of "uncertainties, disruptions, and dislocations throughout broad swaths of the workforce," as well as discrimination against Hispanic and immigrant workers.

Yesterday, the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center and local labor groups separately asked a federal judge in San Francisco to stop the mass mailing and kill the plan outright. They alleged that the DHS is overstepping its authority to enforce immigration laws and is misapplying the Social Security system in a way that will unfairly penalize law-abiding workers and employers. The groups said that inaccurate federal databases could sweep U.S. citizens and legal residents into a bureaucratic morass. The Social Security database used to cull suspicious numbers contains erroneous records on 17.8 million people, including 12.7 million native-born U.S. citizens, the Social Security Administration's inspector general reported last year. "This rule is a new tool to repress workers' rights in the name of phony immigration enforcement," AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said in a statement. The plan "will cause massive discrimination against anyone who looks or sounds 'foreign,' " said Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.

In a statement, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke called the lawsuit "completely without merit, and we intend to fight it vigorously." Asked about the business coalition's request for a six-month reprieve, Knocke said: "The list of signatures tells you why immigration reform has been hard, and why we often face enforcement challenges. Still, we're going to restore public credibility on enforcement."

The attacks from the left and the right come as Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warns of "serious" and "unhappy consequences" for the sectors of the U.S. economy that depend on illegal labor, explaining that these are the costs of reestablishing voters' confidence. Administration officials have blamed the congressional defeat of an immigration overhaul package partly on Washington's failure to back up its tough rhetoric on illegal immigration with action, saying that political hypocrisy particularly undermined support among conservative groups. "Historically, whenever any administration has tried to enforce the laws that are on the books, they have received push back from stakeholders" and from "the same congressmen who say we need to be tough on immigration," said Deborah W. Meyers, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Some experts speculated yesterday that the new enforcement effort might have the dual aim of solidifying Bush's standing among an unhappy part of the Republican Party's base and punishing business groups that did not adequately support the immigration overhaul package. "I don't know if there's the will for it. Maybe it's too little, too late, but they're trying," said one congressional lobbyist, who said the administration appears to be trying to build pressure to revive the overhaul plan in Congress. The lobbyist spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Under the new rules, set to take effect on Sept. 14, employers that receive "no-match" letters have 90 days to resolve discrepancies. If they do not, the DHS may conclude that employers knowingly violated the law by employing illegal workers, opening the door to fines and even criminal arrests. That approach marks a major change. The Social Security Administration has long sent "no-match" letters, and it has found that 4 to 10 percent of workers have suspect numbers because of typographical errors, name changes resulting from marriage or multiple surnames, as well as fraud. But, until now, it has not held employers liable. The problem is greater in some industries. Farm groups estimate that 70 to 90 percent of field workers lack proper documents. Raids at meatpacking plants turn up discrepancies in about 30 percent of workers' documents.

Source





30 August, 2007

Australia: Small businesses want more immigration

Small businesses in Western Australia and other parts of the country are being forced to close because they can't find enough skilled people with trade and technical experience, reports Perth's Sunday Times. Both local authorities and the federal government recognise that immigration is the only answer to the labour shortage. The owner of a steel security company, Ian Saggers, told the Sunday Times he was closing his business because he has not been able to find anyone to train his staff to use the equipment. This is despite owning what is potentially a multimillion-dollar turnover business. Skilled tradespeople such as machine operators are being lured to the high-paying jobs offered by mining operations in the north. Many trades are on the Migration Occupations in Demand List (Australian MODL), entitling applicants for an Australian visa to extra points.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews recently acknowledged: "The reality in Australia today is we've got the lowest unemployment rate for 33 years, in states like Western Australia and Queensland in particular, it's almost impossible to find some workers, in particularly skilled areas, and we're crying out for workers, without which we wouldn't be able to continue to run the economy of Australia."

Western Australia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) chief executive John Langoulant told the Sunday Times they are calling for increases in the number of skilled workers being brought in from overseas. "The chamber has been working with government and employers to develop innovative ways to solve the problem,' he said. "The chamber advocates the use of skilled immigration schemes to help industry and business meet their growing short-term labour needs. However, improvements can be made to the present system by allowing more overseas skilled workers to enter the country.'

Source



Another "orchestrated litany of lies" in New Zealand

New Zealand has a culture of coverup which it is very difficult to defeat. There are some good comments about NZ justice here

The man who alleged that corrupt immigration officials had fast-tracked applications has dismissed a report clearing them, and says he knows parties who saw "money change hands". Former Immigration Minister Tuariki Delamere said he had no faith in a Government investigation, released yesterday, which found no evidence that immigration officials had possibly taken bribes to process business visa applications in 2002. Mr Delamere said he knew parties who had seen immigration agents accepting large sums of cash, and he would be willing reveal details to a parliamentary select committee. He first made the allegations in 2005 just after he was acquitted of several fraud charges relating to his work as an immigration consultant.

The cases in question were in 2002, when there was a massive backlog of between 3000 and 4000 cases. Eighty-nine cases that year were processed within a week at the Immigration Service's business migration branch. The Department of Labour's investigation - by Peter Chemis of law firm Buddle Findlay - found no evidence of undue influence. Of the 89 cases, 39 were either declined or of a nature that would have been processed within two days. The remaining 50 applications - 30 for long-term business visas and 20 for investors - were likely to have been selected for processing because they looked in order and had the correct paperwork attached. At the time the applications would have taken three months on average to process, but the report said "the time it took to process an application would depend on a variety of factors".

One immigration officer processed half of the 50 applications. The report described him as "honest and trustworthy". "Other than the statistics, which in themselves do not appear remarkable, I have very little to rely upon to even begin to develop the view that this case officer, or indeed any other case officer, was involved in something untoward or dishonest," Mr Chemis said in his report.

Mr Delamere said the investigation was a whitewash. "Anyone who might have been involved in anything improper would just deny it. Immigration officers aren't going to risk their jobs by saying anything adverse." He questioned whether the investigation had appropriate powers to properly test the claims and search under every rock. "I could have directed [the investigation] to people who say they saw money change hands ... Did money change hands? I have no idea. But the whole process smells, big time. "Back then, rich Chinese and Koreans would pay $50,000 to $100,000 if someone could guarantee immediate approval. These applications were approved in less than a week, some on the day they arrived."

Source





29 August, 2007

Migrants Self-Deporting In Arizona

Yesterday's Arizona Republic reported on an interesting phenomenon taking place as a new workplace identification law approaches implementation. Those workers with no documentation -- in other words, illegal aliens -- have begun to sell off their property and leave the state:

Undocumented immigrants are starting to leave Arizona because of the new employer-sanctions law. The state's strong economy has been a magnet for illegal immigrants for years. But a growing number are pulling up stakes out of fear they will be jobless come Jan. 1, when the law takes effect. The departures are drawing cheers from immigration hard-liners and alarm from business owners already seeing a drop in sales.

It's impossible to count how many undocumented immigrants have fled because of the new law. But based on interviews with undocumented immigrants, immigrant advocates, community leaders and real-estate agents, at least several hundred have left since Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill on July 2. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.

Some are moving to other states, where they think they will have an easier time getting jobs. Others are returning to Mexico, selling their effects and putting their houses on the market. The number departing is expected to mushroom as the Jan. 1 deadline draws closer. After that, the law will require employers to verify the employment eligibility of their workers through a federal database.

The immigration hard-liners appear to have proven one of their main arguments. Illegal immigrants who face a loss of employment due to strict employer sanctions will move elsewhere, and rather quickly. One talk-radio host that caters to what the Republic calls "undocumented immigrants" estimates that the departure rate has already hit 100 per day. It will likely increase until most of them depart before the end of the year, when their jobs will disappear.

Arizona passed employer sanctions with a particular bite. Rather than set up an escalating series of fines, which has been the federal approach, the state opted to put employers out of business. A first offense gets a ten-day suspension of the firm's business license, which would close the doors during that period. A subsequent offense revokes the business license permanently. Needless to say, that has provided an incentive to business owners to start checking identities through the federal database and terminating anyone who doesn't clear the system.

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce heads a coalition that wants the law repealed based on a Constitutional challenge, but it's hard to see how they can succeed. The state can impose sanctions on business licenses it issues, and it can insist that employers check for worker eligibility. The real issue for the ACC is labor shortages. The state currently has an unemployment rate of 3.7%, statistically full employment. Arizona employers will have to raise wages to compete for workers, which will cost consumers more but allow for more money in the market as well. It also might prompt business to push for automation where possible, using technology to fill the gaps.

However, the state does have around 9% of its workforce comprised by illegals. They rent houses and apartments, shop for food, and consume just like anyone else does in Arizona. When they disappear, the state will undoubtedly suffer a hit to the economy, especially in housing, which could depress real-estate values in some areas. Some of the immigrants own houses, and they have to sell them fast, which has glutted the resale market in the state. Secondary markets like furniture and home improvement have slowed considerably in Arizona, too.

Proponents of federalism often refer to states as laboratories for political experiments. Arizona's efforts on employer sanctions will prove an interesting test case for employer-based immigration sanctions.

Source



Mo. troopers to check arrestees' immigration status

People arrested by Missouri state troopers will undergo immigration status checks, under an order issued by Gov. Matt Blunt. Blunt's order, issued Monday, covers the Missouri State Water Patrol and the Capitol Police, as well as the 1,100-member Missouri State Highway Patrol. It calls for the three agencies to enter an agreement with the federal government under which the state troopers will be authorized to enforce immigration laws.

In issuing the order, Blunt pointed to the Aug. 4 killings of three college students in Newark, N.J. Jose Carranza, 28, an illegal immigrant from Peru, is one of six people charged in their deaths. Carranza was out on bail on child rape and aggravated assault charges when the killings occurred. Immigration officials were never alerted about his first arrest.

America is a nation of immigrants, Blunt said, but now is dealing with a wave of illegal immigrants who "openly flout the laws of the United States." Any arrestee found to be in the country illegally could be taken to one of 11 federal detention centers in Missouri. Federal immigration agents would then determines what happens to the detainees, Highway Patrol officials said.

It is also possible that someone stopped by a trooper could be detained for immigration authorities even if that person would not otherwise have been arrested, the Highway Patrol said. "If we think they're illegal, then we would be checking them," said Lt. John Hotz, a spokesman for the patrol. "There would have to be some reasonable suspicion. It can't just be, `I want to check them."'

Sen. Chris Koster, D-Harrisonville -- a former Republican who recently switched parties -- presented legislation this year to take away the business licenses of those who hire illegal immigrants. The measure failed because of Republican concerns that it would be too harsh a penalty for business owners.

Source





28 August, 2007

Germany not keen on more immigration

The article below is from the Wall St. Journal (known for its advocacy of "open borders") so impartial commentary on the economic effects of immigration is not to be expected. The article does however make clear that Germany has become very immigration-skeptical

Germany is taking baby steps to relax its tough restrictions on immigration as growing shortages of skilled labor force many European countries to compete for migrant workers. Complaints from businesses that they can't find enough qualified staff -- especially in the engineering sector -- are pushing Europe's largest economy to rethink its reluctance to admit foreign workers. Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday that her cabinet had agreed to let companies hire more engineers from European Union countries in Eastern Europe.

But Germany plans to keep a lid on the number of Eastern European migrants in other sectors, maintaining restrictions that have been in place since Poland and seven other ex-communist countries joined the EU in 2004. In contrast, other established EU countries such as the United Kingdom and Ireland opened their doors to workers from the East. The influx of workers is widely judged to have boosted their economies.

Germany, like many European countries, is torn between the economic case for more immigration and an attachment to the traditional idea of an ethnically homogeneous nation-state. For years, German politicians on the left and right have assured voters that Germany wasn't a country of mass immigration -- even though the country has gone through periods of letting in millions of foreigners. Even when large numbers of Turks settled in postwar West Germany, most Germans assumed these "guest workers" would return home. "Germany is struggling to accept the idea of diversity in society," says David Audretsch, an American who heads the Max Planck Institute of Economics in Jena, Germany. But countries that open up to people with different backgrounds and experiences are likely to fare better in the global economy than countries that try to stay homogeneous, he says.

During the 1990s, Germany had Europe's highest immigration rate, partly because it opened its doors to asylum seekers and ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. About 13% of today's German population was born abroad -- the same proportion as in the U.S., according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But in recent years, immigration has slowed amid bureaucratic restrictions, while an increasing number of Germans are moving abroad. Net immigration in Germany fell to 80,000 in 2005, compared with 270,000 in 2001. In contrast, countries including the U.K., Ireland and Spain have absorbed huge numbers of immigrants in recent years, which many economists credit with boosting growth and living standards for the native population.

Others contend competition from immigrants depresses wages of lower-skilled workers. In the past few years, much of the debate over immigration in Europe has focused on how to better integrate immigrants and their children into society. Riots in France and the U.K. and problems at German schools have highlighted social exclusion among ethnic minorities.

Terrorism by militant Islamists, including the Hamburg students who took part in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., have made many Europeans mistrustful of their Muslim minorities, adding to the unpopularity of allowing more immigration.

European policy makers also must address illegal immigration. Boatloads of destitute migrants -- often smuggled by criminal gangs to Europe's Mediterranean shoreline -- are common. On the other hand, many Europeans see immigration as one of the steps needed to ease future labor shortages that will afflict Europe's aging societies, together with improving low employment rates in certain parts of the native population. "By 2015 at the latest, our replacement needs will be bigger than our domestic supply of newly qualified workers," says Volker Treier, skills adviser at the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce.

Pressure for more immigration is compounded by an unexpectedly strong boom in German manufacturing, fueled by surging global demand for capital goods. A survey for Germany's Economics Ministry by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research found that last year German firms were unable to fill about 110,000 job vacancies for lack of qualified candidates. The study's author, Oliver Koppel, estimates the skills shortage, concentrated in engineering and information technology, cost the economy 20 billion euros, or about $27 billion. Yet German Economics Minister Michael Glos, who unveiled the study last week, stopped short of calling for more immigration. Instead, the government focused on the need to train citizens better for the labor market, which Ms. Merkel said on Friday was a higher priority than immigration.

Among the members of Ms. Merkel's cabinet, only Education Minister Annette Schavan recently has called for further relaxation of immigration rules. "Improving education and strengthening immigration aren't alternatives," she said in June. "We need both." Ms. Schavan called for Germany to relax one particularly onerous rule that German business chafes at: Firms can recruit highly skilled workers from abroad only if they pay them at least 85,000 euros a year. But other ministers overruled her, and last week the cabinet agreed to only one change: Beginning in November, companies hiring mechanical and electrical engineers from new EU countries in Eastern Europe will no longer have to go through a long bureaucratic process to prove there is no suitable German candidate for the job.

"Minimal steps are not enough," says Hartfrid Wolff, immigration spokesman for Germany's pro-business Free Democratic Party. Under EU law, Germany will have to drop its restrictions on East European EU citizens by 2011 at the latest -- so it might as well do so now and reap the benefits, he says.

In another measure to protect Germany against unwanted foreign intrusion, Ms. Merkel reiterated Friday that her government is working on ways to stop investors backed by foreign governments from taking over German companies in sensitive sectors -- a concern Germany has expressed in recent months against a background of the growing influence of state-backed investment funds from emerging economic powers such as Russia and China.

Source



Prospective Australian citizens must score 60pc in Aussie values

A PASS mark of 60 per cent will be enough to became an Australian under the citizenship test to be introduced later this year. The draft Citizenship Test Resource Book released yesterday by Immigration and Citizenship Minister Kevin Andrews contains little that is likely to frighten civil libertarians. To become a citizen, applicants will need to correctly answer 12 out of 20 questions in the test, expected to be introduced later this year after legislation has passed through parliament.

The booklet from which questions for the test will be drawn stresses cultural diversity, freedom of religion, a society governed by the rule of law and a nation of proud sports traditions. Sample questions contained in the 40-page book include: What is the floral emblem of Australia? and, In what year did Federation take place?

"It is important that people wishing to become Australian citizens demonstrate an understanding and commitment to Australia and our way of life," Mr Andrews said yesterday. "A citizenship test provides the means of ensuring that prospective citizens have such an understanding. "Before becoming a citizen it is reasonable to expect that a person will understand the core values that have helped to create a society that is stable yet dynamic, cohesive yet diverse. Respect for the free-thinking individual and the rule of law are the foundations of the Australian liberal democratic tradition."

The new test applies only to those seeking to become citizens, not those migrating and settling in Australia on permanent or provisional visas. Special arrangements will be made for those with low levels of literacy or with special needs.

In a section on freedom of religion, the booklet says: "Australia has secular government with no official or state religion. Religious laws have no legal status in Australia." It also tackles the concept of mateship, saying: "Australia has a strong tradition of mateship -- where people help and receive help from others voluntarily, especially in times of adversity. A mate can be a spouse, partner, brother, sister, daughter, son or friend. A mate can also be a total stranger."

In the section Introducing Australia, the guide describes Australia as a nation of immigrants and says the country's history has been built by the efforts of millions of immigrants from 200 countries. Migrants have added to the rich tapestry of Australia, the booklet says, and have become a vital part of our society.

The ANZAC legend is covered, and so is the vexing history of Aboriginal people and their treatment by European settlers. "There has been great debate about how many Aboriginals were killed in the frontier battles. Many more Aboriginals than settlers were killed," it says.

Intending citizens are warned that Australia is also a "sports-crazy" nation and that of all our sporting heroes Donald Bradman is the best-known. While Australian rules is the dominant style of football in four states -- Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania -- more recently soccer has started to attract a larger following among young people.

Source





27 August, 2007

America's delightful Somali refugees

Tape Shows at Least 10 Witnesses Ignoring Minnesota Woman's Cries for Help During Sexual Assault -- Victim, perp and witnesses were all Somali

A security video from an apartment hallway shows at least 10 witnesses ignored a woman's cries for help for more than an hour as a man beat and sexually assaulted her, prosecutors in Minnesota said. The surveillance video clearly showed men and women looking out their apartment doors or starting to walk down the hallway before retreating as the woman was assaulted for nearly 90 minutes, police spokesman Tom Walsh said.

Police said they responded to a call of drunken behavior and found Somali immigrant Rage Ibrahim, 25, and a woman lying unconscious in the hallway early Tuesday. The woman's clothing had been pulled up and she had fresh scratches on her face and blood on her thigh, according to the criminal complaint. Ibrahim says he is innocent and that the incident was a misunderstanding, according to Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, who spoke on Ibrahim's behalf. Ibrahim was charged with several counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, prosecutors said.

Walsh said police were shocked by the behavior of the bystanders. "(The video) shows one person looking out of her door probably three times," Walsh said. "It shows another person walking up, observing what's going on, then turning and putting up the hood of his sweatshirt."

At one point, the 26-year-old woman knocked on a door, yelling for the occupants to call police. A man inside that apartment told police he did not open the door or look out, but said he did call police - although they have no record of his call, according to court documents.

Minnesota law makes it a petty misdemeanor to not give reasonable help to a person in danger of "grave physical harm." Walsh said it is unlikely police would pursue charges against witnesses in this case because authorities would have to show that witnesses knew the woman was in extreme danger.

Jamal said Ibrahim went into the hallway after the woman because he thought she was too drunk to drive. They struggled over car keys, and "he is saying there was a huge misunderstanding," Jamal said, adding that the police report does not show "the truth of what happened that night." "He did not rape her," Jamal said.

Source



End of an ego trip

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

When I heard that federal immigration agents had arrested and deported Elvira Arellano, a 32-year-old Mexican citizen who brazenly broke our laws and all but dared U.S. authorities to do anything about it, I wondered what the reaction would be from the National Council of La Raza. Days before, I had received an angry phone call from NCLR President Janet Murguia, accusing me of taking a "cheap shot" by implying in a column that the organization supported open borders because it opposed a plan by the Bush administration to target employers of illegal immigrants. Murguia insisted that the NCLR supports enforcement and she pointed to its lobbying for the Senate compromise which, she reminded me, had an enforcement component. Yet I've never heard Murguia, or anyone at NCLR, say a positive word about a specific enforcement measure. I thought I'd give them the chance with the Arellano case. So I called and left a message.

As the son of a cop, I'd call this case a slam-dunk. Arellano entered the country illegally a decade ago, was deported, re-entered illegally, and then defied a second deportation order by holing up for months in a Chicago church. Then she took an ego trip by going on a national tour in support of illegal immigrants. Finally, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) nabbed her in Los Angeles. Now her tour is canceled, and she is in Tijuana. Good. It's a shame that Arellano will be separated from her 8-year-old son, Saulito, who was born in the U.S. and is thus a citizen. But the pain is her doing. She knew the risks and yet she put her son's welfare in jeopardy, not just by being an illegal immigrant but a conspicuous one at that.

This sad tale illustrates the sense of entitlement among those who refuse to follow our rules and then make up their own. That's ironic given that it is a different sort of entitlement that helps draw people here in the first place -- the entitlement that some Americans feel they have to turn up their noses at jobs that wind up being done by illegal immigrants.

My hard line may surprise some. A lot of people wrongly assume that I support illegal immigration. Half the reason comes from my positions -- in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, or against Minutemen vigilantes. The other half comes from rank racism, the assumption by some that I want a fluid border because, as a Mexican-American, I'm leading a reconquista (reconquest) of the Southwest or trying to bring in my relatives.

Don't laugh. One reader wrote: "Your picture looks as if you are Hispanic. Your name sounds Hispanic. You think and act like a Hispanic. You write like a Hispanic. And you espouse Hispanic views over and above American views. Therefore, I can only assume that you are Hispanic and not American." Actually, I'm both. Just like my Irish or Italian pals in Boston, I refuse to choose. And I'll tell you what they'd tell you: Deal with it.

My call to the NCLR was returned by Vice President Cecilia Munoz, the group's point person on immigration and someone with whom I often agree. Munoz began by insisting again that NCLR isn't opposed to enforcement. What concerns her, she said, is that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to our immigration strategy and so this arrest smells of red meat for the anti-immigration mob. "We have questions about whether going after people one at a time ultimately has much of a payoff in terms of effectiveness," she said. "What's the strategy behind our immigration enforcement? Are we trying to round up everyone and send them out? Because if that is our policy, then we're going to fail."

Then there is Saulito. According to Munoz, the boy makes this story emblematic of a larger problem -- separating families. "We're not just sort of levitating people out of the country with no impact," she said. "We should be making deliberate judgments about what our immigration priorities are, and I'm not sure that going after workers who are also parents is our most effective strategy. It's certainly not a cost-free strategy." Or a humane one. "It is really very upsetting to see parents torn away from their children," she said. "And you wonder: If this is our enforcement strategy, what kind of country are we becoming?"

The same kind of country we've always aspired to be -- one where parents respect their children enough to not put them in harm's way, and where everyone is taught to respect the rule of law.

Source



Testing times for migrants in Australia

MIGRANTS will face a tough new citizenship test obliging them to endorse the values of mateship and the fair go, as well as learn the English language. For the first time, the Federal Government has laid out what it regards as the 10 essential Australian values every citizen must embrace.

A draft copy of the pamphlet Becoming an Australian Citizen, which will be given to all new citizenship applicants before their test, will be released by Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews and Prime Minister John Howard today. It describes Australia as a nation at ease with the world and itself, but lays down a firm obligation on aspiring citizens to respect the nation's core values.

Questions in the citizenship test will range from the types of official flag, the national flower and colours, to sporting heroes, national days, military achievements, convict history and the fate of Aborigines. Migrants can even be asked where the origin of the word Digger comes from, along with the well-known expressions such as Anzac and battler. Migrants will face a 20-question test drawn at random from a list of 200. They must correctly answer 60 per cent.

Source





26 August, 2007

Bureaucracy defeated

On March 28th., I ran the story excerpted below under the heading: "Immigration officials really good at keeping desirable immigrants out"

A Bradenton man is fighting to keep his family together, even though they are half a world away. He and his wife, a Japanese national, are caught in the middle of an immigration nightmare. It started with what seemed like a simple visa mistake. Now every moment of every day, Keith Campbell is fighting to bring home his wife and two young boys. "I can't let it go on forever, being half a world away. I've got little kids. I feel like I need to be protected from my own government," said Campbell.

He and his wife Akiko met in Asia while he was working overseas. They got married nine years ago and built a life together with their children in Bradenton. Campbell says his wife entered the country with a fiance visa - the problem was that they'd just gotten married. "That's it. There's no, no criminal activity, no questionable behavior, no link to terrorism. There's no anything," offered Campbell. But in the eyes of immigration officials, she was in the country illegally. Campbell says they've struggled to clear up the mistake for years

I am pleased to report that public pressure has caused a small and temporary spark of decency among the bureaucrats. I have just received the email below:

Akiko Campbell has reunited with her family after her husband and friends mounted an uphill battle with the government. They won. After eight months of involuntary separation, the family is together again and now has a greater appreciation of the simple family life and everyday pleasures. The story is an uplifting testament to the power of one. The happy ending shows that anything is possible and that each of us can make a difference.

Jeralyn Merritt On Immigration: So What If Some Americans Die

Jeralyn Merritt from TalkLeft links to an Op Ed she penned for The Examiner today and, perhaps taking a page from Barack Obama, displays her own brand of political audacity by accusing the Right of playing politics with illegal immigration. But she ignores the Left's political pandering in the form of their fighting against prudent legislation which would call for illegal immigrants caught violating the law to be dealt with effectively for a change.

We have effective laws for the removal of noncitizens who are convicted of crime. Since 1996, the list of "aggravated felonies" mandating deportation has steadily grown. When a person subject to deportation is charged with a crime, the law allows for the placing of a detainer on that person so that when released from state or federal custody, whether on bail or following conviction, he or she is transported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for continued detention or to face deportation proceedings, rather than be released into the community.

Sometimes, people fall through the cracks ["Sometimes they walk through wide-open doors", would be more like it]. It may have happened in Newark and Oregon. That doesn't mean we need different laws. It means we need to enforce the ones we have. We don't need a "one strike, you're out" or a no-bail policy for immigrants.

Even if you concede Merritt's point, why does an obvious crime problem associated with illegal immigration - a violation of our law and sovereignty in and of itself - need to rise to the level of an epidemic before we can do something about it without being labeled racists and fear mongers? Isn't it just possible many good people simply believe in the genuine enforcement of the law?

Between several recent drunk driving deaths, violent crimes such as the ones in Newark and Seattle Merritt mentions, and far too many others she conveniently ignores, how many innocent American lives have to be snuffed out before it's a real problem in Merritt's view? Factually, as she is forced to concede, some number of illegal immigrants who by definition don't abide by America's system of justice on at least two levels (their status and their subsequent criminal behavior), take innocent American lives.

So, aside from the potential for various immigrant communities to provide votes for a Democrat fueled liberal agenda, just what is it that suggests some number of innocent American lives just aren't worth protecting with sound legislation? For Merritt to believe as she does, one either has to have no regard at all for American Law and sovereignty, or there's another agenda involved. As I don't believe it's the first two in her case, just what is her objective?

All one can conclude is that it's purely political and Merritt is engaging in the very same type of empty demagogy which she purports to be criticizing. Perhaps if it fell to her to visit whatever the number of family members whose relatives are now deceased because someone fell through the cracks and tell them, hey no big deal, it happens, Merritt wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the present broken state of immigration law and the need to do something about it.

Source



CASA's IDs are an invitation to fraud

CASA stands for "Court Appointed Special Advocate" -- semi-official do gooders

In Tuesday's Examiner, a spokesman for the tax-supported CASA of Maryland admitted that it has handed out more than 10,000 "identification cards" to immigrants in Montgomery County without even so much as requiring proof of residency. As one arrival from El Salvador told Examiner reporters Kathleen Miller and Dena Levitz, "At least it's something to show who you are."

But these phony IDs do nothing of the sort. The only thing they show is that the people holding them talked to CASA. Why does CASA - which is partially funded by Montgomery County's government - hand out IDs that look official but have no legal force? Because, as CASA officials freely admit, the cards are used to bypass federal homeland security rules requiring proof of identity for banking transactions. The spurious IDs issued by CASA are also used to evade county-required proof of residency to enroll children in school or collect other county benefits.

This is deliberately meant to deceive the public and government officials into believing that CASA has checked out ID holders' bona fides when nothing of the sort was ever done. Not only are these cards dubious as identification, they can be an instrument of fraud if used to obtain public benefits illegally. They're also a sneaky way to skirt federal laws that prohibit employers from hiring illegal immigrants. It begs credulity to think that banking, business and government officials who accept CASA IDs as legitimate don't know that they are aiding and abetting a variety of crimes.

Worst of all, these counterfeit IDs are an open invitation to terrorists who want to enter this country to kill Americans. It was only six years ago that Sept. 11 terrorists used state-issued driver's licenses while preparing their murderous plot. Today, driver's licenses are still used at airports in clearing passengers for commercial flights. It's chilling to think that CASA's flimsy IDs might help terrorists get driver's licenses, in the process posing a threat to public safety.

Four states - New Hampshire, Montana, Oklahoma and Washington - refuse to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005, so their driver's licenses soon won't suffice for entering federal buildings or boarding airplanes. If fake IDs like CASA's are ever accepted on a par with a Social Security card or U.S.-issued birth certificate, complying states like Maryland will become magnets for those who intend to use officially accepted driver's licenses as tools in doing evil. This scam should be stopped now.

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25 August, 2007

Coulter on illegals

Mickey Kaus has raised the intriguing possibility that, since Bush's amnesty plan went down to humiliating defeat once Americans got wind of what the elites had planned for us, the Bush administration might respond by intentionally targeting highly sympathetic illegal aliens for deportation "in as clumsy, heartless and lawsuit-inspiring a fashion as possible, in order to create the maximum number of negative headlines."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described anti-amnesty Americans as being satisfied with nothing less than "the death penalty" for illegal aliens and recently warned of "some unhappy consequences" unless illegal aliens were granted amnesty. Yes, that Michael Chertoff -- the guy in charge of keeping us safe from foreign invasions.

So it was curious when we were treated this week to a weeping Mexican woman on TV, claiming the U.S. government was tearing her from her infant son and saying she knew the American people would be outraged if she were deported. (I note that her message might have been more effective in English.)

Admittedly, I'd just as soon have Homeland Security focusing on illegal immigrants like the one who shot four promising college kids execution style in Newark, killing three of them, possibly after sexually molesting two of them. Heck, I wouldn't have minded if they had deported Jose Carranza even before his girlfriend accused him of raping her 5-year-old daughter.

Or Ruben Hernandez-Juarez, an illegal alien charged with sexually molesting a 6-year-old boy in Martin County, Fla.

Or Alejandro Bautista, an illegal alien in Cook County, Ill., who was convicted for sexually molesting two teenaged boys.

Or Alejandro Xuya-Sian, the illegal alien who hit a pedestrian with his car in New York and dragged him for nearly a mile before dislodging the victim from his car, throwing him aside and driving off again. (Even more disturbing: Xuya-Sian may not have been wearing his seat belt at the time.)

Or illegal alien Alberto Barajas-Enriquez, who is charged with beating his Michigan neighbor to death with a golf club because the neighbor complained about the constant barking of Enriquez's dog. Asked by police how many times he struck his victim with the golf club, Enriquez said, "Let's see ... five, six ... uh, put me down for a seven."

Or Lucio Sanchez-Martinez, the illegal alien in Ohio charged with sexually molesting a sleeping 8-year-old girl.

For simplicity, I have limited my enumeration of illegal aliens I would like deported to those who were charged or convicted of heinous crimes last week. For illegal aliens charged with child molestation, I had to limit it to two days last week.

Still, if Elvira Arellano is the best they've got to change public opinion on deporting illegal aliens, don't expect public opinion to change anytime soon.

Arellano has already snuck into the country illegally twice (that we know of). After being deported in 1999 -- under an administration that, astonishingly, was more serious about enforcing immigration law than the current one -- she illegally ran across the border again a few days later.

Only after 9/11 was she arrested again and convicted for using a stolen Social Security number to get a job as a cleaning woman at an airport. In lieu of jail time, Arellano was to be deported. Instead she took refuge in a left-wing "church" and began to bellyache about being thrown out again.

Despite living in this country illegally for a decade, Arellano hasn't mastered the most rudimentary English. She doesn't want to assimilate and become a "Mexican-American." She wants to be a Mexican-Mexican living in and off America.

So far, the only thing Arellano has contributed to America is one illegitimate child.

Arellano is part of the advance wave of left-wing, Third World colonization of America. Democrats claim there are "two Americas." If they have their way, there will be two Latin Americas.

Liberals know they're losing the demographic war. Christians have lots of children and adopt lots of children; liberals abort children and encourage the gay lifestyle in anyone with a flair for color. They can't keep up. Population expert Nick Eberstadt recently speculated in The Washington Post that a principal reason for America's high fertility rate compared to Europe's is its religiosity. Well, that leaves liberals out.

The Democratic Party is in the fight of its life against a conservative demographic trend. Its only hope is to gerrymander America to make the poorest half of Mexico a state. Only a massive influx of criminals, wards of the state and rioters can save them. This is why Democrats are obsessed with giving two groups the right to vote: illegal aliens and felons. With Arellano, they get two for the price of one. To liberals, building a wall across the Mexican border is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Democrats are counting on illegal immigrants to be the future of their party, their border guards for the new socialist state. At least liberals have a clear mission and know what they're fighting for. Their plan is to destroy America.

Karl Rove's only response is: "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas." Arellano can go, and take her kid with her.

Source



Sanctuary City, N.J., is closed

The gangland slaughter of 3 college students in New Jersey and sundry other violent crimes by illegal aliens forced that state's attorney general, Anne Milgram, to order all police officers in New Jersey to determine the immigration status of the people they arrest. Yes, you should identify whom you arrest. Sanctuary City, N.J., has been shut down for the summer.

Jackasses like Newark Mayor Cory Booker have been belligerent in defying requests to identify illegal alien suspects as illegal aliens. They are not immigrants. Immigrants go through the front door. These suspects are gangsters who come here, kill people, get deported and come back.

By refusing to cooperate with federal officials even in the wake of the execution of 3 college students in his pathetic city, Mayor Booker is an unindictable accessory after the fact. Only because he is acting in his official capacity is he immune from criminal prosecution. In short, the law is on his side. Or it was until this morning when AG Milgram stepped up to the plate:

Shaken by three recent execution-style killings in a schoolyard, New Jersey's attorney general on Wednesday ordered all law enforcement authorities to notify U.S. immigration officials whenever an illegal immigrant is arrested for an indictable offense or drunken driving. One suspect in the Aug. 4 killings of three college students is an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bail for other crimes. The case led to an outcry over the lack of communication between local authorities and immigration officials.

Before the new order, "all police departments in our state had complete discretion as to if, when and how to notify immigration authorities," State Attorney General Anne Milgram said. The policy takes effect immediately.

Each state is free to set its own guidelines for reporting illegal immigrants who are arrested. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) keeps no record of which states have statewide reporting guidelines, said spokesman Michael W. Gilhooly.

Milgram said the suspect, 28-year-old Jose Carranza, might have remained in custody for immigration reasons in the policy had been in place earlier. Federal immigration officials had not been notified about his earlier child rape and aggravated assault charges. Carranza, a day laborer, is now charged with three counts of murder and is being held on $1 million bail.

The new policy prohibits law enforcement officers from checking the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses or people seeking police assistance. Milgram said such policies would discourage people from coming forward to report crime or to help authorities identify criminal suspects.

Good for Milgram. I hope she runs for governor. It is time some grown-ups stepped forward and said: Enough.

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24 August, 2007

Britain: 1 in 4 children born to a foreign parent as immigration grows

One in four children born in Britain has a foreign mother or father, according to figures released yesterday. A surge in migration has also helped to drive up the birth rate to a 26-year high. Live births last year increased for the fifth successive year, to 734,000, compared with 663,000 in 2002. The 25 per cent foreign parent figure - for the year to July 2006 - compared with 20 per cent in 2001. Mothers born outside Britain had 21.9 per cent of births in 2006.

Statisticians at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) predict that the birth trends will continue for the next three to five years. A spokesman said that the figures reflected the cumulative effect of immigration over the past 40 years. Provisional fertility rates for 2006 give an average number of 1.87 children per woman in England and Wales - an increase of nearly 4 per cent since 2005, when the figure was 1.80. Yesterday's figures show that births have increased as the number of people dying has fallen: the number of people aged 85 and over has hit a record 1,243,000. At the same time the number of people of retirement age rose by 1 per cent to 11,344,000. The overall population of the UK rose 349,000 to 60.5 million in mid-2006, the ONS figures show.

A major factor in the increase was immigration, which accounted for 55 per cent of last year's population growth. At the same time, a record 385,000 people, of whom 196,000 were British citizens, moved out of the country. The number of UK citizens migrating in 2004-05 was 188,000, and the previous year 195,000. The figures also show that an estimated 74,000 migrants from eight former Soviet bloc states which joined the EU in May 2004 arrived in 2005-06, and that 16,000 left. Inward migration amounted to 559,000, of whom 468,000 non-British people included 149,000 from the EU and 179,000 from the Commonwealth.

Karen Dunnell, the national statistician, said that the population was changing rapidly, with an increasing flow of people in and out of the country and around the UK. She admitted that one of the challenges facing the country was being able to capture the changes in population. "We do not in this country have draconian administrative ways of recording who is coming in and out," she said. "That contributes to the statistical challenge for us."

In London, 28 out of the 33 boroughs suffered a net loss of population as a result of internal migration. The worst was Newham, in East London, which showed a net loss of almost 10,000 residents, followed by Ealing, Brent and Lambeth. London's official population now stands at 7.5 million. [White flight]

Ms Dunnell said: "There have been huge changes in business, which impacts on the labour market. London has already been a magnet for people and jobs and always has been a magnet for immigrants because this is where immigrant communities start off." She said that London was attractive to wealthy incomers who could afford expensive properties, as well as younger migrants willing to live in cheaper rented accommodation. "People want to come to London."

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: "It is clear from these figures that immigration is continuing unchecked and continues to break all previous records, despite the fact that this is opposed by the vast majority of the public".

David Nicholson-Lord, Optimum Population Trust research associate, said: "Out-migration has been climbing for several years and survey evidence strongly suggests it is driven by a perceived decline in quality of life, with congestion, queues, overcrowding and general lack of space a key element in people's decisions to move."

Source



Illegal immigrant problems in Greece

African immigrants and leftist sympathizers have rioted in the Greek city of Thessaloniki after a Nigerian man fell to his death from a cafeteria balcony. Human rights activists claim he was being chased by plainclothes police officers.

An anti-racism protest in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki turned nasty Monday, with police firing tear gas at a stone-throwing crowd.

The trouble broke out during a demonstration by some 400 human rights activists and African immigrants outside a police station in the Thessaloniki suburb of Kalamaria. Suspected leftist sympathizers, some of whom concealed their identities with hoods and motorcycle helmets, threw sticks and stones at police officers. Three cars, a shopfront and two telephone booths were damaged but no arrests or injuries were reported.

The protest was sparked by the death of a Nigerian immigrant who fell from a balcony in a Kalamaria cafeteria in the early hours of Sunday morning. During Monday's demonstration, protestors carried photographs of the dead man, who has been identified by authorities as 27-year-old Tony Onouha according to the Greek English-language newspaper Kathimerini.

Police claim Onouha, a vendor of bootleg CDs [i.e. someone who lives by crime], panicked after he mistook two men watching him for plainclothes officers. However human rights activists claim the two men were police who chased Onouha to his death.

Monday's demonstration followed protests on Sunday, when angry immigrants threw stones and chairs at police outside the cafeteria on Sunday, lightly injuring three officers.

Thessaloniki Prefect Panayiotis Psomiadis made a statement Monday expressing solidarity with the city's Nigerian community. "The tragic death of the young man from Nigeria reminds us all of the difficult days we Greeks experienced a few decades ago when we emigrated to make a living," Psomiadis said, quoted by Kathimerini. "It is the duty of the Greek state, whose development was influenced by emigration, to show sensitivity and attribute blame where necessary."

Source





23 August, 2007

Illegals still pouring into Britain

The Government failed last year to meet its target of deporting more failed asylum-seekers than the number of people who arrived with unfounded claims. A total of 20,700 individuals, including dependants, were recorded as failed asylum-seekers last year but only 18,280 were removed. The Home Office blamed the failure to meet the target on the focus of the Border and Immigration Agency to deport foreign prisoners who had completed their sentences. Almost one third of those who left in the second quarter of this year did so under a voluntary returns scheme in which each was given up to £1,500 to go. Opposition politicans accused ministers of allowing the asylum and immigration system to run “out of control”.

The number of failed asylum-seekers who were deported in the second quarter of this year fell by 7 per cent and was 36 per cent fewer than the same quarter last year. The number of work permit-holders and dependants increased by 6 per cent to 145,000 last year. The numbers of students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) rose by 9 per cent to 309,000 and there was an 8 per cent increase in visitors from outside the EEA to 7.4 million.

The foreign prisoners fiasco of 2005 involved more than a thousand offenders being freed from jail without being considered for deportation, and led to the sacking of Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary. Tony McNulty, a Home Office Minister, defended the Government’s policies and said that there had been a reduction in asylum applications last year and an overall increase in removals of people who were in Britain illegally.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said that the figures showed that the immigration and asylum system was out of control. He said: “Not only are the Government missing their own, artificially hand-picked target of removing more failed asylum-seekers than arrive, but at the same time they are neglecting to deal with other crises — like the foreign prisoner debacle.”

Source



Elvira, go home

Post below lifted from Fausta

Elvira Arellano was arrested in Los Angeles and was deported to Tijuana, Mexico. Arellano's been illegally in the USA on and off since 1997, and in 2002 was convicted of working under a false Social Security number - a felony. Whether she made up a Social Security number out of thin air, or she committed identity theft is unclear; Arellano committed a felony all the same. She then defied a court order by hiding at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago rather than surrender to authorities.

Nowhere in the thousands of words written about this case show any effort from Arellano in the past ten years to
1. learn the language
2. legalize her immigration status under the existing laws
3. accept the US as "her country", even when she's lived nearly one third of her life here, gave birth to her son here, and is adamant about staying

"I only have two choices. I either go to my country, Mexico, or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."

4. most importantly, accept that the rule of law applies to everyone including herself.

Her 8yr old son Saul is in the middle of all this. He was born here while his mother purposely violated the laws of this country. This boy has been exploited in innumerable photo-ops. Last November, Saul went to Mexico's Congress to make a personal appeal for help to stop his mother's deportation. Now

Arellano said she didn't want to be separated from the boy

Apparently Elvira and all of those people who are outraged that "the bad USA is ripping a family apart" have never stopped to consider that it is Elvira herself who chooses to leave her own son behind, rather than remain together as a family and bring him with her to "her country" (her words, not mine), as a responsible parent would do.

Via Blue Crab Boulevard, many immigrants to the USA resent Arrellano's actions:

Chicago Spanish-language radio host Javier Salas said he felt badly for what happened to Arellano. But in leaving the sanctuary of Adalberto United Methodist Church and heading to Los Angeles, it was only a matter of time before she was arrested.

I know two people who were brought to the US illegally by their parents while they were young children. Both of them are now US citizens, and their families are also here legally.

While it took them years of effort and a lot of paperwork, they did it, and they're the ones that tell you that the US is their country. Illegal aliens struggling to get away with crimes by insisting that the rules be changed to accommodate them at their whim are not what legal immigration is about. It is, however, what amnesty and comprehensive immigration reform are about (h/t Hot Air).

But fret not. I'm sure we're going to hear from Elvira soon, again.

Update
More from Captain's Quarters and Michelle Malkin.

Update, Tuesday 21 August
Illegal immigrant = Runaway slave? Buuulsh**





22 August, 2007

Mexican drug insurgency spills into US

Violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border, which has long plagued the scrubby, often desolate stretch, is increasingly spilling northward into the cities of the American Southwest.

In Phoenix, deputies are working the unsolved case of 13 border crossers who were kidnapped and executed in the desert. In Dallas, nearly two dozen high school students have died in the last two years from overdoses of a $2-a-hit Mexican fad drug called "cheese heroin."

The crime surge, most acute in Texas and Arizona, is fueled by a gritty drug war in Mexico that includes hostages being held in stash houses, daylight gun battles claiming innocent lives, and teenage hit men for the Mexican cartels. Shipments of narcotics and vans carrying illegal workers on U.S. highways are being hijacked by rival cartels fighting over the lucrative smuggling routes. Fires are being set in national forests to divert police.

In Laredo, Texas, a teenager who had been driving around the United States in a $70,000 luxury sedan confessed to becoming a Mexican cartel hitman when he was just 13. In Nogales, Ariz., an 82-year-old man was caught with 79 kilograms of cocaine in his Chevrolet Impala. The youth was sentenced to 40 years in prison in one slaying case and is awaiting trial in another; the old man received 10 years.

In Southern California, Border Patrol agents routinely encounter smugglers driving immigrant-laden cars who try to escape by driving the wrong way on busy freeways. And stash houses packed with dozens of illegal immigrants have been discovered in Los Angeles.

But a huge U.S. law enforcement buildup along the border that started a decade ago has helped stabilize border-related crime rates on the California side; a recent wave of kidnappings in Tijuana has been largely contained south of the border.

The sprawling border has been crisscrossed for years by the poor seeking work and by drug dealers in the hunt for U.S. dollars. For decades neither the United States nor Mexico has managed to halt the immigrants and narcotics pushing north. But with the Mexican government's newly pledged war on the cartels, and an explosion of violence among rival networks, a new crime dynamic is emerging: The violence that has hit Mexican border towns is spreading deeper into the United States.

U.S. officials are promising more Border Patrol and federal firearms officers, more fences and more surveillance towers along the desert stretches where the two nations meet. But law enforcement officials are wary of how this new burst in violence will play out, especially because the enemy is better armed and more sophisticated than ever. Among their concerns are budget cutbacks in some agencies -- including a hiring freeze in the Drug Enforcement Administration -- and community opposition to the surveillance towers.

Johnny Sutton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said he would need at least 20,000 new Border Patrol agents in El Paso alone to hold back the tide. But that is the total number of agents that Washington hopes to have along the whole border by the end of 2009.

Sutton is rather notorious for locking up border agents and giving a drug mule immunity. However, the problem of the drug insurgency in Mexico cannot be ignored because it is related to fighting over control of access to the US market for drugs. I have been posting about this for years and you can check recent post by clicking on the Mexico subject designation below.

Vigorous law enforcement on both sides of the border is needed. we also need to get a handle on the export of firearms from the US into Mexico that is arming the insurgency.

There is much more in this LA Times story. There will be much more written in the future. The drug insurgents have been copying the Islamist religious bigot insurgents in Iraq with beheadings and other forms of intimidation. There have been some suggestions in Congress that there is an alliance between the two groups. The Islamic terrorist are posing as Mexican and blending in with some of the gangs on this side of the border.

Source



Immigration crackdown threatens bumper New York apple harvest

Australia and New Zealand have plenty of apples available for export but have no Hispanics picking them. How puzzling! If New Yorkers cannot figure out how to get their apples picked, maybe they should buy some from Australia. Tasmanian apples are first class and the NY land could then be used to build much-needed housing!

With a look of supreme satisfaction, Jeff Crist squinted at the Ginger Golds and Jonamacs ripening under an incandescent sun on his apple orchard here: the trees were so laden that they almost seemed to strain under the effort. "It's a vintage crop - a solid quality crop, which means good sugars in the apples," he said. "They should eat very nicely, almost like a good wine."

This is the third year in a row of near-perfect weather, and Crist, a fourth-generation apple grower, like many other growers in the Hudson Valley, is finally feeling secure after a disastrous string of harvests marred by early frost and hail. In fact, Crist is so bullish that he recently bought a 164-acre, or 66-hectare, orchard nearby, bucking the trend of recent decades of selling apple orchards to housing developers.

But while weather conditions have cooperated and industry experts say demand for apples across the United States has approached an all-time high, there are new fears in New York and around the country over whether there will be enough hands to pick the crop. The Bush administration announced new measures this month to crack down on employers of illegal immigrants.

Growers' associations across the country estimate that about 70 percent of farmworkers are illegal immigrants, many of them using fake Social Security numbers on their applications. Under the new rules, if the Social Security Administration finds that an applicant's information does not match its database, employers could be required to fire the worker or risk being fined up to $10,000 for knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant.

"Farmers are required to validate the legal status of their workers, which they do," said Peter Gregg, a spokesman for the New York Apple Association, a nonprofit group representing more than 670 commercial apple growers in the state. "But a lot of times the paperwork is false, so they're unwittingly or unknowingly hiring workers who are here illegally. And then a raid will occur, and all of a sudden their workers will leave."

For apple growers in New York, where the forces of nature and the market have at last come together in their favor, the potential fallout from the new immigration initiative is particularly unsettling. "We have three billion apples to pick this fall and every single one of them has to be picked by hand," Gregg said. "It's a very labor-intensive industry, and there is no local labor supply that we can draw from, as much as we try. No one locally really wants to pick apples for six weeks in the fall."

Crist, who was recently named apple grower of the year by a leading fruit industry magazine, lobbied in Washington for passage of a new guest-worker program. But the program was included in the overall immigration overhaul legislation that collapsed on the Senate floor in late June. Growers say that only 2 percent of farmworkers nationwide come from the current guest-worker program, which, they say, is plagued by bureaucracy, low capacity and delays.

Another Hudson Valley apple grower, Mark Roe of Roe's Orchards in Blooming Grove, will get five workers through the existing program for the harvest this autumn. He said he planned to hire about seven other pickers. As for past workers, Roe said: "It's hard to tell who's legal and who's not. They all have documents." He, too, is worried about the tougher immigration rules and what they might mean for his 240-acre fruit and vegetable farm, which was started by his great-great-grandfather in 1827 and is still worked by his grown children. "We need something better, something grower-friendly," he said.

So far, the Hudson Valley has not been subject to the raids that have rippled through farms and orchards in western New York, especially in the Buffalo area. "Last year, there were significantly more raids targeting agriculture in New York," Gregg said. "A lot of growers lost numerous workers at the peak of the harvest. They had to scramble to try to find someone else. "It was difficult. In a lot of cases, there were apples left hanging on the trees."

For now, both Crist and Roe say they have enough pickers for the initial harvest. Workers are now plucking Ginger Golds, one of the first varieties to ripen, and placing them in wooden bins that each hold 2,000 to 3,000 apples. A crew leader who for decades has recruited workers for Crist's orchards said that if the current source of labor dried up there would be few other alternatives. The workers are mostly Hispanic men who pick citrus fruits in Florida and then move north for the apple harvest.

Despite the labor concerns, growers seem to be optimistic, having emerged from the stretch of growing seasons that were devastated by storms and wild swings in temperature. "Five or six years ago, we were ready to wrap up our affairs," said Crist, who owns six orchards totaling 600 acres in Orange and Ulster counties. "It looked pretty dismal, and a number of growers either chose to get out or they had to get out. There are less of us today than there used to be. But we're back on solid footing."

In the past two decades, the number of farms in Ulster County, the second-highest apple-producing county in New York State behind Wayne County, has steadily declined, according to Michael Fargione, an educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension, which provides research information and educational programs to farmers. In 1985, 104 farms covered 11,629 acres in Ulster County. By 1996, the number had slid to 63 orchards on 8,632 acres. And by 2001, the most recent year for which figures are available, there were 56 apple orchards on 5,669 acres.

But growers and agriculture experts say that in recent years fewer orchards in the Hudson Valley seem to have fallen to housing developers. "My impression is that over the last three years, the decline has either stabilized or at least reduced its rate," Fargione said. Roe, whose farm stand was awash in the rosy hues of just-picked peaches and plums, said his family had no intention of selling. Indeed, the weather this season - with ample rain and sunshine - seems to have strengthened his zest for farming. "It's been practically perfect," he said. "It's just one of those things you hope for and dream about, and it rarely happens."

Source





21 August, 2007

Plan B: Enforce the law ...

Declaring an end to "30 years of lip service" on immigration law enforcement, the Bush administration has announced a stern crackdown on businesses that hire illegal workers. After failing to sell Congress on a comprehensive immigration package intended to fortify the border while allowing more legal workers, the Bush team says it will vigorously enforce existing law -- including new initiatives designed to ferret out illegal workers and punish their employers. It won't be pretty.

"There will be some unhappy consequences for the economy," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned. That could include labor shortages, pricey produce, jobs lost to other countries and up to $7 billion a year in lost taxes from immigrant workers.

This approach strikes some opponents of a comprehensive law as a Machiavellian effort calculated to backfire: the White House figuring that folks who insist on "enforcement first" might change their tune when they get a bitter taste of what they wanted.

We don't doubt that mischief has crossed Chertoff's mind. But he also knows this crackdown is decades overdue. Americans have made it clear they don't want to talk about a new immigration law because they can't trust their government to enforce the 1986 grand bargain that twinned tougher enforcement (which never happened) with amnesty (which did). Before it restarts that conversation, the administration must rebuild Washington's credibility.

What about those unhappy consequences? Illegal immigrants make up an estimated 5 percent of the U.S. workforce, and the feds aren't equipped to roust all of them overnight. Nor do authorities plan to conduct widespread roundups. But the new rules require employers to fire workers whose Social Security numbers can't be reconciled with government records, and Chertoff promises to come down on violators "like a ton of bricks." That will force employers to demand better documentation from job applicants; those who can't provide it will be discouraged from coming here in the first place. What price will U.S. consumers pay?

Even before the government announced its new rules, employers who depend on seasonal workers were complaining of labor shortages that they attribute to the supercharged immigration debate. Agriculture is the obvious loser, since most itinerant farmworkers are illegal. Nationwide, there are perhaps 35 percent fewer farmworkers for this year's harvests. Michigan farmers say they lost 20 percent of this spring's asparagus crop because they lacked enough workers to pick it on time. It's the same story for oranges and grapes in California, potatoes in Idaho, apples in Wisconsin.

Some California growers are renting land south of the border to plant -- outsource? -- their lettuce and tomatoes. Others say they'll be forced to switch to crops harvested by machine, meaning that labor-intensive crops such as strawberries and peaches will increasingly come from South America. The bottom line is produce could be harder to come by, and quite likely will be more expensive.

Other industries are feeling the squeeze. There aren't enough crab pickers in Maryland or horse walkers in Saratoga. Tourism bureaus all over the country are fretting about understaffing. Fewer immigrants will mean fewer landscapers, construction workers, dishwashers and pizza delivery drivers. Americans who want to hire a housekeeper or nanny might have to search harder, and pay more.

Will that price be too steep for Americans to tolerate? Or will employers eventually find ways to attract citizens to the jobs that illegal immigrants have held? The former outcome would strengthen the case for giving people here illegally a path to citizenship (and job stability). The latter outcome would suggest that our economy isn't as dependent on illegal workers as pro-immigration advocates insist. There's only one way to find out: living by the tenets of the 1986 law Congress passed but never intended to enforce. Demonstrating that it can apply the strong remedies that 21-year-old law demands would give the administration a much better case for comprehensive reform.

Sunday afternoon's arrest of immigration activist Elvira Arellano isn't a result of the federal government's new campaign against employers who hire illegal workers. But the abrupt arrival of law-enforcement agents outside a Los Angeles church -- after Arellano had spent a year claiming sanctuary at a church in Chicago -- is one more provocation for accelerating a strikingly divisive national debate.

That debate had dropped by a few decibels this summer as comprehensive immigration legislation flopped in the U.S. Senate. The recent news of the impending workplace crackdown had started to raise the volume anew. After Sunday's arrest of Arellano, expect to hear increasingly louder voices. Proponents of liberalized immigration laws will enshrine Arellano as a martyr singled out because she has defied federal authorities. Much as U.S. citizens who resent Washington's decades of inaction while the number of illegal immigrants has swollen to 12 million will say she's a scofflaw whose arrest was long overdue.

No capture of a mother being separated from her son is a pleasure to behold. But the facts of Elvira Arellano's story make her difficult to view as a victim. She came to the U.S. illegally from Mexico and worked on a cleaning crew at O'Hare International Airport until she was arrested during a post-Sept. 11, 2001, security sweep at this nation's airports. It turned out she had entered the U.S. illegally once before -- and had been arrested and deported, only to return. She also had used a fake Social Security number.

Arellano sought to avoid another deportation -- and since 2003 has received three stays. Her supporters called for a moratorium on all deportations until Congress passed an immigration reform bill that would help her. That unfortunate request no doubt hurt her cause more than it helped: As this page said a year ago in urging her to abide by U.S. law, this country isn't in the business of suspending the enforcement of a statute while Congress mulls whether to change it. She has gotten numerous breaks, but she remains subject to U.S. law -- as Sunday's arrest affirms.

That arrest does, though, qualify as just the sort of highly visible consequence that stronger enforcement of this country's immigration laws will create. As the top editorial on this page suggests, Americans deserve to see that stronger enforcement -- and to mull whether they do or don't want those consequences. Both sides of the immigration debate have viewed Elvira Arellano's situation as emblematic of all that's wrong with the system. Her supporters bemoan the legal obstacles to her employment. Her detractors point to how long she flouted the law without being arrested. For now, though, that law is abundantly clear. And Elvira Arellano made choices that invited the feds to enforce it.

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The Undocumented-American murderer, on bail

At the funeral of Iofemi Hightower, her classmate Mecca Ali wore a T-shirt with the slogan: "Tell Me Why They Had To Die." "They" are Miss Hightower, Dashon Harvey and Terrance Aeriel, three young citizens of Newark, New Jersey, lined up against a schoolyard wall, forced to kneel and then shot in the head.

Miss Ali poses an interesting question. No one can say why they "had" to die, but it ought to be possible to advance theories as to what factors make violent death in Newark a more-likely proposition than it should be. That's usually what happens when lurid cases make national headlines: When Matthew Shepard was beaten and hung on a fence in Wyoming, Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times that it was merely the latest stage in a "war" against homosexuals loosed by the forces of intolerance. Mr. Shepard's murder was dramatized in plays and movies and innumerable songs by Melissa Etheridge, Elton John, Peter, Paul and Mary, etc. The fact that this vile crucifixion was a grisly one-off and that American gays have never been less at risk from getting bashed did not deter pundits and politicians and lobby groups galore from arguing that this freak case demonstrated the need for special legislation.

By contrast, there's been a succession of prominent stories with one common feature that the very same pundits, politicians and lobby groups have a curious reluctance to go anywhere near. In a New York Times report headlined "Sorrow And Anger As Newark Buries Slain Youth," the limpidly tasteful Times prose prioritized "sorrow" over "anger," and offered only the following reference to the perpetrators: "The authorities have said robbery appeared to be the motive. Three suspects - two 15-year-olds and a 28-year-old construction worker from Peru - have been arrested."

So, this Peruvian guy was here on a green card? Or did he apply for a temporary construction-work visa from the U.S. Embassy in Lima? Not exactly. Jose Carranza is an "undocumented" immigrant. His criminal career did not begin with the triple murder he's alleged to have committed, nor with the barroom assault from earlier this year, nor with the 31 counts of aggravated sexual assault relating to the rape of a 5-year-old child, for which Mr. Carranza had been released on bail. (His $50,000 bail on the assault charge and $150,000 bail on the child-rape charges have now been revoked.) No, Mr. Carranza's criminal career in the United States began when he decided to live in this country unlawfully.

Jose Carranza isn't exactly a member of an exclusive club. Violent crime committed by fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community is now a routine feature of American life. But who cares? In 2002, as the "Washington Sniper" piled up his body count, "experts" lined up to tell the media that he was most likely an "angry white male," a "macho hunter" or an "icy loner." When the icy loner turned out to be a black Muslim named Muhammad accompanied by an illegal immigrant from Jamaica, the only angry white males around were the lads in America's newsrooms who were noticeably reluctant to abandon their thesis: Early editions of the New York Times speculated that Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were being sought for "possible ties to 'skinhead militia' groups," which seemed a somewhat improbable alliance given the size of Mr. Muhammad's hair in the only available mug shot. As for his illegal sidekick, Malvo was detained and released by the INS in breach of their own procedures.....

"Tell Me Why They Had To Die"? Hard to answer. But tell me why, no matter how many Jose Carranzas it spawns, the nationwide undocumented-immigration protection program erected by this country's political class remains untouchable and ever-expanding.

Just as there is a price to pay for not prosecuting people for breaking windows, there is a price to pay for not enforcing the rule of law when it comes to immigration. It is unlikely that Jose Carranzas would have ever become a voter for either political party, but he was allowed to run free because many look at all illegal immigrants as potential voters rather than a law enforcement problem. How hard should it be, to inquire into the immigration status of someone who is charged with a crime? This is not a job requiring a CIS. It is just one requiring common sense. That is something in short supply in "sanctuary" cities.

This new Rasmussen survey finds that 58 percent of voters favor cutting off federal funds to "sanctuary" cities. This has recently been proposed by Gov. Romney. It makes sense to me. The survey found an even higher percentage of voters favored Giuliani's proposal for requiring IDs for aliens in the country.

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20 August, 2007

Getting immigration right: How conservatives blocked the open-borders establishment

In summer 1997, there was a brief rallying of reformers when the National Academy of Sciences released a report on immigration that confirmed all the main economic conclusions of Borjas and Brimelow. No great economic gains were claimed for it, and large fiscal costs were cited. This was such a defeat for the immiphiliacs that the New York Times was compelled to report it under the misleading headline: "ACADEMY'S REPORT SAYS IMMIGRATION BENEFITS THE U.S.-no huge costs are cited." Yet even though the report was an important victory for immigration reformers, undermining the intellectual self-satisfaction of their opponents, it came too late. Other matters were gripping the political imagination in the Age of Clinton. And on Aug. 22, 1997, in his "Potomac Watch" column in the Wall Street Journal, Paul Gigot assessed the final result with complacent assurance: ". the crusade by a few columnists and British expatriates to turn the GOP into an anti-immigrant party seems to have failed. Immigrant-bashing has proven to be lousy American politics. When even California conservatives admit this, the debate should be over."

Gigot was expressing what was by then the bipartisan elite orthodoxy on immigration. Whereas the various elites that make up the establishment had been divided about immigration-and so open to argument and debate-as late as 1995, they had coalesced around strong support for it by the middle of 1997. A number of social trends, some of which are evident in the above list of events-the need of some corporations and Republican donors for cheap labor, the need of Democrats for cheap votes, the need of labor unions for new recruits, the need of churches and charities for new cases, the need of the media for new narratives of American bigotry, and the continued advance of "victimhood" and "diversity" as concepts explaining American history and society-came together and hardened into a new orthodoxy. It remained the bipartisan elite orthodoxy for the next-well, until last month.

But this was an orthodoxy with weak foundations. It represented the political interests of Democrats much more faithfully than those of Republicans, even if the latter were slow to realize the fact. It ran counter to the instincts of the voters, even if they, too, were slow to realize the fact. And it was chock full of discrepancies, contradictions, fallacies, and simple errors. Consider some of its articles of faith:

Immigrants are necessary to service our growing economy and especially to bail out the Social Security system. Japan enjoyed one of the highest economic growth rates in the world for 35 years with no immigration whatsoever. Since the existence of a thing is absolute proof of its possibility (as Bertrand Russell once pointed out), this demonstrates that a growing economy is possible without immigration. The trick is achieved by a combination of investment and innovation. Current immigration policy-with its emphasis on bringing in unskilled workers and relatives of recent immigrants-discourages both. It distorts as much as it feeds the economy. It ensures that America is a more unskilled and less automated economy, and a more stratified society, than would be the case with lower levels and different types of immigration. As for Social Security, that argument is a Ponzi scheme and, like all such schemes, would require an ever-expanding arrival of new contributors. After a few generations, this ingenious fiscal policy would run out of human immigrants and the U.S. would have to import aliens from outer space to continue financing its vast entitlement programs now accommodating most of the world.

It is essential to legalize illegals and to liberalize legal immigration to win over the growing Hispanic vote. This began a series of arguments addressed to nervous Republicans. It was easily demolished. Since Hispanics currently vote Democrat by roughly a two-to-one margin, admitting more Hispanic immigrants to residence and citizenship would add millions more votes overall to the Democrat column. Hispanics already here favor less restrictive immigration only marginally more than other Americans, and those Hispanics who lean Republican tend to favor more restrictive immigration. Republicans, though, were determined to look on the bright side.

Remember how Gov. Pete Wilson destroyed the Californian GOP by opposing immigration. This argument-to which Gigot refers-is a brilliant device to transform a weakness of the orthodoxy into its strongest point. The weakness in question is that the electoral decline of the California GOP can be plainly traced to demographic change driven by immigration. It is therefore a warning of how unchecked immigration could make the national GOP a minority party. What the Gigot argument does is redirect responsibility for the party's decline to Wilson's successful 1994 re-election campaign in which he campaigned for better federal control of immigration. Unfortunately for this claim, Wilson came from behind to win a near-landslide victory in part on this issue. (Proposition 187 also passed handsomely.) It was subsequent Republican candidates who lost heavily-but they had quietly disavowed Wilson and avoided immigration as an issue. To blame Wilson for their defeats is to indulge in magical thinking. That many Republicans did just that testifies to the power of orthodoxy in politics.

Despite its difficulties, George W. Bush embraced this orthodoxy both as a candidate and as president. Indeed, he was more open and went further than most Republicans. For instance, he made it clear that he admired the enterprise of most illegal immigrants and would try to help their families join them in the United States. Most Americans paid little attention to these declarations since other issues were more prominent. Democrats agreed with the president, and the media covered them both favorably and on the inside pages, if at all. In other words, the elite orthodoxy had the effect of ensuring that immigration, illegal and legal, never became a political issue from 1997 to about 2006. Bush's two elections seemed to confirm it.

Why did this apparent national consensus break down so spectacularly in 2006 and 2007? There are three explanations. Not surprisingly, the elite explanation is the least plausible: namely, that our system is broken. If our system had been less partisan, the argument goes, it would have passed a necessary measure that most Americans wanted. This is the opposite of the truth. In reality, a bipartisan elite tried to force a measure that most Americans opposed into law but were defeated by senators who heeded strong and widespread protests. In sum: our system worked.

The second explanation, advanced by Brimelow, is that ordinary Americans-in particular, grassroots Republicans-have been staging more and more rebellions against the elite consensus: the near-defeat of Utah Republican immiphiliac Chris Cannon in a primary; the clear victory of immigration reformer Brian Bilbray over a pro-immigration Democrat in the hard environment of Duke Cunningham's former district; the astounding defeat of Republican football hero Tom Osborne for the Nebraska governorship solely over his support for in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants; the replacement of the mayor and five councilors in Herndon, Virginia by rebels running against their sponsorship of an official day-laborer site for illegals; the calls by state GOP conventions in Washington and Texas (yes, Texas!) for the removal of automatic citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants; etc., etc.

These rebellions have alerted Republicans in Congress to both the risks of ignoring popular sentiments and the potential rewards of listening to the voters. Hence, in the debates of 2006 and 2007, two-thirds or more of the Republicans in the Senate and a larger percentage of House members rejected the so-called bipartisan bills. Even before Congress showed its hand, the wider conservative intellectual community had been gradually shifting away from elite orthodoxy. In the most recent debate, a list of conservative intellectuals who opposed it on principle included Thomas Sowell, Roger Kimball, and Robert Bork.

They, too, had been liberated-in part by the insurgencies Brimelow lists, in part by the most distinguished intellectual rebellion on these issues in recent years. This was Samuel Huntington's book, Who Are We? exploring the deconstruction of American identity by bilingualism, multiculturalism, and mass immigration. There was an attempt by various academic and multicultural bully-boys to crush Huntington and his thesis with the usual slurs of racism and nativism. But this failed when a list of undeniably distinguished scholars rode gallantly (since some disagreed with him) to his defense. Following that, the topics raised by Huntington became respectable and common fare for such outlets as City Journal and even The Weekly Standard. [A personal note may be in order here: I do not include National Review in this company since the magazine has been strongly in favor of conservative immigration reform since 1992. Contrary to some mythology on this topic, I remain on the magazine's masthead, I write regularly for it (on immigration among other topics), and I am perfectly content with how it has handled immigration since 1997. In particular, both the magazine and the website played an indispensable role in the defeat of the 2006 and 2007 immigration bills.]

Brimelow's thesis of a spreading popular rebellion is accordingly an important part of the truth. But does it account for the scale of the defeat suffered by Bush and the bipartisan establishment? Surely we might still be living under a national consensus for doing nothing about immigration if some third factor had not intervened? So what is the X-factor?

According to Steve Sailer's explanation, George W. Bush is the X-factor. He brought about the collapse of the elite consensus on immigration because he insisted on repeatedly raising the subject. Suppose he had simply kept quiet. Simply ignoring illegal immigration inter alia would have enabled Republican donors to continue getting cheap labor while denying Democrats the prospect of cheap votes. Most presidents, especially if they were embroiled in a war crisis, would have acted on that cynical logic. But Bush believes that he has both a moral duty and good economic reasons to reform immigration along the "comprehensive" lines of the proposed bill. And by getting together with the Democrats on two occasions to pass such a bill, he maximized the rebellion of Middle America against both it and him.

Most conservative voters were reluctant to believe that a president they liked could possibly support a policy they detested. His expressions of support for legalizing illegals initially confused them. But the more he embraced amnesty, the more he persuaded supporters he was serious, and the more they abandoned him. Bush's ratings fall in lockstep with his advocacy of liberal immigration reform with almost uncanny timing. Republicans could now look at the actual bill more critically.

That was dangerous. Because the Bush-Kennedy bill was written largely by Democrats and immigration lawyers, it was riddled with items that Republicans disliked. So it was not difficult for researchers, such as Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, to show that granting 12 or more million low-paid people the right to welfare benefits would impose vast costs on U.S. taxpayers. To get such a costly measure through, advocates had to create a sense of crisis about the existing situation of 12 million illegals. But those shouting "crisis" were in charge of immigration control while the number of illegals doubled. They had gone from complacency to panic in a single bound. It did not increase confidence in their advice. At the same time, the sense of crisis they created gave greater credibility to such alternative "enforcement first" measures as protecting border security, employer sanctions, and making deportation easier.

Advocates of the legislation as different as Sen. John McCain and think-tanker Tamar Jacoby were now trapped in a logical dilemma. On the one hand, they had to dismiss these alternatives to the bill as either unrealistic or barbaric; on the other, they had to assure doubters that these same measures in the bill would work fine and acceptably once the bill had been passed. By the end of the debates, the establishment experts were looking as confused and self-contradictory as the Bush-Kennedy bill itself. It was the leaders of the opposition-Senators Sessions and DeMint in particular-who seemed in command of the facts as well as the situation.

The legislation might still have survived if we had been living in the world of 1997. By 2006, however, the alternative media of talk radio and bloggers had been flourishing for several years. These broke stories, analyzed legislative contradictions, corrected erroneous media accounts, aroused opponents nationally, and in general organized opposition to the bill. Taken together, new media as politically different as Rush Limbaugh, Mickey Kaus, and NRO stalled the rapid progress that was essential for the bill's passage. They revealed its defects. And they established that the bill's bipartisanship was a fraud since the overwhelming majority of the GOP outside the Senate opposed it.

That peeled off a final layer of the bill's conservative support. Bill Kristol, representing many neoconservatives disposed to favor the bill, came out against it. He did so in part because it had serious drafting defects but, more importantly, because it was creating a bitter gulf between rank-and-file Republicans and the party leadership. That in turn was imperiling Republican objectives in other areas, notably Iraq.

The bill failed, and it is unlikely to be revived until after the 2008 election. Some brand of immigration reform, however, there will have to be eventually. McCain in defeat gibed that opponents of the bill were purely negative and had no "solution" of their own. No shame attaches, of course, to being negative if the proposal under consideration will make matters worse, as McCain's policy would have done. Yet as it happens, there are many sensible conservative proposals on the table. My own would be to revive those in the Jordan Commission of 1995. They are not ideal, but they are a sensible improvement on the status quo.

Until the battle recommences, however, if any indignant xenophobe is thinking of writing an expose of this conspiracy of English immigrants to impose an "un-American" system of immigration law on the American people, Steve Sailer has already come up with the perfect title: "The Protocols of the Elders of Albion."

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Immigration debate gets angrier

Groups loudly press for state, local crackdowns

Seven weeks after the collapse of legislation in Congress, the outcry against illegal immigration is louder than ever, manifested by proposed clampdowns at the state and local levels and an uproar over the arrest of an undocumented immigrant in the execution-style slayings of three New Jersey college students. Scores of organizations, ranging from mainstream to fringe groups, are marshaling forces in what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "a war here at home" against illegal immigration, which he says is as important as America's conflicts being fought overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While most of the groups register legitimate, widespread concerns about the impact of illegal immigration on jobs, social services and national security, the intense rhetoric is generating fears of an emerging dark side, reflected in what appears to be growing discrimination against Latinos and a surge of xenophobia unseen since the last big wave of immigration in the early 20th century.

I don't think there's been a time like this in our lifetime," said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute and former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Even though immigration is always unsettling and somewhat controversial, we haven't had this kind of intensity and widespread, deep-seated anger for almost 100 years."

The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said the number of "nativist extremist" organizations advocating against illegal immigration has grown from virtually zero just over five years ago to 144, including nine classified as hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan supremacists.

Eighty-three percent of immigrants from Mexico and 79 percent of immigrants from Central America believe there is growing discrimination against Latin American immigrants in the United States, according to a poll conducted by Miami-based Bendixen & Associates.

Instead of subsiding after the collapse of Bush's immigration overhaul in June, the debate over illegal immigration has continued and seemingly escalated. As prospects for congressional action appeared increasingly in doubt this year, all 50 states and more than 75 towns and cities considered -- and in many cases enacted -- immigration restrictions, even though initial court rulings have declared such actions unconstitutional intrusions on federal responsibilities. Two counties in the populous northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., are among the latest to consider restrictions on immigration. Nationwide, many of the proposed ordinances strike a similar theme, penalizing employers who hire illegal immigrants, barring undocumented immigrants from certain municipal services or prohibiting landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.

The murders of three college students in Newark -- and the wounding of a fourth -- reignited calls for a clampdown on illegal immigration after disclosures that one of the suspects, Jose Lachira Carranza, was an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bail awaiting trial on assault and child rape charges. The case revitalized an argument made during the congressional debate that the flow of illegal immigrants, though dominated by job-seekers lured by the prospect of higher wages and better conditions, includes a menacing criminal element. A coalition of 15 anti-illegal immigration groups denounced Newark's and New Jersey's governments for "negligent complicity" in the deaths through inadequate law enforcement. The protest was organized by Dallas attorney David Marlett, who founded ProAmerica Cos., composed of more than 400 companies that refuse to knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

The Bush administration, in the absence of the sweeping immigration overhaul sought by the president, moved earlier this month to toughen enforcement of existing laws, threatening steeper penalties against employers and more vigorous work-site inspections. Pro-immigrant groups fear the new rules could result in wholesale firings as overreactive employers seek to avoid possible violations.

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19 August, 2007

Immigration and social breakdown in Britain

Last year, former Tory minister George Walden wrote a book about the future of life in Britain and why record numbers were emigrating. Taking the form of a letter from a father to his son, it provoked a massive, positive response from readers when it was serialised in the Daily Mail. In the book, Guy and Catherine despaired at having to bring up their two children in an area that had been dramatically changed by mass immigration, where their children had become a minority in school and teachers struggled to deal with so many pupils who did not speak English. The country - where 57 per cent of births in the capital are now to mothers who were born abroad - seemed to be failing them on multiple fronts, not just on education but also on security and health care.

Since then, the couple have given up the battle and moved abroad to Canada. And they are not alone in their decision. As Walden pointed out in the first serialisation, a total of 350,000 people left Britain in 2004 - equivalent to a third of the population of Birmingham.

Walden observes that despite all the changes mass immigration has brought in Britain, there remains a conspiracy of silence that has stifled debate on one of the most important issues of our age. Now, in this thought-provoking followup, Walden examines Guy and Catherine's new quality of life, using it as a mirror to reflect the dreadful state of Britain today.

Walden, who served as higher education minister in Margaret Thatcher's government, has been married to Sarah for 38 years and they have three grown-up children. The son to whom his letters are addressed is fictional, but the incidents affecting him and his wife are based on fact.

Dear Son,

It's getting on for ten months now since you and Catherine left for a new life in Canada. And we didn't get the impression, when we came to see you, that you've regretted your decision for a moment. Still, I'd better avoid saying anything excessively encouraging about the state of the nation you've left behind. Not difficult, as it happens. In fact, it looks as though you got out just in time. Driving close to your old place in West London the other day, I saw a police notice asking for information about a young man who'd brandished a gun at an officer. The people who bought your house at a ludicrously high price are unlikely to be thrilled. I don't suppose there's another city in the world where people have to pay that kind of money for the privilege of living in an area where hoodlums go round flashing guns.

There is an atmosphere of suppressed - or outright - violence and disorder that makes me worry for the next generation. Often, it's the little incidents that are telling. Yesterday, your mother was on a bus when three girls aged between 16 and 18 tried to board in Ladbroke Grove. They were Brazilians, she thinks, but so completely anglicised that they'd got themselves roaring - or rather squealing - drunk. Toting bottles of vodka and plastic cups, they pressed on to the platform, but the Bangladeshi driver stalwartly refused to allow them to board. The bus was held up for 20 minutes while the girls blocked the doors, laughing and screaming obscenities in their newly-acquired Essex accents. The point is that during all this little drama, not a single one of the weary rush-hour passengers said a word. The great British public held hostage by a trio of sozzled teenage girls! .........

Here, the country is not so much disintegrating as disaggregating. The Balkanisation of our lives is happening on a national scale. Scotland's falling off the top, self-sealing ethnic communities are proliferating in the Midlands, and London's got its own thing going at the bottom.

We boast of our prosperity, but it's fragile and concentrated in the South East - an island within our island. Perhaps we'll have to get used to thinking of London and its environs as a kind of Hong Kong or an Italian city state.

Here, the most obvious disconnection is between the rich and the rest. An old story, but the difference today is that the fate of those at the top is divorced from those lower down. When the housing ramp collapses, most of the falling masonry will hit the little guys in the middle and at the bottom. The top London prices helped drive up the entire market, but are less likely to fall when it all comes down. There's no feeling that we're all in this together.

The divisions run from earliest youth to grim old age. More boys at Eton get five good GCSEs, I hear, than in the entire borough of Hackney. And now there's another divide growing up: between those who have a decent pension to look forward to and those for whom longevity has become more a threat than a promise.

Then there's the widening gap between the married and unmarried, or rather those with children and those without. Large areas of our towns are now such havens of hedonism for the money-flashing singles that they're pretty much out of bounds for the poor bloody infantry who keep procreation going and cannot afford such leisures. Everything's geared to the needs of the drinker and consumer, and little to the couple with the buggy. On top of all this is the growing disconnection between politics and the people.

And the more fractured we become, the greater our pretence of togetherness to cover it up. That's why the Government bangs on about 'community' and has tried so hard to ignore the problems caused by immigration. Imagine my astonishment when the Minister responsible, Liam Byrne, actually admitted recently that large-scale immigration has profoundly unsettled the country - and that it's the poorest communities that have suffered the most. The influx was overwhelming public services, schools, the NHS and housing, he said. If Labour failed to address public concern, he concluded, it could lose the next election......

Meanwhile, the Government continues to pour billions into the NHS. That's supposed to be another success story, but nobody can really explain where all the money's going, let alone why it's so hard to keep our hospitals clean. Let me tell you what happened to me recently. As you know, for years I've suffered from that irritating condition Dupuytren's contracture (named after a Frenchman) - or claw-hand in its less distinguished appellation, because the fingers contract until they look like one. There's no pain - it's just a bloody nuisance, not least because after you've had an operation for one finger, the next one starts to contract.

I've had two fingers treated, one on the NHS and the other private - because I didn't fancy going into hospital for a minor operation, catching MRSA and coming out dead, as thousands are now doing. Anyway, another damned finger began curling last year, so I went to my NHS doctor and - after a wait - saw a consultant who told me to come back in six months to see how it was progressing. Meanwhile, I read that the French had developed a cure. So thanks to them and none at all to the NHS, 30 years of aggravation was fixed while we were in Paris in a single afternoon by injection, for the sum of about 60 pounds - with no pain, no anaesthetic, no hospital operation and no maddening sling.....

If the economy falters - and the signs are beginning to show - the social consequences of unemployment don't bear thinking about. And, this time, people who are laid off won't be able to retire early because Gordon Brown has blocked that avenue of escape by b*****ing up their pensions. Even now, with the economy still riding high, a record number of people are leaving the country to start again elsewhere. Think what will happen to emigration figures if the economic bubble is pricked.

Whether it is or not, we can certainly expect the splits and cracks in society to grow. Which leaves people your age with three choices: resign themselves to a life in a perilously fragmented community, get rich or do as you have done and get out. Politics or parenting, schools or Scotland, wherever you look, very little seems to be holding things together. People live side by side yet separately, in mental isolation, with their eyes fixed warily on one another. When communities, races, classes and families become segregated to the degree they have, feelings of social solidarity erode. Society ends up like a shattered windscreen: holding together by the grace of God, even though it's all cracked to hell, so no one can see ahead or have any idea where they are going.

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Australia slashes African refugee intake; taking Iraqi Christians instead

Hallelujah! The do-gooding Australian Feds created a previously unknown problem in Australia by allowing large numbers of unassimilable African refugees in over recent years, many of whom are Muslims. It now seems that the Feds have finally woken up to some extent. There is of course a great veil of silence over the high rate of crime and welfare dependancy among Africans in Australia (Americans will recognize the pattern) but official admissions do sometimes leak out. And Christians from Arab lands are certainly a most endangered and most deserving group with every prospect of assimilating successfully. Lebanese Christians have a long history of prospering in Australia. It is a credit to Australia that it has moved to the forefront in rescuing the Arab Christians

THE Federal Government will dramatically cut its intake of refugees from Africa, while lifting the number of refugees from the Middle East, including large numbers of Christian Iraqis. Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews yesterday announced the Refugee and Humanitarian Intake for 2007-08. It will cut the number of immigrants from Africa by 30 per cent. Only a few years ago Africa accounted for up to 70 per cent of the entire humanitarian program. But integrating African refugees, particularly from war-ravaged Sudan, has been very expensive. It is believed the Government is hoping to help consolidate the African communities and families who are already here.

"The intake from the Africa region reflects an improvement in conditions in some countries and an increase in the number of people returning to their country of origin," Mr Andrews said. The overall number of refugee places will remain stable at 13,000. But the intake from the Middle East and Asia will increase to about 35 per cent each.

Mr Andrews said the increased intake of Iraqis who had fled their country follows an international conference on Iraq convened by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in April. The conference discussed the plight of refugees from Iraq, many Christian.

The most recent Budget saw an additional $209 million over four years allocated to helping refugees settle into Australian life. Mr Andrews said the increased intake from Asia was largely because of resettlement programs for Burmese refugees in Thailand and Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.

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18 August, 2007

Australia relaxes its immigration rules to persuade skilled young Britons to emigrate

Australia is making sweeping changes to its immigration policy in an attempt to attract skilled British workers to move Down Under. The changes - which will target workers in the medical profession, the IT sector and tradesmen and women - will result in the country's points-based immigration system being adapted to make it easier for fluent English-speaking professionals between the ages of 30 and 35 to gain work visas.

Under Australia's Skilled Migration Programme, points are awarded to potential immigrants according to their age, ability to speak languages, occupation, skills and experience. Immigrants who gain a total of 120 points are automatically fast-tracked through the migration process. Previously, however, British professionals aged 30-35 often struggled to gain work visas, losing out on precious points because to their age. Under the new scheme, five extra points will be automatically awarded to anyone who passes an "optional standardised English-language test", making it simpler for English speakers to achieve a perfect score. The new recruitment drive is reminiscent of the country's "Ten Pound Poms" scheme, when British migrants paid a mere œ10 fare to move to Australia to plug gaps in the economy in the 1950s and 1960s. The programme prompted about one million Britons to up sticks and head for a place of work in the sun.

Then, as now, the problem was an acute shortage of skilled labour. Australia has huge gaps in an economy which continues to grow and the government is looking for more immigrants than ever before. It has already increased targets for this year - 102,500 new residents, from its original target of 97,000.

Chris Cook, spokesman for the Australian Visa Bureau, said: "The implications of these changes are vast. The Australian government realises it is lacking workers in many professions which it desperately needs to fill, so the country is throwing its doors open to huge numbers of skilled and experienced British people and making it easier for them to meet the minimum eligibility requirements."

Professionals who are being sought by the Australian government include doctors, teachers, accountants, plumbers, nurses, carpenters, dentists and IT managers. The country's weekly list of migration occupations in demand currently includes 38 managerial and professional jobs, one associate professional position, 10 posts in computing and 46 positions in trades. Australia's capital, Canberra, is experiencing a record-breaking boom in its construction industry, but local unemployment is the lowest in the country meaning that there is a mass shortage of skilled builders.

Between July 2001 and 2002, the total number of Britons who settled in Australia was 8,749. By last year, of the 150,000 foreigners who were granted permanent visas to live in Australia, 24,800 were British, followed by 15,865 Indian nationals and 14,688 Chinese. Two-thirds of the total were skilled migrants. The majority of migrants last year listed their occupations as accountants, computing professionals and registered nurses. Their average age was 31.

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Spain's Bluster Masks an Immigration Crisis

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero deserves a special award for transatlantic chutzpah. During his recent visit to Mexico, he ended the state dinner held in his honor by toasting Mexican President Felipe Calder¢n with a sterling example of the post-modern pontification for which Spanish leftists are so famous: "There is no wall that can obstruct the dream of a better life," Zapatero proclaimed.

The "wall" that Zapatero is so worried about is, of course, the anti-illegal immigrant fence that, if everything goes as planned, will one day run along parts of the 2,000 mile (3,200 km) border between Mexico and the United States...and not the twin razor wire-topped fences that separate the Spain's north African colonies of Ceuta and Melilla from those people in Morocco and the rest of Africa who have dreams of a better life in Spain.

It could be that Zapatero was just trying to divert attention away from a damning report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch that accuses Spanish authorities of mistreating and neglecting hundreds of migrant African children at holding centers on the Canary Islands. Or perhaps he was still fuming that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during her recent six-hour stopover in Madrid, did not extend the long-awaited invitation for Zapatero to visit the White House.

Whatever the case may be, the fact is that the United States and Europe are facing many of the same challenges on the issue of immigration. But within Europe, few countries have a more troubled-indeed contradictory-approach to illegal immigration than does Spain. By any measure, Spain is a magnet for immigration: During the past ten years, the number of immigrants in Spain has skyrocketed nine-fold to 4.5 million; immigrants now make up a whopping ten percent of the total population of Spain, a country that for much of the last century was an exporter rather than an importer of immigrants.

Up until early 2005, half of all immigrants in Spain were undocumented, a problem that Zapatero decided to "fix" by granting the largest blanket amnesty in Spanish history to nearly one million of them. But while the politically correct prime minister regularly boasts that his "humane" approach to immigration has added a multitude of new contributors to Spain's financially unsustainable social security system, he has been less willing to acknowledge that his leniency has triggered an avalanche of uncontrolled immigration.

In fact, official statistics confirm that today (just two years after Zapatero's amnesty) there are now more than one million new illegal immigrants in Spain. Many Spaniards are asking themselves how this could happen, but the answer is obvious. By rewarding illegal immigrants with Spanish (and thus European) documentation, Zapatero has unleashed what is known as the "call effect" to people as far away as Kashmir who now believe that Spain is an easy gateway into Europe. And indeed it is. Because according to Spanish law, if an individual enters Spain legally on a three-month tourist visa, overstays that visa for 24 months, and then presents the immigration authorities with a labor contract, that person automatically becomes legal.

Why is Spain so lenient? One reason is because Spaniards are getting rich on cheap immigrant labor. In fact, hundreds of thousands of low-paid immigrants are the fodder that fuels two of Spain's most important industries: agriculture and construction. And it is above all a construction boom that has transformed Spain into one Europe's fastest growing economies.

Another reason is because at 0.7 children per woman, Spain has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, and studies show that to keep the Spanish pension system from bankrupting, immigrants will have to make up 20 percent of Spain's population by 2030. Spain's demographic crisis is so troubling that Zapatero has just promised to pay a 2,500 euro ($3,400) "baby bonus" for every newborn child as an incentive to boost the birthrate.

Combine these factors with Zapatero's never-ending populist rhetoric about the need for "solidarity" with developing countries and it comes as no surprise that would-be immigrants in Africa and elsewhere perceive (correctly) that Spain is deliberately lax on illegal immigration. So masses of people who dream of a better life in Europe keep coming and coming...by the hundreds day in and day out. Some 25,000 "economic migrants" have arrived in the Canary Islands so far this year alone.

But many of them do not arrive alive. The waters separating Spain from Africa are notoriously turbulent and the corpses of would-be migrants are washing up on the shores of Spain's prized tourist beaches almost daily. Up to 3,000 migrants are estimated to have drowned this year alone, a gruesome spectacle which, more than anything else, has created a public relations nightmare for the Spanish government.

In the face of a public outcry over the government's inaction, Zapatero now senses the political need to appear tough on illegal immigration. But because Spain's immigration problem has spiraled completely out of control, Zapatero now says the problem is a European problem and as such he has tried to put the onus on other EU member states to find a solution. He wants the EU to dedicate a substantial part of its 2007-2013 frontier control budget to the southern border, for example. But the EU's response has been tepid. Indeed, most EU countries believe that Zapatero started the crisis with his indulgent immigration policies and, as such, he should find the solution as well. In the words of French President Nicolas Zarkozy:

"We see the damage caused by the phenomenon of massive regularization. Every country which has conducted an operation of massive regularization finds itself the next month [in a position that] does not allow it to master the situation anymore."

This unfortunate reality provides some of the political context for Zapatero's concern with the US-Mexico border. The Spanish prime minister, who like so many other European leftists is religiously fixated on building a post-modern multicultural utopia, seems blinded to the fact that runaway immigration combined with socialist mismanagement has had disastrous consequences. Much easier, it would seem, for Zapatero to criticize America than to acknowledge his own shortcomings.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen would-be migrants have been killed and many more injured by rubber bullets or beatings in their bids to climb over the ten foot (three meter) fences around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Zapatero's response? He has just built a third perimeter fence to obstruct the dream of a better life in Spain. Spanish leftists are consistent in one thing: they are nothing if not consistently inconsistent.

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17 August, 2007

Borders central to Giuliani plan; Romney goes for law enforcement

Why not both?

Does either Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney have a practical and immediate solution for dealing with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States? That question has been lost in the escalating debate between the two Republican presidential candidates this week over whether Giuliani was soft on illegal immigration as mayor of New York. Romney's attack on Giuliani reflects his campaign's emerging strategy after the former Massachusetts governor's victory in the Iowa straw poll last Saturday.

Romney's advisers have two goals. The first is to narrow the race as much as possible to a contest between Romney and Giuliani. The second is to cast Romney as the conservative and Giuliani as out of the GOP mainstream. They hope that will open up a path to the nomination by allowing Romney to seize the conservative mantle before voters have a chance to make a real judgment about the conservative bona fides of Fred Thompson, who won't enter the race officially before September. Romney can't easily question Giuliani's support for abortion or gay rights because that brings back questions about his own conversions on those issues. Immigration, still a hot button among Republican primary and caucus voters, is his chosen issue.

All week, Romney has hammered his rival for policies Giuliani supported as mayor. Those policies that allowed children of illegal immigrants to go to school, receive medical care and report crimes without facing deportation. Giuliani is firing back with vows that he knows how to get control of the borders. In reality, both candidates have views on immigration that are more complicated than the tone of the debate this week suggests.

Giuliani outlined his views about immigration during a recent campaign appearance in Boone, Iowa. The issue arose when Boone resident Maxine Redeker asked him what he would do about the illegal immigrants whose children, having been born in the United States, are citizens. She asked, will the parents of those children be allowed to remain in the United States? Giuliani's answer, in its most simplistic form, was yes, if they're good people. If they're not, they will be sent home. "Look at the ones who are productive, decent people," he said. "Give them a card, get them to pay taxes. Those people who have children who are here -- fine, no problem. The ones who are committing crimes, we have to throw out of the country. No matter whether they have children or not."

"I don't know how you're going to do that," Redeker told Giuliani. "You can do that," he said. "You let them come forward. You let them come forward, you identify them, you figure out who they are. The ones who don't come forward, you find them and throw them out. But in order to do that you have to first have control over your borders."

Giuliani emphasizes border control whenever he is talking to audiences on the campaign trail, and argues that he could effectively close down the borders to illegal immigration in 18 months to three years. I asked him after his exchange with Redeker about his broader views, particularly his willingness to allow many illegal immigrants to remain in the country and become citizens. That, I suggested, sounded very similar to the kind of comprehensive immigration package President Bush and John McCain pushed with no success earlier this year. "I don't think comprehensive reform is politically possible right now," Giuliani replied. "I've come to the conclusion in studying this now for six months or eight months... It seems to me you first control the borders. Give everyone a little relief from the debate for awhile. Then we revisit in it a situation of more order, more confidence the border can be controlled. Then we have to say what's the best answer to deal with the people who are here."

Giuliani described himself as "very pro legal immigrant, very anti illegal immigrant, but I think I'm also practical about illegal immigration..." His goal, he said, is a "practical, sensible solution" to the millions here illegally that is "humane and has us like other countries -- that doesn't have us doing anything excessive." Assuming he could make good on his vow to get control of the borders within three years off becoming president, would he then follow up on his solution for dealing with those here illegally? "I would try to do it," he said.

The Giuliani plan could allow many millions of the illegal immigrants now in the country to stay and perhaps even become citizens. "Good people would be given a chance," he said. "They'd have to earn it, they'd have to pay penalties and back taxes, they'd have to be able to read, write and speak English before they could become citizens. Bad people, or not such good people, would be thrown out depending on how you decided that."

Romney, who has played the role of aggressor in the debate with Giuliani, takes a passive approach to the question of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. He believes they will eventually leave the country of their own volition. "I wouldn't round them up as one big group and try and bus them all home at once," he said. Romney envisions that, as the federal government cracks down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, the word will spread and illegal immigrants will conclude they won't be able to get work and will begin to return to their native countries. "Realistically they will attrite, they will return to their homes and they will be replaced over time with legal workers," Romney explained to reporters during a June campaign appearance in New Hampshire. "The idea is a gradual and humane replacement of illegal workers with either U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. We don't want to put ourselves in a setting where we hurt our own economy."

But Romney's plan, even under an optimistic set of conditions, likely would take many years to work. In his approach, there would be no immediate effort to round up or try to deport illegal immigrants. "This is not real hard," he said. "Simply enforcing the laws as they exist...will begin the process... I think we're going to see a significant increase in legal immigrants as we have illegal immigrants leave and that's a great thing."

The Romney-Giuliani debate this week obscures their views -- and their differences -- on what remains the most politically treacherous issue in the illegal immigration debate: what to do about those already here. Giuliani sounds closer to the president and McCain than Romney, but Romney begs the question of whether his "gradual and humane" approach is either practical or effective. The president and others in the Republican Party have worried that a policy that aims simply at securing the border and deporting illegal immigrants would have long-term consequences for the GOP in its aspiration to attract more support from Hispanics. I asked Giuliani whether that concerned him. "I can't tell you," he replied. "I don't know."

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Immmigrant crime: Gingrich favour national ID

He's pissing into the wind with that idea. Neither Left or Right will wear it

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, never shy of provocative rhetoric, had some sharp words for President Bush and Congress on Tuesday, saying he is "sickened" they are on vacation "while young Americans are being massacred by people who should not be here." Gingrich said two suspects in the recent murders of three youths in Newark, N.J., turned out to be illegal immigrants with criminal records and that Bush should call Congress into special session to deal with the situation "if he is serious about winning the war here at home." Gingrich said he favors a national identification system to ferret out illegal immigrants who have committed felonies.

These remarks, echoing his talk to a Republican audience in Ames, Iowa, last weekend about an immigration issue that resonates strongly with the GOP base, again raised questions about a prospective Gingrich presidential candidacy. He promised an answer soon.

Asked about Gingrich's comments, Douglas Rivlin, communications director for the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group in Washington, said, "Immigrants who are here illegally are less likely to commit violent crimes than native-born Americans or legal immigrants. Criminality is something at which Americans excel. While it is a horrible crime, it does fit into a common but false stereotype that illegal immigrants should be associated with violent crime."

Gingrich wasn't the only GOP presidential prospect to cite the Newark killings as evidence that a tougher immigration stance is needed. "We have the right to keep criminal predators out of our home," former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee said on his Web site. "Those who want to immigrate into America need to knock, identify themselves and ask permission first."

The Aug. 4 execution-style murders killed three college-bound Newark youths and wounded another. Three people have been arrested. One, Jose Carranza, is an undocumented immigrant from Peru who also is awaiting trial on charges of assault and rape of a child. A second illegal immigrant, from Nicaragua, is being sought as a suspect.

The former House speaker said Bush should be more serious about "winning the war here at home, which is more violent and more dangerous to Americans than Iraq or Iran." In doing so on such a high-profile campaign issue, Gingrich sounded more like a candidate for the Oval Office. It seems that Gingrich is everywhere these days, making speeches, writing articles and appearing on radio and television -- signs that he may be aiming for a race. The Republican presidential field is wide open, and Gingrich, a charismatic figure, has a storied history as a conservative leader. But he can be unpredictable too. In a telephone interview, Gingrich made clear he is seriously thinking about running. But he said he wouldn't decide until after a nationwide online workshop he's leading from Sept. 27-29 to develop solutions to such major problems as immigration, energy, education and the environment.

The workshop coincides with the 13th anniversary of the unveiling of Gingrich's "Contract With America," a series of conservative proposals the GOP used in 1994 to win control of the House. Gingrich is chairman of the American Solutions for Winning the Future, a non-partisan group formed to provide what he says are "real, significant solutions to the most important issues of the day" and to hold the online workshop, which he hopes will attract thousands of Americans.

John Feehery, who was the spokesman for former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said that Gingrich's focus on illegal immigrants with criminal records "is a huge issue. That's what killed the immigration bill. But I don't think he's going to run for president. This kind of talk helps build up his political base and his money base." Feehery, who now is head of his own communications firm, said that Gingrich would be a "player in the presidential race. I think he wants to be influential in the campaign." He said Gingrich excels at developing ideas but that his problem "is actually implementing those ideas. ... I think people respect his intellect. I don't think they necessarily respect his ability to run the government."

Gingrich has made controversial comments, too, including this year, when he referred to Spanish as "the language of living in the ghetto." He later apologized. During the Clinton administration, he was criticized for pushing a showdown with the White House that shut down the government and for complaining he had to take the back steps when exiting Air Force One. He was forced out as House speaker after GOP losses in the 1998 midterm elections.

Lately, as opinion polls reflect low ratings for Republicans, Gingrich has begun to vie for the spotlight in a crowded GOP presidential field. "I think we need a generation of leaders who are prepared to talk to the American people candidly about the scale of change" needed to solve its problems, Gingrich said in the interview. He said he wants to develop solutions first, because otherwise "you don't know why you are running."

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16 August, 2007

Sold Out Immigration Film Event in Hollywood!!

From the latest newsletter from David Horowitz

Not everyone in Hollywood is a trendy leftist. The Freedom Center had a tremendous success this past Tuesday when we premiered a new documentary called "Border" by director/actor Chris Burgard at the Harmony Gold Theater in Hollywood. Talk show host and television personality Larry Elder was the host. Cyrus Nowrasteh, the writer of ABC's "Path to 9/11," and other Hollywood celebrities attended. The film, a frightening look at the chaos caused by uncontrolled illegal immigration, filled the house with a paying audience of over 300 people. The showing, first in a series of screenings of conservative films we are developing, took place under the auspices of the Liberty Film Festival, a program of the Freedom Center which has had a growing impact on the entertainment community over the past two years. We will show "Border" again on August 15th in Santa Barbara. Thanks in large part of Mary Belle Snow and Andy Granatelli, the Freedom Center has established a conservative presence in that liberal city.



The whims of legal immigration

By Mark Steyn

Here's a story you don't see every day - "Gay Nicaraguan Man Goes Into Hiding After Refugee Bid Denied": His case made headlines in Canada and Nicaragua in February when the Immigration and Refugee Board denied him asylum saying they didn't believe he was gay. Is that what Canadian immigration officials do all day? "Funny. You don't look gay. Walk across to the men's room again and this time put a bit of life into it."

I appreciate their concerns. Being gay isn't exactly one of those jobs Canadians won't do. Let a lot of squaresville straights stand muscling in on the gay immigrant fast-track, and there goes the neighborhood.

But contrast the exacting entry qualifications for the gay refugee line with those for the terrorist refugee line. Ahmed Ressam, the famous "Millennium Bomber" arrested at the British Columbia/Washington State border en route to blow up LAX, was admitted to Canada because he told them he was a convicted Algerian terrorist. That's right: As Mme Shouldice of the immigration service explained, being a terrorist was a legitimate criterion for admission, on the grounds that you had a reasonable fear of being ill-treated if you returned to the country where you were trying to blow people up.

And, unlike gay refugees, terrorist refugees weren't asked to prove it: "Go on, then. If you're such a bigtime terrorist, blow someone up. Try the laughably obvious heterosexual at the payphone frantically trying to order up a Judy Garland boxed set."

I'm not sure what lessons to draw from this, except that, if you're a gay guy landing at Toronto, things'll go a lot quicker if you claim to be a practising jihadist. Get a turban and a beard if you like (not Nicole Kidman, the other kind).

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Immigration officials help Islamists to get in

A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain. The confidential 2006 USCIS report said that despite the severity of the potential security breaches, most are not investigated "due to lack of resources" in the agency's internal affairs department.

"Two District Adjudications Officers are allegedly involved with known (redacted) Islam terrorist members," said the internal document obtained by The Washington Times. The group "was responsible for numerous robberies and used the heist money to fund terrorist activities. The District Adjudications Officers made numerous DHS database queries to track (Alien)-File movement and check on the applicants' status for (redacted) members and associates."

According to the document, other potential security failures include reports that: Employees are sharing detailed information on internal security measures with people outside the agency; A Lebanese citizen bribed an immigration officer with airline tickets for visa benefits; A USCIS officer in Harlington, Texas, sold immigration documents for $10,000 to as many as 20 people.

A USCIS employee, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, said many of the complaints in the multipage document are as many as three years old. "Terrorists need immigration documents to embed in our society and work here without raising alarm bells," said the employee. "Whether through bribing an immigration officer, an employee with the department of motor vehicles, or utilizing highly effective counterfeit documents produced by the Mexican drug cartels. They are always looking for that documentation to live amongst us."

Bill Wright, spokesman with USCIS, said that he could not comment on any ongoing investigations but that USCIS "takes all internal allegations seriously." "The investigations that are referenced are ongoing investigations that we can not comment on," Mr. Wright told The Times. "We take all of these allegations seriously, and we are acting on them. For anyone to suggest that they are ignored is blatantly wrong."

In March, USCIS established the Office of Security and Integrity to investigate internal corruption. "We'd like to clean up our own house first," Mr. Wright said. The office would add 65 investigators and internal-review specialists, for a total of 245 employees and contract employees, but none of the new 65 vacancies approved in March has been filled.

Last week, The Times disclosed a confidential DEA report substantiating the link between Islamic extremists and Mexican drug cartels. The 2005 DEA report states that Middle Eastern operatives, in U.S. sleeper cells, are working in conjunction with the cartels to fund terrorist organizations overseas. Several lawmakers promised congressional hearings based on the information disclosed in the DEA documents. The DEA report also stated that Middle Eastern extremists living in the U.S. - who speak Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew fluently - are posing as Hispanic nationals.

USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez in March told Congress that he could not establish how many terror suspects or persons of special interest have been granted immigration benefits. "While USCIS has in place strong background check and adjudication suspension policies to avoid granting status to known terror risks, it is possible for USCIS to grant status to an individual before a risk is known, or when the security risk is not identified through standard background checks," said a statement provided to lawmakers. "USCIS is not in a position to quantify all cases in which this may have happened. Recognizing that there may be presently known terror risks in the ranks of those who have obtained status previously."

Mr. Gonzalez's response, along with the 2006 USCIS document obtained by The Times, show a "pattern of national security failures that have put the nation at risk," the agency source said. Another investigation involved more than seven USCIS and Immigration and Custom's Enforcement (ICE) employees - including special agents and senior district managers - who were moving contraband via "diplomatic pouches" to the United States from China. ICE - the original investigating agency - downgraded the criminal investigation to a managerial problem, and the case was never prosecuted, a source close to the investigation said.

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15 August, 2007

Giuliani gets tough

A week after being assailed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for being soft on illegal immigration as mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani today unveiled the details of his plan to solve the United States' immigration problem. His campaign is aggressively pushing back on Romney's attack to paint their GOP rival as a hypocrite on this issue. "We can end illegal immigration," Giuliani vowed to an audience of roughly 300 at a community center in Aiken, S.C., Tuesday morning. "I promise you, we can end illegal immigration."

Listed as one of his "12 commitments" to the American people, Giuliani promised to secure the borders and identify every noncitizen in the United States, noting the more than 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. "That's a lot of people to walk over your border without being identified," he said.

The two-term mayor proposed requiring the deportation of any illegal immigrant who commits a felony, building both a physical and a high-tech border fence, deploying a larger and better-trained border patrol, implementing a tamperproof identity card for all foreign workers and students with a single national database of noncitizens to track their status. The core of Giuliani's policy will rely on the implementation of a system he calls BorderStat. The system would be modeled after New York City's CompStat program, which Giuliani's administration used to reduce crime by measuring which tactics are working effectively and which are not.

Illegal immigration is a hot-button issue among rank-and-file Republican voters, whose opposition to the bill supported by President Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., contributed to its ignominious defeat in the U.S. Senate and McCain's current struggles on the campaign trail. The unveiling of Giuliani's immigration policy comes just days after Romney said New York was "at the top of the list" of "sanctuary cities" in the Unites States and accused Giuliani of obstructing the nation's immigration laws while mayor.

A "sanctuary city" is a term of art for a municipality where city officials have decided not to deny city services such as hospitals or public schools to illegal immigrants, and absent other law enforcement concerns to not devote police resources to implementing federal immigration laws. Some cities officially declare themselves officially to be sanctuary cities, others - such as New York -- implement policies that afford them that designation.

During a Bettendorf, Iowa, campaign stop, Romney said that Giuliani "said this was going to be a city with protection, it would provide protection for illegals.He instructed city workers not to provide information to the federal government that would allow them to enforce the law. New York City was the poster child for sanctuary cities in the country and I think that's the wrong way to go."

More here



Quebec getting very leery of immigration

Quebec should have total control over its immigration to send a clear message to newcomers that the province is a francophone state, not a bilingual one, Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois said on Tuesday. The comments came as Action democratique du Quebec Leader Mario Dumont continues to take heat for suggesting the province has reached the limit of how many immigrants it can assimilate, and as a politically-charged commission starts to look into the whole immigration issue and how to accommodate for religious and cultural differences. In Quebec, the issue is widely referred to as reasonable accommodation.

Marois believes Quebec needs to attract more immigrants, especially to cope with a declining birthrate and employment needs, but she stressed the province has to send a very clear message to those who decide to settle in Quebec. "Many of them believe that they are settling in a bilingual state. It's not true. Quebec is a francophone state that respects the rights of its anglophone minority. And when you live in Quebec, you live in French," Marois stated.

She pressed Premier Jean Charest to negotiate with the federal government to gain control over the 40% of immigrants to the province that it does not already handle. Under a 1991 agreement, Quebec can choose the immigrants who have money to invest here and decide how it integrates them. But Ottawa keeps dealing with refugees and immigrants coming to reunite with family members. Marois argued it's fair to ask for that since Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government recognized Quebec as a nation. Having additional powers would allow Quebec to choose immigrants that will more easily blend into Quebec's culture and values, Marois added.

Immigration Minister Yolande James retorted that the province already chooses 60% of its immigrants and can target the specific types of workers most needed. "We have all the power we need to select our immigrants," she said coming out of a cabinet meeting.

The PQ leader also joined the Liberals in asking Dumont to clarify his statement that the limit on immigration has already been reached. "Why did he say that? It's easy to say something like that, but when you have to prove it, it's more difficult," Marois said. Dumont has so far refused to explain his comments. "It's about time he stops hiding," said Natural Resources Minister Claude Bechard.

Meanwhile, a commission charged with examining Quebec's immigrant integration issue laid out some of its plans on Tuesday. After five months of organization, research and focus groups, the commission has released a public consultation document, and unveiled a schedule of official hearings and informal "town hall" meetings across Quebec, extending from August until December. The commission is taking the widest possible view of its mandate, and will examine the root problem of integration in Quebec society, said Gerard Bouchard, a sociologist and historian who is co-chairing the commission with philosopher Charles Taylor. "Everyone knew there were immigrants in Quebec," he noted. "But it's now as if, all of a sudden, Quebecers have really become aware of immigrants." French-Canadians, a majority in Quebec but a minority in Canada and North America, seem to feel insecure in the face of other minorities in the province, Bouchard added.

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Israel's new immigration chief vows easier aliyah

Israel's new immigration minister vowed to make aliyah less onerous. Ya'acov Edri said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post published Tuesday that having prevented planned cuts to his ministry's budget, he intends to implement measures for making immigration easier. For one, new arrivals will be issued Israeli identity cards upon landing at Ben Gurion Airport, sparing them the need to line up at Interior Ministry offices later.

Edri said he also wants to bring back Israelis who emigrated by exempting them from some social security back payments.

Edri, who assumed his new post last month in a Cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has received criticism from Anglophone immigrants for speaking poor English. The Moroccan-born minister speaks French as well as Hebrew, and he vowed to improve his English. But he added: "I feel good with every immigrant. That my English isn't the best does not add or take away from that."

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14 August, 2007

Latest from CIS

1. Change of Heart on Immigration? The White House thinks it's calling America's bluff.

EXCERPT: ''Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.''

This Mencken sentiment appears to be the guiding idea behind the administration's announcement Friday of stepped-up immigration enforcement. After its relentless six-year campaign for amnesty crashed and burned in June at the hands of the common people, the White House has come up with a new plan: to start enforcing some of the laws they should have been enforcing all along, and so thoroughly scare the public with the consequences that there will be a popular groundswell for amnesty that will finally vindicate the administration position. You can almost hear the president thinking, ''be careful what you wish for.'' . . .

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2. Get Serious: More Immigrants Mean Fewer Jobs For Blacks

EXCERPT: ''Every hour sees the black man elbowed out of employment by some newly arrived emigrant, whose hunger and whose color are thought to give him a better title to the place.''

No, this quote isn't from today's debate over immigration -- it was written by Frederick Douglass in 1853. Mass immigration has always been detrimental to the job prospects of black Americans. Of course, there are other considerations in establishing immigration policy -- whether certain family members should be given special immigration rights, for instance, or how many refugees to take. But you can't argue with a straight face that the admission of large numbers of foreign workers doesn't harm blacks economically... ... Solutions to the challenges facing black America have to come from a variety of private efforts and government initiatives -- but regardless of the specific approach, flooding the job market with foreign workers can only undermine these efforts.

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3. Bringing Diversity to the Debate

(A review of Debating Immigration, edited by Carol Swain, Cambridge University Press)

EXCERPT: . . . The makeup of this volume is more evidence of Swain's heterodoxy. Sure, the open-borders left is represented, as it should be in a book entitled Debating Immigration, and Swain got some of the top academics of that ilk, including Doug Massey, Linda Bosniak, and Rogers Smith. But if you read the New York Times, you already know what they're going to say.

There are also offerings that don't just regurgitate the elite consensus and these are not just from immigration restrictionists, who are also represented here, including my own director of research, Steven Camarota. More novel are the essays by those, like Swain, who can't really be counted in the restrictionist camp but whose intellectual honesty forces them to confront reality in a way their colleagues do not. . . .

Be all that as it may, this is a useful book for the concerned citizen who knows the basics about immigration and wants to hone his thinking. Carol Swain should be applauded for daring to gather a genuine diversity of views at an elite university and then publishing it at an elite academic press. If the concerns of the public over immigration are trickling up, ever so slowly, not just into the halls of Congress but into academia itself, maybe there's hope for America yet.



Arizona: Sheriff Arpaio is "racist"

"Everyone forgets," Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio tells me. Then, as if to make sure that I remember, he says it again, "Everyone forgets." Arpaio is speaking about the Latino activists who have condemned a hotline he established to receive tips about illegal immigration. Hispanic community leaders say that Arpaio is involved in a form of racial profiling. They've established hotlines of their own that they hope will highlight abuses.

"What disturbs me about this is that I used to be their hero," Arpaio says. "They gave me an award for locking up that reservist, Haab. Remember that?" Patrick Haab was an Army reservist who held seven border crossers at gunpoint at an Interstate 8 rest stop in 2005. A sheriff's deputy arrested him, and Arpaio supported bringing charges, an idea that was tossed by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Arpaio, back when the Latino activists sort of liked him, said, "I'd lock him (Haab) up again. You don't go around pointing guns at people because you think they are Mexicans."

The sheriff said at the time that he was simply doing his job. Just as he believes that the hotline he established is a way of doing his job. "I don't understand why they are going after me," he said. "We got 1,100 calls (on the hotline), and we arrested eight people the other day. If I was abusing the hotline, with that may calls, we would have been knocking down doors and everything. But we are very careful. We don't just go around grabbing someone who is trimming palm trees and all of that. . . . You don't respond to every tip. If we get probable cause like we do on every other case, then OK."

That's not how the activists see it. State Rep. Steve Gallardo, one of those leading the effort against Arpaio, told The Republic, "We need this hotline taken down. This hotline is solely set up for racial profiling. ... We need Sheriff Joe Arpaio to do his job in enforcing the laws without using race as the sole purpose of trying to determine if someone is here illegally."

Arpaio is right. Everyone forgets. For example, the folks protesting the sheriff's hotline forgot to wait. There's nothing wrong with a hotline. It's only wrong if, over time, it actually is abused. They also forgot that making a big fuss over something like this can do more harm than good, at least from their point of view. Their big, public protest is helping to boost the exposure for a hotline that most people didn't even know existed. It also raises (or at least maintains) the profile of the sheriff. Which pleases him to no end.

Arpaio's critics also forgot that voters in Arizona have overwhelmingly passed every proposition, no matter how harsh or nutty, that was meant to punish illegal immigrants or those who employ them. The sheriff isn't creating our immigration problems; he's only reflecting them.

The anti-hotline activists even forgot whom they were dealing with. In all the many years that he has been in office, no one has beaten Arpaio in a public-relations fight. He may not land many knock-out blows, but he wins by decision because he throws quicker, sharper jabs and knows how to perform for the judges - you. He told me, for instance, "If these dedicated Americans get information on their hotlines about illegals, do you think they will pass that on? Do you think they're going to tell me where a drophouse is?" In the end, the most important thing that the anti-hotline, anti-Arpaio activists forgot is this: He is not always wrong.

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13 August, 2007

Attrition Is Starting to Work

A new survey finds that Mexican and Central American immigrants (a majority of whom said they were illegal aliens) report it's harder to find a job today than it was a year ago; the main reason they gave was tighter immigration enforcement. (A news story is here and the survey itself is here.) This, mind you, is the result of a relatively modest increase in enforcement, and maybe even just the perception of increased enforcement. As we implement the upcoming regulations on mismatched Social Security numbers submitted to employers by illegal aliens (Terry Jeffrey writes about it over at the homepage), and if we make other changes to reassert control over immigration (like enhancing cooperation with state and local police, say, and requiring federal contractors to use the existing online verification system for new hires), we'll start seeing a significant number of illegals give up and go home. The New York Times doesn't like it, of course, which may be conclusive proof that it's a good idea.

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Canadian immigration laws are a joke too

More than two years after the Supreme Court of Canada deemed Leon Mugesera a war criminal and ordered him out of the country, the exiled ethnic Hutu hardliner is still living in Quebec. And his case is not unique. Many war criminals have managed to stay in Canada for years despite Ottawa's ongoing efforts to expel them. "It's one of the tragedies of Canada," says Sergio Karas, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer and co-chair of the International Bar Association.

In the 1990s the federal government decided to strip suspected war criminals of their citizenship and deport them, on the grounds they had lied about their past when they entered the country, making their status illegitimate. But the appeals processes in these cases can go on for years. "There is a systemic problem with the refugee process in Canada. Foreigners who have committed heinous crimes can keep on fighting for years on end, constantly escaping prosecution and deportation," Karas says. "What kind of message does it send to the rest of the world?" he added.

Earlier this year, representatives of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, the Darfur Association of Canada, PAGE-Rwanda and the Roma Community Centre joined Jewish groups in demanding that Immigration Minister Diane Finley deport six men accused of aiding the Nazis in the Holocaust (Helmut Oberlander, Vladimir Katriuk, Wasyl Odynsky, Jacob Fast, Jura Skomatczuk, and Josef Furman).

In 2006, Canada deported 41 immigrants found involved in war crimes or crimes against humanity, according to a federal report. But it also mentioned that 59 removal orders could not be carried out because of impediments such as a lack of travel documents, while another 39 were awaiting a pre-removal risk assessment.

The report only names cases that have been the subject of public attention. "Anyone that's subject to removal from Canada can request a pre-removal risk assessment and that is to determine whether there is a risk of persecution, torture or threat to life if they're deported," said a spokeswoman from Citizenship and Immigration Canada. "If they are subject to those conditions, they are not removed. Then they would have a stay of removal until such time as those conditions change," said Karen Shadd-Evelyn.

The Mugesera case has received a lot of attention since he started fighting his deportation in 1995. His expulsion has been put on hold while the federal government determined whether his life could be in danger in Rwanda. The risk-assessment process has been going on since June 2005. Shadd-Evelyn couldn't comment on Mugesera's case and couldn't say what was taking so long. "There is no doubt about the determination of the Canadian authorities to get him out, but he (Mugesera) has various layers of appeal and he is slowly using them all up. So, the time will run out, but it does seem frustratingly long for people," says William Schabas, Canada's foremost expert on international criminal law.

Recently, Mugesera called on Justice Minister Robert Nicholson to try him under Canada's war crimes legislation. But Schabas says Mugesera is not entitled to a trial in Canada since the highest court ruled unanimously in 2005 that he was "inadmissible" to remain in the country under immigration law. "Mugesera has no right to be tried in Canada. He can ask for it, but he has no legal remedy. This is just a political statement by him. And unless it resonates with the (Justice) minister, it doesn't mean anything," says Schabas, who is director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Ireland, in Galway. "It's always better to have people stand trial where the crime was committed because there you have judges who understand the context and witnesses who are there," argued Schabas.

He went to Rwanda recently to assess the judiciary system and the new prisons and he believes Mugesera could stand a fair trial in Rwanda. But Amnesty International still expresses serious concern of the Rwandan government's ability to guarantee genocide suspects a fair trial. A former university lecturer, Mugesera is accused of giving a speech in 1992 in which he called Rwandan Tutsis "cockroaches" and encouraged his fellow Hutus to kill them.

The Supreme Court said the speech planted the seeds of Rwanda's bloody ethnic massacre. Between 500,000 and 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority and moderate members of the Hutu majority were slaughtered, most hacked to death with machetes. Schabas recalls his trip to Rwanda shortly after Mugesera gave his speech. "I've always said I don't know what he said in the speech because I don't understand the language, but I know how people reacted to it, and there was not doubt about the meaning."

Karas, the immigration lawyer, pointed out that many other undesirable criminals have eluded deportation for much longer than Mugesera. He cited the case of Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad, a convicted terrorist who hijacked a plane, who has been thwarting his expulsion since 1988. "We need to impose limits to the number of appeals for those who have committed crimes and who want to stall forever," said Karas. "We have to do it especially for the victims, in the Rwandan community for instance, who must be angry to see those criminals walking down the streets."

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12 August, 2007

San Francisco condemns talkshow immigration critic

San Francisco city officials are trying to force taxpayers to pay for immigrants' green cards and citizenship - and to bolster their case for the new tax, they've introduced a resolution condemning national radio talk-show host Michael Savage for what they call his "defamatory language ... against immigrants."

Supervisor Chris Daly, reacting to the new and significantly higher federal fee structure for immigrants seeking citizenship, imposed last week by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, complained that the fee hikes raise concerns that immigrants "cannot obtain safe pathways to legal immigrant status and citizenship" and "further exacerbates pressures on families, increasing stress," according to the San Francisco Examiner.

Under the new fee structure, the cost to apply for a green card is now $930, up $605 from the old fee. Citizenship applications went from $330 to $595. On Tuesday, Daly asked the city attorney to draw up legislation that would subsidize immigrants applying for citizenship, green cards and petitions for relatives and workers.

On the same day, apparently to further generate sympathy for immigrants and bolster Daly's bailout effort, Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval introduced a resolution condemning popular radio talk-show host Michael Savage, a mainstay of the San Francisco airways for years. Since he was syndicated nationally by Talk Radio Network, Savage has become one of the nation's most-listened-to radio talkers.

Condemning the "defamatory language used by radio personality Michael Savage against immigrants," Sandoval's resolution is apparently in response to Savage's July 5 broadcast, when the talker commented on a group of students who had announced they were fasting in support of changes in immigration policy. "I would say, let them fast until they starve to death," quipped Savage, "then that solves the problem." Sandoval's resolution calls Savage's comments "symbolic of hatred and racism," according to the Examiner. "I really for the life of me cannot understand why there is not more media outrage to what Michael Savage said," Sandoval said in the Examiner report, which added that Sandoval plans to hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall Tuesday just before the entire Board of Supervisors votes on his resolution against Savage. "The intolerant and racist comments of Michael Savage demand a strong condemnation," Sandoval insisted.

However, almost all of the Examiner's readers who posted comments on the newspaper's website after the story sided with Savage. Representative responses included these:

* "Hey Sandoval, we are not outraged at Michael Savage because we agree with him ... check the polls on immigration, lame-o."

* "If we had more Michael Savages and less milk toast leaders we wouldn't be in this situation. They are taking over and bringing our country down to a 3rd world level. Thank God for the Michael Savages and the other true AMERICANS."

* "Screw Sandoval and the illegal alien criminals who continue to invade this country. It's people like him who are causing the downfall of the west. Savage is 100% right on! My mom came here LEGALLY - FROM MEXICO ... I have every right to be totally nuclear about these illegal aliens bringing their bankrupt culture from Southern Mexico."

* "The Mexican illegal immigrants think they don't have to obey our laws and are taking advantage of our health care system and robbing our Medicare, emergency rooms at hospitals and then have the gall to mail there American dollars back to Mexico!!! I listen to your talk show every night Mr. Savage and can't wait to listen to you tell it like it is ..."

* "God Bless M. Savage. Down with La Raza "The Race."

* "Making me learn your language (Spanish) to even get a job isn't racist? C'mon, we the legal citizens are tired of the catering to the illegals. Come here legally and follow our laws, that is all we ask. Michael Savage is the voice of the true Americans, not the scum (politicians) who get bought off to cater to lawbreakers."

* "Savage is a true man of the people of this country. That is, the people of this country who live here legally. The rest can go to hell - or starve to death."

The San Francisco government's proposed resolution condemning Savage is just the latest in a major, multifaceted - and largely unreported - effort both in and out of government to transform American talk radio.

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Jobs Americans Won't Do, Continued: Kill Three Delaware College Students Execution-Style

Post below lifted from Ace. See the original for links

Some Americans will do these jobs of course. But we'd rather they didn't, and in fact spend billions every year for law enforcement and prisons to dissuade them from working in such fields.

Why we're importing "undocumented immigrants" (as CNN calls this guy) to murder US citizens isn't clear to me. Do we need to artificially depress the wages of sin by importing cheaper foreign killers? Perhaps the WSJ editorial board would be so kind as to weigh in on the economics of this.

Three students murdered execution-style.

A suspect who surrendered to the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, pleaded not guilty Friday to murder and related charges in the execution-style slayings of three college students in a schoolyard.

Jose Carranza, 28, was formally charged in Essex County Superior Court with murder, attempted murder, robbery and various conspiracy and weapons offenses. Bail was set at $1 million.

A 15-year-old boy was arraigned Thursday on identical charges during a closed hearing and remains in the custody of juvenile authorities. Prosecutor Paula Dow says she wants to try him as an adult. Three other people are being sought.

Wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, Carranza spoke softly through a translator. He had surrendered Thursday to Mayor Cory A. Booker, who attended the arraignment....

Details about Carranza's background emerged Friday as police looked for three more suspects. Carranza is an undocumented immigrant from Peru, his lawyer acknowledged in court. Carranza had been using a bogus Social Security number, Sheriff Armando Fontoura said.

Carranza had been scheduled to appear in court Monday to answer two previous indictments. One accuses him of sexually assaulting and threatening to kill a 13-year-old, a girlfriend's child. Another charges him with an array of assault and weapons offenses.....

"There seems to be no motivation, no provocation," Booker said during his CNN appearance, calling the crime "evil."

"This was just a disgusting, vicious attack and it's troubling because it's at the core, really," Booker said. "What they they were attacking really not only these amazing children and their families but what the core of Newark is really about."

Guy was out on bail for raping a child and threatening to kill him (her?). A simple check of his immigration status would have kept him locked up in federal detention awaiting the outcome of a deportation hearing.

Instead, the sanctuary city of Newark didn't bother, and set him free. And now three students are executed for no reason whatsoever except in the cause of politicians' pandering to illegals.





11 August, 2007

Stupid British attack on skilled migrants in trouble

A problem with lots of useless illegals? Keep out the useful immigrants! That's British brilliance for you!

There’s hope for skilled Indian migrants that fall under the highly skilled management programme (HSMP) category, who have been facing the threat of deportation after the British Government changed its rules in November A joint Lords and Commons Parliamentary Committee’s report termed the Government’s action as unlawful and unfair, criticised the Home Office for applying new rules retrospectively against thousands of the “bright and the best” encouraged to come to Britain to boost the economy. It urged Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, to change the rules to ensure that they apply only to new migrants, rather than the 49,000 who have already arrived under the HSMP.

The Committee pointed out Thursday that the changes breached the European Convention on Human Rights. The migrants came to the United Kingdom under a scheme that awarded points to people with the skills that Britain needed and offered them the prospect of permanent settlement. But the rules were tightened last year when the Government decided that settlement would take five years rather than four and changed the points system. Points were no longer awarded for work experience, significant career achievements and having a skilled partner. Instead they related to previous earnings, qualifications and age.

The MPs and peers quote an estimate from the Highly Skilled Migrants Forum that 90 per cent of the 49,000 migrants may be asked to leave the country. Amit Kapadia from the Forum said they had been trying to stall deportations by “fighting the rules legally and as well making representations to the Home Office”. “The Government lured migrants to come to the UK to benefit the economy, then they changed the rules. People have made sacrifices, selling property, abandoning careers and moving their families. These rules should not operate retrospectively,” Kapadia stressed.

Dr. S Ghosh, whose future hangs in the balance, said: “What a situation to be in! On the verge of being kicked out of the country after being made to sign a declaration that Britain would be my new home and taking all reasonable steps to fulfil my commitment to do so. No way of getting back my job in Bahrain. No hope of finding a job in India. My child’s future is in shambles.”

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Italian immigrants not welcome in Italy

A few years ago when the economic crisis in Argentina was at its worst, many Argentineans of Italian descent wanted to come back to Italy. They were either the children or descendants of Italian parents who had settled there. As such they didn’t have Italian passports, but they invoked the right of return, the fast lane if you wish, to settle in what they had always regarded as their original motherland.

By all accounts they made ideal immigrants. Brilliant, educated, they were skilled workers or professionals. They could already speak Italian because they had learned it at home from their parents or grandparents. What’s more, they didn’t just “know” Italian culture, they belonged to it. Italians — in one variant or another — constitute a sizable portion of the Argentinean population.

Since one of Italy’s problems is an ageing, dwindling population, you’d think our politicians would have jumped at the occasion to bring in loads of energetic, enthusiastic people whose dearest wish was to be reunited to the country they loved. These “immigrants” would have adjusted easily; there would not have been the usual problems encountered in moving to a foreign country: the Argentinean-Italians would have been eager to assimilate. In fact it wasn’t even a question of integration or assimilation. These South Americans of Italian extraction just wanted to come home.

So what happened to the fast lane? It was the same old story — the fast lane disappeared in the thickets of EU plans. The right, which was in power at the time, briefly considered the idea of the right of return. The left, though, which actually holds the reins of power, refused utterly, afraid the newcomers would naturally gravitate to the right when it came time to vote. The whole thing was quietly dropped and fell into the memory hole.

As Ida Magli repeatedly says, the EU was constituted to bring the Orient into Europe. The goal of our elites is to have fewer Italians around, not more of us. We are to be replaced gradually — or not so gradually — preferably with immigrants from Asia and Africa. The last thing these “leaders” wanted was a big bunch of starry-eyed Italians full of patriotic zeal.

Affected as they are with leukophobia*, fear of white, the elites also frown upon too many immigrants from Eastern Europe (unless they’re Rom — that is, gypsies). Letting in those who are not only unforgivably white, but also come from cultures akin to ours, is not part of the elites’ plans for Italy.

Despite all the hype we get from the media, unquestionably we have more in common with, say, Bulgarians than with we do with Arabs. Permitting those with Italian or European ancestry to obtain citizenship would have spoiled The Plan. Thus it was goodbye to the right of return. It didn’t matter that the newcomers, or rather the returnees, would have been an asset for Italy, or that we native born Italians could have helped our compatriots. What we wanted, and what they so badly desired, was not to be. Italians are not wanted here in Italy. Whites need not apply.

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10 August, 2007

Big rise in Brits leaving Britain

As low-skill immigrants move in, high-skill Brits move out

BRITAIN is facing a mass exodus of people looking to escape the crime and grime of modern living. The country's biggest foreign visa consultancy firm has revealed that applications have soared in the last seven months by 80 per cent to almost 4,000 a week. Ten years ago the figure was just 300 a week. Most people are relocating within the Commonwealth - in Australia, Canada and South Africa. They are almost all young professionals and skilled workers aged 20-40.

And many cite their reason for wanting to quit as immigration to these shores - and the burden it is placing on their communities and local authorities. The dearth of good schools, spiralling house prices, rising crime and tax increases are also driving people away.

Obtaining a visa to live abroad can cost as little as 1,500 pounds for the right candidates. Plumbers, electricians, construction workers and doctors are famously in demand. The only obstruction to emigration from the UK is a criminal record, poor health, advancing age and being a "third country national".

Liam Clifford, a former immigration control officer, set up globalvisas.com as a one-man band 12 years ago. He now employs 60 people and is in the process of opening new offices in both South Africa and Australia. Mr Clifford said: "It's absolutely phenomenal. People are trying to get away to wherever they can, and most are successful. "Ironically, one of the main reasons for leaving is the overstretch of services due to increasing immigration into the UK. People are looking for the better standard of living offered by other countries, as even the most idyllic villages in Britain are under pressure from rising populations.

Skilled labour is obviously an advantage, but so is speaking the English language. Most countries are harder to get into if you don't speak English. UK plc simply isn't fighting hard enough to keep its people. Some are telling us they are fed up with living in this country. Even business people are saying they've had enough. "They're saying `I can't put my children into the right school, but if I move abroad I can'. Most people are very patriotic and don't want to leave. They're almost terrified about it. But they say they just have to.

"It's a shame people at the top don't recognise they're not doing enough to retain highly skilled workers in this country. A lot of them are quite young, and they're not idle. They just can't see a future for themselves in this country. They want to get married and settle down and buy homes, but they can't see it happening here. "And time and time again they are saying to us they don't want to be seen as racist because they are quitting because of immigration. We tell them of course they're not."

According to the most recent Office of National Statistics figures, in 2005 the official number of people leaving UK shores was 352,000 - up from 249,000 in 1995. The majority - around 150,000 - migrated from London and the south east.

Among those who headed out were Simon Blood, 26, and Rachel Roberts, 23, who moved to Australia four months ago. The couple, from Stoke-on-Trent, are loving their new life in far north Queensland so much that they've decided it's permanent. Apart from family, football and a few television programmes, there's nothing they miss about home. Embracing the warmest winter they've ever known - averaging 24C daily - both relish the commute to work which takes just five minutes, leaving plenty of time for walks on the beach. Simon, a marketing executive, and Rachel, a nurse, followed their dream after seeing a newspaper advertisement for nursing recruits Down Under. "It all went very smoothly," said Simon. "It's beautiful here and we've no plans to go back for good."

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U.S. Set for a Crackdown on Illegal Hiring

In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers. Officials said the rules would be backed up by stepped-up raids on workplaces across the country that employ illegal immigrants.

After first proposing the rules last year, Department of Homeland Security officials said they held off finishing them to await the outcome of the debate in Congress over a sweeping immigration bill. That measure, which was supported by President Bush, died in the Senate in June. Now administration officials are signaling that they intend to clamp down on employers of illegal immigrants even without a new immigration law to offer legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the workforce.

The approach is expected to play well with conservatives who have long demanded that the administration do more to enforce existing immigration laws, but it could also lead to renewed pressure from businesses on Congress to provide legal status for an estimated six million unauthorized immigrant workers. "We are tough and we are going to be even tougher," Russ Knocke, the spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said yesterday. "There are not going to be any more excuses for employers, and there will be serious consequences for those that choose to blatantly disregard the law."

Experts said the new rules represented a major tightening of the immigration enforcement system, in which employers for decades have paid little attention to notices, known as no-match letters, from the Social Security Administration advising that workers' names and numbers did not match the agency's records. Illegal workers often provide employers with false Social Security numbers to qualify for a job.

Employers, especially in agriculture and low-wage industries, said they were deeply worried about the new rules, which could force them to lay off thousands of immigrant workers. More than 70 percent of farmworkers in the fields of the United States are illegal immigrants, according to estimates by growers' associations. "Across the employer community people are scared, confused, holding their breath," said Craig Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a trade organization. "Given what we know about the demographics of our labor force, since we are approaching peak season, people are particularly on edge."

The expected regulations would give employers a fixed period, perhaps up to 90 days, to resolve any discrepancies between identity information provided by their workers and the records of the Social Security Administration. If workers' documents cannot be verified, employers would be required to fire them or risk up to $10,000 in fines for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

Immigrant rights groups and labor unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O., predicted the rules would unleash discrimination against Hispanic workers. They said they were preparing legal challenges to try to stop them from taking effect.

Some Republican lawmakers welcomed the administration's stance. "If they shut off the jobs magnet in the workplace in a way that shows they are serious about restoring the rule of law, then I'm encouraged," said Representative Steve King of Iowa.

The new rules codify an uneasy partnership between the Department of Homeland Security, which enforces the immigration laws, and the Social Security Administration, which collects identity information from W-2 tax forms of about 250 million workers each year, so it can credit the earnings in its system.

Mark Hinkle, a spokesman for Social Security, said the agency expected to send out about 140,000 no-match letters to employers this year, covering more than eight million workers. After the rules are announced, the agency is anticipating a surge in requests from employers seeking to clarify workers' information, Mr. Hinkle said. Social Security issues letters only to employers who have more than 10 workers whose numbers do not match, when those workers represent at least one-half of 1 percent of the company's workforce, Mr. Hinkle said.

The agency cannot verify which mismatches came from immigrants who presented false Social Security numbers when they applied for jobs, he said. Mismatches also occur because of clerical errors, or when workers marry and forget to inform Social Security that they changed their names. Several federal studies in recent years have found significant error rates in the Social Security database. "We don't know and we don't speculate" about the reasons for mismatches, Mr. Hinkle said.

The new rules will clarify steps employers can take to avoid being accused of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, officials said. According to the draft, employers would be given 14 days after receiving a no-match letter to check for clerical errors and consult with the employee to correct mistakes. If the discrepancies are eliminated and new, valid work papers are filed within the fixed period, employers would enjoy a "safe harbor" from penalties.

The rules proposed last year brought a storm of criticism from both employers and workers groups. In a formal comment, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. said the rules would "harm all workers regardless of immigration status." "The enforcement is only on the immigration side," Ana Avenda¤o, associate general counsel for the A.F.L.-C.I.O, said yesterday. "They don't do any labor inspection. So they are just giving employers another tool to repress workers' rights."

Even large companies that do not hire many low-skilled immigrants would be affected by the rules, lawyers said. "It's going to be a big change for almost every company," said Cynthia J. Lange, an immigration lawyer in California.

Muzaffar A. Chishti, a director of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, said, "If this is strictly enforced there could be massive layoffs of workers." But Mr. Chishti said that illegal immigrant workers might not leave the labor force but would apply for jobs at other businesses using the same invalid documents. He predicted the market for forged documents would grow.

"A lot of employers are saying, `We just can't handle this,' " said Laura Reiff, co-chairwoman of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which represents employers in low-skilled industries. She said the rules might lead to new pressure from business on Congress to reconsider measures granting legal status to illegal immigrants.

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9 August, 2007

How "guestworkers" promote outsourcing

Rather surprisingly, this article is from a Leftist source so may contain distortions. Its claims are interesting, however. Corruption of any government program is, after all, to be expected. The article says that the tech industry lobbies hard for more visas for high-skilled temporary workers. But in reality, the program is dominated by low-wage workers with rank-and-file skills. Rather than preventing work from going overseas, the program is speeding it up

The H-1B "guestworker" program allows firms to bring foreign workers on a temporary basis in so-called specialty occupations, generally professional positions that require a bachelors degree or higher. It is extensively used by the technology industry to bring in information technology workers. The program has been the focal point of the high-skilled side of the immigration policy debate, and was a significant part of the negotiations in the late comprehensive immigration bill considered by the Senate. But there is a huge amount of mythology about what this program actually does.

A lobbying coalition of the technology industry and universities is seeking a massive increase in the annual quota of H-1B visas. The group has repeatedly pointed to the fact that the annual H-1B quota of 65,000 visas was filled in a single day as proof that the quota is too small. They pulled out all the stops, enlisting Bill Gates in the lobbying effort. In testimony before the Senate he called for an unlimited number of H-1B visas, portraying the typical visa recipient as a uniquely talented engineer earning more than $100,000 per year.

The carefully orchestrated public relations blitz included support from editorial boards of major newspapers and well placed news articles. Most complained that America was shooting itself in the foot by not importing workers for jobs that Americans are incapable of performing. And if persuasion wasn't enough, the technology industry used the not-so-subtle threat that it will simply shift the work offshore if it can't import workers.

A number of presidential candidates have taken the bait by publicly supporting an H-1B increase. The deep pocketed technology industry has made it clear to them it wants something in return for being an ATM to the candidates. But in reality, the H-1B program has been thoroughly corrupted. Rather than providing firms with workers who posses unique skills, the program is dominated by low wage workers with ordinary rank-and-file skills. And rather than preventing work from going overseas, the program is speeding it up.

Offshore outsourcing firms rely on the H-1B and related L-1 programs for three principal reasons. First, it facilitates their knowledge-transfer operations, where they rotate in foreign workers in to learn U.S. workers' jobs. In fact, U.S. workers are often "transferring knowledge" under duress.

Second, the H-1B and L-1 programs provide them an inexpensive, on-site presence that enables them to coordinate offshore functions. Many functions that are done remotely still require a significant amount of physical presence at the customer site. For example, according to its own financial reporting, Infosys' on-site workers, almost all of whom are foreign guestworkers, directly accounted for 49.2 percent of its revenue in its most recent quarter.

Third, the H-1B and L-1 programs allows the U.S. operations to serve as a training ground for foreign workers who then rotate back to their home country to do the work more effectively than they could have without such training in the United States. A recent BusinessWeek story described Wipro's use of the H-1B program this way: "Wipro has more than 4,000 employees in the United States, and roughly 2,500 are on H-1B visas. About 1,000 new temporary workers come to the country each year, while 1,000 rotate back to India, with improved skills to serve clients."

The abuse of the program is the result of three loopholes.

The first loophole strikes right at the heart of the rationale for the program -- the supposed shortage of workers with specialized skills, particularly in science and engineering; the H-1B program allows firms to hire foreign guest-workers to fill those gaps. But, because of this loophole, companies do not have to demonstrate a shortage exists for U.S. workers and can even force a U.S. worker to train his or her foreign replacement. The U.S. Department of Labor's 2006 Strategic Plan puts it bluntly, "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."

In spite of this unequivocal statement, there is widespread and mistaken public belief that firms must demonstrate a shortage before hiring an H-1B. For example, news stories over the past year in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, and Wall Street Journal (in a front page story at the height of last year's immigration debate) have all erroneously claimed the program requires firms to first look for American workers. And the New York Daily News even recently made the false claim in editorial support for H-1B expansion. Many politicians also hold this misconception, making similarly false claims in their correspondence in response to constituent letters on the matter.

The second loophole enables firms to use the program for cheap labor. The H-1B program's primary safeguard for U.S. as well as H-1B workers is the requirement that an H-1B worker be paid the prevailing wage. In theory the prevailing wage should be at least the market wage -- the wage paid to an American worker with the same skills -- but in practice the regulation is chock full of loopholes allowing employers to pay below market wages. How do we know this? Employers say so. The Government Accountability Office conducted interviews of H-1B employers and reported that, "Some employers said that they hired H-1B workers in part because these workers would often accept lower salaries than similarly qualified U.S. workers; however, these employers said they never paid H-1B workers less than the required [prevailing] wage."

And examples of approved H-1B applications show how big the cost savings can be. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) rubber-stamped applications by HCL America, a major offshore outsourcing firm, to import 75 computer software engineers at annual salary of $24,710. That's a 70 percent discount on the median wage rate for those occupations and a far cry from the $100,000 claimed by Microsoft's Bill Gates. In fact low wages for H-1Bs is the norm. The median wage for new H-1Bs computing professionals is even lower than the salary an entry-level bachelor's degree graduate would command. So, half of the 52,352 H-1B computing professionals admitted in FY2005 earned less than entry-level wages. And even at the 75th percentile, new H-1B computing professionals earned just $60,000. A recent study by John Miano found that 56 percent of the H-1B applications for computing jobs were for the lowest skill level, "Level 1." The DOL defines such jobs as "internships" or "workers in training."

A third problem, deficient oversight, permeates nearly all aspects of the H-1B program. This leads to a program with pages of regulations that are essentially ineffective and toothless. The DOL's own Office of Inspector General has described the labor certification process, the primary means of safeguarding the labor market, as simply a "rubber stamp" of the employer's application. The process is completely automated, with no person reviewing applications, and the employer is not required to submit any supporting documentation. Based on its examination of the process, the GAO concluded that, ".as the [H-1B] program currently operates, the goals of preventing abuse of the program and providing efficient services to employers and workers are not being achieved. Limited by the law, Labor's review of the [labor certification process] is perfunctory and adds little assurance that labor conditions employers attest to actually exist."

And it is no better after an H-1B is issued. Employers are never scrutinized except in the rare case that an investigation is triggered by an H-1B worker whistleblower, something that is exceptionally rare since H-1B employees have especially strong disincentives to blow the whistle on their employer. Because the employer holds the visa, an H-1B worker who gets terminated is out of status (they would have to leave the country) in the eyes of the USCIS. With cases against employers often taking five or more years to adjudicate, it is no wonder that few violations are ever brought to the attention of the DOL.

Any one of these flaws would cause a program to fail to meet its goals. Couple them together and the result is a disaster, a program that directly contradicts its goals. Rather than filling skills shortages as originally conceived, the H-1B program in practice gives employers a temptation, cheaper labor, they simply can't resist. The raison d'etre of modern corporations is maximizing profits, not maximizing their U.S. workforce or increasing the economic welfare of the United States. If companies can lower costs by hiring cheaper foreign guest-workers, they will. If they can hire vendors who hire cheaper foreign guest-workers, they will. And who can blame them? If they don't take advantage of blatant loopholes, their competitors surely will. Cheap labor explains why the H-1B program is oversubscribed and it also explains why the technology industry has fought to expand government intervention to keep wages low. A sizable share of the U.S. high-tech workforce understands this logic, and justifiably views the H-1B program as a threat and a scam. That's the real danger to U.S. competitiveness. Young people considering a technology career see that industry prefers cheaper foreign guest-workers and that the government uses immigration policy to work against technology professionals.

Another canard from the industry lobbyists is that the H-1B program prevents outsourcing. Instead, the facts clearly show is speeding up the outsourcing of jobs. Seven of the top ten H-1B employers are offshore outsourcing firms -- firms that hire almost no Americans. Those seven firms gobbled up nearly 20,000 visas in 2006 alone. And each of those 20,000 positions is used to lever four to five more workers overseas. Many American politicians act oblivious to what is obvious to India's Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath, who recently dubbed the H-1B the "outsourcing visa." The Indian government views the H-1B as a trade issue, not an immigration one. As such they view any restriction on the movement of people in the form of wage requirements or caps as a non-tariff barrier to trade. Their comparative advantage is low cost labor and Corporate America is lobbying hard to help push through this form of "free trade."

The technology industry claims the United States doesn't produce enough technologists. This claim is specious at best. Wages for information technology workers have been relatively flat while the career risks for the profession have skyrocketed. The industry's track record of attracting female and underrepresented minorities to technical professions has been woeful. By giving the industry a steady diet of cheap labor, there is no reason for companies to expand the domestic talent pool they draw from and invest in American workers to fill these jobs. And it also gives the companies ample opportunities to replace older workers with younger ones, fueling age discrimination. If more than half of the H-1B jobs being filled are for "internships" and "workers in training" then it shouldn't be difficult to pull more Americans into the high-skill ranks.

Fortunately, some politicians are paying attention. The Senate immigration bill included more than just an increase in the number of H-1Bs, it also contained some, though not nearly enough, substantive reforms to the program. Senators Dick Durbin and Charles Grassley, who introduced separate legislation to clean up the H-1B and its lesser known sister program, the L-1, played a key role in ensuring that reforms were included in the comprehensive bill. While the H-1B program's regulations are riddled with loopholes, the L-1 program has almost no regulations -- no wage requirements and no cap.

Guestworker programs like the H-1B and L-1 shouldn't be confused with permanent immigration, something the technology lobbyists have used in their public relations efforts. They falsely claim that increasing high-skilled permanent immigration is contingent on an increase in H-1Bs. If we want to increase the number of high-skilled Americans through higher levels of immigration, then let's make them permanent residents, not guestworkers.

The technology industry has long complained about a systemic shortage of workers, but the only solution it offers is for the government to intervene in the labor market by ratcheting up guestworker programs. Technology executives like Intel's Craig Barrett publicly lambaste our K-12 education system as a complete failure leading to an inadequate pipeline of American workers capable of doing technology. At the same time, his company aggressively plays one state government against another as it pursues property tax breaks when locating a facility. A more sensible set of solutions would be twofold. First, significantly increase investments in U.S. students and underemployed workers so they can fill these job openings. Second, let the market work. If technology workers are as scarce as companies claim, then wages would be bid up and talented workers would choose engineering instead of more lucrative and safe fields in finance, medicine or law. A country with an effective labor-market policy would have no H-1B program at all.

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Europe's Immigration Superiority Complex

Amazing Leftist hypocrisy

Spanish Prime Minister Jos‚ Luis Rodr¡guez Zapatero deserves a special award for transatlantic chutzpah. During his recent visit to Mexico, he ended the state dinner held in his honor by toasting Mexican President Felipe Calder¢n with a sterling example of post-modern pontification for which Spanish leftists are so famous: "There is no wall that can obstruct the dream of a better life," Zapatero proclaimed.

The "wall" that Zapatero is so worried about is, of course, the anti-illegal immigrant fence that, if everything goes as planned, will one day run along one-third of the 2,000 mile (3,200 km) border between Mexico and the United States. and not the twin razor wire-topped fences that separate the Spain's north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from those people in Morocco and the rest of Africa who have dreams of a better life in Spain.

It could be that Zapatero was just trying to divert attention away from a damning report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch that accuses Spanish authorities of mistreating and neglecting hundreds of migrant African children at holding centers on the Canary Islands. Or perhaps he was still fuming that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during her recent six-hour stopover in Madrid, did not extend the long-awaited invitation for Zapatero to visit the White House.

Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that the United States and Europe are facing many of the same challenges on the issue of immigration. But for a variety of cultural, historical and structural factors, the United States seems to do a far better job with immigration than does Europe. Indeed, the United States, which officially passed the 300 million person mark in October 2006, is the largest immigrant-receiving country in the world. In fact, roughly half of the 100 million newest Americans are recent immigrants or their descendents; and many of them, as Zapatero probably knows, are from Mexico.

Europe, however, is also a magnet for immigration: It is set to attract up to one million immigrants this year. But the European experience with immigration is very different from that of the United States. Part of the reason is that in Europe, many or most immigrants to the continent end up on welfare, while in the United States, almost all immigrants take one or more entry-level jobs and work their way up the economic ladder. Welfare is simply not the American way.

The result is that most immigrants to the United States, a country with no dominant ethnic group, are fully integrated into American society by the second generation, regardless of their country of origin. By contrast, most immigrants to Europe, where countries are built around a population base with a common ethnicity, are Muslims who are not easily integrated, no matter how long they have been living on the continent.

The challenge of integration is exacerbated by the fact that over the past 30 years, Europe's Muslim population has more than tripled. According to data compiled in the US State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, there are almost 25 million Muslims living in Europe today. And instead of assimilating into mainstream European society, Muslim immigrants tend to cluster in marginalized ghettos all across the continent. By contrast, the first-ever, nationwide, random sample survey of Muslim Americans finds them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that divide Muslims and Westerners around the world.

In Europe, Muslims already make up more than 25 percent of the population of Marseilles, 15 percent of Brussels and Paris, and 10 percent of Amsterdam, for example. And these numbers are rising fast. Indeed, demographers predict that the number of Muslims living in Europe may double again by 2015. Thus Princeton University's Bernard Lewis, one of the world's most distinguished scholars of the Arab and Islamic cultures, recently told the German newspaper Die Welt that: "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century."

This unfortunate reality provides the political context for Zapatero's concern with the US-Mexico border. The Spanish prime minister, who like so many other European leftists is religiously fixated on building a post-modern multicultural utopia, seems blinded to the fact that runaway immigration combined with socialist mismanagement is creating a Eurabian horror story. Much easier, it would seem, for Europeans to criticize America than to acknowledge their own shortcomings.

Indeed, many analysts believe that the steady weakening of Europe is the underlying cause of growing anti-American and anti-Israel bigotry among Europe's elites, many of whom are bending over backwards to please Muslim immigrants in naive attempts to buy fake peace with radical Islamists. Says Fouad Ajami, a well-known authority of the Arab world: "In ways both intended and subliminal, the escape into anti-Americanism is an attempt at false bonding with the peoples of Islam".

In Spain, meanwhile, dozens of would-be migrants have been killed and many more injured by rubber bullets or beatings in their bids to climb over the ten foot (three meter) fences around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Zapatero's response? He has just built a third perimeter fence in order to keep the immigrants from crossing. At least Spanish leftists are consistent in one thing: they are nothing if not consistently inconsistent.

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New Zealand's Leftist government gets tough

Tough new powers to make it easier to deport unwarranted immigrants and refugees deemed a risk to New Zealand have been unveiled by the government. The proposed rules are aimed at stopping people deemed a security risk from entering the country and the controversial changes are being described as the biggest shake up of immigration law in 20 years. New Zealanders returning home from overseas could soon have their picture taken by immigration officials in the wide range of reforms in the new Immigration Bill. Immigration Minister David Cunliffe says it is the biggest rewrite of immigration law for two decades.

Under the proposed laws biometric information such as iris scans and fingerprints from foreigners will be able to collected from people as they cross our borders. In the case of New Zealand citizens it will be restricted to photographs for identity verification. Cunliffe says the use of the technology is an extra security tool and brings NZ in line with practices used overseas.

Cunliffe also says the government will establish an independent appeals body and a detention system. The minister says there will be safeguards to ensure the use of secret information gathered isn't abused. He says the bill is consistent with the Bill of Rights. "Changes in this Bill will clarify and strengthen border security, tighten the law against those who pose a risk to New Zealand's wellbeing, and facilitate the entry of those migrants we want," Cunliffe says. "It allows Classified Information to be used in immigration, refugee, and protection decisions. We will have a robust new international protection regime, a world-class independent appeals system, and a model detention system that will uphold human rights and high standards of fairness."

Cunliffe says significant global changes have taken place since the present law was passed in 1987 with greater flows of people around the world, greater global competition for skills, talent, and labour and heightened risks and pressures on the border. The new bill also makes it easier to hold people who may pose a security risk. Immigrants or refugees could be detained for four days without a warrant and officials will be given new powers. "Designated immigration officers will also have powers of entry inspection and search. They will not have powers of arrest or seizure," says Cunliffe.

Green MP Keith Locke says instead of increasing fairness in the immigration system, the bill increases the power of immigration officials. He says New Zealand seems to be competing with America to be the first to get to a surveillance state. Locke says he doubts most New Zealanders would want to have their biometric details on file, which could be sent around the world.

Prime Minister Helen Clark rejects claims by the Greens that the changes are akin to a big-brother society. She says it's important to keep a balance between protection of individual rights and the protection of society and she believes the bill reaches that balance. The government is confident it will have the numbers in parliament for the bill to become law.

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8 August, 2007

US Immigration Authorities Step up Deportations of Illegal Immigrants

Authorities in the United States are stepping up efforts to return illegal immigrants to their home countries. Under a program called "Operation Return to Sender," 2007 is set to be a record year for deportations. Critics say the government is shifting away from only pursuing illegal aliens with criminal records to arresting all undocumented migrants regardless of background. Immigration authorities say they are simply enforcing the law.

Sandy Doumet is packing her belongings and heading to Mexico to be with her husband who was recently deported. Doumet emigrated to the United States from Ecuador 11 years ago and recently became a U.S. citizen. "It's hard to understand how a country that opened doors to me now is kicking me out, because in a way I have to leave even if I don't want to, because if I stay here my kids will grow up without a father and I don't want that."

Sandy and her husband lived together in Florida for eight years and have been married for six. The couple has three young children, all U.S. citizens, and ran a successful business. But Sandy's Mexican husband, who came to the U.S. illegally 10 years ago, has been deported three times and is banned from returning. Sandy is pleading with authorities to let her family be together in the United States. "Bring my husband back because we had a good life here. We didn't ask the government for anything. We were good citizens. My husband was a good citizen." ....

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, ICE, said in a statement to VOA that it only deports individuals who are in violation of their immigration status or were ordered deported by a judge. ICE says it is simply enforcing laws as expeditiously and with as much dignity as possible. It denies there has been a change of emphasis towards deporting illegal immigrants regardless of their criminal history.

The rise in deportations is welcomed by Mike Jarbeck. He heads a Florida chapter of the Minuteman Project, an activist group that opposes illegal immigration. "I want to see every last illegal alien rounded up, identified and sent home".

U.S. government statistics show that of the 150,000 illegal immigrants removed between October 2006 and June 2007, around 90,000 had no criminal record.

Again Mike Jarbeck of the Minuteman Project. "In America, we are a country of laws. And the problem with this is, if we don't enforce the law then what do we have? We have a double standard. We have a whole group of people who are set above the law who the law doesn't apply to. That's unconstitutional. Our constitution does not allow for that."

The U.S. immigration agency says it does not deport people arbitraily, and instead targets individuals based on specific information.

But that is little comfort to Sandy Doumet. She says she will stay with her husband in Mexico, but return regularly to the U.S. so one of her children can receive medical care for a heart condition. And she hopes that one day her whole family will be able to live together again in the United States.

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Congress not done with immigration yet

Measures aimed at a crackdown popping up in both House and Senate

Just weeks after it appeared immigration was off the table as a major issue for the 110th Congress, the topic is back with a twist. A temporary worker program and path to eventual citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants - key parts of the Senate bill that imploded in June - are dormant. But legislative efforts to crack down on illegal immigration are popping up with surprising frequency.

Conservatives in Congress, particularly in the House, are using debate on unrelated bills such as the state Children's Health Insurance Program, agriculture spending and homeland security to revive their push for enhanced border security and ensure no government benefits are granted to illegal immigrants.

The House was in full meltdown last week after Republicans accused Democrats of trickery in dealing with a GOP motion making explicit the agriculture spending bill's prohibition of food stamps and other benefits for illegal immigrants.

The Senate recently tacked $3 billion in emergency funds onto a homeland security spending bill to add thousands more Border Patrol agents and detention beds, build 700 miles of fencing at the Southwest U.S. border and increase worksite enforcement.

In perhaps the biggest shift since the Senate shelved the sweeping bill in June, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other Republicans are preaching an enforcement-first message after previously insisting the only way to deal with immigration was in a comprehensive fashion. McCain and two other GOP senators instrumental in negotiating the Senate compromise with the White House - fellow Arizonan Jon Kyl and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - last week unveiled legislation chock-full of enforcement provisions, including making illegal presence a misdemeanor. Currently it's an administrative violation. "The failure of the Senate to pass comprehensive immigration was a huge disappointment," McCain said. "Although we must move forward with other issues, we can show the American people that we are serious about securing our nation's border."

The moves in Congress have some in the immigrant-rights community very nervous. "The atmosphere is clearly pretty toxic," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza. "It has taken really less than a month for the immigration issue to sort of pop up on everything else (in Congress) in a very poisonous way."

Others, however, said the enforcement emphasis is logical in light of the very vocal reaction against the Senate bill among certain segments of the public. "It's very clear that for the American people the situation hasn't been solved," said Rosemary Jenks, director of government advocacy at Numbers USA, an immigration-restriction group that rallied huge opposition to the Senate legislation. "So they are not going to say 'OK, we're not going to talk about it for the next year and a half.' It's still an issue that comes up every day."

At the other end of the debate, pro-immigration policy analyst Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute said that enforcement is likely to dominate debate in the near term. "The public is ticked about this," she said. "So there are going to be efforts to crack down, to express the frustration, the irritation with the broken system." Jacoby is among those skeptical that enforcement alone can trump the economic pull that draws more than 500,000 illegal immigrants here every year.

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7 August, 2007

Tancredo hammers on illegal immigration

Tom Tancredo isn’t afraid to be labeled as a one-issue candidate. “People will say, ‘gee, Tancredo, you’re sort of a one-issue guy,’” he said. “Hey, there’s more than one issue wrapped up in this thing we call illegal immigration.”

Tancredo, a Republican presidential candidate and congressional representative from Colorado spoke to a group of about 40 Tuesday at The Pizza Ranch. The majority of his speech dealt with immigration issues, which Tancredo said has long been an important subject to him. “When I first came to Congress, the issue of immigration reform was what really motivated me,” he said. “... I still believe it’s the most serious domestic policy issue we face as a nation.” Tancredo said illegal immigration is causing lost jobs for Americans, wage depression, stress on school systems, higher medical costs, higher expenses for the nation’s prison systems, increased gang activity and increased drug use, specifically methamphetamine.

Culture

“And I haven’t gotten to the thing I consider to be the most serious,” he said. “You can talk about all these effects, but there’s something else happening and it’s happening to our culture. This is an attack on the culture.” Tancredo said damage to U.S. culture comes from immigrants today who aren’t assimilating the way past immigrants have. He said he’s frustrated by the changes taking place across the nation, such as Spanish-language editions of newspapers like the Ottumwa Courier, Muslim foot baths at colleges like University of Michigan and a prayer room at the Denver, Colo., airport for Muslim cab drivers. “We are captivated by what I call the cult of multiculturalism — the constant pressure to demean America and to explore the greatness of every other culture,” Tancredo said. “It’s fascinating in a way. ... If they offer something so much better, why is it that when the gates open, they always come one way? “I’m going to tell you, I believe with all my heart what I’m going to say here and it’s going to sound very chauvinistic, but that’s tough. They come one way because we have something better. Because this life, created by Western civilization on Judeo-Christian principles offers something better. Individual freedom.”

Iowa connection

Tancredo took care to point out his long history of conservative politics, and referred several times to another conservative politician in Washington, Iowa’s 5th District Rep. Steve King. “We sound alike, we look alike, we think alike,” Tancredo said. “In fact, it is true that I don’t know how many times Steve and I have been confused for each other.” He said journalists often begin an interview thinking one of them is the other and have to be corrected. Others have made the mistake, too. Tancredo said King’s sister-in-law once called King’s wife to tell her King was doing a great job on television when he was actually the one on TV.

Someone in the audience asked if Tancredo gets the Republican nomination for president whether he’ll consider King as a running mate. “In a heartbeat. It’d be wonderful — I wouldn’t have to show up half the time,” he joked. “‘Steve,’ I’d say, ‘Get in there, you’re me today.’ It’d be great.”

Farm bill

When asked specifically about his stance on rural issues, Tancredo pointed out that he’d voted against the recent farm bill because the subsidies are “skewing the market, and they’re terrible for both the farmers and the taxpayers.”

“I believe the development of alternative fuels, biofuels included, is imperative so we stop our reliance on petroleum products, especially from countries where they want to kill us,” he said. “But then markets take over. Government should not. Rural America will be much better off without the government.”

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Britain's Polish immigrants are a plus

There are certainly lotz of them. And as a consequence, as we report today, the University of Lotz is opening an outlet in London to allow them to study for degree courses in their native language. According to some estimates, as many as 700,000 Polish citizens have come to Britain to work since their country entered the EU three years ago. Nor are they all plumbers or other artisans of the building trades. They are attracted to Britain by historical ties, the English language and a comparatively open-minded attitude to immigration. While the overall economics of migration might be debated, in this instance the visitors do much for prosperity and make distinctly modest demands from the welfare state.

They are also enriching our culture. The Polish impact has been multiple and varied. It has led to notably higher attendances for the (Roman Catholic) Church, some much needed competition in the home improvement sector, and an explosion in bars, delis and clubs which serve the particular but enticing tastes of those from Warsaw and Gdansk. There has been a boom in Polish-language newspapers with an encouraging revival in the use of the letters k and z. Relatively few Poles intend to labour in Britain for the whole of their lives, most want to earn money, enhance their skills and become more fluent in the world’s leading language.

All of which is welcome. Portugal might be Britain’s oldest ally but Poland is a distinctly natural partner as well. The University of Lotz will doubtless do brisk business in the capital. It is doubtful, though, that it will be swamped by applicants born and bred in Britain who are confident enough to embark upon a degree in Polish.

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6 August, 2007

Police seek 14 who escaped British immigration centre

Police using dogs and a helicopter were last night still searching for 14 detainees who escaped from a troubled immigration centre in Oxfordshire. Officers in riot gear were called to disturbances at the Campsfield House centre after a fire was started near propane gas canisters outside the kitchen on Saturday. In the aftermath, 26 inmates escaped but 12 were caught.

Tensions over conditions had been growing all week. Detainees held a one-day hunger strike and twice refused to return to their rooms at night. Problems had been increasing since Campsfield started to house foreign prisoners awaiting deportation, alongside people still appealing for asylum. One inmate said detainees evacuated from the main building had forced open a gate in the perimeter fence. "Some of them set a fire by the gas canisters as a decoy. The alarms went off and as soon as they took us outside, people were climbing over the fence and pushing at the gate. The guards were caught with their pants down; they didn't know what to do."

Superintendent Robin Rickard, of Thames Valley Police, said: "I urge members of the public to contact us immediately if they see anyone they believe could be one of those involved." Damian Green, the shadow Immigration minister, said: "This is an inevitable consequence of the Government filling immigration detention centres with foreign prisoners they have failed to deport. Until the Government gets a grip on prison overcrowding, the problems will continue to spill over and cause dangerous tensions in immigration detention centres."

After a fire and riot at Campsfield this March, in which several staff and detainees were injured, a Home Office report concluded that overcrowding, poor physical conditions and bureaucratic delays could lead to more rioting at such centres. It also warned that foreign prisoners may be tempted to join in disturbances because, facing deportation, they consider they have little to lose. Campsfield, formerly a young offenders' institution, has been prone to rooftop protests, riots and hunger strikes since it was converted into an immigration detention centre in 1993.

It is the only one of Britain's 10 immigration detention centres to be run by the American company Global Expertise in Outsourcing (GEO). The company also has a contract to run a "migrant operations centre" at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay. GEO describes itself as a "world leader in the privatised management of correctional facilities". But campaigners say that conditions in Campsfield have deteriorated since GEO took over, and warned that this weekend's uprising was unlikely to be the last. Bob Hughes, of the Campaign to Close Campsfield, said: "Since GEO arrived, there has been a marked reduction in the association time for detainees, and a deterioration in both food and medical attention."

Built to hold 196 prisoners, the centre is almost always at full capacity, with reports of three or four detainees in cells designed for one. A detainee said: "There are three of us in my cell with no ventilation. We are just boiling in here. This is worse than prison. At least in prison you know when you're getting out; here we don't know where we stand."

Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "Reports keep telling us Campsfield and other detention centres are horrible so it is not surprising that these people - who are often detained for long periods - are desperate to escape." Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP whose Oxford West and Abingdon constituency includes the Campsfield centre, called for an inquiry into the use of private companies to run detention centres. GEO did not respond to an interview request.

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Clinton Judge Rules Against LEGAL Crackdown On Illegal Immigration

by Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch

Illegal immigrants and their special interest groups got a helping hand on Thursday from U.S. District Court Judge James Munley, a Clinton appointee, who ruled unconstitutional two Hazleton, Pennsylvania, laws designed to crack down on illegal immigration. The judge issued a permanent injunction preventing the City of Hazleton from enforcing the Illegal Immigration Relief Act and the Landlord Tenant Ordinance, which were intended to prevent businesses from hiring illegals and landlords from renting to them.

Judicial Watch believes Judge Munley is wrong on this issue. In March, Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the City of Hazleton. Here, in a nutshell, was our argument: "...The City of Hazleton has found it both reasonable and necessary for the public health and welfare to exercise its police power by enacting [these ordinances]...The subject matter regulated -- the employment and harboring of persons 'not entitled to lawful residence in the United States, let alone to work here -- is certainly within the mainstream of [the City of Hazleton's] police power...'"

The U.S. District Court, however, sided with the illegals and their special interest allies. Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta, the architect of the law, will now appeal the ruling.

Mayor Barletta should be commended for his courage in taking on the illegal immigration crisis. At a time when many local officials are taking the easy way out by providing sanctuary to illegals, Mayor Barletta chose to enforce the law. In February, we were fortunate to have Mayor Barletta join our panel discussion entitled, "Local Government and Illegal Immigration," which was held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Here, in his own words, is why he decided to fight this battle:

"Every time we answer a domestic incident, our police, every time we answer a nuisance call, every time there's a traffic accident involving illegal aliens, it takes police away from their patrols. Every time we send a code enforcement officer, every time we send a health officer, every time we send a fireman involving an incident with illegal aliens, it drains the City's resources and we realized we needed to do something... "I could no longer wait for the Federal Government to do anything. Illegal Immigration is not a federal problem. It's a local issue. We deal with it every single day...So we crafted an Ordinance that would do one of two things. It would punish businesses that hire unlawful workers because it is illegal to hire unlawful workers. We also punish landlords and hold them accountable for harboring illegal aliens because it is illegal to harbor illegal aliens."

To most Americans, this would seem a completely logical response to the federal government's failure to secure the borders. In fact, according to a recent Zogby poll commissioned by Judicial Watch, 72% of likely voters believe local law enforcement officers should help enforce federal immigration laws, including 40% of Hispanics and 55% of self-described political "liberals." Unfortunately, Judge Munley did not see it that way. And now we've got to hope the appellate court overturns this unjust decision.

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5 August, 2007

Republicans hardening their stance on immigration

A useful summary of recent Congressional events below

An anti-immigration backlash has taken hold among Republicans in the Capitol, led in some cases by the staunchest supporters - Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - of the failed Senate bill derided by many as amnesty.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a San Jose Democrat, fended off GOP efforts Friday to block what in normal times would be noncontroversial "private bills" to remedy the most compelling individual plights of a handful of illegal immigrants caught in the labyrinth of immigration law.

Late Thursday night, Republicans walked out of a House vote to protest what they said was an attempt by Democrats to reverse a GOP win on a motion to deny benefits to illegal immigrants in an agriculture spending bill. Republicans said the vote was gaveled to a close as members were still voting, and that they actually prevailed 215-213. Democrats apologized the next day for the snafu, but refused to change the vote in which they ultimately defeated the anti-illegal immigrant measure. The National Republican Congressional Committee issued a press release Friday with a video clip of the vote, accusing Democratic leaders of interfering to "strong-arm their politically vulnerable members into switching their votes in order to defeat the measure and deliver benefits for illegals."

House Republicans have been attaching immigration provisions to a host of bills covering everything from health care to agriculture, usually to deny federal benefits to illegal immigrants. "The environment is fairly toxic," said Doug Rivlin, spokesman for the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant group. "Where the Republican Party seemed to be divided before on immigration, now they are united on attacking illegal immigration."

Lofgren succeeded in soothing matters in her Judiciary Committee panel on immigration, reaching a truce with Republicans to proceed to the first step on a handful of "private bills" to help three children of illegal immigrants avoid deportation.....

King said he opposes legislation known as the Dream Act, which would provide a way for the thousands of children of illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents to gain legal status if they attend school or enlist in the military. Many came to the United States at a young age, and found out they were illegal only when applying for college or Social Security cards. An estimated 65,000 children of illegal immigrants graduate from U.S. high schools every year.

Democrats hope to attach the Dream Act and another legalization measure aimed at farmworkers, known as Ag Jobs, to other legislation. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said she will try this fall to include the farmworker proposal, which would legalize an estimated 1.5 million farmworkers, to a major farm programs bill.

Last week, the Senate approved another $3 billion for immigration enforcement as part of a homeland security spending bill, with the blessing of the Democratic leadership. Graham, who was one of the few strong Republican supporters with McCain and Kyl of this year's ill-fated immigration reform measure, has joined with them to introduce another enforcement proposal. The proposal, sponsored as well by one of the most anti-reform lawmakers, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., would make illegal presence in the country a crime - though not a felony - mandating jail time for those who overstay their visas.

The proposal also would require an electronic verification system for all employers. Its sponsors conceded it has no chance to become law. The new enforcement bill is a marked change to the reform measure Graham backed earlier this year. That bill would have increased enforcement and provided a path to legal residence for those now living illegally in the country. It also would have dramatically changed the way the country allows immigrants to enter the United States. Graham's support, however, generated harsh criticism in his home state, and he saw his approval ratings tumble. Now, the senator said, "We're ... moving to Plan B."

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Britain must face up to the truth on immigration

It is the perfect Gordon Brown summer holiday. Lasting less than 24 hours, his break on the South Coast was temporarily abandoned as he rushed back to London to continue his prime ministerial baptism by fire, flood and foot and mouth. Before he had time to remove his linen jacket (look, no tie) and unpack his bucket and spade, he was back chairing Cobra, directing the handling of his latest emergency....

One issue on the horizon encapsulates the scale of the opportunities and obstacles facing Brown. Immigration has gone "out of fashion" (the type of phrase our political class uses when it would rather not discuss an embarrassing issue of significant concern to voters). Outside the Westminster village it is number one, according to recent polling. Insecurity, uncertainty and confusion, those stalwarts of the human condition, are driving the opinions of a public in search of reassurance.

Last week's leaked memo to Brown was drawn up by Blair's favourite pollster Philip Gould. It was two years old, so even more prescient. He wrote: "There is no doubt the political landscape is changing: crime, terror, immigration and so on are now the dominant issues. Underpinning these concerns is a growing sense of the power of events beyond our control - globalised economies, international terror, community disintegration and so on. The public are increasingly aware of the forces of change that politicians find hard to affect."

The Government is well aware it is confronted by forces that voters fear, which is why it tries to deal with the issue on the quiet. The Sunday Telegraph reveals today that the Government is working on a back-door amnesty for 450,000 asylum seekers. No matter how it is spun, this is an acceptance by ministers that they are powerless to remove those among that number who have come to Britain for work and not, as they claim, for asylum.

The numbers related to immigration are astonishing. In excess of 600,000 eastern Europeans have arrived since their countries acceded to the European Union. In London last year, 53 per cent of births were to mothers who were not born in Britain; across England and Wales it was 22 per cent. It does not take a genius to work out that in 18 years, the capital's adult population will be even more diverse than now. Even modest population projections, from the Government's own actuary, put the UK population up seven million at 67 million by 2031. Others say it is an underestimate.

Try imagining six Birminghams, or the combined population of Wales and Scotland, landing on us in the decades ahead, and ask yourself if Britain's housing market, transport network, education system and NHS are built to cope. It is at this point that some idiots of the liberal-Left start using the "R" word to shut down rational discussion. Race has nothing to do with it: this is about the impracticality of what the Government proposes to let happen because it has lost any sense of how to stop, slow or manage it.

It might be just about possible to conclude that this boom is all to the good: dynamic countries attract migrants and dying societies do not. Those who come here are often the most ambitious and hard-working of their country's men and women. And it is also true that our record on immigration down the centuries is good. How arid British cultural life, in the arts, law and politics, would be without it.

But only a fool would say that the largest wave of immigration in these islands' history does not require calm, urgent examination. Do we think it wise when 5.1 million Britons sit on the economically inactive scrap-heap? And can we drop the suicidal fixation on multiculturalism and replace it with a multi-racial idea of a Britain not embarrassed to invoke the country's virtues in the name of unity?

Mr Brown senses an opportunity ahead and plans to be tougher in ways he has yet to work out in full. He know this is territory which David Cameron wants to avoid. All the evidence is that while voters agreed with Michael Howard's message at the last election, on managed migration and stricter border controls, they disliked the messenger. Now the feedback from Labour MPs to the Prime Minister emphasises just how worried voters have become since then in seats it would not take much for Labour to lose. Mr Brown's "Britishness" speeches were driven as much by these concerns as they were by his futile and, so far, unnecessary attempt to prevent the English remembering that he is Scottish.

But there is one rather large problem. There is, under our current arrangements with our EU partners and lack of border controls, very little the Government can do to control the flow. Tony Blair stumbled into this enormous social experiment with no plan, equating open borders with friendliness and modernity, and controls with so-called nasty Toryism.

Mr Brown wants to prove he is strong. He would be better being honest and admitting to the public that without a redrawing of the rules he can do little. It will require a brave leader to say it in polite but firm fashion: based on the evidence rather than the gut-instinct and crossed fingers of the last decade, this is the time for a reappraisal. Britain is a rich country and travel even for the world's poor is cheap, so we are a magnet. We should slow the numbers we allow in, and spend vastly more on controlling our island's sea-locked borders. For those of us already here, we will take the sensible view that the Americans took at the peak of their largest waves of immigration. A common language and respect for common institutions build a strong country best able to cope with upheaval.

Tony Blair wondered what his "legacy" would be, and it was in front of him all the time: a population explosion he did not plan for. Soon, we are all going to have to deal with the consequences.

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4 August, 2007

Crackdown on bogus ID

Employers across the country may have to fire workers with questionable Social Security numbers to avoid getting snagged in a Bush administration crackdown on illegal immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security is expected to make public soon new rules for employers notified when a worker's name or Social Security number is flagged by the Social Security Administration. The rule as drafted requires employers to fire people who can't be verified as a legal worker and can't resolve within 60 days why the name or Social Security number on their W-2 doesn't match the government's database. Employers who don't comply could face fines of $250 to $10,000 per illegal worker and incident.

``There's a lot of fear and anxiety about what this rule is going to mean, particularly in the agricultural sector,'' said Craig Regelbrugge, spokesman for the American Nursery and Landscape Association and co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform.

For years, the Social Security Administration has sent ``no match'' letters to workers and their employers notifying them of the information discrepancies, to make sure money withheld from a person's paycheck is credited to the correct worker. The letters are not shared with other government agencies because of privacy laws. Although employers are prohibited from hiring illegal workers, their responsibilities with the letters have generally ended with notifying the workers of the discrepancies and leaving it to them to deal with it.

Attorneys have warned many employers to be careful not to fire a worker because they got a letter, because the no-match could be the result of a typo in a name or number, a computer error, a name change that wasn't reported after marriage or other reasons. But those who don't comply with the new rule could be deemed as knowingly hiring an illegal worker.

The Department of Homeland Security says the new rule provides guidance to employers on how to deal with workers who receive no-match letters and what to do - fire them - if the issue is not resolved in 60 days and they can't verify their workers are legal. It gives employers who comply immunity from penalties if illegal workers are found at their business in an investigation or raid, said Russ Knocke, Homeland Security department spokesman.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Homeland Security Department, ``is going to be tough and aggressive in the enforcement of the law,'' Knocke said. ``You are going to see more work site cases. And no more excuses.'' The administration trotted out the stepped-up enforcement plan last summer but put it on hold while the Senate debated an immigration reform bill. That bill would have granted a chance at legal status for the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the country and created a temporary worker program. It also would have required employers to verify the status of all their workers. After the bill collapsed in Congress, employers started bracing for the tougher rule.

``Congress didn't act. They didn't do what they needed to do on comprehensive immigration reform. Now there's going to be some pain to pay, and Congress is not going to feel the pain right away, it's the communities (of employees), and that's a real shame,'' said Laura Reiff, co-chairwoman of the Essential Workers Immigration Coalition, a national group of business and trade associations.

For Mark Chamblee, the stricter rule could mean losing some of his 28 workers at his nursery in Tyler, Texas. Chamblee suspects a few of his workers could have trouble with their Social Security numbers and said he will fire them if the problems aren't resolved. ``Of course, it would add to the workload for the other workers,'' he said. ``It would reduce our production and our output. Not all of our demand would be met on our products. Operating costs would go up.''

Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for Pilgrim's Pride Corp., confirmed that the country's largest chicken processing company recently fired employees at two Texas plants. The company's policy ``for some time now'' has been to terminate employees who can't clear up discrepancies, Atkinson said.

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Some local enforcement even in Washington State

When police in the small Southeast King County town of Pacific stopped Jose Luis Diaz for speeding in May, officers joked about a flier for an immigration rally on his front seat. Up in Seattle they may tolerate that sort of thing, Diaz recalls the officers grousing, but not so down here.

Across the Puget Sound, local law-enforcement agencies use various approaches — from written and unwritten policies to individual officer discretion — when dealing with illegal immigrants. On a routine traffic stop, the first clue to a motorist's immigration status may come when an officer runs a driver's license and gets all zeros in place of a Social Security number. What they do after that depends largely on the jurisdiction. Seattle police and King County deputies would likely just ignore it, operating as they do under an official policy of not asking a person's legal status. But not so in tiny Pacific, where Latinos now represent 6 percent of the town's 6,000 or so residents and where illegal immigrants, like Diaz, are increasingly finding themselves in deportation proceedings following an encounter with local police.

Pacific Police Chief John Calkins says he has a duty to enforce the law. Period. "I'm proud of my officers and the job they're doing," Calkins said. "I told them if there's a violation, whether federal, state, whatever, they're not to just turn their backs on it."

Nationwide, state and local law-enforcement agencies are grappling with this very thing — how to deal with a growing population of illegal immigrants and some of the potential local problems that arise, ranging from overcrowded housing to day-labor-site complaints. There's a growing inclination among local police to take a tougher stand in the wake of well-publicized crimes by deportable immigrants — including a few in the Puget Sound region, such as Jonathan Rowan who fatally shot his former girlfriend at the University of Washington.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials report a marked increase in information relayed to them by local law enforcement. "There's a lot of confusion about what the appropriate role for state and local law enforcement is, what their actual authority is," said Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "It's a volatile issue in a lot of places. It's complex and not an area local police are trained ... in."

Many larger jurisdictions, including King County and the city of Seattle, have policies against any employee, including police, asking about a person's immigration status. Voegtlin said police chiefs have become so overwhelmed by the problems posed by illegal immigration that the association recently issued a guide on basic immigration laws and issues. "You'd be hard-pressed to find a chief anywhere who's not dealing with some aspect of this," Voegtlin said.

A Washington, D.C.-based research organization, the Pew Hispanic Center, has estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Washington state residents are in this country illegally.

Before local police can enforce immigration law, they must first contact ICE to check the background and immigration status of an individual. ICE spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said ICE works closely with local law-enforcement agencies and "always stands ready to respond." But some advocates, particularly in South King County, where a growing number of illegal immigrants live, are worried this relationship may lead some immigrants not to report crime. These groups are trying to sound the alarm with mayors and chiefs of police to raise this concern.

There's a quiltlike approach across the Puget Sound area to handling illegal immigration — from written policies that bar inquiries into a person's immigration status to unwritten policies that may encourage them. Some departments leave it to the discretion of individual officers, and often immigration officers are contacted only in cases of serious offenses. Kent Police Chief Steve Strachan said, in practice, officers generally don't ask about immigration status unless it is relevant. "We want people who are undocumented and are victims of crime to report it and not to feel that out of fear they can't report crimes," Strachan said.

More here





3 August, 2007

A new entitlement for illegals

Unsatisfied with thwarting a Republican effort to authorize $3 billion for a border fence, congressional Democrats are trying to enhance the incentive for illegal aliens to enter the United States by removing the citizenship requirement from the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The Republican Congress in 1996 passed legislation blocking people who are in the country illegally from claiming benefits from the federal government, and when SCHIP was created in 1997, states were required to verify citizenship. But Democrats want to take that sensible requirement for Medicaid and SCHIP and leave it to the discretion of each state.

This reflects the Democrats' eagerness to offer free services to illegals at taxpayer expense, undermining the principles of both immigration law and good governance. And it is also a step Democrats want to take toward expanding SCHIP, like their plan to expand its coverage to include children from middle-income families that make up to $83,000 per year — a plan encompassing more than 70 percent of American children. (When SCHIP first came into being it was only for families with incomes up to double the poverty level, or $40,000 for a family of four.) Expanding the program will cost $50 billion over five years; expanding it by giving states the option to not enforce the citizenship requirement pushes the price tag up even higher — although just how much would depend on how many states decide to include illegals in the program.

This doesn't come as much of a surprise, of course, from the perspective of either immigration or health-care policy. Recall that SCHIP was born out of a failed attempt at government-run universal health coverage. Indeed, the Democratic expansion of SCHIP will actually allow children who currently have private health insurance to switch to the federally subsidized program, saddling taxpayers with yet another entitlement burden. In the wake of the defeat of the immigration amnesty bill last month, open-borders advocates are attempting to implement their agenda using a piecemeal approach. (Last week, for example, Democrats were looking for support for an agriculture-worker bill that included a path to citizenship for workers in the country illegally.) They should not be permitted to get away with using SCHIP to funnel more taxpayer assistance to illegals.

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This guy would have been better off travelling via Mexico

More on the bureaucratic madhouse that plagues legitimate entrants to the U.S.A.

The US immigration authorities are well known for arbitrarily bizarre decisions, and they've just stopped Thomas Dullien (aka Halvar Flake) from talking at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas, where "he's been a popular speaker for the past seven years". BlackHat's BlackPage says "he was detained by immigration officials upon entry to the US, interviewed by said officials for 4.5 hours, and finally denied entry into the US and returned to Germany." It says:

In the process of checking his luggage, some portion of his printed materials for his training were discovered. This triggered a series of questions about his business and his immigration status, with the US officials finally settling on the position that if he was going to profit as an individual speaker at Black Hat, he was a de facto employee of the conference and could not enter the States without qualifying for and obtaining an H1B visa.

An H1B to talk at a conference? That's insane. On his blog, Halvar writes:

Had there been an agreement between my company and Blackhat, then my entry to the US would've been "German-company-sends-guy-to-US-to-perform-services", and everything would've been fine. The real problem is that the agreement was still between me as a person and Blackhat

Technically, he shouldn't have been travelling under the visa waiver programme (being squeaky clean, I don't use it myself, and no journalist should*) and now he won't be able to use it at all. However, surely somebody in the US must realise that the hostile legalistic approach to legitimate visitors is extremely damaging to US interests. It discourages people from going, damages trade and commerce, and encourages people to do more business outside the US.

It's damaging even when people don't suffer from it, because they read about it.

* A particularly fine example concerned Elena Lappin, who wrote about it for The Guardian. She was handcuffed, imprisoned, and deported for using the visa waiver form with her British passport. The great thing about the story is that her husband is a US citizen, her daughter was born in New York, and she had lived in the US as a permanent resident.

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2 August, 2007

Anti-illegal-Immigration Minutemen are "Nazis"

A fevered Washington State "human rights" honcho is out of real arguments so abuse and accusation has to do:

"It is sad to see that the Minutemen and similar groups have succumbed to using hate propaganda to undermine basic tenants of American democracy - opportunity and tolerance....

Unfortunately, it seems like the Minutemen have made progress in some of our communities, including in Everett. The Minutemen rely on the use of hateful speech, the Big Lie, and fear of people who are different to corrupt and coarsen political dialogue, just as their Nazi forebears did.

The so-called Minutemen, like their former fellow traveler Tim McVey, are precursors to domestic terrorism and vigilantism. The federal government is charged with enforcing the immigration laws of the United States. Let the federal government do its job, without "assistance" from gun-toting, self-appointed know-nothings.

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It's pretty clear who is uttering the hate speech there. As Larry Simoneaux comments:

"Really? Have the Minutemen offered a "Final Solution" to the problem of illegal immigrants? Is it in any way similar to what SS Lieutenant General Reinhard Heydrich proposed in the Wannsee Protocols?

Have the Minutemen called for the establishment of places like Aushwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Birkenau, Buchenwald, Dachau, Majdanek, Mauthausen, Sobibor, or Treblinka?

Have the Minutemen called for the wholesale death of illegal immigrants? Have they called for the killing of mothers and children, fathers and sons, the sick and the old? Have they experimented with various poisonous gases? Have they suggested that "bath houses" be built in close proximity to ovens?

Does the term "Nazi" also apply to those who say that the influx of illegal aliens needs to be stopped immediately, our borders secured, and a hard look be taken at those who are here to determine what would be best for the nation? Does it apply to those who argue that what our "representatives" in D.C. have allowed to happen is both disgraceful and outrageous?

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The name of the "human rights" wacko is Marc Brenman. The surname means "burning man" -- which is amusing given my diagnoss of fever in him.



Disgraceful treatment of Gurkhas by British bureaucrats

Men who have put their lives on the line for Britain do not have "strong ties" to Britain?? Absurd. The Gurkhas are much admired in Britain so this is just bureaucratic nastiness. The Gurkhas have even been allowed to stand guard at Buckingham Palace -- a great honour. If they were useless Sudanese refugees they would be very welcome, of course

A group of Gurkhas went to court in London on Wednesday fighting for the right of some 2,000 of the Nepalese veterans to settle in Britain. About 20 of them, many wearing military regalia, attended a hearing of the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal in a test case for Gurkhas who have fought alongside British soldiers.

Under current rules, serving Gurkhas now are almost all given the right to settle in Britain after completing their army service. But those who retired before 1997 have to rely on the discretion of British immigration officials, with the result that some 400 have been rejected because they do not have "strong ties" with Britain.

Lawyer David Enright, representing 44 of them, argued in court that someone who is prepared to die in battle for Britain should have the right to settle in the country. Specifically he said Britain should take into account "war wounds, decorations when in battle, swearing allegiance to the Crown, swearing allegiance for decades, fighting a battle, being injured, guarding the Queen the way your fathers and grandfathers served the Queen, paying income tax. "You cannot find a stronger way to link with the UK. All these are strong ties with the UK and should be considered in the particular circumstances of the Gurkhas who have rendered such sterling service for over 200 years."

Around 200,000 Gurkhas fought for Britain in the World Wars I and II; some 43,000 were killed or wounded. There are around 3,500 Gurkhas serving in the British army nowadays. The British first became aware of the Gurkhas in 1815 when they sent an expeditionary force to try and take over the hilly region of Gorkha in what is now central Nepal. Impressed by their fierceness, loyalty and razor-sharp kukhuri fighting knives, the British army began to recruit the hill warriors and the Gurkhas have fought in nearly every major British military engagement since. The hearing continues.

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1 August, 2007

Immigration common sense alien to feds

When is “less crime” considered “bad news” by the press? When the crime is illegal immigration. In Georgia, where a tough, new immigration law just took effect, the local press is on the verge of a meltdown. In Hazelton, Pa., a local ordinance requiring basic documentation was having such a profound effect reducing the illegal population that cities across the country are considering similar legislation. (A federal judge’s ruling striking down the Hazelton law is being appealed). And here in the Boston area, the MetroWest Daily News reports the disturbing news that travel agents are selling twice as many one-way tickets to Brazil this year than last. Money-wire agencies in MetroWest area have fewer customers, a sign that more Brazilian illegals are opting for the “do-it-yourself” amnesty plan: going home.

“I’m tired of living as a criminal,” one illegal immigrant told the Daily News. “I cannot drive, I have to use false names and I’m afraid of the police and immigration. I’m tired of living in fear and away from my family.” It turns out that treating illegal immigrants like they’re doing something, oh, illegal, has the effect of encouraging them to actually obey the law.

In a rational world, this would all be good news. Every illegal immigrant who “legalizes” himself with a plane ticket home opens up a job for a legal citizen here in America. He also reduces the burden on taxpayers, and (unintentionally) strengthens the notion of the rule of law. But in the bizarro world of border security, the only true crime is to enforce the law. And the true horror of enforcing immigration laws is that it actually works.

Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies will tell anyone who’ll listen that the practical, workable solution for border security is “enforcement through attrition.” Forget Sen. John McCain’s amnesty - which even supporters concede will only reduce the flow of illegals by an estimated 25 percent. What works is enforcing existing laws, or even just the threat of enforcement. “At the time of the 9/11 attack, the largest group of illegal immigrants from the Middle East were from Pakistan,” Krikorian says. “In the wake of 9/11, basic enforcement was stepped up. It became clear in the Pakistani community that the government was serious and things like expired visas were no longer going to be overlooked. As a result, a huge percentage of illegal Pakistani immigrants chose on their own to go home. No guns, no raids, no ‘lines of buses.’ ” So, if we know that even mild enforcement works, why aren’t federal authorities doing it? Unfortunately, it’s a question that answers itself.

The town of Marlboro is trying to crack down on parents from nearby towns sneaking their kids into its schools. Marlboro taxpayers are flattered by the attention, but they’re not too thrilled about picking up the tab for students whose parents aren’t legal, taxpaying residents. They’ve come up with the common-sense solution of requiring all students to provide easily documented things like driver’s licenses, gas bills and rental agreements. The hold up? Such a policy might also keep illegal aliens out of the classrooms, too. That’s against federal law.

To appease the feds, the school system plans to categorize all illegal alien families as “homeless,” so their kids can stay in the system. “Relax,” the Marlboro School Committee is telling the Bush administration, “the only kids we’re kicking out of class are the American ones!” That’s your federal government at work.

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Refugees face tough new test to get into Australia

Should cut down the problematical inflow from Africa

REFUGEES and some migrants will have to pass an "integration test" before being allowed to live in Australia, under tough new rules to be introduced by the Howard Government. The new gateway test will assess their ability to adapt to the Australian way of life and factors such as their resourcefulness and ability to cope with the challenges of resettlement. It will examine whether prospective migrant families are cohesive, supportive, and united in their desire to settle in Australia.

Immigration officials will conduct face-to-face tests with up to 13,000 refugees and humanitarian program migrants, as well as some skilled migrant applicants, to assess whether they have what it takes to fit in to the Australian way of life. Applicants will also be tested on their English and their preparedness to learn English once they arrive in Australia.

The new test was forshadowed in a speech by Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews last night. The test will operate in addition to the Government's new citizenship and language tests, and a values statement for long-term visa holders. Outlining the plan in a speech to the Sydney Institute, Mr Andrews said migrants and refugees had to be willing and able to integrate. "We cannot assume that the capacity of all of our potential migrants to integrate successfully is the same as their predecessors'," Mr Andrews said. "The Government has decided to put greater emphasis on the capacity of potential migrants to integrate into our community," he said.

Specific questions to be put to prospective migrants will be devised over coming weeks. Training of immigration officials will start shortly, and the Government hopes the new test will be in place by February.

The hard-line immigration plan has the potential to affect refugees from countries such as war-torn Sudan, many of whom have experienced major adjustment problems. Under the plan, Immigration Department officials will have the final say on whether applicants have the capacity to integrate into Australian society. "Because of the importance of migration to Australia, the Government believes it is important that migration continues to be the success story it has been until now," Mr Andrews said. "The migration regulations already make provision for assessing the capacity of visa applicants to settle in Australia. "I have decided that greater emphasis should be placed on this criterion in assessing applications for permanent visas or (for) provisional visas which lead to permanent residence."

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