By Henry Ergas

Given present birth rates, population growth will depend mainly on immigration. By what criterion should we judge how high our immigration rate should be?

The logical criterion is the well-being of those already here. We should, in other words, maximise the welfare of existing Australians, taking into account their interest in the prosperity of future generations and humanitarian concern for the rest of the world.

That our focus should be on the preferences and welfare of present Australians may seem obvious but is crucial. For example, higher immigration would increase our national output. But it could diminish output per capita, and assuming foreign investors owned some of the added output, reduce per capita national income even more. And it might diminish the welfare of present Australians and their progeny, depending on how any increased national income was distributed between those who live here now and the new arrivals.

As a result, the choice of objective matters a great deal. The building industry wants to maximise the number of homes that need to be built and the mining industry the rents that can be extracted: but those objectives may not coincide with maximising the welfare of present Australians.

This point was stressed by economist Donald McDougall in a classic article he wrote while visiting Australia in the late 1950s. Those were years of record foreign investment. McDougall’s question was whether that influx required a correspondingly higher rate of immigration.

McDougall argued that the increase in foreign investment had two effects: it made capital more abundant, lowering profits (as capital was invested in ever more marginal uses); and it made labour more productive, which increased wages. A matching rise in immigration would increase labour supply, causing wages to fall from that higher level. Total output would increase, but local incomes would not rise by as much, because some of the increase would go in higher profits to foreign investors.

In other words, output would rise, but unless a (potentially high) share of the resulting increased income was transferred to the initial residents, greater migration could make them worse off.

The risk of well-being declining is magnified if there are some resources that are costly or impossible to expand, such as roads in densely populated areas. Added congestion then harms users, aggravating any fall in living standards.

It is simply wrong to claim, as many economic commentators have, that proper pricing of those congestible assets (say, through road charges in CBDs) will avoid that fall.

To see why, imagine a swimming pool whose usage doubles. Assume also that prices are set fully efficiently, so that the lanes are always allocated to those who value them most highly. When demand doubles, prices must rise, and the more difficult it is to expand capacity, the greater the increase. The owner of the pool is better off but unless the increased income goes to the original users, they are unambiguously worse off. Indeed, if the pool is foreign owned, the gain will accrue overseas, while the costs will be borne entirely by local users.

The issue is even more acute with resources that are difficult to price (such as the untrammelled enjoyment of open spaces) or where political and social constraints make proper pricing unlikely (as in education and health). Then the costs of congestion may be high, and will fall largely on those users who can’t afford any uncongested, more efficiently priced, alternatives. In Yogi Berra’s deliciously illogical phrase, at a certain point “it’s so crowded, no one goes there anymore”.

Nor is building more infrastructure a panacea. To begin with, infrastructure decisions have never been more poorly made than at present, with decision-making pathologies so deeply entrenched as to be encrusted. But even were investments better chosen, the unit costs of expanding infrastructure are often higher than those of the capacity already in place. If expansion is efficiently priced, prices must then rise, making existing users worse off.

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Hundreds of Tea Party activists converged on the border fence here in what is typically a desolate area popular with traffickers to rally for conservative political candidates and to denounce what they called lax federal enforcement of immigration laws. The rally brought a significant law enforcement presence as well as numerous private patrols by advocates of a more secure border.

But rallies, even daylong ones, are no way to seal the border. The Obama administration insists that its statistics show that significant financing increases in the federal Border Patrol have helped bring down crime at the border and make the smuggling of immigrants and drugs harder than ever.

But the activists who gathered Sunday had a decidedly different take. The border, in their view, is still far too easy to get across and has become so dangerous that some of them brought their sidearms for protection. Organizers urged participants to leave rifles in their cars.

“Instead of finding bugs in our beds, we’re finding home invaders,” said Tony Venuti, a Tucson radio host who attached a huge sign to the fence that told immigrants to head to Los Angeles, where they will be more welcome, and even offered directions for getting there.

Addressing the crowd, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who conducts controversial sweeps in immigrant neighborhoods in Phoenix and other parts of Maricopa County, said the problem could be solved if the Border Patrol was given permission to track down migrants on the Mexican side before they crossed.

“If I had all the national TV here, I’d probably climb the fence to show you how easy it is,” Sheriff Arpaio said from the rally’s stage, a flag with the words “Don’t Tread on Me” flapping behind him.

Also among the speakers was Russell Pearce, the state senator who sponsored Arizona’s controversial immigration law known as 1070, part of which was blocked by a federal judge last month.

The event was monitored on the Mexican side. A rally participant spotted a group of people in the rugged terrain in Mexico and alerted Border Patrol officers, who identified them with binoculars as members of Grupo Beta, a Mexican agency that aids migrants in distress.

Sheriff Larry A. Dever of Cochise County, where the event was held, said the area was a hotspot for traffickers. “We’re right at the point of the spear where human and dope smuggling takes place,” Sheriff Dever said. “These mountains are a beehive of activity.”

He said he had no doubt that migrants and drug smugglers were using lookouts to keep track of the rally. “They know this rally is going on,” he said. “They are not fools. They’re experts. They probably know more about this than we do standing here.”

J. D. Hayworth, who is challenging Senator John McCain in the Republican primary to be held later this month, used the event to question Mr. McCain’s commitment to fighting illegal immigration. Trying to outflank Mr. Hayworth, Mr. McCain has made several stops in the border region recently.

The Obama administration has similarly started a defense of its border policies in recent days. “Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. Is the problem a significant one, a challenging one for the nation? Absolutely,” John T. Morton, director of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in Phoenix last week, vowing that his agency was committed to securing the border.

The rally was held on private land, not far from where a popular Arizona rancher died in late March in a killing that helped fuel the immigration debate in the state.

Cindy Kolb, a border activist who lives nearby, yelled out through the thick metal slates in the border fence, which had been decorated on the American side with tiny flags, “Hey, don’t come over here anymore.”

She added: “We don’t like illegals hiding under bushes when our kids wait for the school bus. This border needs to be secure.”

So the past is not always a good predictor of the future nor is attention to the 14th amendment futile

LAST WEEK, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio joined the chorus of Republicans amenable to rewriting the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees American citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Should the Constitution be altered, Boehner was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” to deny such automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants? “I think it’s worth considering,” he replied.

Others on this bandwagon include Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who says “birthright citizenship . . . is a mistake” that should be fixed by changing the 14th Amendment, as well as Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl of Arizona and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, all of whom have called for hearings on the topic.

“There is a problem,” said Boehner. “To provide an incentive for illegal immigrants to come here so that their children can be US citizens does, in fact, draw more people to our country.” Look at the trouble caused by birthright citizenship, he argued: “In certain parts of our country, clearly, our schools, our hospitals, are being overrun by illegal immigrants, a lot of whom came here just so their children could become US citizens.”

The specter of America being “overrun” by undesirable immigrants is a classic bugbear, nearly as old as America itself. And Boehner & Co. are hardly the first members of Congress to fret about the supposed perils from the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to any child born on US soil. During the congressional debates on the amendment in 1866, Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania feared that automatic citizenship at birth would undermine a state’s ability to defend itself “if it were overrun” — that word again — by immigrants of “another and a different race.”

For example, Cowan demanded, “is it proposed that the people of California are to remain quiescent while they are overrun by a flood of immigration of the Mongol race? Are they to be immigrated out of house and home by Chinese? . . . If another people of a different race, of different religion, of different manners, of different traditions, different tastes and sympathies are to come there and have the free right to locate there and settle among them, and if they have an opportunity of pouring in such an immigration as in a short time will double or treble the population of California, I ask, are the people of California powerless to protect themselves?”

Change “California” to “Arizona” and “Chinese” to “Hispanic,” and you might think you were listening to 21st-century immigration alarmists fulminating about “anchor babies” or the “invasion” of illegal immigrants across the southern border. For good measure, Cowan also denounced the “Gypsies” immigrating into the Pennsylvania of his day — a “pestiferous” people, he called them, “who pay no taxes; who never perform military service; who . . . infest society.” Only the players change in the immigration wars; the rhetoric remains the same.

Of course the 14th Amendment isn’t going to be amended, as Boehner, Graham, and the others know perfectly well, and it is hard to interpret their embrace of the idea as anything but political posturing. (That too hasn’t changed: Following Cowan’s philippic during the 1866 debate, Senator John Conness of California — an Irish immigrant — observed tartly that it must be “it may be very good capital in an electioneering campaign to declaim against the Chinese.”) Yet even as political bluster, threatening an end to birthright citizenship seems pointless.

After all, if the Citizenship Clause no longer protected babies born to illegal immigrants — an estimated 8 percent of all US births — the principal result would be to enlarge the illegal population. Is that what the immigration furies want to see — even more newcomers to the United States who have no legal right to be here?

“Revoking birthright citizenship,” writes Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, “would turn hundreds of thousands of infants into ‘criminals’ — arriving, not across a border, but crying in a hospital.” It isn’t going to happen. But why would anyone who purports to be concerned about citizenship and the rule of law even suggest something so unjust?

The 14th Amendment says nothing about parents. It does not make citizenship contingent on ancestry, bloodlines, or political favor. The immigration debates may churn, but about this much the Constitution is unequivocal: Anyone born in America is an American. Our nation has been enriched — not “overrun” — because of birthright citizenship. The 19th-century nativists who feared otherwise were wrong. Their intellectual heirs today are, too.

President Obama signed a $600 million border protection bill Friday. Does that mean comprehensive immigration legislation has a better chance of passing?

That’s the position the White House is pushing. The border legislation, which would pay for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, and add other law enforcement personnel to investigate immigration violations, was enacted with substantial bipartisan support. Administration officials hope this will translate into hands-across-the-aisle cooperation on the larger issue of immigration reform.

“The resources made available through this legislation will build upon our successful efforts to protect communities along the Southwest border and across the country … these steps will make an important difference as my administration continues to work with Congress toward bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform to secure our borders,” said Obama in a statement issued Friday.

The administration’s theory runs like this: by showing Obama is willing to take tougher measures on border law enforcement, the president should be able to sway some Republicans on aspects of immigration reform.

But that does not appear likely in a political environment in which conservative primary voters and “tea party” activists are pushing Republican candidates farther to the right prior to the mid-term elections.

In general, Republicans remain wary of any immigration effort that includes such provisions as a roadmap to citizenship for illegal immigrants currently in the country. The GOP calls that “amnesty,” and they don’t like it.

“If the president takes amnesty off the table and makes a real commitment to border and interior security, he will find strong bipartisan support,” Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky said Friday.

About $400 million of the money authorized by the border law will flow to the Department of Homeland Security. That money will pay for new Border Patrol agents and for two new unmanned aerial vehicle systems. About $200 million is intended for the Department of Justice to fund a surge of personnel into the Southwest border region.

According to the administration, statistics show a significant drop in the number of people trying to enter the US illegally and a significant rise in seizures of illegal drugs and smuggled currency. Since 2004, the Border Patrol has doubled in size, to some 20,000 agents.

Overall, border efforts “are making a difference, and they are the reason why everything that is supposed to be going up is going up and everything this is supposed to be going down is going down,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano at a White House briefing.

It is feared that hundreds of local children are missing out on their first choice schools because of the boom. The city’s population has leapt from 165,000 to 185,000 in the last six years as immigrants look for casual factory and farm work.

Peterborough has seen demand for all services increase, and up to 15 camps used by jobless migrants have been found across the city.

Education councillor John Holdich said it was difficult to predict demand for places because it was hard to estimate the number of workers entering the city. He said: ‘We can keep an eye on the demography through births, marriages and death numbers but we cannot easily find out how many new people are moving to the city and they are still moving here at a fair old rate. ‘We are looking to build a new school but because of all the planning regulations we have to follow, that is likely to be about two years off.’

Immigrant communities account for 64 per cent of Peterborough’s population growth as migrants are attracted to the city by fruit and vegetable picking jobs in the surrounding Fen countryside.

Isabel Clark, head of school place planning admitted migrants had put ‘pressure’ on the system. She said: ‘There has been a steep increase in demand for school places causing pressures in certain areas. We have processed 2,438 applications for places at primary schools for the September start, which leaves very little room for additional placements.’

Fulbridge School, one of the schools that is full up in every year, has a roll of 675 pupils speaking 27 different languages – with just 200 children having English as a first language.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: ‘This is clear evidence of the real impact of uncontrolled immigration. ‘The previous government clearly failed to make sufficient provisions for primary education in huge part because they were in denial about the massive scale of immigration that they deliberately encouraged.’

Peterborough Council confirmed that 252 children or 11 per cent of applicants had missed out on their first choice of primary school.

A further 101, or five per cent, were turned away from all of their choices and were instead offered ‘directed’ places in schools that had spaces left.

A spokesman for the council said it was taking measures to accommodate the number of applicants. She said: ‘We have increased the number of available places year on year by increasing some schools admission numbers…and by starting building projects to increase capacity.’

One in twelve babies born in the U.S. in 2008 were the offspring of illegal immigrants, according to a new study, a statistic that could inflame the debate over birthright citizenship.

Undocumented immigrants make up slightly more than 4% of the U.S. adult population. However, their babies represented twice that share, or 8%, of all births on U.S. soil in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center’s report.

“Unauthorized immigrants are younger than the rest of the population, are more likely to be married and have higher fertility rates than the rest of the population,” said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew in Washington, D.C.

The report, based on Census Bureau data and analysis of demographic characteristics of the undocumented population, also found that the lion’s share, or 79%, of the 5.1 million children of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. in 2009 were born in the U.S. and therefore citizens.

How many births did the US have in 2008? That year actually showed a decline … to 4,247,000, down from 4.3 million the year before. That means the US had around 339,760 births from illegal immigrants in 2008 alone. Add in Mom and Dad, and suddenly we have close to a million illegal immigrants that the US would have a mighty difficult time deporting — in one year.

If 79% of 5.1 million children are birthright citizens, that makes just over 4 million. If we again add in just one parent (statistically, probably slightly less, as some families will have only one parent and more than one child), that’s eight million people that can’t be deported. If we’re adding 340,000 children a year to that total, it’s going to severely complicate enforcement of immigration law no matter what happens in Congress … assuming Congress ever does anything about immigration enforcement.

One way or another, the question of the nature of citizenship will have to get answered. However, the legal issue may not be as unresolvable as some think. The 14th Amendment makes one condition in its language: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” So far as I know, that has led courts to consider children born of legal immigrants citizens of the US, since they submitted themselves to the jurisdiction of America and its laws.

A case can be made that the clause could restrict birthright citizenship to only those legally in the country — and it would certainly be easier to float a test case with a deportation order than it would be to amend the Constitution. Why not let the courts have a crack at it first?

It’s a long way from the Indian ocean to the Northern Pacific so perhaps they thought the difficulty of the journey would help them to arrive undetected

Canadian security officials boarded a cargo ship Thursday carrying hundreds of Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, including some people Canada has said may be terrorists.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said 490 are onboard and said the vessel MV Sun Sea has declared them to be refugees. But he said the government has concerns that there may be members of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, on board. Canada has labeled the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist group since 2006.

The ship is off the coast of Vancouver Island and is traveling at a slow rate of speed. The government has been preparing tents on seaside military facilities to house the people from the ship, and jails have been warned they could receive new inmates.

“Human smuggling is a despicable crime and any attempted abuses of our nation’s generosity for financial gain are utterly unacceptable,” Toews said in a statement. “Those aboard this vessel will be processed by Canada Border Services Agency officials under Canadian law.”

Toews vowed Canada would look at all available options to strenghten Canadian laws to address what he called an “unacceptable abuse of international law and Canadian generosity.”

Toews’ office originally issued a statement early Thursday evening saying the navy had boarded the ship, but a government official corrected that later Thursday to say the ship was not boarded until shortly after 9:00 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT).

Toews said the ship was boarded by navy, police and border services officials. The ship is being taken to a navy base on Vancouver Island.

Passengers onboard are being offered water and food.

The MV Sun Sea reportedly approached Australia a few months ago but was either turned away or feared it wouldn’t be allowed to dock and sailed toward Canada. The Canadian government is worried more ships are on the way.

Canada is home to about 300,000 Tamils, the largest such population outside Sri Lanka and India. But Canada is worried it’s getting a reputation of being too receptive.

Last October, a ship carrying 76 Sri Lankan migrants was intercepted in Canadian waters after crossing the Pacific from Sri Lanka. The group on board the Ocean Lady claimed to be fleeing persecution.

All of the men were immediately detained in jails around the Vancouver area, but most were let go within weeks or months later and only one remained in custody on suspicion of being a Tiger. By this past spring, he, too, had been released.

The Tigers fought a civil war for a quarter of a century in Sri Lanka seeking a state independent of the ruling Sinhalese majority. The Sri Lankan conflict ended in May 2009 after a massive government operation against the Tigers.

Toews has said the Tigers have used suicide bombings against civilians in Sri Lanka, as well as extortion and intimidation to raise funds within Canada’s Tamil community.

Toews said Canada will prosecute anyone deemed to be human smugglers or terrorists. “While our government believes in offering protection to genuine refugees, it is imperative that we prevent supporters and members of a criminal or terrorist organization from abusing Canada’s refugee system,” Toews said.

Chitranganee Wagiswara, Sri Lanka’s high commissioner to Canada, has said Canada should not accept the Tamils’ claims for refugee status and said the ship is part of a human smuggling operation linked to the Tamil Tigers.

The ship was expected to sail through the Juan de Fuca Strait before landing in the Victoria region, and preparations appeared under way to house the refugees in large tents at nearby Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt and at a nearby naval refueling station.

Two Vancouver-area jails have been told to make room for a flood of new inmates this week.

Legal aid officials have called in immigration lawyers to act as duty counsel for the migrants once they arrive, and members of the Canadian Tamil Congress were traveling to British Columbia to offer any help that is needed.

A local hospital had set aside a special area for any passengers requiring medical attention.

The federal government has deported more illegal immigrants from the U.S. than ever before, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday as part of an effort to push back on the suggestion Washington isn’t doing enough.

“For those who doubt the federal government’s resolve in the enforcement of immigration law, let me say this: We are committed to strong, effective immigration enforcement, and the facts speak for themselves,” ICE Director John Morton said.

He said his agency removed a record 380,000 illegal immigrants from the U.S. last fiscal year, and about a third of them were convicted criminals. So far this fiscal year, ICE removed 136,000 illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals, also a record, Morton said.

“Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. Is the problem a significant one, a challenging one for the nation? Absolutely,” he said. But “we’re in this for the long haul. … We’re going to get this right.”

Border staffing also is at an all-time high, and will only increase under a $600 million plan by President Barack Obama to put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border, Morton said.

The measure, which Obama planned to sign into law Friday, would fund the hiring of 1,000 new Border Patrol agents to be deployed at critical areas along the border, 250 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and 250 more Customs and Border Protection officers.

From politicians to average residents, many in Arizona and elsewhere say the federal government isn’t doing its job despite the increased efforts and deportations.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer cited government inaction as a reason for signing the state’s new immigration law, which reignited that national illegal immigration debate, caused the governor’s popularity to soar in the state and turned her into a national figure.

The law went into effect July 29 after a judge ruled to block its most controversial sections, including a part that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws. Brewer is appealing the decision and says she’ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Morton spoke specifically about ICE’s efforts in Arizona, and said that during an average week, his agency removes 1,500 illegal immigrants from the state, arrests five human smugglers, investigates three drop houses, inspects the employment records of 526 people working for state companies and seizes a ton of marijuana.

As for Arizona’s new law, Morton said ICE already works with state and local agencies to fight illegal immigration, and that “we don’t think that 50 different immigration enforcement regimes is the answer.”

The answer is uniform federal immigration reform, he said.

“You’ve got to have comprehensive reform that recognizes a need for strong border security, a need for strong interior enforcement, but also a means for families and workers to come here lawfully … and an ability for people who’ve been here for a very long time to get right with the law by paying a fine and learning English and paying their taxes, and getting to the back of the line,” Morton said.

As part of his visit, Morton also announced the results of a three-day statewide operation he said was the largest of its kind in Arizona. The operation, which ended Wednesday evening, netted the arrests of 63 illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals and immigrants with outstanding orders of deportation who failed to leave the country.

At least 25 already had been removed from the United States before. A conviction of felony re-entry into the U.S. carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

In an effort to bypass the new media’s “liberal filter,” a mass mailing from the man known as “America’s Sheriff” is being circulated to Americans to give them the unadulterated opinions of the lawman’s lawman.

While the pleas from American citizens in Arizona and other states fell on deaf ears in Washington, DC, the violence and crime at the U.S.-Mexico border continues unabated. And instead of offering support for Arizona’s initiatives to combat criminal aliens and their violence, the Obama Justice Department and Democrats in his own state continue to target Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio because of his tough immigration enforcement policy.

Meanwhile, according to MyFoxPhoenix.com, a man who requested anonymity claims his wife received a text message included an international phone number and instructions to pass the message along. The message placed a $1 million bounty on Sheriff Arpaio’s head and a $1 thousand incentive to join the drug cartel.

Lisa Allen of the Sheriff’s office told MyFoxPhoenix.com that they believe the message originated in Mexico. Although the Sheriff routinely received death threats in the past, they believe this threat is credible because of its timing.

“This is hardly earth-shattering news since Mexico has long represented the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the U.S., despite Uncle Sam’s multi-billion dollar effort to halt the northbound flow of narcotics. The costly investment has failed miserably, according to a federal report that reveals Mexican heroin production has actually doubled in the last year,” state officials from the public-interest group Judicial Watch.

The legal director of an influential national group La Raza that represents day laborers calls Arizona’s immigration law an “unconstitutional, unwise and odious bill” created by “demagogue leaders” who have become folk heroes for “white supremacists” throughout the country.

Well, now Sheriff Joe Arpaio is speaking out to all Americans.

“I cannot compete with the local and national media machines that distort my record and the job I’m doing to protect this country. And, I don’t have the personal resources to defend myself from these vicious attacks,” said Arpaio.

“You… probably saw that a federal judge blocked the toughest parts of law before it was set to be enacted on July 29th. I still support this law 100%. Even before this law was passed and the judge blocked parts of it, I was the only law enforcement official in this state enforcing all the laws that our federal and state legislatures put in place to combat illegal immigration and human smuggling,” said the popular law enforcement official.

“Because I have taken the lead over the years by enforcing existing state and federal laws against illegal immigration, I have become the target of attack by radical, left-wing, open-borders extremists,” said Arpaio.

When asked about the people coming to Arizona to oppose immigration law enforcement — commonly referred to as “carpetbaggers,” Arpaio said, “I’ve been sued, picketed, burned in effigy and even had the Reverend Al Sharpton come to Phoenix – TWICE! – to march on my headquarters. Some have even gone so far as to call for my assassination! Now, the Mexican Drug Cartels have issued a “hit” on me.”

“One of the local newspapers printed a political cartoon of me and our Governor wearing Nazi uniforms and performing the Nazi salute,” he laughed. Showing he gives little credence to the neo-Stalinist tactics of the far-left.

“What these extremists really want is a Sheriff who will look the other way, be silent and allow the charade to continue, while ignoring the laws of our land. That, I promise, will never happen,” said Arpaio.

“I won’t back down. I won’t surrender to politicians, thugs or drug dealers!”

The new laws go further than the ones Arizona attempted to introduce earlier this month. Arizona has been blocked from introducing key parts of its new laws by a federal court.

However, Bill McCollum, who is running to become Florida’s governor in the forthcoming elections, has proposed the new legislation despite the Arizona ruling. More than 20 other states are thought to be considering similar laws.

Mr McCollum described the proposed new laws as a “huge step for public safety”.

“This legislation will provide new enforcement tools for protecting our citizens and will help our state fight the ongoing problems created by illegal immigration,” Mr McCollum said.

He added: “This law is fairly balanced to protect the rights of those who are here legally and illegally.”

The legislation requires police making an arrest to determine whether the person is in the country legally, something they can now do on a voluntary basis but which is normally carried out by the immigration authorities. Under the proposed law, police can arrest people on a “reasonable suspicion” that they are illegal immigrants.

Companies would also be forced to use an electronic system to check that workers they are hiring are in the country legally.

There are thought to be more than ten million illegal immigrants living in America and the issue is expected to be a key factor in the forthcoming midterm elections.

Compared with Europe, Australia is a very fortunate country. It is familiar with the challenges of immigration. It has been absorbing people from far away from the times of the settlers and convicts from Britain to the era of mass exoduses after World War II. And it has natural borders that can be relatively easily controlled. All of this may lead Australians to feel they know how to handle immigration. But such complacency could be dangerous.

The first challenge is to acknowledge and appreciate what is actually going on in the supply of immigration. When in 1951 the Geneva Convention was drafted, the UN reported that about a million people, mostly from Europe, were displaced, seeking asylum or qualified for a refugee status. Today the number is 40 million, mostly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Second, the culture of these potential immigrants is of utmost relevance when it comes to assimilating those welcomed into host nations like Australia. In the 1940s and 50s, Australia was essentially admitting Europeans, nearly all of them Christian. The Indo-Chinese who came later were also assimilated, even though they were sometimes subjected to harsh discrimination. But it will be less easy to assimilate immigrants whose culture is not only different but who may actually reject the Australian way of life.

About 70 per cent of the 40 million displaced peoples, asylum-seekers and refugees are Muslim.

Nor do Muslims come to Australia only as refugees. People from Britain have long been the single largest group of settlers coming to Australia. But the most recent data for all permanent additions to the population by country of birth shows that people from predominantly Muslim countries account for a larger share: 12.5 per cent of new settlers, compared with 11.9 per cent from Britain.

Unlike other migrant groups, Muslims are often targets for their radical brethren. Financed with oil money, agents of Islamism set up indoctrination centres called madrassas in refugee camps. Their teachings are fundamentally incompatible with Australian values. They preach submission to Allah before individual freedom.

Women are groomed to be submissive baby machines; gay people are deemed unfit to live; a worldview is cultivated that obliges the Muslim to distance himself from the unbeliever and never to copy the ways of the infidel.

If assimilation programs have the ambition of integrating the first generation and fully assimilating the second, then Australian policy-makers and citizens must be aware of this reality. Europeans underestimated it.

The result is that the Islamists have been able to establish enclaves and networks in some of the continent’s biggest cities. Finally there is the issue of national security and national interest. Australia is a staunch ally of the US and has supported America’s war on terror in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There remains a serious threat of retaliation from the worldwide web of Islamists.

Their methods are subtle: sleeper cells, the transfer of moneys to charities that aid or abet terrorism, the support of the gradual Islamisation of Australia, the setting up of institutions of dawa (persuasion, activation of passive or lapsed Muslims, conversion of non-Muslims); the rejection of democratic values and particularly the abuse of the welfare state.

A serious immigration debate needs to acknowledge these alarming realities. This time really is different. So what should Australia’s immigration policy be?

Australia is a booming economy that clearly needs to and will increase its population.

Higher fertility alone is not a sufficient answer. Creating policies that help Australian women find a balance between work and the care of children is also necessary but not sufficient. An immigration policy is needed that serves the economic needs of Australia while at the same time maintaining social cohesion.

National security at a time of terrorism that transcends borders and peoples must be the other key criterion in determining who gets to be an Australian visitor or resident and who qualifies for citizenship.

An asylum-seeker from Pakistan who is idling his hours away in a refugee camp might be the right person that a miner in Kalgoorlie can train. But given Afghanistan and Pakistan’s problems with Islamism, it is reasonable to ask questions about more than just his engineering degree.

How much schooling in madrassas has he had? How loyal is he to the creed of martyrdom? Is he willing to reject the political and social dimensions of Islam? Is he willing to learn the language, values, customs and convictions (in short the Australian way of life)? Will he promise to abide by the law — Australian, not sharia?

Such questions can and should be asked of whoever is seeking admission into Australia. Merely to be fleeing a failed state or a civil war is not sufficient.

Nor can it be enough simply to have a family member already resident in Australia. Even a proven skill of use to the Australian economy is not a sufficient qualification. Australians have a right to be reassured those wishing to join their society will respect their traditions and principles.

It is abundantly clear from my visit to the Museum of Immigration that previous generations of immigrants were more than ready to sign up for those principles. But the world has changed — and Australia’s immigration policy must change with it.

The video opens at the Cochise County ranch of John Ladd, whose family homesteaded the land in 1896. Ladd describes repeated sightings of illegal immigrants from his kitchen window. The report shows video of illegal immigrants running across his property to rendezvous with smugglers driving on nearby Highway 92.

The video also includes multiple scenes recorded by cameras hidden alongside trails through the 14,000-acre ranch. It shows not only dozens of illegal immigrants hiking northward, but also a group of three drug smugglers carrying bundles wrapped in burlap. That is the method smugglers commonly use to move marijuana to points where they rendezvous with vehicles that carry the load northward. These are different hidden cameras, in a different part of the border region, from last month’s, ‘Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border 2.’

The illegal activity continues despite the fence that marks the border at the southern edge of the Ladd ranch. The report makes the point that the fence isn’t much of an obstacle, especially when the Border Patrol is not around.

The video shows that one of the most active smuggling corridors lies just west of the Ladd Ranch, through the Huachuca Mountains. It features excerpts from an interview with an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was part of a group of 11 persons that hiked over the Huachucas in November. After descending into the outskirts of Sierra Vista, the group was met by two vehicles that took them a short distance before dropping them off south of a Border Patrol checkpoint. They then walked around the checkpoint, meeting vehicles farther north that took them to Tucson. The illegal immigrant paid $2,800 to be smuggled from the border to Maryland, where he is now working in two fast food restaurants.

Brandon Judd, president of the union that represents non-supervisory Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector, also appears in the video. He talks about the Border Patrol’s lack of manpower to control the trails through the Huachucas and the flanks of the highway checkpoints.

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Jerry Kammer, (202) 256-1057, gjk@cis.org

The number of council houses given to immigrants has increased by 10 per cent in only a year to nearly 10,000. Official figures show nearly one in every 15 newly-available homes let by a council or housing association went to a foreign national.

The revelations highlight the pressure immigration has put on housing and public services. They have also prompted calls for a review of the rules on how social housing is allocated amid fears long-standing UK residents could be losing out.

Tory MP James Clappison, who uncovered the statistics, said: ‘This is one more aspect of the pressures created by immigration, at a time when people are waiting many years on a waiting list for tenancy. ‘The system surely must be ripe for review. I think it will strike a lot of people as strange when UK citizens are waiting up to ten years for a home.

According to research by the House of Commons Library, foreign nationals were given the keys to 9,979 social houses in 2008/9. That is up 905 from the 2007/8 figure of 9,074. A total of 147,739 new social lettings were made in 2008/9. That means nearly 7 per cent of homes went to migrants.

Nearly three quarters of the increase was attributed to houses let to immigrants from EU countries. The total is made up of houses and flats let by councils and housing associations. Rents in such properties are subsidised by taxpayers.

It is estimated the cost of providing social housing averages £133,941 a home. The Government contributes £62,000 with the rest coming from developers or social landlords. Taxpayer-subsidised housing is in short supply nationwide with nearly two million people on the waiting list.

EU immigrants who are working can apply for social housing immediately. Other foreign nationals are legally entitled to social housing after spending more than four years in the UK or successfully claiming asylum.

Once immigrants are on the list, they are considered at the same time as long-standing residents on the basis of who has the greatest ‘need’.

Labour pledged to introduce new powers to allow local families to be given preference, but then backed down from changing the law amid fears that it could breach human rights laws.

A spokesman for the Communities and Local Government Department said: ‘Over 90 per cent of foreign nationals who arrived in the UK over the past two years were living in the private rented sector, and most of those who have recently come to England are not eligible for social housing.

‘Councils are responsible for deciding their own housing allocation schemes, but migrants who are eligible for council housing are given no special priority and must have their needs considered against the needs of all other eligible applicants.’

The spokesman said the Government aimed ‘to reduce net migration back to 1990s levels – tens of thousands each year, not hundreds of thousands’. It had already introduced limits on immigrant numbers, he added.

A baby boom is creating a ‘critical’ shortage of primary school places, it emerged last night. It will also affect class sizes, with more than half a million primary school children expected to be taught in classes of more than 30 from next month.

Schools are prevented by law from allowing classes in the first two years from exceeding 30. But that often simply means head teachers are forced to create much larger classes for older age groups.

The scale of the problems is such that thousands of pupils will be taught in temporary buildings when the new school year begins. A leaked Government report revealed new classrooms are needed immediately for as many as 60,000 pupils.

Ministers have attacked Labour for failing to prepare for the influx of new pupils, despite warnings schools did not have the places. Figures show the number of children at English primary schools will rise for the first time in a decade, to 3.96 million. And over the next four years they are expected to grow by another 320,000.

The report said: ‘A considerable number of local authorities [are] claiming that they have been “caught out” by recent changes in demographic patterns and [are] seeking additional central funding for some 60,000 additional pupil places.’

Losing the Battle on Illegal Immigration?

Mea Culpa — Sadly I Was Spun by that Skilled Spinner, Sen. Schumer

ICE’s Morton on Washington Journal

Mexican Border, Indian Visas, American Problems

A Double Whammy in That Senate Appropriations Bill

Looking for a Cheap Date

Three Sets of Victims in the Latest H-1B Scandal

Marriage Fraud a Growing Problem

There are No Anchor Babies, or Why E.J. Dionne Must Visit Parkland Hospital

The Klutz Factor in Illegal Immigration: The Dehydrated Flood Victim

ICE’s Mission Melt 2: It Won’t Say Yes to Congressional Support

Give Us Your Terrorists, Your MS-13 Homies . . .

The Immigration Managers: New Ranking Immigration Lawyer at Justice

ICE’s Mission Melt: Agents Vote ‘No Confidence’ in Leadership

When their main servers are down, they seem to go to a backup server which seems to be updated only once a day. So when readers log on they see everything EXCEPT the latest posts.

Yesterday, however they had a REAL meltdown with no access at all to this blog being available for several hours.

In the circumstances, I have taken the precaution of setting up on the blogspot platform an alternative site to this one which I will update whenever I become aware of a WordPress service outage. Check it out HERE. If WordPress becomes too troublesome, I may move there permanently.

Here is why: The new breed of illegal immigrant in Arizona is not the man or woman pining for a better life, including work, in the United States. In recent years it has become more of a drug-driven enterprise.

The insatiable demand for drugs in this country, along with lack of border security, has created a new phenomenon: Ruthless drug cartels south of the Arizona border have set up human smuggling operations. Because virtually no border security is in place within 50 to 60 miles of the border, paramilitary drug smugglers and their human cargo operate almost at will. In other words, drug cartels are using illegal immigration tactics to get their product into the United States.

Considering the forgoing, is it any surprise Phoenix has a huge kidnapping problem? Is it any surprise ranch owners within 50 miles of the border are afraid for their lives and don’t go out at night?

Ironically, the Arizona law is actually less tough than the federal law, though one would never know that from the partisan statements and mainstream media coverage. Per the Arizona law, racial profiling is strictly prohibited, and police can ask for identification only if there is “reasonable cause” to believe something is amiss. “Reasonable cause” is not required of federal agents under the federal law. Federal law also requires that resident aliens carry proof of their legal status at all times — green cards, for example.

What is really strange is the federal response to the Arizona law. It sued and won the first round, claiming federal pre-emption of the whole immigration area. It is unclear whether the federal statutes have in fact expressly pre-empted the field on this, and in any event it will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Many legal scholars believe Arizona will prevail.

Yet the feds seem to have no problem with the 80 or so “sanctuary cities” that openly flout federal law by refusing to turn over illegal aliens, many of whom have been charged with state and/or city law violations.

And, by the way, express federal pre-emption did occur with respect to “sanctuary cities” in a 1996 statute.

So we are in a state of being that George Orwell would understand well: The Obama administration strongly objects when a state wants to help enforce the law and thereby leaves Arizona defenseless to near-open borders, thanks to the dereliction by the feds. But of course there is no problem with cities that openly flout the law.

There are a lot of sensible actions that could be taken to fix our immigration policies, but I would start with border security. Unfortunately, here we run into the entrenched Washington ruling class, in which Democrats do not want to make changes without amnesty, which will bring them a huge number of new Democratic voters, and Republicans do not want to make a change because their business friends like the availability of cheap labor.

What a sorry state of affairs.

Abbott, leader of the centre-right Liberal Party, said people smugglers could be jailed for 10 years or more as he launched his campaign, ahead of what is expected to be a closely fought election on 21 August.

Julia Gillard, who became the country’s first female prime minister after Kevin Rudd was ousted in a Labor party coup in June, was backed by her predecessor as the pair also hit the hustings in Brisbane.

Abbott was behind in the polls a month ago, but a recent poll by Galaxy research found a 50/50 split. Personal attacks on Gillard, combined with damaging revelations that she questioned key Labor policies, have seriously harmed her chances of victory.

Illegal immigration is shaping up as a decisive issue in an election which a recent poll suggested could leave Australia with its first hung parliament since the second world war.

Opinion polls suggest voters in marginal seats are concerned that the government is not doing enough to turn back boatloads of asylum seekers.

Abbott said a Liberal government would seek new talks with the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru to reopen a processing centre for asylum seekers, mirroring the plan which helped the party win the 2001 and 2004 elections.

“We are determined to send a strong message to people smugglers that their cruel and callous trade in human cargo must stop,” the opposition leader told cheering Liberal-National Party coalition supporters, under the banner: “Stand up for Australia, stand up for real action.”

Gillard was swift to dismiss suggestions Labor was soft on people smuggling, however, pointing out that the government introduced new border protection laws this year, including a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment for the most serious people-smuggling offences and up to 10 years in jail for assisting smugglers. “We’ve got mandatory jail sentences in the current legislation. We have had a crackdown,” she told Australian television.

Abbott also pledged to kill off Labor’s proposed 30% mining tax on the first day of a conservative government, and promised a united team if he wins office – seeking to draw comparisons with the perceived dissension within Labour since Gillard replaced Rudd. “It’s time to end this soap opera and to give Australia back a grown-up government,” he said.

I’d started running political focus groups for Labour in the Eighties. This gave me the perfect vantage point to see the birth of New Labour – and its subsequent ups and downs – through the eyes of voters.

What struck me most was the huge gulf between the electorate and the political classes. While politicians in the Westminster village are obsessed with the trivia that purports to be matters of great importance, voters worry about issues that directly impact their families and their communities.

This is deeply damaging to democracy. Above all, this gulf between voters and politicians is felt most strongly when it comes to immigration.

After running focus groups for 25 years, I can honestly say I’ve rarely sat through one without the subject being raised. This week, immigration was never far from the top of the news agenda. First, two Church of England vicars were arrested for allegedly running a bogus immigrant marriage racket.

Then, we heard that ministers were considering a deal to bypass the proposed immigration cap and allow more foreign students into Britain.

It was also revealed that 17,000 immigrants told to leave Britain have won their appeal to stay after Home Office officials failed to turn up to the hearings.

Feelings have always been strong, but are often expressed hesitantly. Someone might say: ‘I’m not being funny or anything . . .’ then introduce the topic nervously, waiting to see if others would agree. Some even say: ‘I’m not being racist or anything . . .’ before making their point.

In my experience, most voters are not racist – they are worried that their homes, jobs and public services are under threat. They fear their livelihoods are being undermined by people who, having come to Britain as recent immigrants, have made a less significant contribution to the country. This, they feel, is fundamentally unfair. Often, these views are most strongly held by the poorest.

At the 2001 General Election, turnout dropped dramatically from more than 70 per cent to less than 60 per cent. Some of the safest Labour seats in working-class strongholds saw a fall of up to 20 per cent.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge’s constituency of Barking & Dagenham was typical. There was widespread concern from the traditional white working class about the number of immigrants there. Mrs Hodge asked me to conduct focus groups to look into the problem of low turnout. I found that many people had not voted because they felt it would not make any difference to their lives.

Politicians’ silence on immigration had fuelled this anger. Mrs Hodge urged the government to address the problem. But her plea was ignored and she was vilified by her Labour colleagues.

Things had worsened by the 2005 General Election. During the campaign, I ran a series of focus groups with women voters in the marginal seat of Watford for Radio 4’s Today programme.

Reporting on the first meeting, the BBC journalist Iain Watson said: ‘So, what issues would sway voters in the next election? Initially, most women talked about public services – health and education, in particular. But then it turned out that there had been an elephant in the room.

‘As soon as one person was brave enough to admit spotting it, suddenly most of the others could see it, too.’ One after another, the women voters said: ‘I’ll be honest: I was too frightened to mention immigration because I thought it wouldn’t be politically correct. ‘You’ve got all the asylum seekers who can come in and we fund them finding houses and they’re saying we can’t have pensions for our own people…’

These views confirmed opinion polls at the time, which showed immigration was at, or near, the top of people’s concerns and that eight out of ten agreed that ‘immigration laws should be much tougher or immigration should be stopped altogether’.

A year before Gordon Brown became prime minister, I ran a major focus group study. By then, immigration had become the main issue. We described our findings to Mr Brown and senior Cabinet members. We explained immigration was a vortex issue – its whirlpool effect engulfing everything in its wake.

Voters were emphatic. They believed the NHS couldn’t cope because too many immigrants were using its services (for example, the Office for National Statistics recently revealed that nearly a quarter of babies born in Britain have immigrant mothers).

They thought schools weren’t able to teach properly because they were struggling with large numbers of immigrant children who couldn’t speak English. They believed people couldn’t find work because immigrants were prepared to take jobs for much less money. And they said families found it impossible to get accommodation because the government gives priority to immigrant families.

It’s important to point out again that, despite the strength of these feelings, it doesn’t mean people are racist. Quite simply, many voters feel the economic security of their families is under threat. In the most part they included young families struggling to pay their mortgages, anxious about unemployment and dependent on public services that they knew were straining at the seams.

People get angry when they think others are getting rewards unfairly, while they work hard and struggle. So they get angry at immigrants and welfare cheats in the same way they get angry at bankers with huge bonuses.

The truth is that none of this is about racism, but simply about fairness – getting what you’ve worked for and deserve. Many politicians fail to understand this. They confuse genuine fears that immigrants are taking up scarce resources with racism.

Indeed, this has been one of the gravest misunderstandings between voters and the political class that cries ‘racism’ or ‘bigotry’ whenever genuine concerns about immigration are raised.

Gordon Brown’s description of Gillian Duffy – the Labour-supporting grandmother from Rochdale who famously tackled him over her concerns about immigration during the election campaign – as a ‘bigoted woman’ is very telling.

I always fed back voters’ views about immigration to Labour’s high command. But despite the subject being such a hot topic, it was never put at the top of the political agenda. There was simply no appetite to listen, let alone act. It was as if politicians were in paralysis.

Hugely frustrated, voters felt they were being silenced on a subject that mattered to their daily lives.

In 2007, when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, he introduced an Australian-style points system (under which potential immigrants from outside the EU can qualify for entry based only on strict criteria), but by then it was too little, too late.

Back in Margaret Hodge’s constituency, feelings were running high. In the autumn of 2009, the news broke that the BNP leader Nick Griffin was planning to stand against her in the General Election.

I returned to Barking & Dagenham to run another series of focus groups. Mrs Hodge’s reputation was strong – she was known to have worked hard in the constituency – but people felt beleaguered. Once again, immigration was the top issue. The consensus was that Barking ‘had it first and had it worst’. As one resident put it: ‘We’re the dumping ground.’

In this traditional working-class area, people felt neglected and angry. They also complained that the community had changed beyond recognition – not becoming multi-racial in a positive way, but with an uneasy clash of cultures. A typical comment was: ‘It don’t feel like Britain no more.’

Twelve BNP councillors had recently been elected in the constituency and Mrs Hodge was determined not to let her seat fall into BNP hands. She wrote an article for the Daily Mail calling for a points system to give housing priority to local people, stressing that she wanted to see immigrants treated fairly, but that ‘concern for refugees should not prevent us from having the debate about immigration in the context of fairness to the people who have lived in and contributed to the affected communities’.

At the General Election, Mrs Hodge bucked the national trend – her re-election was one of Labour’s decisive victories. The BNP came a derisory third and all 12 BNP councillors lost their seats in the local election. Mrs Hodge was a local hero: here, at last, was a politician who was prepared to listen to voters and speak out on their behalf.

But the debate goes on about immigration. The coalition Government has just announced a cap on non-EU immigration. However, focus groups suggest this may well be another ‘too little too late’ initiative, paying lip service rather than really dealing with the core issues.

In any case, voters are worried about levels of immigration from EU countries as well, and their complaints often centre on the immigrants who are already here rather than those who still want to come to Britain.

In my new book, I use the phrase ‘Peter Pan politics’ to describe how voters are kept in a childlike state by ‘adult’ politicians – fed a drip of promises and soundbites, but excluded from the real debate. What they deserve is a grown-up debate about immigration. This is the only way to heal division and banish racism. It could be the first step in mending our democracy and rebuilding the relationship between voter and politician.

The tribunal questioned the religious credentials of a Chinese man applying for a protection visa after he was allegedly persecuted in his homeland for his Catholic beliefs. His cousin vouched for their Catholic upbringing and regular attendance at a Sydney church but the tribunal, unimpressed by the cousin’s biblical knowledge, found neither was a true believer and refused to grant the visa.

The cousin’s explanation of how Jesus was born – that “they stayed in a stable and that night Maria gave birth to Jesus Christ and an angel and a shepherd were around” – was, according to the tribunal, “very vague for someone who claims to have been a practising Catholic since birth and who attends church every Sunday”.

As for the story he nominated as his favourite biblical tale, the tribunal declared it was “not familiar with this as a genuine story from the Bible”.

In the cousin’s version, when Jesus was 12 he disappeared on a visit to his home town. His parents found him in the church, where people “said he spoke very well”.

Based on this supposedly inauthentic Bible story offered by his “vague and evasive” cousin, the tribunal found the would-be refugee lacked a true belief in Catholicism.

It was the tribunal, however, whose knowledge of the Bible proved a little rusty, with a federal magistrate who reviewed the case, Kenneth Raphael, describing it as a “very reasonable paraphrase” of Luke 2:41-47.

The passage in Luke describes 12-year-old Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem after spending Passover there with his parents.

He was found in the temple courts, questioning the teachers, and everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and answers.

The Chinese national, who cannot be named, sought a review of the decision in the Federal Magistrates Court, arguing the tribunal had “exceeded its jurisdiction by taking upon itself the role of arbiter of minimum religious knowledge to be a Catholic”.

The tribunal “set itself up as an arbiter of religious knowledge”, Mr Raphael said. In fact, the cousin’s story was not vague or inaccurate but “a very reasonable paraphrase”. He ordered the case back to the tribunal for determination.

Hungary is set to hand passports to millions of people living outside the EU – raising the prospect of a new wave of immigration into Britain. From next year, Hungary’s leaders will begin a huge passport giveaway to minority groups who have historic or ethnic ties to the East European country but live elsewhere.

Most of the beneficiaries live in impoverished countries on the fringes of Europe. Once they are given a passport, they will be entitled to full access to the rest of the EU – including Britain.

Similar passport handout schemes – which are legal under EU laws – are under way in Romania and Bulgaria. Together, it is estimated the three countries could add nearly five million citizens to the continent’s population, at a time when it is struggling to bounce back from a deeply damaging recession and financial crisis.

Although they have some control for Romanian and Bulgarian nationals, UK ministers are powerless to place restrictions on arrivals from Hungary. That means the potential impact on Britain of two million new Hungarian passports is much larger. Hungary was one of eight Eastern European nations which joined the EU in 2004.

But Labour ministers, unlike their counterparts in Germany and Austria, rejected the option of imposing work permit controls that would have limited the numbers coming here. That led to an estimated one million arrivals from Eastern Europe – despite predictions the number would be fewer than 20,000. The restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian nationals will expire in 2013 – opening the door to the UK.

Critics called for limits on the number of new passports member states could hand out to those living outside their borders. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘The sheer scale of this risks getting out of hand. ‘When we granted equal access to EU citizens we had no idea that member states would be dishing out passports to anybody they could think of that had some previous link to their countries. ‘There has to be some limit to what member states are allowed to do in this respect.’

From January, Hungary intends to offer passports to millions of ethnic Hungarians living outside its borders. That includes 300,000 living in Serbia and 160,000 in the Ukraine, neither of which is a EU member.

Millions worldwide are eligible for EU passports – but those in prosperous nations rarely take up the option. It’s the world’s have-nots who are drawn to Europe – and the citizenships offered to outsiders are like winning the lottery. The average annual income in Serbia is around £3,700 a year, and the average Ukrainian worker earns just £1,500 annually.

Last month it emerged some 900,000 Moldovans with ethnic ties to Romania had applied for Romanian passports since the beginning of its scheme. Of those, around 120,000 applications have been approved and the remainder are being processed. The Romanian government claims it is simply giving back citizenship to people who were part of the country until 1940 when Moldova was invaded by Russia and annexed.

Romanian president Traian Basescu has said all Moldovans who think of themselves as Romanian – most of the country’s 3.6million population – should be able to ‘move freely both in Romania and the EU’.

Around 1.4million people living in Macedonia are eligible for Bulgarian passports, as are 300,000 Turks expelled from Bulgaria in the 1980s. Estimates put the total of all those eligible for EU citizenship from Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria at 4.7million. Were every one to take up the offer, it would increase the EU population – estimated at 500million – by 1 per cent.

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: ‘The new Government is determined to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands per year. ‘The UK Border Agency will continue to monitor closely any changes in the numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians coming to the UK.’

U.S. Senators agreed to boost security along the U.S-Mexico border on Thursday by passing an emergency spending bill that appropriates $600 million to be paid for by higher visa fees for foreign companies.

In a voice vote, Senators agreed to provide funding for 1,200 new border patrol agents, 250 new customs and border protection officers, a pair of unmanned airplanes, two operating bases and radio communications equipment.

“This bipartisan effort shows we are serious about making the border more secure than ever,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, the primary sponsor of the bill and chairman Senate Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee.

“Now our attention must turn to comprehensive reform, which is the only way to fully address the problem of illegal immigration,” he said.

The House passed a similar, $700 million bill last week and could look at the Senate’s version in a special session convened by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, next week to vote on additional funding for states.

The plan will be paid for by higher fees on foreign companies applying for U.S. visa programs that bring foreign workers into the country, according to Sen. Clair McCkaskill, D-MO. “It’s paid for in a way that makes sense. We’re talking about foreign companies with more than half of their employees, skilled workers … are on visas,” she said. “What it’s hopefully going to do is create some vacancies for Americans at some of these higher skilled jobs,” she said.

Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, said the money was a “significant step” toward implementing a proposed security plan for the border. “Although, there is a great deal more to be done, I believe today Democrats finally put good policy over politics and agreed we must secure our border first,” he said. “I anticipate many of these resources will be placed along the Arizona border,’ he said.

Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano said the funding will “add important, permanent resources” for boosting security along the Southwest border. “These assets are critical to bringing additional capabilities to crack down on transnational criminal organizations and reduce the illicit trafficking of people, drugs, currency and weapons,” she said.

The bill funding will also pay for new radio communications equipment. Pelosi said last week that border security “is one of the central pillars of bipartisan comprehensive reform.”

Analysts say that wide ranging legislation on immigration will not be taken up by Congress until after the November elections. Previous proposals for so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” have not met with support by Congress and President Barack Obama has said there is not enough support from Republican lawmakers.

Proposals for such legislation have included stronger border security, a pathway to legal status for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, tougher employer accountability and additional visas for workers in industries facing shortages.

Note also that the legal side of the ACLU argument is based on the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Strange that they have no objection to the most blatant breach there is of that clause: “Affirmative action”. What’s good for the goose is obviously not good for the gander

The ACLU of Virginia today urged law enforcement to ignore Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s opinion on their power to inquire about immigration status while opponents of illegal immigration pushed for more severe action.

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, who sought the opinion that Cuccinelli issued on July 30, sent a letter today to all Virginia sheriffs departments to encourage them “to do all that you can” using the powers described in the opinion to root out gangs.

Meantime, Corey A. Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors and a dogged foe of illegal immigration, said he is asking Congress to subpoena Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, for information about criminal illegal aliens that the agency is no longer taking into physical custody.

The developments extended the contentious debate over illegal immigration that has seized the public discourse following Cuccinelli’s opinion that law enforcement in Virginia can ask about the immigration status of any person they stop or arrest if they have reason to suspect that the person violated a criminal immigration law.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, who agrees with Cuccinelli’s opinion, took to cable television today to talk about his push for federal approval for Virginia state police “to be cross trained as ICE agents so that we can do civil immigration enforcement” — not just criminal.

Even Wednesday night in Roanoke, as the governor held the first of eight town hall meetings to pitch his plan for privatizing the state’s liquor stores, two of the attendees’ first three questions were about immigration.

Stewart’s inquiry follows a car crash in Prince William County that killed a nun and critically injured two others. Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, a native of Bolivia and an illegal immigrant, is charged in the crash with third-offense driving under the influence, involuntary manslaughter and driving on a revoked license.

Today was filled with mixed messages to local law enforcement — from the ACLU of Virginia and from Marshall.

The ACLU of Virginia urged law enforcement to disregard Cuccinelli’s opinion, which is advisory and does not carry the force of law. The opinion, according to Rebecca K. Glenberg, legal director for ACLU of Virginia, does not give guidelines as to when it’s justified to ask questions about immigration status.

“Because most police officers have not been trained to enforce immigration law, allowing them to question individuals about immigration status is an invitation for racial profiling and potential Equal Protection violations,” she writes.

“It will also have an adverse effect on public safety as immigrants will be less likely to feel safe cooperating with law enforcement in reporting and responding to questions about crimes.”

Marshall said he “cannot understand” why the ACLU would encourage ignoring the opinion of the highest ranking law enforcement official in the state. “The ACLU’s position essentially allows alien terrorists and gang members to be untouchable in this country,” he said. “We cannot allow this to continue.”

Cuccinelli, in an interview with CNN Wednesday, noted that the new Arizona immigration law — parts of which were temporarily blocked by a federal judge — required law enforcement officers to inquire about immigration status. He noted that his opinion says Virginia’s law enforcement officers may make such inquiries.

He said he expects that local governments around the state will devise their own policies for how their police and sheriffs should proceed.

When the Political Insiders were asked, “on balance” whether they thought “the Justice Department’s legal challenge to Arizona’s immigration law helps or hurts your party in the midterm elections,” 49 percent of the 103 Democratic Insiders who responded to the survey said it would hurt the party on Nov. 2. At the same time, 42 percent said it would help the party and another 10 percent volunteered equivocal responses, saying it would both help and hurt, wouldn’t have an impact, or would be a neutral factor in the elections.

Conversely, of the 97 GOP Insiders who responded this week, an overwhelming 94 percent said that it would help their party. A tiny four percent said the issue would hurt and two percent gave equivocal responses.

The arguments that Democratic Insiders generally made in favor of the DOJ challenge is that it would it would help motivate Hispanics, an important part of the Democratic base, to go the polls in November and that Republicans were likely to alienate Hispanics by defending the Arizona statute.

Several Democrats who felt the DOJ move would likely hurt the party said that it only highlighted a wedge issue that the White House and Congressional Democrats had failed to fix and it was a distraction from more the paramount issue this year, the economy.
But some Democrats who said that issue would be a negative in the midterms also agreed that the challenge to the law would pay long-term benefits. “Short term, it hurts,” said one Democratic Insider. “Long term it is another nail in the Republican’s demographic coffin.”

Republican Insiders said that the Justice Department action smacked of legal over-reach and would alienate independent and swing voters in districts where Democratic incumbents are already under siege. But even though they saw the issue as a plus for this November, a few GOP Insiders worried about how the immigration debate would play out down the road. As one GOP Insiders put it, “The longer Republicans stand behind a plan of “border security first,” the further we move away from Hispanics.”

Failure to carry out the proper checks on migrants while they are in police custody is leading to huge amounts remaining in the country rather than being deported. Police fear asking questions about their nationality because they will be hung out to dry by politically correct regulations.

The Home Office report recommends that more checks on suspects while in custody and a closer relationship with the UK Border Agency is needed to identify illegal immigrants. A pilot study found that when enhanced checks were applied, more than three times as illegal immigrants were found. The 14 custody suites in England and Wales showed that the number of those identified rose from 73 to 250 during the three-month trial.

In one city, 20 suspected illegal immigrants were found during the first month, but only six were deported due to a lack of detention space. The rest were all given temporary release with conditions.

The Determining Identity and Nationality in Local Policing report also revealed that 435 foreign nationals were arrested in the same area and period – accounting for 25 per cent of all arrests. ‘The research demonstrated that more rigorous practices in custody suites could increase the number of foreign nationals and illegal migrants who are identified as being involved in criminal activity,” its authors said.

‘In some sites there was a marked reluctance to challenge arrestees who claimed to be British, even though officers suspected that the claims might be false. ‘This reluctance was commonly ascribed to the fear that any such challenge could result in an accusation of racism.’

The report also found that police officers were generally uncomfortable with detaining illegal migrants who had not been charged with a criminal offence and, in half of the 14 sites studied, ‘custody suite leads perceived illegal migrants as being a drain on custody suite time and resources’.

‘The use of police custody suites to detain arrestees because of their immigration status was a significant source of tension between the police and the immigration service in nearly every site visited,’ the report added.

Just under one in five of all suspected illegal migrants arrested were questioned over serious offences, compared with just over one in ten of UK citizens arrested, the report found.

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘This research is more than three years old, and we are committed to improving the way the police and UK Border Agency work together. ‘We have already started making improvements with better information sharing, joint Local Immigration Crime Teams, and the introduction of a 24-hour phone service allowing police officers to check an offenders’ nationality with the UK Border Agency.

‘The new Government has recognised that much more still needs to be done – that is why we are currently undergoing a summer of activity to crackdown on foreign lawbreakers, and why we are committed to speeding up the removals of those with no right to be in the UK.’

And even the Indonesians can see that it is a foolish decision that will just encourage more illegals to come!

Indonesia has backed Australia’s secret decision to accept an additional 450 refugees annually for resettlement. But Jakarta has warned that the extra places could act as a magnet for asylum-seekers.

With Immigration Minister Chris Evans refusing to confirm the expanded resettlement arrangements, authorities in Jakarta announced they would establish a five-person taskforce to investigate claims corrupt government officials were working with smugglers to send people to Australia. The claims, aired on the ABC’s Four Corners program, provoked fresh skirmishes on the campaign trail yesterday.

Julia Gillard sought to deflect questions about corruption in Indonesia. “We’ve made resources available to the Indonesians to assist with the disruption of people-smuggling and we have enjoyed some success in that,” the Prime Minister said.

But Tony Abbott seized on the report, declaring people smugglers were “out of control”. “The only way to get that situation under control is to deny the people-smugglers a product to sell, and that means bringing back temporary protection visas, and this is one thing that the Rudd-Gillard government just won’t do,” the Opposition Leader said.

The head of Indonesia’s Immigration Department Muhammad Indra said he had formed the team in response to the allegations, which portrayed widespread and high-level corruption within Indonesia’s military and Immigration Department. “We need to investigate this because we don’t want to be undermined,” Mr Indra said. “But it’s a long process. We still have to gather evidence.”

Director of enforcement and investigation for the Immigration Department Husein Alaydrus warned yesterday that news of the additional places could attract yet more asylum-seekers. “If (the extra places) reduces the numbers of asylum-seekers already in Indonesia, then I suppose its a good thing,” Mr Alaydrus said. “But if it becomes an attracting factor, then I don’t think that would be good.”

Canberra’s unannounced decision to increase refugee resettlements through Indonesia from the current 50 people annually to 500 was disclosed by UN High Commissioner for Refugees senior representative in Jakarta Manuel Jordao on the Four Corners program. Senator Evans refused to give any details on the increased number of refugees, saying only that resettlement from Indonesia was a “normal process”.

But yesterday, Mr Alaydrus said he had been alerted several days earlier to the Canberra decision by Australian officials.

Indonesia currently holds about 2200 illegal registered asylum-seekers, about 1200 in 13 detention centres and the rest free in the community, awaiting processing for refugee placement or deportation.

News also broke today that Cuccinelli issued an official advisory opinion on July 30 that was another shot across the bow of the Obama Administration in the ongoing fight over enforcement of federal immigration laws.

In response to an inquiry from a state representative, Cuccinelli advised all Virginia law enforcement officers that, just like Arizona police officers, they can “inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested.” Moreover, local officers can arrest any individual who has “violated a criminal law of the United States, including a criminal violation of the immigration laws.”

Unlike the specious “legal” opinion issued by Judge Susan Bolton in the Arizona immigration case, Cuccinelli’s opinion is fully in accord with federal immigration law and prior court decisions that have held that local police officers can inquire into the immigration status of individuals they lawfully detain or arrest. On the ability to arrest those who have criminally violated federal immigration laws, Cuccinelli very pointedly explains that “it would be most surprising if state and local officers lacked the authority…to arrest individuals suspected of committing federal crimes.” If they did, then local law enforcement would have “to stand idly by and allow” bank robbers, kidnappers, or terrorists who have violated federal law “to proceed with impunity.” Why should criminal violators of federal immigration laws be somehow different? That is, of course, a ridiculous claim, although it has not prevented pro-illegal aliens groups and their spokesmen from criticizing Cuccinelli’s opinion.

In the heart of the opinion, Cuccinelli makes it very clear that Virginia police “have the same authority to make the same inquiries as those contemplated by the new Arizona law. So long as the officers have the requisite level of suspicion to believe that a violation of the law has occurred, the officers may detain and briefly question a person they suspect has committed a federal crime.” The real problem, of course, will be if the federal government then refuses to pick up and deport illegal aliens who have been found by local police—an unfortunate problem that illustrates the importance of having someone in the White House who understands the President’s constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

We should never forget that this issue has real consequences: two teenagers in Virginia Beach were killed in 2007 by a drunken illegal alien who rammed their car at a stoplight. He had been previously arrested and convicted for public drunkenness and DUI—if local police had checked his immigration status after those prior arrests and the federal government had picked him up and deported him back to Mexico, those two girls would likely be alive today.

Hopefully, not only will local police officers in Virginia use the authority that Attorney General Cuccinelli has given them, but other state attorneys general will follow his lead and issue similar opinions. The Justice Department and the Obama Administration need to be confronted by states contesting their ill-advised and dangerous policy of not fully enforcing our immigration laws.

The Inept Visa Lottery Middleman, Revisited

A Rare Voice in the Spanish-Language Press

Remarkable C-SPAN Exchange

A Refreshing Story the Tax-Dodging Yacht, the Illegals, and the Coast Guard

Judicial Activism in Arizona

C-SPAN Callers Note Concerns of African-Americans

Lawsuit Lessons

Nice Town You Got There, Shame If Anything Happened to It

In for the Long Haul

1994 Story Foreshadowed Federal Response to SB 1070

A Stroll Through ICE’s Online Detention Locator System

Is There Any Enforcement They Support?

Attrition Before Enforcement!

The number of immigrants winning leave to remain in Britain at a hearing when no official was present jumped by almost 50 per cent last year. More than 17,000 won appeals in such cases – a figure which stood at less than 1,500 just five years ago. In some instances the Home Office has later decided to counter-appeal the decision – a procedure that comes at a significant cost to the taxpayer.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, told the Times: ‘This is a shocking state of affairs. ‘It represents a waste of money. ‘I think in some cases they cannot be bothered to turn up because they look at the papers and know they are not going to win. ‘In other cases it is sheer inefficiency. There seems to be an attitude that they do not even care what the result is going to be.’

In the absence of home office officials, migrants have won appeals against refused asylum applications, deportation orders and refusals of entry to the UK. Last year 17,473 migrants won their appeals at hearings at which the Home Office was not represented by an official. A further 23,997 won appeals when the Home Office was represented, a parliamentary written answer revealed.

A migrant is far more likely to win an appeal if there is no official present to defend decisions. But the UK Border agency is struggling to cope with a massive rise in the number of appeals to Asylum and Immigration Tribunals over the past five years and cannot spare the staff to attend all contentious hearings.

Richard Simcox, of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said the department did not have enough staff to cope with the number of appeals. ‘It will get worse if there are cuts in staff,’ he told the Times. ‘It is essential that officials are given the time to carry out their roles properly to ensure appeal cases are handled effectively and fairly.’

The Immigration Law Practitioners Association said that it was in the interests of justice that both sides be represented. It said that the Home Office frequently sought to appeal cases after failing to field a presenting officer, which it described as an extraordinarily inefficient use of time and resources.

Sophie Barrett-Brown, its chairwoman, told the Times: ‘It is difficult to know why presenting officers do not turn up. ‘I have had cases where the original decision was indefensible and there has been an official present. ‘There are other cases where there are quite complex arguments that should be argued in front of a judge and presenting officers are not there. ‘Often it is left to the judge to raise the issues.’

Immigration minister Damian Green said that he had launched an initiative aimed at improving the system.

Two weeks ago the government announced that a permanent annual limit on immigration would be imposed from next April. Home Secretary Theresa May said an annual limit on non-EU economic migration was key to bringing net migration back into the tens of thousands instead of hundreds of thousands.

But critics claim the cap would not achieve this because the government has no control over how many migrants from Eastern European EU countries come to the UK.

It followed the introduction of Labour’s points-based immigration system which was supposed to made it harder for unskilled immigrants to come to Britain. However, the new system made it no harder for immigrants to enter the country on student visas, according to campaign groups.

The Government said that the student visa system had been open to “significant abuse”. Damian Green, the immigration minister, said there would be a thorough review of the rules.

Many students enter Britain to take legitimate degrees, with universities increasingly seeing them as a lucrative source of income at a time of cuts to higher education budgets. Recent research showed that as many as a third of universities were preparing to increase the number of foreign undergraduates they admit from September.

As well as attending traditional universities, tens of thousands of foreign students have been admitted to 600 “lower tier” colleges, at which it is easier to gain a place but which are still accredited to hand out bachelor degrees.

Last year, it emerged that some of these colleges offered qualifications in subjects such as circus skills, acupuncture and ancient medicine. Many of their students are given the right to work in Britain after graduating.

About 4,000 illegal immigrants are also thought to have taken advantage of bogus colleges to slip into the country.

Mr Green added: “We are committed to attracting the brightest and the best to the UK, and welcome legitimate students coming here for study. However, in the past there has been significant abuse of the student route, and we need to ensure that every student who comes to the UK is genuine. “Therefore I am undertaking a thorough evaluation of the student system over the coming weeks and months and I will introduce new measures to minimise abuse and tighten the system further.”

According to Home Office figures, 313,011 foreign students were granted visas in the 12 months up to March. They brought with them some 31,385 dependants. The figures were a 32 per cent increase on the 235,295 students and 24,780 dependants given visas in the previous year.

Numbers rose steadily under Labour, but last year’s increase was thought to have been the largest single rise on record. Under the points-based immmigration system, students are required to have 40 points to come to Britain.

Applicants receive 30 points for holding a course offer from a college or university, and 10 points for proving they can pay the fees and support themselves while in the country.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the campaign group Migrationwatch, said: “There is growing evidence that the new points-based system has provided a back door to Britain for bogus students.”

Immigration minister Damian Green has ordered an urgent internal investigation to find out if the taxpayer has been short-changed. The accounts also reveal how Labour:

* Paid £1.2million in bribes to people who never even set foot in Britain

* Gave repatriation grants to migrants from wealthy countries – including the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand

* Lavished thousands on teaching foreign preachers about life in ‘multi-cultural’ Britain

* Sent Afghans on year-long holidays to see if they would like to go home permanently

* Bribed Poles to go home in the same year their country joined the EU, meaning they became eligible to immediately return to the UK

* Handed almost £50,000 to the Ukraine to build a ‘migration advice centre’

* Wasted £25,141 on a cancelled project to support ‘artisans’ in Afghanistan

* Paid £68,235 to China – an industrial powerhouse – to strengthen its migration controls.

The accounts detail how Labour spent almost £80million on schemes designed to encourage failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to go home.

The payments – denounced as ‘bribes’ by critics – were designed to dramatically increase the number of people being removed from the UK. Ministers decided it was cheaper and easier than border guards tracking the illegal immigrants down themselves and forcibly putting them on a plane.

The Home Office also spent hundreds of thousands on grants to foreign countries so they could improve their border controls, or dissuade their citizens from travelling here.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘These crazy, badly thought-out schemes should never have received a penny of taxpayers’ money.

‘It’s good that the new government has uncovered this waste and is trying to track down where our missing money has gone, but let’s hope they also step up efforts to deport illegal immigrants more speedily. Confidence in the immigration system needs to be restored, and taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be squandered.’

Last night, Mr Green said: ‘I have launched an investigation into the money provided by the UK Border Agency to the IOM over the past five years. ‘The Agency’s finances are closely monitored, however we must ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely and every penny is accounted for.’

I note that some reports spelled the word euphemistically as “cajones”, which preserves the colloquial meaning but not the literal one. Who knows which way Sarah had it spelled in her notes — if it was written down at all?

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Sunday that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has “the cojones” that President Obama “does not have” to take on illegal immigration. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Palin blasted Obama for suing Arizona to block the state’s controversial new law without addressing “sanctuary cities” — in which local law enforcement are prohibited from asking people about their immigration status.

The former governor said the president and congressional Democrats “are all wet” on plans to allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire. “It’s idiotic to think about increasing taxes at a time like this,” Palin said. She added that her “palm isn’t large enough” to write all her notes down and she proceeded to read prepared notes about tax policy from a sheet of paper.

Palin declined to address “fickle” polls showing that she remains unpopular with independents. “I don’t blame people for not knowing what I stand for,” Palin said. “If I believed everything I read in the media, I wouldn’t like me either.”

The program has gotten less attention than Arizona’s new immigration law, but it may end up having a bigger impact because of its potential to round up and deport so many immigrants nationwide.

The San Francisco sheriff wanted nothing to do with the program, and the City Council in Washington, D.C., blocked use of the fingerprint plan in the nation’s capital. Colorado is the latest to debate the program, called Secure Communities, and immigrant groups have begun to speak up, telling the governor in a letter last week that the initiative will make crime victims reluctant to cooperate with police “due to fear of being drawn into the immigration regime.”

Under the program, the fingerprints of everyone who is booked into jail for any crime are run against FBI criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security immigration records to determine who is in the country illegally and whether they’ve been arrested previously. Most jurisdictions are not included in the program, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been expanding the initiative.

Since 2007, 467 jurisdictions in 26 states have joined. ICE has said it plans to have it in every jail in the country by 2013. Secure Communities is currently being phased into the places where the government sees as having the greatest need for it based on population estimates of illegal immigrants and crime statistics.

Since everyone arrested would be screened, the program could easily deport more people than Arizona’s new law, said Sunita Patel, an attorney who filed a lawsuit in New York against the federal government on behalf of a group worried about the program. Patel said that because illegal immigrants could be referred to ICE at the point of arrest, even before a conviction, the program can create an incentive for profiling and create a pipeline to deport more people.

“It has the potential to revolutionize immigration enforcement,” said Patel.

Patel filed the lawsuit on behalf of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which is concerned the program could soon come to New York. The lawsuit seeks, among other things, statistical information about who has been deported as a result of the program and what they were arrested for.

Supporters of the program argue it is helping identify dangerous criminals that would otherwise go undetected. Since Oct. 27, 2008 through the end of May, almost 2.6 million people have been screened with Secure Communities. Of those, almost 35,000 were identified as illegal immigrants previously arrested or convicted for the most serious crimes, including murder and rape, ICE said Thursday. More than 205,000 who were identified as illegal immigrants had arrest records for less serious crimes.

In Ohio, Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones praised the program, which was implemented in his jurisdiction earlier this month.

“It’s really a heaven-sent for us,” Jones said. He said the program helps solve the problem police often have of not knowing whether someone they arrested has a criminal history and is in the country illegally. “I don’t want them in my community,” Jones said. “I’ve got enough homegrown criminals here.”

Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman, said Secure Communities is a way for law enforcement to identify illegal immigrants after their arrest at no additional cost to local jurisdictions.

Jones agreed. “We arrest these people anyway,” he said. “All it does is help us deport people who shouldn’t be here.”

Rusnok said ICE created the program after Congress directed the agency to improve the way it identifies and deports illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds. ICE has gotten $550 million for the program since 2008, Rusnok said.

Rusnok said the only place he knows of that has requested not to be a part of Secure Communities is San Francisco, which began the program June 8. Eileen Hirst, the chief of staff for San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey, said it happened “without our input or approval.”

Hirst said the sheriff thought Secure Communities cast too wide a net and worried that it would sweep up U.S. citizens and minor offenders, such as people who commit traffic infractions but miss their court hearings. Hirst also said the program goes against San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy that calls for authorities to only report foreign-born suspects booked for felonies.

“Now, we’re reporting every single individual who comes into our custody and gets fingerprinted,” Hirst said.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown denied Hennessey’s request to opt out. Brown said that prior to Secure Communities, illegal immigrants with criminal histories were often released before their status was discovered.

This month, Washington, D.C., police decided not to pursue the program because the City Council introduced a bill that would prohibit authorities from sharing arrest data with ICE out of concern for immigrants’ civil rights. Matthew Bromeland, special assistant to the police chief, said police wanted the program and were talking with ICE about how address concerns from immigrant advocates before the bill forced them to halt negotiations.

Colorado officials became interested in the program after an illegal immigrant from Guatemala with a long criminal record was accused of causing a car crash at a suburban Denver ice-cream shop, killing two women in a truck and a 3-year-old inside the store. Authorities say the illegal immigrant, Francis M. Hernandez, stayed off ICE’s radar because he conned police with 12 aliases and two different dates of birth.

A task-force assembled after the crash recommended Secure Communities as a solution.

Evan Dreyer, a spokesman for Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, said Ritter recognizes that other states have had issues with the program and he wants to take time to consider the concerns raised by immigrant rights groups before deciding “how or if to move forward.”

The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said in its letter to the governor that the Secure Communities is “inherently flawed and should not be implemented.” CIRC said one of its main concerns is that in cases of domestic violence, where both parties may be taken into custody while authorities investigate a case, victims may feel reluctant to report a crime out of fear that their illegal status will be discovered.

ICE maintains that only suspects arrested for crimes – and not the people reporting them – will be screened for their legal status.

The goal of the tires, glass and paint was to stop all deportations back to Mexico as well as stopping all capital flow to damage the economy. The banner placed across the interstate read, “Stop All Militarization! The Border is Illegal!”

The group took full responsibility for the closure on their blog, Resistance to SB1070: No Borders, No State No Papers:

Partial justice is no justice at all! Despite Judge ruling to block parts of SB 1070, racial-profiling, raids, deportations and the militarization of the border will continue unchallenged. This is why today we shut down Interstate 19 (I-19).

The group issued a statement on their blog the day before shutting down the freeway exposing their plan and claimed that land in Arizona is indigenous.

The State of Arizona ruthlessly disrupts and terrorizes the lives of non-white communities on a daily basis. SB 1070 is yet another example of how migrants and people of color are criminalized. Today’s action is a declaration of resistance to the criminalization of affected communities and the militarization of indigenous land.

Neither SB 1070 nor the deployment of National Guard troops to the border do anything to address the root causes as to why people migrate. U.S. economic policies and wars have displaced and impoverished millions of people all over the world. Capital-driven policies, such as NAFTA, create poverty. These policies and laws not only consume and exploit land and people, but they also displace us from our homes, forcing us to migrate in order to survive. If policymakers were serious about stopping “illegal immigration,” they would end these capitalist exploitations and stop their military invasions abroad.

We want an end to the militarization of indigenous land, I.C.E. raids, deportations, the attacks on ethnic studies, violence against women and queer people, the expansion of prisons and immigration detention centers, empire, the border wall and the genocide at the Arizona-Sonora border that has claimed the lives of over 153 people during the first 8 months of this fiscal year alone.

Today we interrupt the flow of Arizona’s traffic to bring attention to the following points:

ABOLISH ALL OF SB 1070 AND OTHER ANTI-MIGRANT LAWS.

STOP ALL MILITARIZATION. NO NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS ON INDIGENOUS LAND.

BORDERS AND THE ARIZONA GOVERNMENT ARE ILLEGITIMATE.

NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL—THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM IS TO BLAME.

WE WANT RESPECT AND JUSTICE FOR ALL PEOPLE.

We affirm our dignity and promote the well-being of all people. We stand for solidarity, peace, self-determination and autonomy. We assert the rights of all people everywhere to feel safe and live free of oppression and state violence.

On top of that, according to the Arizona Daily Star, 13 people were arrested in downtown Tucson for blocking local streets. In Phoenix the Arizona Republic has reported at least 50 people were arrested for civil disobediance which included chaining themselves to one of the jails where Sheriff Joe Arpaio operates.

But don’t worry, the mainstream media and people with their head in the sand are calling the protests “mostly peaceful.” Open border groups and immigration protestors are showing their true colors and proving this fight has nothing to do with SB 1070 and everything to do with these groups not wanting any enforcement of immigration policy whatsoever.

The immigration debate is reviving the explosive idea of denying citizenship to children born on U.S. soil if their parents are in the country illegally.

A U.S. senator and a state lawmaker in Arizona, both central players in the battle over immigration law, separately proposed this week that “birthright” citizenship be denied to the children of illegal immigrants. They said the change would help stem the flood of illegal border crossings.

“People come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Wednesday night on Fox News. “That shouldn’t be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons.” Mr. Graham is a onetime partner with Democrats in crafting a proposed overhaul of immigration laws.

Immigration-rights activists say citizenship isn’t a significant driver of illegal immigration, because a child has to reach age 21 to petition for permanent legal residency for his or her parents.

Such calls to change what has been a bedrock feature of the immigration system are sure to set off contentious debate. “It’s an extreme position, and Sen. Graham knows this,” said Angela Kelley of the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “He’s not one to tamper with the Constitution, so I’m surprised he would even suggest this.”

In Arizona, Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of the immigration law that drew a legal challenge from the Obama administration, said he wanted to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in his state to illegal immigrants.

At issue is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, enacted in 1868 to ensure that states not deny former slaves the full rights of citizenship. It states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Mr. Graham, speaking on Fox, suggested that changing birthright-citizenship rules would require a constitutional amendment. “We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and have a child, that child’s not automatically a citizen,” he said.

He said he was considering introducing such an amendment. A spokesman said Thursday that Mr. Graham was just discussing the idea and hadn’t made any decisions about whether to move ahead.

Mr. Pearce, like some other proponents of the change, argued that the amendment as written doesn’t apply to illegal immigrants. Because illegal immigrants aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., as the amendment requires, they fall outside its protection, these people argue. A group of House lawmakers made a similar argument when they tried to pass legislation changing the birthright principle in 2005.

“When it was ratified in 1868, the amendment had to do with African-Americans; it had nothing to do with aliens,” Mr. Pearce said. “It’s got to be fixed.”

Given the controversial nature of this proposal, successfully amending the Constitution would be considered a long shot. It requires a vote of two-thirds of the House and of the Senate, and must be ratified by three-fourths of state legislators.

A change in state law redefining who is a citizen would likely draw a legal challenge, as did Arizona’s effort to change state immigration law.

Under Mr. Pearce’s proposal, Arizona would refuse to issue a birth certificate to any child unless at least one parent could prove legal presence in the U.S. “The 14th Amendment has been hijacked and abused,” Mr. Pearce said. “We incentivize people to break our laws.”

The U.S. is home to about 11 million illegal immigrants. There are nearly four million whose children are U.S. citizens, according to a 2009 report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which calls for cracking down on all immigration to the U.S., said that citizenship as a birthright isn’t automatic in many countries in the West.

“We should not allow language from 1868 to enslave our thinking…in the 21st century,” Mr. Stein said.

Mr. Pearce was sponsor of SB1070, the law that required police to check the immigration station of anyone they stop if they suspect unlawful presence. On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked that provision and others, pending further legal review. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the bill into law, has promised to appeal.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s latest crime-suppression sweep netted 36 arrests, including six people who are suspected of being in the country illegally.

The two-day Valleywide enforcement effort, which ended at midnight Friday, was hampered by delays caused by protesters and monsoon storms, said Jeff Sprong, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

The sweep was scheduled to start Thursday morning but was postponed for several hours while deputies dealt with protesters blocking roadways in downtown Phoenix.

Dozens of activists protesting the state’s new immigration law have been arrested this week. The law, SB 1070, partially went into effect Thursday.

SB1070 makes it a misdemeanor offense for immigrants in Arizona not to carry registration papers, effectively allowing police to arrest a person on suspicion of being in the country illegally. But a federal judge blocked that portion of the law earlier in the week.

Arpaio has said he doesn’t need the law to hold his sweeps, which capture offenders for mostly minor violations.

The operation marked the 17th time Arpaio has deployed hundreds of deputies and volunteer posse members in an area of the Valley to root out illegal immigrants. Deputies typically take a “zero tolerance” approach to traffic offenses and then check the criminal history of the motorists.

Arpaio’s deputies have arrested 968 people in their operations dating back to March 2008. Of those, 714 were suspected of being in the country illegally, according to the Sheriff’s Office.