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31 August, 2011
Judge blocks Alabama immigration law to buy time
A federal judge on Monday blocked Alabama's tough new immigration law from taking effect this week, making it the latest U.S. state to have a measure on illegal immigration halted in court.
Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn cited the need for more time to consider the legal challenges against the law in an injunction that blocks implementation of the law through September 29. "In entering this order the court specifically notes that it is in no way addressing the merits of the motions," the judge wrote in her two-page order.
Federal judges have previously blocked key parts of other immigration laws passed in Georgia, Arizona, Utah and Indiana.
The Alabama law, widely seen as the toughest state measure on illegal immigration, requires police to detain people they suspect of being in the United States illegally if they cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason.
The law also makes it a crime to knowingly transport or harbor an illegal immigrant, and requires public schools to determine, by reviewing birth certificates or sworn affidavits, the legal residency status of students upon enrollment.
Lawyers for the Obama administration and other groups asked the judge last week to halt the law, which was set to take effect this Thursday.
The administration argued that the U.S. Constitution bars states from adopting their own immigration regime that interferes with the federal system. Other opponents say the law will deter children in immigrant families from enrolling in school and criminalize Alabama residents who interact with those in the country without documents.
Conservatives have complained that President Barack Obama has failed to sufficiently stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. The Obama administration successfully sued to block Arizona's tough law last year.
Attempts to overhaul federal immigration policy have gone nowhere in the U.S. Congress.
SOURCE
Britain’s new brain drain: A million of our best-qualified citizens now live abroad
More than a million of the highest-qualified and best-trained Britons have gone to live abroad and are contributing to the wealth of other countries, a report found yesterday.
They have made up more than half of the British emigrants who have gone abroad over the past 14 years to work in countries including America, Australia, or, increasingly, Germany, it found.
The report from the immigration think tank MigrationWatch warned of a new brain drain and said that no other country loses as many university graduates through emigration.
But at the same time British immigration rules are offering entry clearance to the country to engineers and other highly qualified technicians because the country is suffering from shortages.
The analysis of who is going abroad comes at a time when numbers of people leaving the country to live abroad have plummeted, mainly thanks to the recession. At the same time levels of immigration have remained at sky high levels.
As a result net migration – the number of people added to the population by migration – last year totalled 239,000, the second highest total ever.
The new report said that professionally qualified workers and experienced managers continue to make up the majority of emigrants from Britain, numbering more than 50,000 in 2009.
It put the number of British graduates working abroad at 1.1 million, and added many will stay away permanently.
Citing the verdict produced by the Paris-based grouping of rich nations, the report said: ‘This is consistent with the findings of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that the UK suffers from a brain drain less serious only than Mexico whereby a significant proportion of its tertiary level educated go overseas to work,’ the report said.
It added: ‘There is something of a brain drain occurring in Britain whereby our most talented and skilled are leaving the UK in search of opportunities abroad.’
The report said the need to import engineers means that British companies may be paying too little for highly qualified staff.
‘The UK Border Agency Shortage Occupation list includes civil engineers, mechanical engineers and electrical engineers among others,’ it said, ‘perhaps suggesting that UK companies are not paying sufficiently well to keep the brightest and the best.
‘Despite the NHS claiming to be reliant on migrant labour, 27 per cent of our skilled emigrants had a health or education degree.’
MigrationWatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said: ‘The profile of those who are leaving is a concern.’
The report said around six out of ten emigrants from Britain have since 1997 been aged between 25 and retirement age, and the most numerous among these are people under 44 looking to promote their careers.
France and Spain have dropped down the table of the most popular destinations for Britons moving abroad during the recession, the MigrationWatch report said.
Numbers leaving for a life in France last year were below 20,000, well under half the peak of emigration to France five years ago, and emigrant departures for Spain are now running at around 25,000 compared to more than 60,000 in 2004.
The report pointed to the high euro and worries about property values as among the reasons.
‘One possible explanation for the fall in emigration to Spain is the uncertainty caused by the illegal construction of homes along the Spanish coastlines, discouraging the British from buying property,’ it said.
‘However, the wider fall in the value of the pound against the euro can explain this decline in emigration to France and Spain; the pound lost 28 per cent of its value against the euro between January 2007 and January 2009. For those on fixed incomes this changes the economics of a life of retirement in France or Spain.’
The European country now attracting greater numbers of British emigrants is Germany, where Britons are going to work in the comparatively strong economy.
SOURCE
30 August, 2011
Border Watchlisting a Decade after 9/11
New Report Examines Progress, Remaining Challenges
As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, curtailing terrorist travel must remain a top priority. Today, the combined domestic/foreign “Terrorist Watchlist,” listing individuals where there exists sufficient “reasonable suspicion” of terrorist activity, is almost entirely made up of foreign-born terrorists, with Americans or legal permanent residents constituting only two percent of the names. Attempts to enter the U.S. by foreign terrorists can best be stopped by knowing who they are ahead of time through the hard, tedious process of watchlisting, and making those watchlists available to the right frontline officers in real time.
Janice Kephart, National Security Director at the Center for Immigration Studies and former 9/11 Commission border counsel, takes a look at watchlisting since 9/11 and criticisms of its shortcomings in the wake of the 2009 attempted Christmas Day bombing. Her report, Border Watchlisting a Decade after 9/11, is available at www.cis.org and presents a historical perspective on 9/11 Commission watchlist recommendations. The report concludes that the hardest work of implementation is complete, and offers recommendations to curtail “legitimate” terrorist travel (i.e., by those who seek legal entry by abusing vulnerabilities that remain in our border and aviation systems). These recommendations include:
* “Cloud”, encryption, and storage technologies that solve the inability to gain information access across systems and databases, while also assuring both security and privacy. Piloting this technology should be prioritized.
* Biometrics, including digitized facial images and fingerprints, need to be fully incorporated into watchlisting to reduce misidentification of legitimate travelers and terrorists.
* DHS must create comprehensive travel and immigration histories for foreigners that cut across agencies and are easily accessible to the entire intelligence community. This 9/11 Commission recommendation is law, but Congress has not conducted oversight to assure its implementation.
* Law enforcement data obtained from abroad by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Visa Security Units conducting terrorist investigations of visa applicants is extremely useful; Congress needs to prioritize the VSU expansion, and give DHS visa revocation authority.
* The U.S. must do what it can to keep European Union agreements in place pertaining to Passenger Name Records; these records are absolutely essential to assuring accuracy of matching watchlist information to relevant aviation travelers.
* All visa holders and visa waiver participants should have their information vetted at least every two years, and every time they seek to travel to the U.S. Right now, visa waiver travelers are subject to higher security thresholds than many visa holders from countries not friendly to the U.S. Applying a standardized approach avoids profiling, establishes security away from our borders, and enables real-time vetting where derogatory information develops after visa issuance.
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: Janice Kephart, jlk@cis.org, 202-466-8185.
The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Surge in visa success rates 'luring' boatpeople to Australia
SUCCESS rates for refugee claims have leapt from 30 to 70 per cent in just six months, sparking accusations the government is encouraging boatpeople by virtually guaranteeing them visas.
Senior Immigration Department officials conceded at a recent parliamentary committee hearing that the success rate for asylum claims now stood at 70 per cent, not far below its record high of more than 90 per cent.
With the High Court to hand down its ruling on the Malaysia Solution tomorrow, the figures prompted agencies to warn the Department of Immigration's high success rate was acting as an incentive to asylum-seekers to get on a boat.
Senior department official Garry Fleming told a parliamentary committee earlier this month the primary acceptance rate for asylum-seekers who arrive by boat stood at 70 per cent.
Mr Fleming said the speed at which refugee claims were being processed meant that "a good articulation" of people's refugee claims was not being heard at their initial assessment, resulting in a high rate of overturn at review. "That is now seeing primary recognition rates in the order of about 70 per cent," Mr Fleming told the committee.
The figure does not take into account unsuccessful asylum claims that are overturned on review, suggesting the final success rate could be considerably higher.
The rate at which refugee claims for boatpeople are upheld is seen as a key element in the factors driving refugee movements.
Early last year the Rudd government was warned its refugee success rate was "out of whack" with other countries and was acting as a "major pull factor". The warning was contained in confidential advice sent to government prior to the decision to freeze Afghan asylum claims for six months and Sri Lankan claims for three months. At the time the advice was sent the refugee success rate was more than 90 per cent.
According to department statistics the primary success rate was just 27 per cent for the first six months of 2010-11, meaning it has soared more than 40 per cent since the beginning of the year.
Refugee Council chief executive Paul Power said "clearly there have been issues in the quality of the decision-making". "That's the only conclusion one can reasonably draw," Mr Power said yesterday. "The fluctuations of people from the same countries and in similar circumstance being rejected is baffling to anyone outside the department."
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said he found the department's explanation for the wildly fluctuating success rate "unconvincing". "Clearly if your recognition rates are higher than the rest of the world (asylum-seekers) are more likely to say yes to a people-smuggler and get on a boat," Mr Morrison said. "With primary acceptance rates going from the high 90s to the 20s then back up to 70 per cent, it reveals a process that is all over the place."
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said refugee decisions were made on a "case-by-case" basis. "As we have said before, driving forces will vary from time to time and numbers will rise and fall in different parts of the world at different times," the spokesman said.
SOURCE
29 August, 2011
Obama Runs End-Around on Immigration Law
By U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner
Last week, the Obama Administration surprisingly announced a new immigration policy that effectively circumvents Congress’ legislative authority in order to extend amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants. Although Congress has rejected time and again amnesty legislation, this policy will allow some illegal immigrants to stay and work in the United States by administrative fiat.
Under this new decision, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security officials will choose to allow some illegal immigrants currently involved in deportation cases to remain in the US. The administration plans to review 300,000 cases and waive the deportation of some individuals who have clean or minor criminal records beyond their illegal immigration status.
This new policy is an unacceptable abuse of presidential power, and it is an extension of this administration’s contempt for our immigration laws.
Last year, Congress rejected legislation that would have extended amnesty to certain illegal immigrants, many of whom fit the same profile of this waiver. With this announcement, President Obama clearly indicated that he is willing to ignore Congressional legislative action to achieve his own agenda.
According to ICE Director John Morton, “One of ICE's central responsibilities is to enforce the nation's civil immigration laws.” But intentionally excusing illegal immigration for some individuals does the opposite: this decision ignores our immigration laws.
Immigrants whose cases are waived could also be offered the opportunity to apply for a visa or work permit and remain working in the United States.
With 9 percent unemployment and millions still looking for work, this immigration plan seems to prioritize allowing illegal immigrants the opportunity to stay and work here. This is an affront to Americans and legal immigrants who are counting on this president to focus on growing the economy and help employers create much-needed jobs.
Additionally alarming is the broad discretion given to bureaucrats when deciding which deportation cases should be waived. Based on a variety of vague factors, officials reviewing a case can decide whether to cancel the deportation proceedings.
Consider the hundreds and thousands of individuals who wait in line — often for many years — for the opportunity to immigrate to America. Now, the President has decided to move some individuals, who have already broken our immigration laws, to the front of the line.
This is unfair and unwise policy. It signals that our immigration laws are to be ignored, and we have given up attempting to enforce them. The policy undermines the rule of law, is a blatant disregard for the constitutional separation of powers, and in effect, rewards lawbreakers.
As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, I have worked to secure our nation’s borders and hold both this and previous administrations accountable for their actions on immigration. We are a country of immigrants, and we are a nation of laws. It is the president’s constitutional responsibility to see that his administration enforces these laws.
SOURCE
Nigerian fraudster allowed to stay in Britain under human rights laws
A foreign criminal who was jailed for his role in a £1 million benefits fraud has used human rights laws to avoid being deported. Philip Olawale Omotunde took part in a elaborate scam which involved claiming social security pay-outs for fictional disabled babies.
The Home Office tried to deport the Nigerian but he won the right to stay in Britain after arguing it would breach his "right to private and family life" to separate him from his six-year-old son - who was going to a school 12 miles away from where his father lived.
Extraordinarily he should not have been in the country in the first place. Omotunde came to Britain as a visitor in 1991, when he was 28, and overstayed his visa. The Home Office made a decision to deport him in 1996 but no action was taken. The last Labour government granted him indefinite leave to remain under a "regularisation scheme" in 2002.
Omotunde's case highlights the way the "family life" rules under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights are being used to overturn the government's efforts to throw foreign crooks out of the country.
Since immigration judges made their decision in May this year, he has been sent to jail again for offences relating to his failure to pay a £45,000 confiscation order for his part in the benefits fraud.
Dominic Raab, a Tory MP who is campaigning to reform Article 8, said: "The judges are using the Human Rights Act to bar deportation in a rapidly increasing number of cases where the government want to deport serious criminals, on the basis that it may disrupt their family relations. "That undermines public protection. It must be for elected and lawmakers to set policy in this area, not unaccountable judges."
The use of the act is currently under review as part of a Home Office consultation.
Omotunde, 48, was part of an organised crime gang which stole British people's names, dates of birth and National Insurance numbers to commit a complex web of frauds. He had already been convicted in 2006 of working as an illegal taxi tout, and fined £100.
The fraud ring set up false addresses and bank accounts to extract hundreds of thousands of pounds per month from the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) tax credits system. The ring claimed tax credits for fake disabled babies aged under one.
After his conviction the Home Office served notice on Omotunde that he was liable to be deported because his son, who was born in April 2005, was young enough to adapt to life in Nigeria. Omotunde appealed to the immigration tribunal.
His lawyers told the tribunal he was the "dominant carer" for his young son, who lived in Lewisham, south-east London - even though at the time the child was going to school 12 miles away in Fulham, on the other side of London. He claimed the child was not being looked after by its mother, who at the time was also an illegal immigrant, but by her sister and a "team" which included two "pastors".
The tribunal refused to overturn the deportation order, but five days after their decision the Home Office granted Omotunde's son British citizenship, a move which strengthened the criminal's argument that he could not be separated from his family. He brought a new appeal to senior judges - headed by Mr Justice Blake - who ruled that the son cannot now be deported and it would be unreasonable to expect him to move to Nigeria.
"In all the circumstances of the appellant's case and the best interests of his child we do not consider that the interference with the family and private life can be justified by the public interest identified in this case," said the immigration judges. "Deportation of the appellant would not be a proportionate measure and is not a fair balance between the competing interests."
He is currently serving 16 months at Verne prison on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, but when freed he will be allowed to remain in Britain indefinitely.
Omotunde and his fellow criminals made 200 false claims using 88 web-based bank accounts during a five-month period in 2004. Omotunde was one of four principal account holders, although the trial judge ruled he was not a central figure in the fraud. He was arrested in March 2007, convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to transfer criminal property at Croydon Crown Court in June 2008.
Judges said Omotunde - also known by the first name "Wale" - was "drawn into the wrongdoing to the tune of about £41,600". Five other defendants received jail terms of between four and a half years and two years, while a sixth was given a 14 month suspended sentence.
When The Sunday Telegraph contacted relatives of Omotunde about his case he telephoned from prison just over an hour later. He declined to comment on the case. It is unclear how Omotunde's relatives were able to send a message to the inmate so promptly, because mobile telephones and email are banned in jails.
The Sunday Telegraph has also discovered that Omotunde, who lives in Lewisham, south-east London, was registered as the sole director of an events planning company, Lawiomot Magnificus Ventures Ltd, in August 2010, just over two years after he was jailed. There is nothing to prevent anyone convicted of fraud setting up a company in this way.
SOURCE
28 August, 2011
Rick Perry Wants $349 Million For Jailing Illegals
In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Texas Governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry has requested $349.2 million dollars. Apparently, this small sum is the amount that Texas has spent incarcerating and housing illegal immigrants. The GOP frontrunner apparently penned the note back on August 10th, though the DHS will not even confirm that they have received the invoice.
In the past, Perry has been criticized for not being tough enough on illegal immigrants. Of course, in this case "not being tough enough" means not supporting a giant wall like Michele Bachmann or claiming that Arizona's immigration regulations "might not be right for Texas." Perry's immigration position has almost always been centered around increasing border security, and this letter is just his way of urging the DHS to help out.
But does he have a point? Illegal immigration is fundamentally a federal problem, as is border security, and if it's really costing Texas this much money to deal with illegal immigrants, something needs to be done. I'm not saying that something is a wall or deploying troops across the border, but Perry has a point that this is not a cheap problem for Texans to deal with.
Of course, the DHS isn't going to pay him anything - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has already tried this trick this year and got nothing to show for it. Oh, and if you want to go back further, the last Arizona Governor also tried to bill D.C. for her state's immigration expenses. Who might that have been? None other than current DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.
SOURCE
Immigration to Britain is no longer taboo – but tackling it still is
The Coalition has merely tinkered with the rules on who gets into Britain, rather than taking real action.
Immigration used to be the great unmentionable. If anyone pointed out the rate at which it was increasing, and the problems for infrastructure, education and the NHS of adding two million people to our population every decade, they were accused of being racist. I know: it happened to me.
It was an effective way of preventing the topic from being discussed, and was frequently used by Labour ministers for precisely that purpose. But at the last election, it was impossible to prevent the issue – which everyone knew was one of the most important for voters – from being raised. The Tories came up with measures that they promised would diminish the number of immigrants, to which the Lib Dems, when they became partners in government, reluctantly agreed.
So it must have been depressing for the Conservative members of the Coalition to see last week’s Office for National Statistics figures, which showed that, far from going down, net immigration (the number of foreigners settling in Britain minus the number of Britons leaving) has risen by 20 per cent, to reach 239,000.
Those statistics are, admittedly, from 2010, when the Coalition’s policies had not yet been implemented. And the net increase is entirely the result of a reduction in the number of Britons leaving the country, rather than an increase in the number of immigrants arriving.
Nevertheless, the figures still raise the delicate question of whether the Coalition’s policies will actually succeed in reducing immigration. The first thing to note is that they certainly could do so. Nick Clegg was simply wrong when he insisted that controls are pointless, because most of the people who settle in the UK are from countries in the EU. In fact, 80 per cent of migrants to Britain are from outside the EU, so there is no legal barrier to restricting significantly the number who are allowed to settle. Nothing, in principle, stops the Government from putting effective controls in place. The difficulties are essentially practical.
So the real question is this: how badly do ministers want to cut immigration? The Lib Dems certainly don't want to do anything: they are frank about regarding controls as either economically damaging or blatantly racist. The Tories say they’re committed to achieving dramatic cuts. But so far, the Coalition hasn’t done more than tinker around the edges of the system – as Damian Green, the immigration minister, must have known, even as he said on Thursday that ministers had initiated “radical changes”.
Around half of the immigrants who arrive each year are foreign students and their dependants. The Coalition’s new regulations require students to speak English, and to provide evidence that they can support themselves and the family members who come with them. It’s a start – but it’s not a “radical change”. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, claims that the rules will reduce the number of students and their relatives by 80,000. But no one knows how easy it will be to evade the new controls. They will be based largely on form-filling: if you tick the right boxes, you will get your visas. Our judges may anyway declare the new procedure by violation of human rights: the decision in a case that will test whether the Government can refuse to let an Indian man, who can’t speak English and refuses to learn, join his wife here is expected soon.
The Coalition also plans to end the link between being given a permit to work in the UK and having the right to settle here. That could diminish immigration significantly. The problem is that the proposal is just that: a proposal, not a policy. It is subject to consultation, a process which may enfeeble it. Whether it will be implemented at all remains to be seen.
The Conservatives have broken the taboo on discussing immigration. But what is still not being discussed are the practical measures that will be effective in diminishing it. That topic is still off limits – which means that it is surrounded by confusion, half-truths and spin. And that is not good for immigration policy. Or for democracy.
SOURCE
27 August, 2011
Massachusetts a safe haven for criminals
The death of a Milford man, allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant, is sparking a call for change, and now a top official in Worcester County is pointing the finger at Governor Patrick. Sheriff Lew Evangelidis announced today that Worcester County has officially requested to join the Secure Communities program, even though the state as a whole opted out it.
The program shares the fingerprints of people arrested by police with ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in hopes of getting dangerous illegal immigrants off the streets.
The sheriff says the program may have prevented the death of 23-year-old Matthew Denice in a drunk driving crash last weekend, a crash allegedly caused by illegal immigrant Nicolas Guaman, who has a lengthy criminal record.
“I believe the governor by not joining this today is not putting the safety of the citizens of Massachusetts first,” said Sheriff Evangelidis. “He's failed to join more than 40 other states who have already joined Secure Communities. He's made us a national safe haven, for criminal aliens.”
The governor responded to the growing chorus of critics, saying, “Illegal immigration didn't kill this person. A drunk driver killed this person and we have laws about that, and I expect the book to be thrown at this person.”
Critics of the Secure Communities program say it terrorizes an already suspicious immigrant community.
ICE has also received requests to activate Secure Communities from the Bristol and Plymouth County sheriffs as well as the Franklin police.
It's important to point out that ICE is no longer asking or requiring states to sign onto Secure Communities. It plans to roll out the program all over the country, including Massachusetts by 2013, like it or not.
SOURCE
Canadian refugee plan catches flak
Giving failed refugee claimants thousands of dollars to return home could make Canada’s “broken” immigration system vulnerable to even more abuse, says an immigration expert.
Herbert Grubel, of the Fraser Institute, called the federal government’s plan to give failed refugee claimants $2,000 each as incentive to leave Canada promptly will attract fraudulent claimants and unscrupulous immigration consultants looking for a payday.
“The idea is right, but ... it will also create the wrong incentive, (with) more people coming here and making claims they know are questionable,” said Grubel, who recently wrote a paper on the “huge fiscal burden” immigrants have on Canadians.
The Canadian government plans next June to implement the Assisted Voluntary Returns program, where failed claimants in a 2012 pilot project will receive a financial incentive of $2,000 to leave Canada.
The money would be sent to a non-governmental organization in a failed refugee’s respective country, according to the plan. The organization would provide the cash to the claimant upon their return to use for business pursuits, education or vocational training, confirmed a spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.
The project will be aimed at more than 1,900 failed claimants, costing taxpayers $12 million.
Grubel conceded the plan might “get some people to go back home who would otherwise hang around and burden our justice system.” However, he argued there’s no telling how many more will take advantage of Canada’s healthcare and welfare systems while they wait for a decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board.
Immigration lawyer Sergio Karas called the program a slap in the face to the process.
“This is bad policy because it undermines the rule of law,” Karas said. “People who have had the right to due process, have gone through the system and have been determined to not to have a valid claim should not be paid for obeying a deportation order.”
Karas insisted such a program will attract scammers looking to cash in. The United Kingdom’s controversial incentive program is a good example, he said.
The United Kingdom’s Daily Mail reported in 2007 that failed refugee claimants had been receiving over $6,400 each to return to their country of origin. After returning home, some used the money to open businesses such as a beauty salon, a vineyard and an ostrich farm.
SOURCE
26 August, 2011
Migration to the UK rose 20 per cent to 239,0000 last year, figures show
Net migration to the UK rose by more than 20 per cent last year to 239,000, official figures showed today.
The increase from 198,000 in 2009 was fuelled by a fall in the number of people leaving the UK and goes against the Government's pledge to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands by 2015.
Long-term immigration was 575,000, similar to the levels seen since 2004, while long-term emigration fell to 336,000 from 427,000 in 2008, estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed.
Study remained the most common reason for those coming to the UK, with three in four of the 228,000 who come to the UK for study coming from outside the EU. But the number of people coming to the UK for a definite job was at its lowest in more than six years, at 110,000. And the number of those leaving the UK for work-related reasons was at its lowest for three years at 179,000, the ONS estimates showed.
The number of people granted settlement in the UK reached a record 241,000 last year, partly due to the number of people being allowed to stay as the backlog of asylum cases was cleared, other figures published by the Home Office showed.
Work-related grants of settlement also reached a record last year of 84,000, reflecting high numbers admitted for work five years earlier.
But figures for the first half of this year showed an 8 per cent fall in the number of people being granted settlement, down to 208,000, with falls in both the work and family categories.
A total of 195,000 people were granted British citizenship last year, down from the record high of 204,000 in 2009 but more than double the level of a decade earlier.
The number of people applying for asylum also fell in 2010, but has started to rise again this year with 4,800 applications between April and June, up 9 per cent from the same quarter in 2010, mainly due to an increase in applications from Pakistan and Libya, the figures showed
Immigration Minister Damian Green said: "After almost two years of increasing net migration the figures stabilised in the last quarter.
"This explains why the Government radically changed immigration policy, from our first months in office, to drive the numbers down with a limit on economic migration and changes to student visas to ensure we attract the brightest and best whilst tackling widespread abuse of the system.
"We are currently consulting on a range of further measures which will drive down numbers further.
"These statistics cover a period before we introduced our radical changes to the immigration system to bring net migration back down to the tens of thousands."
SOURCE
Australia: Soft line spurred on people smugglers, says Kevin Rudd aide
A SENIOR Labor strategist admitted to US embassy officials as long ago as 2009 that Labor's decision to dismantle the Howard government's Pacific Solution was partly responsible for the resurgence of the people-smuggling trade.
A diplomatic cable sent from the US embassy in Canberra in the wake of a 2009 boat explosion off Ashmore Reef that killed five asylum-seekers, has provided a unique insight into Washington's take on the Australian asylum debate. The cable, released yesterday by WikiLeaks, said while the number of asylum-seekers venturing to Australia remained "relatively small", the numbers were rising steadily and that the asylum debate in Australia was "highly emotive".
"Border protection was widely credited as a major factor in the conservative Coalition's 2001 election victory," the cable states.
The cable quotes the views of a "leading ALP strategist" on what was causing the revival in boat arrivals, which dropped sharply after the Howard government introduced the "Pacific Solution" of offshore processing in Nauru and on Manus Island.
"A leading ALP strategist told Consulate Perth that he thought the increased incidence of asylum-seekers resulted from a combination of Australia's softer immigration policy and a global increase in refugee movements," the cable reports.
The views of the strategist, whose identity is not revealed, largely contradict the official government line at the time, which refused to acknowledge that the Rudd government's decision to dismantle the Pacific Solution and abolish temporary protection visas may have played some role in luring asylum-seekers.
Instead, then immigration minister Chris Evans attributed the revival of the smuggling trade to instability in source countries, such as Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
Citing briefings from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, US embassy officials also describe the transformation of the people-smuggling scene, in particular the proliferation of smaller operators.
"Small, independent smugglers are replacing the larger operators in part because of Indonesia's success - bolstered by help and training from the Australian Federal Police and Australian Customs - in stopping the major people-smugglers, who exerted the most corrupting influence on the military, politicians and police," the cable says.
"Asylum-seekers have the money to pay/bribe the small providers, and the boats are leaving from many more coves and inlets than before, greatly complicating the coastguard's task."
The cable, dated April 17, 2009, was written a day after the explosion of an asylum-seeker boat near Ashmore Reef off the northwest coast of Australia. The blast occurred after asylum-seekers sabotaged the boat, pouring petrol into the bilges.
The cable paints a picture of the asylum debate as it stood in early 2009. It says the Coalition, at that point lagging "far behind" in the polls, was seeking to reignite the border security debate to emulate the success it had enjoyed in 2001.
But US officials played down the significance of the debate, which at that stage was just beginning to unfold. They said the economy, rather than border security, was "foremost in the minds of 'working families' " at the time.
"It is difficult to envisage Rudd significantly hardening immigration policy," the officials observe. "This would alienate the Left of his party, and possibly undermine Australia's bid for a UN Security Council seat."
The authors of the document even go so far as to say the issue could "backfire on the Coalition" by alienating Liberal moderates who were uncomfortable with the hardline stance of the Howard years.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said yesterday the WikiLeaks disclosures highlighted the government's culpability for the chaos their policy changes had wrought.
"For more than two years, the ALP has known that their soft policies were a pull factor drawing boats to Australia and doing nothing about it," Mr Morrison said.
SOURCE
25 August, 2011
£10bn legacy of shambles over asylum: 'Labour Party failings have left 250,000 illegals'
Labour spent £2million every day on a shambolic asylum system which failed to remove hundreds of thousands of bogus claimants, reveals a blistering study.
An audit of the last government’s record reveals how officials spent as much as £10billion processing applications as they struggled to cope with a surge in numbers.
But only one in four of the 660,000 decisions made on asylum claims between 1997 and 2010 led to the applicant being removed.
Even where the claim was considered to be unfounded, the majority of failed asylum-seekers were not sent home. They are now living here illegally.
Last night, immigration minister Damian Green said it was a symptom of the ‘hopeless chaos’ which Labour inflicted on the UK’s border controls.
The study by the MigrationWatch think-tank found that 660,000 asylum cases were decided from 1997 to 2010.
Some form of humanitarian protection, including asylum, was granted in 243,000 cases. This left 417,000 claimants who were rejected and should have left the UK. But only 151,540 – or 36 per cent – of those denied asylum were removed. Another 8,615 were found to have left without telling the authorities.
This means more than 250,000 have neither left nor been removed and are therefore presumed to remain in the UK illegally, MigrationWatch said.
Its report also found that between 2008 and 2010, 59 per cent of claims were lodged only after the person had been detected by the authorities. Asylum-seekers with genuine claims are supposed to claim at the first possible opportunity – not after they have been caught working illegally or sneaking into the country.
Britain was also found to approve more claims than France, through which many claimants pass to reach the allegedly ‘soft touch’ UK. In 2009, Britain granted permission to stay in 28 per cent of cases, compared with 19 per cent in France. Under Labour, the annual number of asylum cases increased hugely from 32,500 in 1997 to a peak of 85,000 in 2002.
MigrationWatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said: ‘The asylum system has proved to be a £10billion shambles. Those who, like ourselves, are serious about protecting genuine refugees should be no less serious about removing bogus claimants. ‘The system needs to be much faster. Delays leave the door open for appeals based on the right to family life.
‘It also needed to be much tougher on the bogus. It is absurd that we allow people who have been in Britain illegally for years to claim asylum to delay or prevent their removal; this applies to almost 60 per cent of claimants.’
The study estimated the cost of asylum since 1999 at close to £10billion, including legal aid and court costs. This includes £2.8billion for temporary accommodation, £927million on payments to support those awaiting a ruling and almost £500million for failed claimants who cannot return home or are taking steps to leave the UK.
The report, based on research published by the Home Office, warns it is difficult to know exactly what happened in every case because of the chaos and confusion of recent years. Five years ago, ministers identified more than 400,000 ‘legacy cases’ which officials had never resolved. Some have since been granted settlement or removed.
Mr Green, the immigration minister, said: ‘The system we inherited was hopelessly chaotic and did not provide the taxpayer with value for money. ‘Last year, we reduced the bill for asylum support by over £100million and it is falling further this year.
‘We have nearly doubled the proportion of asylum-seekers removed within a year of their application and around 60 per cent of applicants receive a decision within a month.’
SOURCE
Australia, PNG sign MOU on Manus I. detention for illegals
The federal government and Papua New Guinea have signed a memorandum of understanding on reopening Manus Island to process asylum seekers.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the MOU was signed on Friday afternoon and signals an important step in the process of establishing what he says will be an Australian-funded 'assessment centre'.
'The Manus Island centre will complement the Malaysia transfer arrangement and provide further disincentive for people considering risking their lives on dangerous boat journeys,' Mr Bowen said in a statement.
'This MOU sends a clear message that countries in this region are working together towards a lasting regional response.'
The MOU provides a framework to how the detention centre will operate.
Mr Bowen said the two countries were working to have it operational 'at the earliest opportunity'.
The MOU recognises the need for a regional solution to people smuggling and notes that both countries are signatories to the UN convention on refugee rights.
It also commits to treating detainees with dignity and respect, to processing them as quickly as possible, while noting that Australia will bear all the costs of their assessments.
SOURCE
24 August, 2011
New British immigration system just makes work for forgers
The Brits wonder why more Indians than ever are arriving under the new "restrictive" system. Documents forged in India and Pakistan are very hard to check. They caught a local document wallah but they will never catch the ones abroad
The Minister of State for Immigration in the UK, Damian Green, has claimed the UK is "no longer an easy touch", amidst news of the sentencing of a legal advisor, who masterminded a major immigration scam.
Ravi Gupta, 41, who was living in Hayes, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail and recommended for deportation at the end of his sentence. He was convicted of supplying his clients with fraudulent documents for the purposes of aiding their UK visa immigration applications, allowing them to falsify their income details.
Gupta charged up to £5,000 for each application. Following an undercover investigation by the West London immigration crime team, his scam was uncovered and he admitted 14 charges of assisting illegal immigration and an additional charge of obtaining leave to remain in the UK by deception.
An agency spokesman said: "When someone was coming to an end of their visa he would assist them with the fake certificates or pay slips to make it look as if they were in far better jobs and were more highly skilled then they actually were. But typically the clients were in low paid jobs such as working in supermarkets, restaurants or cleaning jobs that wouldn't count."
Immigration Minister Green used the opportunity to claim: “This case shows we have stepped up action to tackle serious and organized abuse of our immigration system. The message is clear - the UK is no longer an easy touch." He continued: "This summer we are targeting our efforts on breaking up the gangs behind visa scams, hitting rogue employers who repeatedly break the rules and doing more than ever to stop unwanted people coming to the UK."
Gupta’s sentencing comes after news of eight people being arrested in Bangladesh following the discovery of fake visa by UK Border Agency staff in Dhaka last month, working with the agency’s Risk and Liaison overseas network (RALON). A huge haul of fake visas, stolen passports and immigration stamps were uncovered in a factory that served a major visa forgery ring.
UK Border Agency officers are given detailed detection training and last year discovered over 27,000 forged travel documents used to support visa applications globally.
SOURCE
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
1. Steven Camarota Discusses Amnesty on the O'Reilly Factor (Video)
2. Steven Camarota Discusses Amnesty Public Radio (Radio Interview)
3. Mark Krikorian Discusses Alabama Enforcement Law on CNN (Video)
4. Is There a Shortage of Skilled Foreign Workers? (Backgrounder)
5. DHS Admits: 'Non-legislative amnesty' would be 'controversial, not to mention expensive.' (Blog)
6. An Unhappy Hershey Experience (Blog)
7. White House Embraces Administrative Amnesty After Failing to get Congress on Board (Blog)
8. Obama Amnesty Gives A Pass to ID Theft, and Other Crimes (Blog)
9. Ms. Munoz, the White House, and Straw Men Arguments (Blog)
10. Yes, He Did! Yes, He Did! (Blog)
11. The Challenge of Dutch National Identity (Blog)
12. Surprise! Quasi-Amnesty Extended for Some Liberians (Blog)
13. Testimony Suggests DHS Is Handling Immigration Badly in the Marianas (Blog)
14. Failed Campaign Slogan #108: 'Affirmative Action for Immigrants!' (Blog)
15. Christian Duty and Illegal Immigrants (Blog)
16. Half-Measures Don't Work (Blog)
17. It's That Old Patchwork Quilt Again (Blog)
18. Basic, Upgraded, or Premium? (Blog)
19. Alabama Lawsuit Highlights Growth of Open-Border Groups (Blog)
23 August, 2011
President's immigration plan creates confusion
A generally unnoticed aspect of the plan is the assertion by the Obama admin. that the immigration service has the capacity to deport serious criminals only. That's a heck of a lot of serious criminals! Around 400,000 in fact. It is graphic testimony to the high rate of criminality among illegals
President Obama's plan to put some deportations on hold is causing controversy and confusion.
Jess George with the Latin American Coalition says some so-called immigration lawyers are already coming out of the woodwork. "[They're] making people think that they may now be eligible for work permits or perhaps they should turn themselves in so they could forego the deportation process, that's absolutely not true," said Jess George, Executive Director of the Latin-American Coalition.
The Obama administration announced last week it would focus on deporting illegal immigrants who mainly pose a threat to national security or public safety. The decision allows many illegal immigrants, particularly students, to stay in the country.
The announcement comes after months of pleas from immigrant advocates. They pushed the president to make good on his election promises. "While it's a good thing for the movement, it's a good thing for the country moving towards pragmatic and humane laws, it's not a change," said George.
But some critics call the President's decision amnesty and an attempt to gain Latino voters.
"It's a type of pretty evil propaganda, well you say okay, we'll give amnesty to just the students, it's no fault of their own, boom, boom, 12,000 plus illegal immigrants will be having amnesty before you know it, " said William Gheen, president of Raleigh-based Americans for Legal Immigration.
The plan means about 300,000 deportation cases pending in Federal court will now be reviewed case by case.
George says it's far from amnesty, nor does it provide much security to illegal immigrants who think the Oval Office decision will put them on a path to citizenship.
SOURCE
USCIS Expands E-Verify Self-Check To 16 Additional States, Spanish Speakers
The Devil will be in the detail here but this should help scupper claims that the system is unrelible. If people can submit corrections to their own entry false positives should be eliminated
The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Aug. 15 expanded E-Verify self-check, a service that allows individuals to check their own employment eligibility status before seeking employment, to 16 additional states.
In addition, E-Verify self-check is now available in Spanish, USCIS said.
E-Verify self-check was launched in March in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, Virginia, and the District of Columbia (29 HRR 319, 3/28/11).
The service is now accessible to residents in California, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
“Self-check equips workers with fast, secure access to their employment eligibility information before they apply for jobs,” USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas said in an Aug. 15 statement. “By offering self-check to Spanish speakers and making the service more widely available, USCIS makes good on a promise to streamline and protect the integrity of the E-Verify process for employees and employers alike.”
Self-Check Offered Directly to Workers.
The self-check service allows U.S. workers to enter data into the E-Verify system to ensure the information relating to their work eligibility is accurate. It is the first online E-Verify program offered directly to workers and job seekers, USCIS said.
Employers use the internet-based E-Verify to determine employees' eligibility to work in the United States by entering information reported on the employee's Form I-9. When workers over age 16 use the self-check program, they enter the same information that employers would enter into E-Verify, USCIS said.
The self-check service is free and voluntary, and gives users the opportunity to submit corrections of any inaccuracies in their DHS or Social Security Administration records before applying for jobs.
The agency said it will “continue to evaluate and improve” the self-check service. USCIS intends to expand self-check nationwide by the spring of 2012, the agency said.
SOURCE
22 August, 2011
Curry protest!
It takes a lot to start a mass campaign with political overtones in Singapore, but there’s no better catalyst than food. Tens of thousands of people in the south-east Asian city-state said they would cook or eat curry on Sunday in a protest highlighting growing anger over increased immigration.
The campaign began after an immigrant family from China complained about the smell of curry from a Singaporean Indian neighbour’s home and local officials brought about a compromise.
A Facebook page devoted to the row after reports were published in a local newspaper has drawn over 57,600 members, many of whom said they were cooking curry on Sunday in a show of solidarity with the Indian family. “Because we live in Singapore and Singapore is such a cramped place, neighbours should understand each others’ culture,” said Stanley Wong, a 37-year-old accountant who helped organised the Facebook page.
He and a dozen friends and family were gathering in a small government-built flat for a curry dinner. Most of the diners were ethnic Chinese, like the overwhelming majority of Singapore’s 5.1m people. But residents say curry is a Singaporean dish and that immigrants, including those from mainland China, should accept it is part of the local culture.
“The case could create problems with the integration of foreign nationals,” said Florence Leow, a freelance writer in her 40s who also was one of the organisers of the event. “Through this event we hope to cook and share a pot of curry and get to appreciate and embrace our culture.”
The influx of immigrants is a sensitive subject in Singapore, where only about two-thirds of the people are citizens. Many Singaporeans say the city-state’s relatively easy immigration policies are attracting too many foreigners, making it more difficult to find jobs and pushing up prices of homes.
Immigration was a major issue during the campaign for the May general election, which was easily won by the ruling People’s Action party, although its winning margin dropped sharply.
Singapore holds presidential elections on Saturday, which are non-partisan but are expected to be an unofficial referendum on the ruling party with Tony Tan, a former leading member and former deputy prime minister, one of the four candidates.
SOURCE
Poll finds Swiss divided over immigration
A majority of Swiss are not worried about a rise in immigration as a result of the free movement of people in the Schengen zone, a poll has found.
The poll published in the SonntagsBlick newspaper on Sunday found 59 per cent of respondents said immigration by European workers was not a concern, whereas 40 per cent said they were “rather” or “very” concerned. It is a particular worry for people aged over 54 and those with a basic level of education.
Around half were happy with the actual number of foreigners in Switzerland: 48 per cent said foreigners making up 22.1 per cent of the population was “good”, while 34 per cent said it was “much too high”.
Young people and French-speaking Swiss were more open towards immigration: 56 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds and 64 per cent of French-speakers said they were satisfied with the current number of immigrants. In German-speaking parts, 43 per cent approved of the ratio.
However most of those polled (80 per cent) agreed that foreigners helped make the economy prosperous.
The poll, carried out by the Demoscope Institute for the SonntagsBlick, questioned 1,002 people from German and French-speaking parts of Switzerland.
SOURCE
21 August, 2011
Perry sounds off on immigration
Taking questions from reporters for the first time since Monday as he wrapped up a campaign swing here, Texas Gov. Rick Perry defended and expanded on his record on immigration policy — a record with positions that parts of the Republican base reject.
As governor, Perry’s supported allowing illegal immigrants to get in-state tuition rates at Texas universities and opposed Arizona’s strict state immigration law — despite signing a law in Texas that critics call similarly repressive.
“Here’s what you need to understand about me, is I’m a big believer in the 10th Amendment,” Perry said. States are the ones that should decide how they set university tuition rates and how they enforce immigration laws, he said.
“I didn’t think that the state of Texas, an Arizona-exact law was right for the state of Texas,” he said. “I didn’t want to make our law enforcement officers federal immigration officers. So state-by-state ought to be the way to do that, not by the federal government, one-size-fits-all.”
But Perry called for federal involvement on the issue when a reporter pointed out that the Constitution assigns the federal government responsibility for immigration.
“Once we secure the border, we can have a conversation about immigration reform in this country, but not until. You must have the federal government putting the resources, the boots on the ground, the aviation assets in the air, and secure that border so that we know the border is secure before we have a conversation about any immigration reform,” he said.
To a follow-up about whether illegal immigrants who serve in the armed forces should be allowed to become citizens, he said, “Yes sir, I think there is a path to citizenship for those young men and women who have served their country.”
SOURCE
Foreigners arrested in Britain riots to be deported
We'll believe it when we see it
More than 150 foreign nationals arrested after the riots in Britain will be deported, a media report said Saturday.
Immigration Minister Damian Green said they will be thrown out of Britain at the 'earliest opportunity'.
Around 150 of the 2,800 people held over the looting and arson attacks were born abroad, the Daily Mail said quoting the UK Border Agency.
Immigration Minister Damian Green said Friday: "We strongly believe that foreign national lawbreakers should be removed from the UK at the earliest opportunity."
"We also have the power to cancel the visas of foreign nationals found guilty of criminal activity, and this is something we will be looking to do when cases arise," the Mail quoted him as saying.
Under immigration rules, criminals from outside Europe are automatically put forward for deportation if they are sentenced to 12 months in prison.
The same applies to Europeans given a 12-month sentence for drugs, violent or sexual crimes, or 24 months for other crimes, the Mail said.
SOURCE
20 August, 2011
Obama's Administrative Amnesty
Yesterday, President Obama used the pretext of “prosecutorial discretion” to authorize an administrative amnesty. The Center for Immigration Studies has followed this story closely and has created a "topic page" to condense all related publications onto one page. Although it is currently a short list, it will surely expand over the coming weeks.
The topic page is located here
The blog excerpt below, by Executive Director Mark Krikorian, will give you a quick overview on the Center's position:
"In an announcement I would have expected them to try to bury on a Friday afternoon instead of Thursday, the administration said it would review the cases of 300,000 illegal aliens already in removal proceedings — and not just let some of them go, but give them work authorization as well.
This is further proof, as if any is needed, that the administration is using the pretext of “prosecutorial discretion” as a tool of policy. In other words, any executive needs to exercise some discretion, because the law is a blunt instrument and requires those carrying it out to have some wiggle room to deal with the handful of highly unusual cases that might warrant it. But this administration is using this necessary, but limited tool as an instrument of policymaking, which can only be described as a lawless act."
In addition to the information available on the topic page, Steven Camarota, the Center's Director of Research, is scheduled to appear on The O'Reilly Factor tonight for a discussion of the amnesty - be sure to watch.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at the phone numbers or email address below.
Bryan Griffith
Multimedia Director
Center for Immigration Studies
Work Phone: (202) 466-8185
Cell Phone: (202) 630-6533
E-mail: press@cis.org
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. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer: Obama Acts Like He's Above Law on Immigration
Republicans are attacking President Barack Obama for acting like a “king that is above the law” in deciding to pick and choose which illegal aliens to deport.
“The Obama administration cannot get its amnesty schemes through Congress, so now it has resorted to implementing its plans via executive fiat,” said Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. “We need to remind President Obama that we elected a president that serves beneath the law and did not anoint a king that is above the law.”
Joining her criticisms were two other border-state Republicans, Reps. Michael McCaul and Lamar Smith of Texas. “It’s just the latest attempt by this president to bypass the intended legislative process when he does not get his way,” McCaul said.
Smith said, “The Obama administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them."
And Florida Rep. Allen West jumped into the fray, too, calling for a House investigation into the guidelines. In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, he accused Obama of “shredding the Constitution” with the new guidelines. “It is a form of amnesty and it does go against our Constitution and it very much concerns me because now we are rewarding people for an illegal activity,” he said.
“Think about the strain that is going to come on the types of services and things that we have to provide,” West added, saying aliens are getting a free pass.
The plan, called Secure Communities was first announced in June in an agency memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton. But battle lines are being drawn only now following a letter Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sent Democratic senators outlining its plans.
A posting on the ICE website calls it a “simple and common sense way to carry out ICE's priorities,” as it is designed to focus deportation efforts on “criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety and repeat immigration law violators.”
But critics say it is too much like the stalled DREAM Act, a Democratic plan that would have given illegals a path to U.S. citizenship. “The plan amounts to backdoor amnesty for hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of illegal aliens,” said Brewer, who succeeded Napolitano in the governor’s office in Phoenix. “The president is encouraging more illegal immigration at the exact moment we need federal focus on border security.”
Brewer pointed to a speech Obama made to the Hispanic civil rights group, the National Council of La Raza, in Washington on July 25, in which he rejected the idea of imposing immigration reform without reference to Congress.
“He said, ‘Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. And, believe me, right now dealing with Congress, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.’
“President Obama got it right last month and got it really wrong today,” Brewer said. “Over the next 15 months I’m certain we’ll hear a lot of talk from the Obama administration about its concern for border security. Those of us who truly care about the rule of law will remember the president’s actions.”
Under the plan, Homeland Security and the Justice Department will review all deportation cases to see whether they meet 19 different criteria. About 300,000 deportation cases now under consideration will be included, she said.
Among factors that would be considered favorably are if the potential deportee has been in the United States since childhood, whether they have sought higher education or have served in the military and whether they are caregivers.
The White House insists that the plan is not a path to citizenship or permanent legal status or an amnesty. Cecilia Munoz, the White House’s intergovernmental affairs director, wrote on the White House blog that with an estimated 10 million people in the country illegally, limited resources should be focused on deporting “people who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk.”
Munoz said that, since 2008, there has been a 70 percent increase in the number of deportations of people with criminal records while the number of people deported who have no record has gone down.
Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, said, “The message is that as long as you keep your nose clean and do not commit a serious crime, then you don’t have to worry about immigration law enforcement. That’s a pretty strong incentive to stick around.
“It really is attempting to achieve by executive fiat what the Congress won’t do and the American people don’t want, and that really requires a lot of audacity.”
While Republicans attacked the scheme, Democrats welcomed it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it would focus on “serious felons, gang members and individuals who are a national security threat rather than college students and veterans who have risked their lives for our country.
“I am especially pleased about the impact these new policies will have on those who would benefit from the DREAM Act. We lose a lot by sending them back to countries they do not know.”
And Jason Resnick, general counsel of Western Growers, which represents farming groups added, “We hope this is a move toward an immigration solution that works for agriculture. Even in this time of great unemployment, we are not seeing domestic workers apply for jobs.”
SOURCE
19 August, 2011
Obama throws open the doors to all but serious criminals
In a surprise announcement, the Obama administration said it will review the deportation cases of 300,000 illegal immigrants and might allow many of them to stay in the U.S., a decision that angered immigration hard-liners and pleased Hispanic advocacy groups.
Under the plan, federal authorities will review individually all cases of immigrants currently in deportation proceedings. Those who haven't committed crimes and who aren't considered a threat to public safety will have a chance to stay in the U.S. and to later apply for a work permit.
The shift could help counter growing discontent among Hispanic voters and immigration advocacy groups about record deportations; audits of businesses that have pushed undocumented workers underground; and the lack of progress toward overhauling the immigration system under President Barack Obama.
The announcement comes as several states seek to pass laws to crack down on illegal immigrants, including millions who flocked to the U.S. before the recession to take blue-collar jobs in construction, agriculture and hospitality.
A senior administration official described the move as an effort to better use limited immigration-enforcement resources and to alleviate pressure on overburdened immigration courts. The idea, this person said, is to "identify low-priority cases…and administratively close the case so they no longer clog the system." The official added that such cases could be reopened by the government at any time.
While the announcement doesn't address illegal immigrants who aren't involved in deportation proceedings, it could benefit them indirectly. "They will be less likely to enter the caseload to begin with, so we can focus on folks in the caseload who are high priority," said the administration official.
Critics described the decision as a step by the administration toward offering amnesty for illegal immigrants. "The Obama administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), head of the House Judiciary Committee.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies against legalization, said: "In essence, the administration has declared that U.S. immigration is now virtually unlimited to anyone willing to try to enter—subject only to those who commit violent felonies after arrival."
Others welcomed the move. Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, described it as a "step forward" and a "sound policy decision that uses valuable law-enforcement resources to remove those who once caused harm but keeps contributing members of the immigrant community here."
The majority of agricultural workers are in the U.S. illegally. "We hope this is a move toward an immigration solution that works for agriculture," said Jason Resnick, general counsel of Western Growers, a California-based association that represents produce growers. "Even in this time of great unemployment, we are not seeing domestic workers apply for jobs."
Ordinarily, illegal immigrants can't get work permits, and most never apply for fear of opening themselves up to deportation. The new plan would enable some to get permits, said the administration official, who didn't elaborate other than to say decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nevada) outlining the plan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that an interagency working group would execute a "case-by-case review of all individuals currently in removal proceedings to ensure that they constitute our highest priorities."
Administration officials said low-priority cases likely to be shelved include individuals brought to the U.S. as children by their parents, undocumented spouses of U.S. military personnel and immigrants who have no criminal record.
"This process will allow additional federal enforcement resources to be focused on border security and the removal of public safety threats," Ms. Napolitano said in the letter.
Current immigration policy aims to deport illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes, but critics say it is snaring too many immigrants who have committed only minor offenses, like traffic violations, or who have called the police to report a crime. Controversy over a key element of the policy, the Secure Communities program, is threatening the president's relations with the Hispanic community.
This week, there have been protests in several cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta, prompted by the surge in deportations and administration plans to expand the program.
More than 390,000 people were removed from the U.S. in each of the last two years, surpassing previous years. Immigration courts are so jammed it can often take more than a year for a judge to rule on a deportation case.
U.S. immigration policy has eclipsed the economy and jobs as the top issue for Hispanic voters, according to a national poll released in June. To Hispanic voters, Mr. Obama has touted his support for an immigration overhaul that would put illegal immigrants on the path to legalization, and has bemoaned a lack of support from Republicans.
The immigration issue is a critical one for Mr. Obama as he prepares for reelection. He won 67% of the Hispanic vote in 2008. Republicans are unlikely to significantly increase their share of the Hispanic vote, but Mr. Obama needs Latinos to turn out in large numbers.
An effort to pass the Dream Act, which would allow certain young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children to stay, failed at the end of last year and has little chance in the Republican-controlled House. The prospects for comprehensive immigration legislation, which would provide a path to citizenship for a broader group of illegal immigrants, are even worse.
Hispanic lawmakers have called on the Obama administration to hold off deporting any young people who would qualify for legal residency under the Dream Act. Last month, four House Democrats wrote Mr. Obama arguing that most of those being deported "are not criminals and pose no threat to our country's security."
SOURCE
Is There a Shortage of Skilled Foreign Workers?
Report Looks Beyond Anecdotes
There have been numerous recent proposals to increase the admission of skilled workers from abroad, such as the IDEA Act (HR 2161), introduced by Rep. Zoe Logren, ranking Democrat on the House immigration subcommittee. The premise of such proposals is that our country faces a shortage of skilled workers and that our current immigration system doesn't admit enough of them.
To assess these claims, the Center for Immigration Studies has published a paper examining some of the issues surrounding the question of skilled immigration. The paper, entitled 'Is There a Shortage of Skilled Foreign Workers?' is written by Center Fellow David North. The findings include:
There are about 10 million Americans with STEM degrees (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) not working in those fields.
Each year, some 200,000 additional skilled foreign workers are admitted through a variety of existing visa programs.
At least one million skilled nonimmigrant workers are in the United States at any one time.
The large majority of foreign PhD recipients already remain in the United States under current law.
In examining the details of proposals to increase skilled immigration it's clear that they would lead mainly to the admission of large numbers of unremarkable workers since those who truly are the 'best and brightest' already have ways of entering or staying in the U.S.
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: Bryan Griffith, 202-466-8185, press@cis.org
The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization
18 August, 2011
Rick Perry and Immigration
The Houston Chronicle has published a list of "Ten things about Rick Perry that may worry some conservatives." Some items are stronger than others, but expect to hear immigration come up.
Although he's called for troops on the Mexican border and cracking down on sanctuary cities, he's also been sympathetic to DREAM Act-style policies while distancing himself from Arizona's SB 1070.
From the Chronicle story: "'During his time as governor of Texas, Rick Perry consistently supported allowing illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition at Texas' state colleges and universities,' says an assessment of Perry's immigration record by NumbersUSA." The restrictionist group gives Perry a D minus on the issue.
Of course, George W. Bush and John McCain were both prominent advocates of "comprehensive immigration reform" and this rather conspicuously did not prevent them from being nominated.
SOURCE
Why Is Amnesty International Attacking Canada?
It is a rare occurrence when a top government official comes out – on the record – to attack a human rights group. But that is what happened last week when Canada's Immigration Minister ripped into Amnesty International after it criticized Canada's plan to crack down on alleged war criminals hiding out in Canada.
Earlier this month, the secretaries general of Amnesty International's Canadian branches, Alex Neve and Béatrice Vaugrante, wrote an open letter to Canadian government ministers Vic Toews and Jason Kenney to express outrage over Canada's recent outing of 30 men residing in Canada – all of whom who are accused of war crimes.
Their names were published on a government website, asking for people to help find them. All were missing inside Canada's borders (six have since been arrested) and are wanted for deportation.
The men the Canadian government wishes to deport are not Canadian citizens. And they are not merely accused of war crimes: a quasi-judicial panel found there were reasonable grounds to believe the men were complicit in genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes -- and in some cases, there were voluntary admissions to these.
Cutting through the preachy jargon, the point Amnesty is making in its letter is that if Canada deports these immigrants, they probably will not face any further investigation or criminal charges;and that by deporting them, Canada may be violating its "international human rights obligations if they face the possibility of serious human rights violations." Read: If Canada sends them home, they may be persecuted in their native countries.
Kenney's response was fierce, taking the group to task on a number of fronts and rightly calling into question Amnesty's decision to single out the Canadians for scorn.
"Our primary duty as a government is to protect Canada and Canadians," wrote Kenney. "Deporting these men discharges this duty and ensures Canada will not become a sanctuary for international war criminals and serious human rights abusers."
Amnesty's preferred course of action – to prosecute these men in Canada – would cost taxpayers millions to try these men for crimes committed in other countries, often eons ago. Such a move would clog criminal courts even further than they are now. And it would give war criminals an extra incentive to try immigrating to Canada in the hopes of having a trial there, thus being able to stay longer while they wait and launch appeals.
Kenney's larger point is the key: Why is Amnesty attacking Canada? Amnesty's attack has the effect of lumping Canada in with some of the most repulsive countries Amnesty attacks, even though Canada has one of the most generous immigration systems in the world. Why focus such a disproportionate amount of energy on Canada and other free countries when there are so many unspeakable human rights violations taking place on a daily basis in unfree countries?
A quick check of the group's website shows that in the past year, Amnesty had 151 mentions of human rights issues in the United States, and yet only 140 for Iran, 20 for Cuba -- and a whopping 6 for North Korea. Perhaps Canada should aspire to be more like North Korea?
The Western democracies are paying a price for being transparent. Amnesty does not focus its energy on the biggest human rights abusers, but rather on documenting what it can to produce improvements and heighten public awareness. This is not conjecture: Amnesty confirmed in February 2007 that it reports disproportionately on more democratic and open countries with access to information rather than on worthier targets.
It must be strange to be an Amnesty donor and to see money being used to fund operations used principally to criticize one's own governments, while the organization remains relatively quiet on blood-curdling human rights abusers.
Amnesty is also lining its wallets. Earlier this year, the British newspapers revealed the salaries and bonuses given to senior Amnesty staff. Secretary General Irene Khan was paid £132,490 (USD $217,284) and received a severance package of four times that. As British parliamentarian Philip Davies noted, "I am sure people making donations to Amnesty, in the belief they are alleviating poverty, never dreamed they were subsidizing a fat cat payout. This will disillusion many benefactors."
Given this, plus its false outrage over Canada's recent move, plus Amnesty's long-standing hypocrisy in turning a blind eye to some of the most horrific human rights violators, it seems almost impossible to take Amnesty International seriously anymore.
SOURCE
17 August, 2011
So what DOES it take to deport a criminal from Britain? Judge cuts drug-dealing migrant's sentence so he won't get kicked out
A judge cut the sentence of an illegal immigrant and drug dealer yesterday to help him escape deportation. Vincent Miller was kicked out of the UK twice but managed to return and stay for more than a decade by stealing the identities of British citizens.
Yet when the 33-year-old was sentenced, the judge said sending him home to Jamaica would be ‘devastating’ for his three children. Judge Farook Ahmed made his decision on Miller's case during proceedings at Inner London Crown Court yesterday, claiming if he was to be deported it would be 'devastating' for his children
Judge Farook Ahmed made his decision on Miller's case during proceedings at Inner London Crown Court yesterday, claiming if he was to be deported it would be 'devastating' for his children
Incredibly, he deliberately shortened the sentence Miller would have received from a year to 11 months. Criminals given 12 months face automatic deportation proceedings.
Recorder Farook Ahmed told Miller: ‘The sentence I have had in mind was 12 months, but it seems to me that it isn’t necessary for me to pass a sentence of 12 months because a sentence of 11 months will have the same effect, and it would take away the automatic triggering of deportation. I have taken into account that if you were to be deported it is bound to have a devastating effect on your three children, who I’m told are lawfully here in the UK.’
The judge’s decision provoked a fierce backlash. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the pressure group Migrationwatch, said: ‘This raises serious questions about the attitude of the judiciary towards the whole question of removing from Britain those who no longer have a right to be here. ‘To shorten the sentence of a criminal so as to allow him to stay simply beggars belief.’
Tory MP Dominic Raab said: ‘The sentence should be tailored to fit the crime, not avoid Parliament’s rules on deportation which are there to protect the public.’
The case follows a string of outrages where the Human Rights Act has blocked deportation on family grounds.
Criminals have been permitted to stay even where they do not have children or a wife, but only a girlfriend.
Miller arrived in Britain at Christmas in 2000 when he was given permission to stay for only four days.
He did not return home and was arrested and deported in February 2001 only to return that Easter under a stolen identity. Within two years he was deported for supplying class A drugs.
From abroad he successfully applied for a new passport in the name of another man, Joseph Roche, who had no idea his identity had been stolen. That second identity crime allowed him to obtain a driving licence and start work as a barber.
As a result of his fraud, his wife and their three children, aged two, four and six, were able to claim UK citizenship.
His crimes were uncovered only when the real Mr Roche applied for a replacement driving licence, and DVLA officials realised two people were claiming to be the same man.
Miller, of Herne Hill in South East London, was arrested on July 5 and claimed he had given up Mr Roche’s identity some time earlier. He later pleaded guilty to possessing another person’s identity document, three counts of conspiring to obtain property by deception and three counts of dishonestly making a false representation.
Anyone sentenced to more than a year in prison is automatically considered for deportation by the UK Border Agency.
But the judge at Inner London Crown Court said he would reduce the intended sentence to allow Miller to stay in the country and look after his children.
Judge Ahmed told him: ‘You subverted immigration rules and you were able to construct a life in the UK based on your deception. ‘I have taken into account that if you were to be deported it is bound to have a devastating effect on your three children, who I’m told are lawfully here in the UK.
‘At least one other person benefited from your conduct, and that is I’m told your former wife,’ said the judge. ‘She was able to become a UK national as a result of your assumption of Mr Roche’s identity.’
The judge said it was a significant aggravating factor that he had made a ‘wholesale assumption’ of Mr Roche’s identity, who was himself then suspected of being a criminal. ‘He is a real person and is entirely innocent,’ he said.
The Home Office insisted it would still seek to deport Miller at the end of his sentence. However, the Jamaican will be entitled to use Article 8 of the Human Rights Act – the right to a private and family life – to attempt to stay in the country.
Figures obtained by the Daily Mail show nearly 400 foreign criminals escaped deportation last year by using Article 8.
A UK Border Agency spokesman said: ‘We will seek to remove this individual at the end of his sentence. If someone has no right to be in this country, and does not leave voluntarily, we will take action to enforce their removal.’
SOURCE
Obama's Backdoor amnesty
Homeland Security officials misled the public and Congress last year in an effort to downplay a wave of immigration case dismissals in Houston and other cities amid accusations that they had created a "back-door amnesty," newly released records show.
The records, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, include a series of internal memos from Immigration and Customs Enforcement's chief counsel in Houston dated last August ordering attorneys to review all new, incoming cases and thousands already pending on the immigration court docket and to file paperwork to dismiss any that did not meet the agency's "top priorities."
The secretive review process resulted in the dismissal of hundreds of cases in Houston, most of them involving illegal immigrants who had lived in the United States for years without committing serious crimes.
A string of emails shows the dismissals had the blessings of top attorneys at ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C., last summer and that other ICE legal offices across the country were encouraged to consider measures to better use the agency's limited resources to target dangerous criminals.
The records also document for the first time that the agency quietly rescinded the Houston memo on Aug. 25 — the day the Houston Chronicle broke the story on the dismissals — amid allegations from conservatives that the Obama administration had created a stealth amnesty program for illegal immigrants.
ICE public affairs officials in Washington initially refused either to confirm or deny the dismissals, and then told several news outlets that they affected only a very narrow class of illegal immigrants with pending green card applications described in a different agency memo. After Senate Judiciary Committee members demanded an investigation last fall into the Houston dismissals, Homeland Security officials reiterated the same claim they made to the media.
However, the newly released documents show conclusively that government attorneys in Houston were given wide latitude to file motions to dismiss cases, including some involving immigrants with convictions for primarily misdemeanor offenses.
"It now appears that DHS attempted to mislead the public and Congress on its policy of directing dismissals of cases against criminal aliens," said Jessica Sandlin, Sen. John Cornyn's Texas press secretary. "After this failed attempt at stonewalling and obstruction of the public's right to know, the truth is now coming out."
Sandlin vowed to "get to the bottom" of the case dismissals, meaning ICE leadership may have to account to Congress for what some critics are calling an attempted cover-up by the agency.
ICE officials declined to answer a reporter's questions about whether they intentionally misled the news media, the general public or Congress in connection with the dismissals. In a statement, the agency's spokeswoman, Barbara Gonzalez, said the Houston memos "misconstrued and exceeded the agency's official guidance" on prosecutorial discretion and were rescinded quickly.
However, the internal records show the Houston office's efforts were praised internally by supervisors at ICE headquarters in Washington until news of the dismissals broke. And immigration court data shows the number of cases dismissed nationally grew by about 40 percent last fiscal year, with several courts scattered across the country reporting major increases.
Immigrant advocates praised the dismissals as a common-sense measure, but the more lenient shift in agency policy has prompted protests from within ICE's rank-and-file, with union officials accusing the administration of straying from its core mission to enforce the nation's immigration laws.
Tre Rebstock, president of the Houston ICE union, said he was concerned that the agency's leadership may have jeopardized public safety by dismissing some cases involving immigrants with criminal records. But Rebstock said he was equally concerned about the official reaction to the controversy, saying it had the hallmarks of a cover-up.
"As law enforcement officers, we are held to a higher standard than the public because we have the public's trust," Rebstock said. "And then they go and stand up in front of the Senate and throw all of their credibility out of the window when they say, 'Oh no, we weren't doing this. This wasn't our policy.'
"They did it," Rebstock said. "And then they lied - or misrepresented the truth, at the very least - about what they were doing."
Much more HERE
16 August, 2011
European Concerns Over Muslim Immigration Go Mainstream
A new opinion survey shows that more than half of all Europeans believe there are too many immigrants in their countries and that immigration is having a negative impact on their lives.
The findings – which come as Europeans are waking up to the consequences of decades of mass immigration from Muslim countries – point to a growing disconnect between European voters and their political masters regarding multicultural policies that encourage Muslim immigrants to remain segregated rather than become integrated into their host nations.
The survey results mirror the findings of dozens of other recent polls. Taken together, they provide ample empirical evidence that scepticism about Muslim immigration is not limited to a "right-wing" political fringe, as proponents of multiculturalism often assert. Mainstream voters across the entire political spectrum are now expressing concerns about the role of Islam in Europe.
The "Global Views on Immigration" survey was conducted by the London-based Ipsos global research firm and published on August 4. It polled citizens in nine European countries: Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden.
The poll shows a close correlation between the views the natives of a given country have about immigration and the number of, and level of, integration of Muslim immigrants in their countries.
For example, the poll finds that Belgians and Britons hold the most negative views on immigration; these countries also have some of the least integrated Muslim populations in Europe. The poll also shows that among Europeans, Poles have the most positive views on immigration and immigrants; Poland happens to have Europe's smallest Muslim community, which comprises less than 0.1% of that country's total population.
The Ipsos poll shows that as a whole, more than 56% of Europeans believe "there are too many immigrants" in their countries: Belgium (72%), Britain (71%), Italy (67%), Spain (67%), Germany (53%), France (52%), Hungary (50%), Sweden (46%) and Poland (29%).
In response to the polling question "Would you say that immigration has generally had a positive or negative impact?" majorities in all European countries except for Sweden and Poland say the impact has been negative: Belgium (72%), Britain (64%), Italy (56%), Spain (55%), France (54%), Germany (54%), Hungary (52%), Sweden (37%) and Poland (32%). As a whole, only 17.5% of Europeans say immigration has been positive.
Most Europeans also agree with the survey statement "Immigration has placed too much pressure on public services" in their country: Britain (76%), Spain (70%), Belgium (68%), Hungary (59%), Germany (58%), France (56%), Italy (56%), Sweden (40%) and Poland (27%).
The Ipsos survey mirrors the findings of a number of other recent polls which show that Europe's mainstream political parties are losing touch with public opinion on the issue of Muslim immigration.
A new report "Muslim-Western Tensions Persist" was published by the Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center on July 21. It shows that Europeans believe their relations with Muslims are bad: France (62%), Germany (61%), Spain (58%) and Britain (52%).
The poll also shows that most Europeans believe Muslims in their countries do not want to integrate: Germany (72%), Spain (69%), France (54%) and Britain (52%).
The Pew survey shows that almost 60% of Europeans believe Muslims are "fanatical," 50% believe they are "violent" and only 22% believe they are "respectful of women." In response to the question "Which religion is most violent?" 90% of French say Islam, as do 87% of Spaniards, 79% of Germans and 75% of Britons. The poll also shows that more than two-thirds of Germans (73%), Britons (70%), French (68%) and Spanish (61%) are worried about Islamic extremists in their countries.
A separate poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project shows widespread support in Europe for banning Islamic veils in public, including in schools, hospitals and government offices. The survey shows that 82% of French, 71% of Germans, 62% of Britons and 59% of Spaniards support such a ban.
Another pan-European survey, the "Guardian Euro Poll," shows that concern about Muslim immigration is widespread and not just limited to the political far right. The poll shows that although 62% of Europeans view themselves as "liberal" rather than "traditional" on social issues, pluralities in the four biggest countries (Britain, France, Germany and Spain) are opposed to immigration from outside the European Union. The survey also shows that unrestricted immigration is the first- or second-most serious problem a large number of Europeans face.
In Britain, a poll called the "Searchlight Fear and Hope Survey" shows that huge numbers of Britons would support an anti-immigration English nationalist party if it were not associated with violence and fascist imagery. The poll, conducted by London-based Populus, also shows that more than 50% of Britons agree with the proposition that "Muslims create problems in the UK."
In France, an Ifop poll published by the center-left Le Monde newspaper shows that 42% of French citizens consider the presence of a Muslim community in their country to be "a threat" to their national identity. Moreover, 68% of French say Muslims are "not well integrated in society." Out of these, 61% of the French blame this failure on the "refusal" by Muslims to integrate.
Recent polls also show that up to two-thirds of French voters believe that "multiculturalism" and the integration of Muslims into society have failed. A survey by Ifop for the France-Soir newspaper shows that nearly 40% of French voters believe that Muslim prayer in the streets of France resembles an occupation. An opinion poll published by Le Parisien newspaper shows that voters view Marine Le Pen, who leads the far right National Front party, as the candidate best suited to fix the problem of Muslim immigration.
In Germany, an opinion survey, "Perception and Acceptance of Religious Diversity," conducted by the sociology department of the University of Münster, in partnership with the prestigious TNS Emnid political polling firm, shows that the majority of Germans disagree with a statement by German President Christian Wulff that Islam "belongs in Germany."
The study shows that only 34% of West Germans and 26% of East Germans have a positive view of Muslims. Fewer than 5% of Germans think Islam is a tolerant religion, and only 30% say they approve of the building of mosques. The number of Germans who approve of the building of minarets or the introduction of Muslim holidays is even lower.
Fewer than 10% of West Germans and 5% of East Germans say that Islam is a peaceful religion. More than 40% of Germans believe that the practice of Islam should be vigorously restricted.
Only 20% of Germans and 30% of French believe that Islam is suitable for the Western world. Significantly, more than 80% of those surveyed in Germany, France, Denmark, Portugal and the Netherlands agree with the statement "that Muslims must adapt to our culture."
In the Netherlands, polls show that an overwhelming majority of Dutch voters are sceptical about multiculturalism. According to a Maurice de Hond poll published by the center-right newspaper Trouw on June 19, 74% of Dutch voters say immigrants should conform to Dutch values. Moreover, 83% of those polled say they support a ban on Islamic burqas in public spaces.
A separate Maurice de Hond poll published by the popular NU.nl news website on July 29 shows that 63% of Dutch are "worried about the fact that the influence of Islam in Western European countries is increasing."
Not surprisingly, the center-right government in Holland recently announced plans to abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the country.
In Denmark, a Gallup/Berlingske poll recently published by the center-right Berlingske newspaper shows that 92% of Danish citizens believe Muslim immigrants should "predominantly adopt local Danish customs."
The poll was conducted after the new integration minister, Søren Pind, publicly rejected the idea that Denmark should be a multicultural society. According to Pind, Denmark should welcome foreigners who are willing to adopt and respect Danish values, norms and traditions; those who do not should not be in Denmark at all. "The way I see it, when you choose Denmark, you choose Denmark because you want to become Danish," Pind said.
Considered as a whole, the recent surveys show that majorities of Europeans are now worried about the impact that Muslim immigration is having on their daily lives.
But an arguably more important conclusion to be gleaned from the polling data is that ordinary Europeans are becoming increasingly willing to express their opinions in public.
After decades of a "bread and circuses," European political culture in which the ruling class was able to appease the general public by means of the cradle-to-grave social welfare state, there is now a discernable shift in public discourse in many European countries on the topic of immigration..
If Europe's political class eventually bends to the public will and does an about-face on a social re-engineering project that is transforming the continent beyond recognition, the recent shift in public opinion on immigration may yet mark the beginning of the end of European multiculturalism. Or will it be too little too late?
SOURCE. See the original for links
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
1. Long May She Waive (Blog)
2. Granted Asylum in U.S., Mexican Reporter Talks of Corruption (Blog)
3. Here's an Arm of USCIS That's Tough on Disputed R-1 (Religious) Visas (Blog)
4. Yes, Joe Wilson Was Right! (Blog)
5. Child Labor and Illegal Immigration like Peas in a Pod (Blog)
6. USCIS Tries to Bar DoJ from Looking at Its Records (Blog)
7. Making Illegals the Victims (Blog)
8. ABA Wades into Birthright Citizenship Debate (Blog)
9. Citizen Action on Immigration (Blog)
10. Isolated, Vulnerable, and Broke? Declining 'Hispanic' Wealth (Blog)
11. Congress Toys With Another Tiny Visa Class – For Exactly 14 Hospitals (Blog)
15 August, 2011
Republicans’ big problem in 2012 — Hispanics
Despite the avalanche of bad news for President Barack Obama, he remains the most likely winner of the 2012 elections.
That’s the conclusion I reached after watching the top Republican presidential hopefuls in recent weeks, as they started in earnest the race for their party’s nomination. They have taken such a hard line on issues that are dear to Latinos, that I don’t see how any of them can win the 40 percent of the Hispanic vote that pollsters say Republicans will need to win the White House.
The last Republican president, George W. Bush, got 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, and the Latino vote has only become more important since. Former Republican candidate Sen. John McCain — who ran as a moderate on immigration — lost the 2008 campaign in part because he got only 31 percent of the Hispanic vote, pollsters say.
So the question today is, how will any of the current Republican hopefuls win a sizable part of the Hispanic vote, when they are embracing a much harder line on Hispanic issues than McCain did in 2008?
At the Republican debate Thursday in Iowa, none of the participating hopefuls supported a comprehensive immigration reform policy — as McCain did four years ago — that would both secure the border and allow an earned path to legalization for millions of undocumented immigrants who are willing to, among other things, pay fines and learn English.
Their common stand seemed to be: “Let’s first seal the border” and crack down on “illegals.” Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who did not participate in the debate but announced his candidacy two days later, toes the same enforcement-first line.
As they try to woo conservative Republicans who tend to be the largest voting blocs in the primaries, they are likely to escalate their rhetoric. To Hispanics, they look like a group bent on the massive deportation of the estimated 11 million undocumented residents in the country, even bright students brought here as babies by their parents.
Republican pollsters note that according to their surveys, Hispanic voters place the economy, education and health ahead of immigration on their list of priorities.
Democratic pollsters counter that it will be hard for Republicans to campaign on the economy when Republican hopefuls are calling for deeper cuts in social programs that most Hispanics want to preserve. In addition, immigration plays a big role in Hispanics’ voting decisions, they say. “Immigration is an emotional issue,” Democratic pollster Sergio Bendixen told me. “It indicates to us which candidate likes us, and which one doesn’t.”
Several Republican Party leaders, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, have recently launched a Hispanic Leadership Network to woo Latinos to the Republican Party. Last week, I asked Gutierrez how his party can improve its standing among Latinos with its current anti-immigration, anti-social programs rhetoric.
Gutierrez, who supports former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, and considers his candidate to be a “pragmatist,” conceded that Republicans will have a hard time winning with any candidate who Hispanics perceive as hostile to them. “The Republican nominee will have to be someone who is a moderate,” Gutierrez told me. “We have to embrace immigration: If we are the party of prosperity, we have to be the party of immigration.”
My opinion: Republicans have a big problem with Hispanics. Granted, Obama is facing an economic slowdown that affects Hispanics more than most other Americans, and he has failed to meet his campaign promise to pass a comprehensive immigration reform that could benefit millions of Latinos.
In addition, the Obama administration has deported nearly 1 million undocumented immigrants over the past three years — more than Bush in his eight years in office. But Republicans won’t be able to criticize Obama on any of these counts, because their presidential hopefuls are calling for deeper budget cuts without new taxes on the rich, and come across as supporting the massive deportation of all undocumented immigrants.
Barring a shift to the center that would help Republicans win more Hispanic votes, or a worse-than-expected U.S. economic downturn that would drive Latino voters to stay at home on election day rather than voting for the president, Obama will be reelected in 2012.
SOURCE
Undocumented immigrants face checks on Amtrak, Greyhound
Federal agents appear to have stepped up checks for undocumented immigrants on public transportation, including Greyhound buses and Amtrak. The feds say they have the authority to check any public area.
Immigration searches on public transportation sites are not well publicized. Border patrol agents generally protect the border or coastline. But, Steve Cribby, spokesperson for U. S. Customs and Border Protection, says agents have the authority to conduct immigration checks in public places. And checks on Greyhound buses and Amtrak are meant to disrupt human smuggling activities into the country’s interior, he said.
The checks are consistent with previous years, he said. Citing law enforcement sensitivity, border patrol officials would not provide figures on apprehensions on public transportation. But attorneys and others say they have definitely seen an increase.
“I am definitely seeing a large number of people stopped by Greyhound,” said attorney Sara Van Hofwegen, who worked with Azucena to get her deportation order deferred under the proposed DREAM Act, which will provides a path to citizenship for some. On one recent visit to the BTC in Southwest Broward, Van Hofwegen spoke to 12 detainees. Five of the 12 were apprehended on a Greyhound.
“I’d say Greyhound cases make up about 20 percent of our clients now,’’ said Juliet Williams, an assistant with the law offices of Kantaras & Andreopoulos, with offices in Central Florida. “That is much more than we’ve usually seen.” She estimates the firm has seen an increase in Greyhound apprehensions of about 25 percent in the past two years.
Between October 2010 and May 2011, immigration agents in Florida arrested around 2,900 undocumented immigrants. That includes arrests made on public transportation, apprehensions through routine highway stops and drug cases.
“We assist local and government officials like [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the Border Patrol as needed,” said Greyhound spokesperson Bonnie Bastian in an email. “We are unaware of when and why they are at our stations until they arrive.”
As for Amtrak, spokesperson Christina Leeds said the service has a “longstanding relationship” with federal law enforcement agencies. “Amtrak works closely and cooperates with all federal, state and local” agencies, she said.
More HERE
14 August, 2011
Immigration levels are already too high in Canada
Former federal Liberal cabinet minister Robert Kaplan recently proposed that Canada increase its population to 100 million through increased immigration in order that we become more influential on the world stage. While some may find this visionary in its scope, it totally fails to take into account the realities of today's Canada.
Many of our larger cities are already groaning under the weight of high immigration intake that is increasing congestion, house prices and costs to taxpayers. A recent paper by Herbert Grubel and Patrick Grady estimated that newcomers cost Canadians between $16 and $23 billion a year because of what they receive in government benefits over what they pay in taxes.
Added to this is concern over the increasing concentrations of immigrants who come from cultures and traditions very different from those of most Canadians. An example of this is the controversy over Muslim prayer sessions at the Valley Park Middle School in Toronto, where 80 to 90 per cent of the students are Muslims. Such problems can be expected to occur more frequently even at current levels of immigration.
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is quite right when he questions whether Canadians are ready to accept higher immigration levels. He recently told the Vancouver Board of Trade that we do not have the resources or ability to integrate much larger numbers of immigrants every year and pointed out that we can't flood our taxpayerfunded services or put pressure on real estate markets.
While Kenney is the most effective immigration minister we've had in a long time and is prepared to acknowledge and deal with some of the most difficult issues, even he would appear to be off-base in his belief that most Canadians accept current levels of intake.
When Canadians state that they are happy about immigration in general, this should not be interpreted as meaning they are satisfied with the numbers we are bringing in, particularly if this affects them (which is the case in larger cities, where most newcomers settle). An Ekos Research survey released in November, for example, found that, while 71 per cent of respondents said they felt immigration was good for Canada, this declined to 48 per cent when asked if they thought it was good for their neighbourhood.
A recent poll by Léger Marketing found that 55 per cent of Calgarians thought their city was already too large and only 39 per cent thought it had the right number of people. This means 94 per cent didn't want it to become larger - which will be increasingly difficult to achieve unless we dramatically reduce immigration since most of the population increase will be from this source. Only five per cent of the people in Toronto and Vancouver wanted their numbers to increase. Yet Toronto is projected to grow by three million people and Vancouver by almost one million in the next two decades if current immigration levels are maintained.
That there should be a gap between what our leaders think we want and what the average Canadian wants is not surprising. The Centre for Immigration Studies in Washington found that among opinion makers in the United States (members of Congress, leaders of church groups, business executives, union leaders, journalists, academics, etc.) only 18 per cent thought immigration should be reduced compared to 55 per cent of the public.
Although various reasons have been advanced for why Canada should continue with high immigration levels even if this causes problems for many Canadians, at least some fallacious arguments have been discarded. The present government, for example, does not attempt to perpetrate the myth that immigration is a realistic way of dealing with the costs associated with the aging of our population. A more pervasive fiction, however, is we must have largescale immigration if we are to meet looming labour shortages and that Canada cannot prosper without a constant infusion of workers from abroad.
The fact is, most of our labour shortages can be met domestically if we make the best use of our existing workforce and educational and training facilities - rather than rely on quick fixes from outside.
This point was made not only by the Economic Council of Canada 20 years ago, but has been reiterated and updated more recently by renowned labour economists such as Alan G. Green of Queen's University and David A. Green of UBC. David Green recently told a conference in Vancouver that using immigration to fill labour-force gaps carries pitfalls and that natural market responses to labour shortages, such as pay hikes, can be obstructed when immigration increases the supply of workers and thus reduces wages.
Similar conclusions were reached in a major study released this month by one of Australia's leading academic centres that deal with immigration and labour market issues. The Monash University study found that immigration was not the best way of meeting labour shortages in key industries in that country and that the promotion of the idea that immigration was essential for this purpose was in part a "scare campaign" being waged by immigration lobbyists (Australians tend to be more blunt about such matters than Canadians).
While Canada should remain an immigrant-friendly country and invite newcomers to come here in reasonable numbers, it is clear that not only would we be foolish at this point in our history to embark on a massive increase in population by means of immigration as suggested by Robert Kaplan, but that maintaining anywhere near current levels brings with it almost no benefit to most Canadians and, indeed, is very costly.
SOURCE
Fourth "asylum" boat hits Australian waters since Malaysia deal signed
THE Federal Government's immigration woes have deepened with a fourth boat of asylum seekers hitting Australian waters since its Malaysian deal was signed.
The arrival comes as new figures reveal there are already about 65 child asylum seekers in detention pending deportation to Malaysia. It is expected nearly all minors in detention would be expelled under the Government's swap deal if the High Court allows it. The Government has said it would not give a "blanket exemption" to minors, saying there would be case-by-case decisions made.
But the UNHCR says it would not support a deal where young people were not given adequate care.
There are now 266 asylum seekers in limbo on Christmas Island, more than a quarter of the 800 the Government hopes to deport in a four-year deal.
Human rights lawyers have launched a High Court challenge, to be heard from August 22, to try to force the Government to assess their claims in Australia.
A source said there were 31 unaccompanied children on Thursday's boat who now face expulsion to Malaysia. They bring the total tally of unaccompanied minors up to almost 50. Another four families with three young children were among 102 asylum seekers on Thursday's boat.
As part of its asylum seeker plan, the Government will send a delegation to PNG to organise a processing centre on Manus Island.
But the PNG Government is facing a Supreme Court challenge over its legitimacy, and new Prime Minister Peter O'Neill has been warned by opponents against making big decisions before the matter is heard.
The challenge says parliament had no grounds to declare Sir Michael Somare's prime ministership vacant on August 2. Port Moresby Governor Powes Parkop claims the Manus Island deal is unconstitutional and threatens to take it to court. "It's not right that Australia keeps on passing this problem to its neighbouring country, in PNG, and Nauru and now Malaysia," he said.
Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said a PNG deal would not work without a Malaysian one. "If you have only offshore processing as part of your regime then that's not a deterrent, because the majority of people who are found to be refugees who are processed on Nauru, for example, ended up in Australia," he told the ABC.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said: "The Government should get over their stubborn pride and pick up the phone to Nauru."
SOURCE
13 August, 2011
Immigration group files suit challenging detentions
A Chicago immigration group has filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the Department of Homeland Security, charging that its practice of asking local police to detain immigrants through immigration detainers when there's no evidence of illegal activity is unconstitutional.
An immigration detainer, a key component of DHS' Secure Communities program, is a request from DHS' Immigration and Customs Enforcement to another law enforcement agency to keep individuals in custody so that ICE can investigate their immigration status and potentially take over custody.
"What the lawsuit alleges is that in the vast majority of cases with individuals who have detainers lodged against them, basically ICE says to the locals, 'We are instructing you to detain (an individual) after (your) authority has expired because we have initiated an investigation,' " said Mark Fleming, litigation coordinator for the National Immigrant Justice Center, the group that filed the lawsuit.
The lawsuit contends that people are being held without probable cause that a crime has been committed, violating the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.
DHS spokesman Matthew Chandler said the department does not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit alleges that ICE's practice also violates the Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process of law because ICE does not provide individuals with the detainer form. This complicates an individual's ability to get out on bail or to negotiate a plea bargain, Fleming said. Moreover, ICE does not give individuals an opportunity to challenge their prolonged detention, the lawsuit claims.
DHS' Secure Communities program, under which local law enforcement agencies share fingerprints with U.S. immigration authorities, has come under increasingly severe scrutiny for its controversial practices. Its goal is to identify and deport convicted felons. The program has been criticized for catching minor offenders and deterring immigrants from reporting crimes for fear of being detained.
Jose Jimenez Moreno, one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, was initially arrested on a drug charge but is a U.S. citizen who cannot be deported, bringing into question ICE's stated goals, the suit says.
Some states have indicated they would like to opt-out of the Secure Communities program, but last Friday the Obama administration said it does not believe it needs state approval to continue using Secure Communities. The program is used in 70 percent of law enforcement jurisdictions and has helped deport more than 77,000 immigrants convicted of crimes.
"The Secure communities program is a catastrophe," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "It has entangled local police ... to the detriment of civil rights. Frankly it has been leading to the 'Arizonafication' of the country."
SOURCE
More cash splurged on Australian government's asylum seeker bailout
A NEW deal with PNG to take asylum seekers could take several weeks to start as 102 more boat people landed.
The development today comes as the third asylum seeker boat to arrive since the "Malaysian solution" was signed plunged the Government into troubled waters.
It will be several weeks before an immigration detention centre on Manus Island is ready to take asylum seekers arriving in Australian waters.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen today admitted that Manus Island would not be an "answer in itself'' to the people-smuggling issue, and revealed it would take several weeks for the island's detention centre to come up to appropriate standards.
"There is upgrading work to do and measures to take,'' Mr Bowen said. But he denied the arrival of three boats showed the Malaysia deal was not deterring people smugglers. "People smugglers will try it on ... using all sorts of lies about the current situation with the Malaysia court case.''
"You may be sent to Malaysia or Papua New Guinea, but you're not going to be processed in Australia,'' he told ABC Radio on Friday.
His comments came as another 102 asylum seekers landed at Christmas Island last night, including more children. This takes the number of people facing deportation to 207, more than a quarter of the 800 Malaysia will take.
The arrivals coincided with the confirmation of the fresh immigration deal - with Papua New Guinea - at further cost to taxpayers.
The boat surge increases pressure on the Government, which is facing a High Court challenge to its people swap deal that will be heard on August 22.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the Government was very confident it could send asylum seekers to other countries.
Mr Bowen earlier warned that delays would provide people smugglers an angle to "spin" to desperate people willing to get on boats.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said about 770 asylum seekers had braved seas to reach Australia since the Government announced its new policy in May.
He said the deal's "use-by date" was fast approaching, regardless of the High Court challenge. "It's a one-off deal with one country with a clear use-by date and a huge cost of almost $300 million, which simply hasn't been thought through," he said.
With the deal hanging in the balance, another option for processing asylum seekers has emerged, with the Papua New Guinean Government agreeing to re-open the Manus Island detention centre.
Ms Gillard confirmed the agreement in a statement. "Arrangements are being made for a high-level delegation of Australian officials to travel to Papua New Guinea in the very near future to finalise a memorandum of understanding regarding the centre," Ms Gillard said.
"We are committed to working in partnership with PNG to examine how such a centre might operate, including how it might best complement broader regional activities."
PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said Australia would meet the running costs of the centre, although details were yet to be confirmed. If the centre were renovated and run by Australian staff, it would cost millions.
As the Malaysian deal legal battle looms, the Government continues to say asylum seekers arriving at Christmas Island will be sent to Malaysia.
Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said people on the latest boat "will be taken to Christmas Island for pre-transfer assessments, pending removal to Malaysia".
As the asylum seekers entered legal limbo, Burmese refugees from Malaysia have arrived in Melbourne to start a new life.
The first eight to be re-settled in Melbourne are not part of the 4000 refugees Australia has agreed to take under the Malaysian deal.
SOURCE
12 August, 2011
Arizona appeals immigration ruling to Supreme Court
Gov. Jan Brewer wants to revive the state's controversial immigration law, SB 1070
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer appealed to the Supreme Court to revive the state's disputed immigration policing law, seeking a ruling that could free states to take aggressive enforcement action against illegal immigrants.
"Arizona bears the brunt of the problems caused by illegal immigration [and] is the gateway to nearly half of the nation's illegal border crossings," said former Solicitor General Paul Clement on behalf of the state.
Clement, who served during the George W. Bush administration, urged the justices Wednesday to rebuke the Obama administration for its "extraordinary step" of intervening in court to block the Arizona law, known as SB 1070, from taking effect.
If the justices agree to take up the Arizona case, they would hear arguments in the winter and probably hand down a ruling in late spring as the presidential race gets underway.
Last year, Arizona took center stage in the immigration debate when its lawmakers directed police to check the immigration status of people they lawfully stopped and suspected of being in the country illegally. The state said its stepped-up enforcement was intended to "discourage and deter" illegal immigrants from living or working in Arizona.
But the Obama administration went to court in Phoenix along with immigrant rights advocates, arguing that the federal government has exclusive control over immigration enforcement. The administration said its policy was to arrest and deport criminals, gang members and drug dealers who were illegal immigrants. By implication, officials indicated they did not seek to round up hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who were working or living in this country.
The administration won rulings from a federal judge in Phoenix and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, putting the Arizona policing measure on hold.
In appealing those decisions, Clement said the states had a basic "police power" that allowed them to enforce the law within their borders. Moreover, he said, illegal immigration has a "disproportionate impact" on states such as Arizona, which justifies extra enforcement measures.
Following Arizona's lead, Georgia, Alabama and Utah have adopted similar enforcement laws. In addition, Clement cited measures in Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee that authorize police to check the immigration status of those they arrest.
But most of those measures face legal challenges, and several have been blocked from going into effect.
At issue in all of these cases is whether states may enforce the immigration laws more aggressively than the federal government.
Arizona's legal position got a boost in May when the Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, upheld a state employment law that would take away the business licenses of employers who knowingly hired illegal workers. It was challenged by companies and civil rights advocates who argued that the state penalties conflicted with federal law. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the court was wary of striking down a state law unless Congress made clear states have no enforcement role.
In his appeal on the SB 1070 case, Clement argued that Congress wanted the state to play a "cooperative" role in enforcing the immigration laws.
Omar Jadwat, an immigrant rights lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said he doubted the state would prevail in the high court.
"The governor had put herself in a political position where she had to file this appeal. But she has lost in the district court and in the court of appeals, and I don't think dragging it out will make for a different result," he said. "There's really no need for the Supreme Court to get involved."
SOURCE
Top Mass. cops: Illegal alien cons must go
2 sheriffs ignore governor, seek to boot criminals
Two tough-on-crime southeastern Massachusetts lawmen are openly defying Gov. Deval Patrick’s push to end a controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants, pledging to work with the feds to deport undocumented foreign lawbreakers that land in their jails.
Bristol Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and Plymouth Sheriff Joseph McDonald are moving forward with plans to join the federal Secure Communities program, despite Patrick’s campaign earlier this summer to cancel the state’s participation, the Herald has learned.
“There’s nothing he can do,” Hodgson said of Patrick. “He can complain or do whatever he wants. He can challenge me legally. I don’t frankly care. I didn’t get elected by the governor.”
The two Republican sheriffs are slated to meet with officials from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency next week to hash out plans to share inmates’ fingerprints and other information to weed out illegal aliens.
Forty-two states take part in the program but Patrick pulled Massachusetts out, citing concerns that illegals were being deported after being charged with only minor crimes. The governor also argued that the state routinely shares arrestees’ fingerprints with the FBI and refers all convicted felons to ICE.
“The governor’s position is nothing short of irresponsible,” Hodgson said. “Anytime we can implement an initiative to make our communities safer, we have an obligation to do that.”
John Birtwell, a spokesman for McDonald, said: “The sheriff has been foursquare behind Secure Communities and has been trying to work with the local officials as well as ICE officials in Washington to join the program.”
Patrick, citing concerns of “ethnic profiling,” refused to sign a memorandum in June that would have required law enforcement agencies to share fingerprints with ICE.
In a June letter to ICE, the governor’s public safety czar Mary Heffernan cited “conflicting messages” from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as a report that found just one in four deportees under the program in Boston had been convicted of a “serious crime.”
The report also found more than half of those deported were listed as “non-criminal.”
Patrick spokesman Alex Goldstein yesterday refused to comment directly on the efforts of Hodgson and McDonald, but said: “The governor has made his concerns about this program clear to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, and he is going to continue to express those concerns moving forward.”
The issue came to a head earlier this year when Luis Guaman Cela, a 40-year-old illegal immigrant from Ecuador, was charged with the brutal bludgeoning murders of Maria Avelina Palaguachi-Cela and her toddler son in Brockton. Guaman Cela had a violent rap sheet under an alias and fled to Ecuador after the murders.
Boston has been part of Secure Communities since 2006, but Mayor Thomas M. Menino also has threatened to pull out of the program. City officials are slated to meet with ICE on Aug. 24 to discuss the issue.
SOURCE
11 August, 2011
Job Creation and Immigration
Tucked in between dramatic stock market drops on Thursday and Monday, there was a little bit of seemingly good economic news on Friday morning. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the private sector added 117,000 jobs in the month of July.
But this news needs an asterisk. As Chris Chmielenski of the immigration control organization Numbers USA notes, “that number still falls short of the number of jobs needed for the 125,000 work permits issued to foreign workers each month by the federal government.”
Despite the recession, the government continues to issue huge numbers of visas to foreign workers. In 2010, we issued over one million permanent green cards. Three quarter of these immigrants were of working age who are competing against Americans for jobs. We also issue nearly a million guest worker visas each year.
This is not enough for many in Congress. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is reportedly planning to introduce another “comprehensive immigration reform” bill, which will grant amnesty to illegal aliens and massively increase legal immigration.
Knowing that this is going to be a tough sell in a recession, Sen. Schumer explained that he met with leaders of various pro-amnesty organizations and, “We decided we ought to start highlighting the fact that immigration creates jobs rather than takes them away. Everyone agreed that is how we are going to start talking about immigration, as a job creator.”
Talk all they want, but our current immigration policies are taking jobs, not creating them.
On July 26, Sen. Schumer held a hearing to promote the idea that immigrants create jobs called "The Economic Imperative for Enacting Immigration Reform." The hearing focused on immigration of high skilled workers and entrepreneurs, but these are only a tiny proportion of all immigrants. In 2010, only 0.2% of legal immigrants were investors, 5.2% received advanced degree visas, and 1.1% were listed as having “extraordinary abilities.”
Virtually all illegal aliens and the majority of legal immigrants are low skilled workers. Moreover, the skills of many workers on high skilled H-1B visas are often limited to a tech degree from a community college overseas. They are brought here not because they have truly advanced abilities needed by American businesses, but because they will work for far less than Americans. As Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) recently stated about H-1B visas “it is clear they are not working as intended, and the programs are having a detrimental effect on American workers.”
Last October, the Rakesh Kochar of the Pew Hispanic Center reported that since the "official end of the Great Recession in June 2009, foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost 1.2 million." He updated his finding in March and found some small job creation for native born Americans, but that foreign workers were still finding new jobs at six times the American rate.
How should we solve this problem? Former National Review editor and George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum recently called for a simple solution to help reduce unemployment, an Immigration Moratorium. He argued, “You hear it often said that the US must create X number of jobs per month simply to stay even with the increase in the working population. It’s not stressed often enough that much of this increase is artificially created by immigration. In a time of high unemployment, why make the challenge larger?”
I don’t always agree with David Frum, but this is common sense. Until Americans are working, we should make across the board cuts on worker visas, while cracking down on employers of illegal aliens. In the meantime, whenever you hear a politician or pundit heads talking about “putting Americans back to work”, remember that many of those workers aren’t Americans.
SOURCE
A Disconnect on Immigration
Ipsos has just released a poll measuring citizens' perception of immigration in 23 countries. Despite what politicians around the world would have their countrymen believe, the average person isn't buying the benefits of current immigration policy.
The poll proves that our collective gut is indeed in line with reality: 80 percent of world citizens, from Russia and Brazil to America and India, feel that immigration has increased over the past five years, with 52 percent feeling it's too much. Of respondents, 45 percent believe immigration has a negative impact on their country. This is legal, above-board immigration with which people are taking issue.
While politicians in America typically focus on the 12 million or so illegal immigrants, they often ignore the fact that the country is taking in more than a million new legal immigrants every year.
America may have been built on immigration, but it wasn't the kind of mass Third World immigration that we've been seeing over the past 40 years. The left originally introduced the concept of Third World multiculturalism to America during the Lyndon Johnson presidency through the Democratic Party's Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It was born of white-guilt overkill in the shade of the Civil Rights Movement.
At the time, Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy said: "Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia. ... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think. ... The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."
In the true final analysis, the new law opened the floodgates to exponentially more Third World immigrants than originally planned -- and did it on the basis of "family reunification" rather than skill.
Before the new law, immigrants to the U.S. came overwhelmingly from Western European democracies and Canada. Afterward, immigration from Latin America and Asia dominated, while European immigration was reduced from 86 percent of the total to a mere sliver of 13 percent.
The law led to an influx of new Democratic voters via immigration. Now, any politician wanting to land this growing immigrant vote -- whether Democrat or Republican -- had better find a way to pander to the idea of multiculturalism, or, theoretically, risk alienating a major swath of voters. Ronald Reagan presided over near-record levels of annual legal immigration, and George W. Bush was anything but tough on immigration, maintaining immigration levels from the same countries against which we struggled ideologically in the aftermath of 9/11. No one wants to touch it.
The idea of any and all legal immigration being a net positive is something that has been deeply planted in the public conscience through leftist brainwashing and diversity-promotion initiatives, typically starting in the public education system. If anything, the Ipsos poll finally proves this to be definitively true, with the most educated respondents being the most supportive of immigration. Educated Canadians have the most positive view of immigration of anyone in the world. As a product of that system, I can vouch for the amount of multicultural and diversity peddling to which the average student is subjected in the absence of any counterpoint. This, despite the fact that the two founding factions, French and English Canadians, haven't ever gotten along, even leading to a period of French nationalist terrorism, which has since been subdued by repeatedly buying off the French-Canadian province of Quebec.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Ipsos survey -- and most in conflict with current U.S. policy -- is that 45 percent of people prefer skilled, educated immigrants who take high-level jobs that locals won't do over low-skilled immigrants or those who don't work at all. So future policy ought to focus on importing top talent and limiting low-level immigration -- which is also a recipe for competitive success in the global economy. It would be a safe place for politicians to start on a subject they've all been avoiding.
SOURCE
10 August, 2011
Malaysian transfer plan sinks as High Court of Australia hands down a preventive injunction
THE Federal Government will make a desperate bid to fast track a High Court challenge to its botched asylum seeker swap deal as the Malaysian solution languishes in legal limbo.
The Gillard Government was last night scrambling to defend its immigration policy after the High Court threatened to shred its legal credibility.
A two-week injunction imposed yesterday will prevent the deportation of the first wave of asylum seekers to Kuala Lumpur until the High Court can consider the policy's legality.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen last night said he was confident of the Government's legal footing despite judge Kenneth Hayne earlier ruling the policy posed a "sufficiently serious question" warranting the scrutiny of the full bench on August 22.
The legal questions surround the human rights and lack of legal protection for the Malaysian-bound asylum seekers and the deportation of unaccompanied minors.
The Government was last night battling to contain the political fallout as up to 100 asylum seekers remain in legal limbo on Christmas Island.
Adding to the embarrassment, Justice Hayne complained about the Solicitor-General's tardiness in presenting legal documents, describing the Crown's response as "half-baked".
Mr Bowen said the Government was on "very strong legal grounds".
"I'm confident that when the full bench considers the case the injunction will be lifted, the transfer will occur and the arrangement will be implemented," he said. He admitted the uncertainty created by the High Court injunction had "the danger of playing into people smugglers' hands". "I think it would be better that the case was heard as soon as possible," he said.
Meanwhile, an ambulance was called yesterday to treat three Malaysian-bound asylum seekers on a hunger strike on Christmas Island.
Lawyers for the 41 Afghani and Pakistani asylum seekers behind the current legal challenge say their clients are "petrified" about being sent to Malaysia.
David Manne argues their claims for protection should be continued in Australia and disputed the Government's claim Malaysia had sufficient human rights and protections for refugees.
"We'll be challenging that because the consequences here, of course, are very grave," he told the ABC. "The minister could declare any country to have adequate human rights standards or protections without a review by the court."
Despite the uncertainty with the people-swap policy, Mr Bowen said Australia would accept the first of the 4000 refugees from Malaysia as part of the deal. "I'm not going to put these people's lives on hold."
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the High Court injunction showed the Government could not get its immigration policies right.
SOURCE
Mexican immigration to U.S. allegedly down to lowest level in years
Mexican immigration to the United States has slowed to a trickle, according to the Mexican government. Migration from Mexico peaked in 2006 or 2007, when roughly one percent of the population left the country each year. Today, the number is around one third of one percent per year, says Mexico.
From The Washington Post:Mexico’s net outflow of migrants has fallen to “almost nothing,” as fewer migrants entered Mexico, but the number leaving dropped even faster, the government’s statistical unit said Monday.
A report by the National Statistics Institute says Mexico lost about 0.09 percent of its population to migration as reflected in quarterly surveys carried out between March 2010 and March 2011.
That was 83 percent lower than the outflow of 0.53 percent of the population in 2006 and early 2007, near the end of Mexico’s migration boom.
“In the first quarter of 2011, there was practically no net loss of population due to international migration,” the institute said. “As a result, in relative terms the net migration balance was almost nothing.”
About 0.38 percent of the country’s 112.7 million people migrated abroad in the most recent period studied, while about 0.29 percent immigrated to Mexico.
Newsweek reported more than a year ago that immigration from Mexico to the U.S. was falling fast due to changing demographics in Mexico as well as an economic situation in Mexico that was enabling more people to find work. The magazine predicted that it will not be long before the United States is crafting policies to increase immigration to the country.
Dee Dee Garcia Blase, executive director of Somos Republicans, a national organization representing Latino Republicans, told The Colorado Independent that the change has a lot to do with the relative economic strengths of Mexico and the U.S.“The economic situation of both Mexico and the United States has much to do with Mexico’s outflow falling to ‘almost nothing,’” she said.
“According to Bloomberg, the Mexican economy expanded 5.5% in 2010 which was the most in 10 years, whereas, the 2010 GDP of the U.S. was at 2.8%. GDP growth for Mexico is expected to reach 4.5% for 2011.
“U.S. baby boomers are choosing to retire in Mexico because the cost of living is less and medication/health care is less expensive.
“The protectionist laws implemented by restrictionist GOP legislators are having a direct negative impact"
SOURCE
9 August, 2011
Tough Immigration Controls Save Denmark $10 Billion in 10 Years
If a country wishes to save its taxpayers some money, it should enact stiff immigration laws. That’s the conclusion of a report from the Danish Integration Ministry, according to Spiegel Online.
Denmark has imposed tough measures to stem the flow of Third World immigrants, and those stricter laws have saved the taxpayers about $10 billion during the past decade. The country now boasts the strictest controls in the European Union. Though the Eurocrat left has voiced opposition to the tighter controls, conservatives believe that Denmark is in better shape than most countries that have been overrun by immigrants, many of whom join the welfare rolls and commit crimes.
Details
The report offers three keys figures, Spiegel notes that the money saved over the last 10 years by Denmark "would supposedly have been spent on social benefits or housing," adding:
According to the figures, migrants from non-Western countries who did manage to come to Denmark have cost the state €2.3 billion, while those from the West have actually contributed €295 million to government coffers.
In other words, Third World immigrants have made little if any contribution to Danish society, while immigrants from the Christian West have.
Regardless of the dynamics, as it does in the United States, the battle in Denmark comes down to right and left; those who wish to preserve Denmark as a country for Danes, and those who wish to transmogrify it into a polyglot nation of multiculturalism.
Thus, says Spiegel, “The report has led to jubilation among right-wing politicians.”
“We now have it in black and white that restrictions [on immigrants] pay off,” said DPP [Danish People's Party] finance spokesman Kristian Thulesen Dahl. The DPP will almost certainly exploit the figures in future negotiations over the Danish economy.
Integration Minister Soren Pind stated the obvious: “Now that we can see that it does matter who comes into the country, I have no scruples in further restricting those who one can suspect will be a burden on Denmark,” he told the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
A key mover behind Danish immigration reform is the Danish People’s Party, led by Pia Kjærsgaard (pictured above left). The DPP doesn't want to import immigrants who sit on welfare. “A Somali who is no good for anything, that is simply not acceptable,” says Kjærsgaard.
The DPP and other conservative immigration reformers in Denmark want a complete halt to non-Western immigration, Spiegel reports.
The left, Spiegel observes, is unhappy. Publishing the obvious about Third World immigrants “has sparked outrage from opposition parties like the centrist Social Liberal Party, which dismissed it as undignified and discriminatory.” Spiegel added:
The party’s integration spokeswoman, Marianne Jelved, said: “A certain group of people is being denounced and being blamed for our deficit, being made into whipping boys."
She added: "We cannot classify people depending on their value to the economy. That is degrading in a democracy that has a basic value of equality.”
Tougher Border Controls
The report strengthens the hand of Danes who are ready to stop immigration altogether, although analysts say that appears unlikely. But Danish immigration patriots are progressing. According to Spiegel, “The number of asylum seekers and relatives of immigrants seeking entry into Denmark dropped by more than two-thirds within nine years as a result of the tough laws.”
As The New American reported last month, the Danes have imposed 24-hour border and customs controls at their country's borders with Germany and Sweden. The Danish People's Party forced the government to enact those controls by withhholding support for a national budget. Blue-collar Danes, the New York Times has reported, are fed up with immigrants. Those workers "chafed the most at ultraliberal immigration policies that allowed thousands of immigrants — from Iran, Iraq and the Balkans — to enter the country in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s," the Times reported.
Pia Kjærsgaard, a leader in Denmark against unrestricted immigration, has parlayed that resentment into a political career, and, theTimes reported, “is widely credited with forcing an overhaul of the country’s immigration policies, now among the most restrictive in Europe.”
Last year, the Danes set up a point system to ensure that immigrants will contribute to Danish society. It offers a set number of points for educational level, and also offers points toward immigration approval in exchange for renouncing public benefits.
Unsurprisingly, the Eurocrats don’t like that measure either. Analysts, however, say the Danes have a basis for concern about their borders, given the flood of Tunisians and Libyans who — having fled the unrest in their own countries — have flooded Italy and attempted to fan out across Europe.
SOURCE
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
1. Built to Fail (Op-ed)
2. Population Boom in Texas as Mexicans Flee Border Violence (Blog)
3. An Answer, Perhaps, to the Haitian TPS Puzzlement – Why So Few Takers? (Blog)
4. WA Cancels Illegal Alien Journalist's Driver's License; Will ICE Investigate the Papers That Hired Him? (Blog)
5. Murdoch Henchman Gets H-1B Visa; Loses Job; Flouts Immigration Law (Blog)
6. Case Study: Alien Investor Program Has a Spectacular Failure in S. Dakota (Blog)
7. Removal Proceedings Redux (Blog)
8. Administration Caves to Open-Borders Advocates on Investor Visas (Blog)
9. Maryland DREAMers Sue to Stop Democracy
10. Infosys, Big H-1B User, Loses Case but Wins Secrecy (Blog)
11. Jorge Ramos, President Obama, and Credibility (Blog)
8 August, 2011
Ruling over Pa. town's immigration law vacated
A federal appeals court has vacated its ruling that declared a northeastern Pennsylvania city's illegal immigration law to be unconstitutional, setting the stage for a new round of arguments.
The move by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday was expected after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to take another look at Hazleton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act.
The appeals court had blocked Hazleton from enforcing regulations that would deny permits to business that hire illegal immigrants and fine landlords who rent to them, saying they usurped the federal government's exclusive power to regulate immigration.
The Supreme Court threw out the appeals court ruling in June after the justices upheld a similar employer-sanctions law in Arizona.
Officials in Hazleton have argued that illegal immigrants brought drugs, crime and gangs to the city of about 25,000, overwhelming police, schools and hospitals. The city's 2006 Illegal Immigration Relief Act inspired similar laws around the country, including the one in Arizona.
A companion measure would require prospective tenants to register with City Hall and pay for a rental permit.
The laws have never been enforced. Hispanic groups and illegal immigrants sued to overturn the measures, and a federal judge struck them down following a trial in 2007.
Friday's order from the 3rd Circuit does not mean that Hazleton can begin implementing the laws. The district court's ruling remains in force.
SOURCE
Sweden Democrats respond to the massacre in Norway
The SD have 20 out of 349 seats in the Riksdag but advocate policies which polls show are much more widely supported in Sweden. Sweden is presently run by a Center/Right coalition not unlike the one in Britain
The head of the far-right Sweden Democrats party said yesterday the attacks committed by Norwegian rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik were no reason to stop criticising immigration.
"It should of course be allowed to criticise Swedish immigration policy without having to bear the responsibility of what that mass murderer has done," Jimmie Aakesson told about 300 supporters in his home town of Soelvesborg, in southeastern Sweden.
He spent most of his summer speech distancing his parties' ideas from those held by Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people on July 22 in attacks that sent shock waves across the region. Behring Breivik published a 1,500-page manifesto raving against multicultural policies in Europe.
Analysts, including the Expo foundation, a leading observatory of far-right activity in Scandinavia, have said many ideas contained in Behring Breivik's manifesto could be found in the party's rhetoric.
The party has denied the claim and on Saturday Aakesson quoted different passages from the killer's manifesto to show it was unlike the party's ideas.
"On the one hand he says he is a Europhile but on the other he imagines getting help from Russian fascists to use the atomic bomb against several European cities and murder millions of innocent Europeans," Aakesson said.
"We won't stop criticising Swedish immigration just because he committed that horrible act," the 32-year-old politician told Swedish radio after his speech.
SOURCE
7 August, 2011
Crackdown in Canada
The newly elected Conservative government has wasted no time in hunting down suspected immigrants with the slightest of suspicion about their status.
Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, aka the “immigrant hunter”, is beginning the process to revokethe citizenship of up to 1,800 citizens who the government claims have obtained it fraudulently.
“Canadian citizenship is not for sale,” said Kenney. “There are some around the world who would abuse Canada’s openness and seek to devalue Canadian citizenship. We will apply the full force of Canadian law to punish those who have obtained citizenship fraudulently.”
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) is increasing the number of revocations it pursues as a result of its ongoing investigations into residence fraud in Canada. To date, approximately 1,800 citizens may have obtained citizenship fraudulently, many by using the services of crooked consultants to misrepresent their residence in Canada.
“Canada welcomed 143,535 new citizens in 20101. Obviously, the vast majority of these new Canadians obtained their citizenship honestly. We are defending the interests of these law-abiding new citizens by taking action against the small number of those who seek to cheapen the value of Canadian citizenship by acquiring it illicitly,” the Minister added.
But many immigrant groups have criticized Kenney’s blatant anti-immigrant tactics disguised as fighting fraud. And many of the government’s initiatives like calling many Black and South Asians wanted on suspicions of entering Canada illegally as “war criminals” as xenophobic.
CIC has increased the resources dedicated to combating residence fraud in the past year. Many of the people under investigation are suspected of using consultants to falsely establish evidence of residence in Canada while continuing to live abroad most, or all, of the time. A family of five may pay upwards of $25,000 over four or more years to create the illusion of residence in Canada.
Citizenship fraud is a global problem. To date, individuals from over 60 different countries have been implicated in this fraud.
The Government of Canada is taking action to crack down on the actions of crooked consultants during the immigration process. Bill C-35, originally introduced as the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, came into force on June 30, 2011. The Act imposes penalties on unauthorized representatives who provide, or offer to provide, advice or representation for a fee at any stage of an immigration application or proceeding.
SOURCE
Obama gets tougher on sharing fingerprints with States
Federal immigration officials announced Friday that they were terminating the joint agreements with state and local governments that have been at the center of a controversy surrounding a national fingerprint-sharing program, although they said they would continue setting up the program unilaterally.
In a letter to 40 governors and local officials who had signed the agreements, John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the change was intended to eliminate widespread confusion, which has plagued the program since its kickoff in 2008, over whether the agreements were necessary to initiate it. The move also seemed intended to remove political pressure from local officials who felt uneasy about appearing to collaborate with federal authorities on immigration enforcement.
The decision was met with a chorus of angry criticism from immigrant groups. More than 200 immigrant advocacy groups recently signed a letter demanding that the Obama administration suspend the program until changes are made to ensure that illegal immigrants who are not criminals are not deported. But Friday’s move made clear that the administration had no intention of suspending or even slowing the pace of the program.
The agreements, called memorandums of agreement, laid out the guidelines for setting up the program, known as Secure Communities, which is being rolled out across the country and is scheduled to be in effect nationwide by 2013.
Under the program, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s enforcement strategy, the fingerprints of everyone booked into a local or county jail are automatically sent to the Department of Homeland Security and compared with prints in the agency’s files, which record immigration violations.
Immigration officials insist that the program is intended to identify and deport the most serious noncitizen criminals as well as those who threaten national security. But critics have argued that the program has resulted in the deportations of a disproportionate number of foreigners guilty only of low-level offenses, like traffic infractions, or immigration violations.
This year, the governors of Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, in the belief that Secure Communities was voluntary, announced they were suspending or canceling their participation in the program. But since at least last fall, federal officials have insisted that the program was never voluntary and could be carried out across the country without the consent of local or state officials.
In a letter to Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware on Friday, Mr. Morton said that his agency was canceling the agreements because it had determined that they were “not required to activate or operate Secure Communities.”
“We are going to bring to an end any questions about whether or not we are requiring any state involvement in immigration enforcement,” a senior official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in an interview on Friday.
Obama administration officials have explained that as long as local jurisdictions continue to share fingerprints with the F.B.I. — a routine procedure — then the fingerprints will automatically flow into a general federal database accessible to Homeland Security Department officials.
SOURCE
6 August, 2011
Single male "asylum seekers" told - you will not be allowed to stay in Australia
Most of the stuff below is sheer nonsense. The so-called "asylum seekers" are Shia Muslims. If they really needed asylum, there is a whole country run by Shiites -- Iran. And under Muslim rules of hospitality Iran would be obliged to accept them. And Iran is a heck of a lot closer to where they come from
IMMIGRATION officials have told single men from the first asylum boat subject to the Gillard government's Malaysia Solution that they will be removed to Kuala Lumpur on Monday.
The men from a boat carrying 55 asylum seekers were moved yesterday morning to the notorious White 1 compound inside the island's main detention centre. The compound was previously reserved for detainees accused of rape, rioting and stirring unrest.
Australian Federal Police plan to deport the men in groups of 15 on an Australian Antarctic Division airbus currently leased by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.
The potential removal to Malaysia of a small boy, families and unaccompanied minors from the recently arrived asylum boat is contentious.
The United Nations Children's Fund yesterday said it had "grave reservations" about the deportation of unaccompanied children to Malaysia, calling the plan "inhumane". UNICEF Australia chief Dr Norman Gillespie said the 18 minors who are destined for Malaysia, unless the government grants an exemption, should be allowed to stay in Australia. "To deport these children, who have already been traumatised, to subject them to further trauma, we think is a very extreme action," he said.
Families and children are being held in the Christmas Island centre built by the Howard government after the Tampa crisis in 2001. The Immigration Department does not call it a detention centre any more and it is therefore deemed suitable for children.
Yesterday the department confirmed there were 18 minors on the asylum-seeker boat that arrived on Thursday - not 19 as previously reported. An Immigration Department spokeswoman said one of the asylum seekers who had claimed to be a minor had later told officials he was over 18.
Federal Immigration Minister Chris Bowen reiterated yesterday that there would be no blanket exemptions for children. "I will not have the situation where we provide a reward for people who put their children on a boat, and undertake that dangerous journey," he said.
Acting Opposition Leader Julie Bishop said the government was caught in a trap. "It either allows unaccompanied children to be taken to Malaysia to an uncertain fate where the Australian government has no control over what happens to them or the government caves in to the people smugglers," she said.
The age of asylum seekers claiming to be unaccompanied minors has been contentious since the surge in boats that began in late 2008. Unaccompanied minors have a high success rate in obtaining a visa - not one has been forcibly removed since the surge in arrivals that began in 2008.
The Immigration Department did not intend to carry out thorough age checks because the entire group of people claiming to be unaccompanied minors was going to be deported anyway, a department spokeswoman told The Daily Telegraph.
Refugee advocates were also concerned yesterday that the group could suffer religious persecution in Malaysia. Most of those in the group, comprising Afghans and Pakistanis, were Shia Muslims and could experience discrimination.
SOURCE
The British primary school where just FOUR pupils out of nearly 500 speak English as mother tongue
A School with more than 400 pupils has only four for whom English is their mother tongue. In one of Britain’s most extreme cases, it has emerged that less than 1 per cent of pupils at Bradford Moor Community Primary School speak English as their first language.
The school is in one of the city’s most deprived areas, and 90 per cent of the 417 pupils are from Pakistan. Many arrive at the school unable to speak a word of English.
A leading think-tank said it was a worrying sign that cities were becoming ‘racially segregated’ and leading ‘parallel lives’, while MPs described the situation as ‘unacceptable’.
Almost one million children in the UK speak English as a second language. Last month, the Mail reported on St Matthew’s Primary School in Redhill, Surrey, where pupils can speak 44 languages.
A snapshot survey of Bradford’s primary schools revealed that more than half of pupils spoke English as a second language. In three schools, fewer than ten children spoke English as their native tongue.
Last night Shipley MP Philip Davies criticised parents who allowed their children to start school with scant knowledge of their adopted home’s language. He said: ‘This is a totally unacceptable situation that primary schools find themselves in. 'Primary schools have got to presume that children can at least communicate in some form. Teachers are having to start with one hand tied behind their backs. ‘For me it is one of the key factors as to why Bradford so under-performs nationally on education.’
Official figures show that nearly 17 per cent of pupils in state-funded primary schools did not speak English as a first language last year, up from 12 per cent in 2006.
Dr David Green, of independent think-tank Civitas, said the language barrier was creating ‘dangerous divisions’ in society. He said: ‘Children cannot even start to get an education if they do not even speak the same language as the teacher. ‘It is also not fair on the 1 per cent of children who do speak English because their lessons will be compromised.
‘The only long-term solution is that people should not be allowed into Britain if they don’t speak English.’ Razwana Mahmood, the chairman of Bradford Moor’s governors’ board, is a former pupil and did not speak English when he started. On the school’s website, he writes: ‘I remember very clearly my first day at school and everything the teachers said to me. ‘Nothing unusual you might think, except, I had only just arrived from Pakistan and could not speak a single word of English.
‘My teachers were very kind to me. They offered me words of reassurance and went out of their way to comfort me as I was so distraught. Years later, when I had a better understanding of the English language, it all fell into place.’ He says that despite ‘most of our children still starting school unable to speak much English’, this has never been considered a ‘hindrance’.
The school holds several ‘booster’ classes every week to help pupils with their English and is understood to have teaching assistants to help the students with their language skills.
One former Asian pupil, who attended Bradford Moor in the mid-1990s, said: ‘When I was at school there, there were white kids speaking to us in Urdu or Punjabi. ‘Many kids were embarrassed to speak their own language. I had one white friend who could speak Punjabi fluently. ‘Bradford is full of Asians and their first language is always going to be Urdu or Punjabi.’
In a 2009 Ofsted report, inspectors noted that ‘most pupils enter school with either little or no English and are weak in home language development.’
SOURCE
5 August, 2011
Illinois DREAM Act Becomes Law Amid Immigration Reform Debate
The Illinois DREAM Act, recently signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn, gives undocumented immigrant students access to privately funded college tuition assistance [They needed a law for that?? It's just grandstanding!]. Illinois, a state with one of the highest populations of illegal aliens, is the latest to pass such a measure. But lawmakers in other states, most notably Maryland, are working to stop similar legislation.
Illinois is the latest state to draft legislation giving undocumented students an opportunity to complete a higher education. The Illinois DREAM Act creates a commission that will oversee the distribution of financial aid to applicants.
The measure enjoyed bipartisan support when it passed in the state legislature earlier this year. But Kristen Williamson, a spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, says her organization opposes it.
"This opposition doesn't come from trying to punish the kids or students for the sins of their parents, but rather not reward the parents for illegal activity. With the DREAM Fund commission, specifically in Illinois, although the money is coming from private funds, the funds are tax exempt," Williamson said.
And Williamson says opposition against similar measures in other states throughout the country is growing.
"Illinois is moving in the opposite direction of the rest of the country. I believe that there are 11 other states that have a version of the DREAM Act and I think in nine of them there are movements to get rid of it," said Maryland State Delegate Patrick McDonough.
In April, lawmakers in Maryland passed a law that would provide in-state tuition discounts under certain circumstances to undocumented students.
"It's a displacement of a citizen. If they get a certain slot at an education institution or they receive a certain scholarship or benefit, that is money that is going to be displaced that could be available in these very difficult economic times to a family member or an American citizen," said McDonough, a Republican who opposed the measure in Maryland.
He spearheaded a successful petition drive in Maryland to suspend the legislation. He says close to 75,000 people signed the petition. The issue now goes before voters in a statewide referendum during next year's general elections.
"In Maryland, it's going to have a big impact. It's going to bring out to vote a tremendous number of people, many of whom have never voted before. It's going to affect our congressional and U.S. Senate races. And I intend to run for the United States Senate against incumbent Democrat Ben Cardin and it's certainly going to have an impact on that race," McDonough added.
Legislation for a national DREAM Act, or Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, which provides a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, was first introduced in the U.S. Congress in 2001. It passed the House of Representatives last year, but did not have the support necessary in the Senate to become law. The legislation was reintroduced in May in response to President Barack Obama's call for a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Lawmakers have yet to take up the measure.
SOURCE
70 per cent of Britons think there are too many migrants in the country
Seven out of 10 Britons think there are too many migrants in the country and only a quarter think immigration is good for the economy.
A survey of 23 countries by pollsters Ipsos Mori, will fuel the row over David Cameron's pledge to cut non-EU immigration to the "tens of thousands". Three quarters said migrants put too much strain on public services and 62 per cent said they made it harder for Britons to find work.
Russians showed the greatest opposition to immigrants with 77 per cent saying their country had too many, while Britain was in line with Belgium, Italy, Spain and South Africa.
The Japanese were happiest, with just 15 per cent wanting fewer. Brazilians were the most positive, with half saying immigrants make their country more interesting.
A spokesman for Ipsos Mori said: "Clearly people in Britain are concerned how immigration is affecting their job opportunities, the strain on public services and impact on a sluggish economy. These concerns are also reflected in many countries around the world."
SOURCE
4 August, 2011
EU demands that Britain admit immigrants intending to go straight on to welfare
The European Commission may finally have hit on an issue that jerks Britain from its euro-torpor – an issue that simultaneously presses the buttons of border control, welfare abuse and Brussels intrusiveness. Whether from hubris, power-hunger or from sheer stupidity, Eurocrats are demanding that Britain stop asking immigrants to show that they won’t immediately start accessing the social security system.
As the law stands, people wishing to settle in Britain must demonstrate that they have the means to support themselves, either through work or through an alternative source of income such as a pension. The European Commission claims that this amounts to discrimination against EU citizens, who are supposed to enjoy the same rights as British nationals.
In fact, as so often happens, Eurocrats are disregarding the plain text of their own rules. Article 7(1) of the Free Movement Directive gives EU citizens the right to reside in another member state only if they have “sufficient resources for themselves and their family members not to become a burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State”.
In order to get around this clause, the European Commission is deploying a piece of sheer sophistry. It argues that, if immigrants were able to top up their income with British benefits, they would have “sufficient resources”.
In May, the Supreme Court ruled on the claim of a Latvian pensioner, who had just moved to Britain and had demanded Pension Credit on grounds that her Latvian pension was too small. Although our courts like to rule in favour of immigrants, the law here was so clear-cut that, by 4-1, judges turned her down. If the European Commission were to get its way, she would not only be able to claim Pension Credit, but also council tax and housing subsidies – despite not having paid a penny into the system.
This blog has droned on and on about the way in which the EU is preventing the Coalition from fulfilling its manifesto promises. This ruling – if upheld by the European Court of Justice – would strike down Iain Duncan Smith’s pension reforms. His scheme, which has been warmly applauded across the political spectrum, aims to replace the current complicated system of state pensions with a flat entitlement, available to all pensioners regardless of assets, employment history or past contributions.
Such a scheme, however, depends on a minimum residency requirement. (New Zealand, which operates a system very like the one IDS is proposing, makes payments only to those who have spent at least ten years in the country.) If every EU resident over the age of 66 whose income came to less than £140 a week were able to draw a British pension, the system would be bankrupted. Are we past caring?
SOURCE
Politicized Obama DOJ Finally Sues Alabama Over Illegal Immigration Law
Wm. Teach
You just knew that this was bound to happen at some point. And what better time to sneak in this lawsuit than when everyone was focused on the debt ceiling fight?The Justice Department filed a challenge to Alabama's tough anti-illegal-immigration law Monday, arguing that the Constitution prohibits state and local governments from creating a national "patchwork" of immigration policies.
The suit, filed in Alabama's Northern District, marks the second time the Obama administration has sought to block a state immigration reform law. Last year, the Justice Department filed a similar challenge to Arizona's controversial SB 1070. A federal judge decided to temporarily block key parts of that law, including a provision that would have required police to determine suspects' immigration status. (snip)
The federal complaint argues that the law, which is set to take effect Sept. 1, "exceeds a state's role with respect to aliens, interferes with the federal government's balanced administration of the immigration laws, and critically undermines U.S. foreign policy objectives."
Well, if the Obama admin. is claiming that the Constitution prohibits..., then they should have no problem doing it themselves, right? It should be interesting to see what Alabama argues, which should certainly include the malfeasance of Los Federal government, along with the 9th and 10th amendments. The Law of the USA may be the supreme law, but, is there any reason why States cannot tighten those laws up?
Then there is Article IV Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion;... That would seem to say that Los Federales are duty bound to stop illegal immigration.
Article IV Section 3: The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State. So, States have a claim to deal with their own property.Moreover, the law, known as HB 56, "would result in the harassment and incarceration of lawful resident aliens — and even U.S. citizens who would not have readily available documentation to demonstrate their citizenship," the government argued.
Yet, so far, any incidents have been so minor as to be meaningless. People who did not break the law have been harassed for other things in the past. Some people have been, unfortunately, put in jail for crimes they did not commit. Nothing is perfect.
But, hey, perhaps Team Obama has tanked the economy even further in order to get the illegals to go back to their home countries, because there are no jobs here.
Georgia, South Carolina, Utah and Indiana are surely next on the block for a lawsuit, as they also have tough illegal alien laws. Expect those suits to come quickly, if they come, because Team Obama surely doesn't want these lawsuits during the general election season, since so many people are against illegal immigration.
SOURCE
3 August, 2011
Was Breivik inevitable?
We once again read that his view of immigrants is common in Norwegian society but has little organized expression
Norway has very little in the way of nationalist and neo-Nazi movements compared to other countries in Europe, and even neighboring Sweden and Denmark, said Magnus Norell, an expert on terrorism at the Swedish Defense Research Agency. “Right wing extremism in Norway is virtually non-existent. If you had asked me where this might have happened a week ago, Norway would have been at the bottom of our list of potential targets, because it just doesn’t exist in Norway,” said Norell.
Nonetheless Norway has long been undergoing a heated discussion of its policy of multiculturalism and the ramifications of mass immigration into the country. The popularity of the Progress Party, which now occupies the second place in the country’s congress, is linked to the rising tide of immigrants in Oslo and a reaction it by many Norwegians.
For Breivik, the group turned out to be too liberal, and ultimately his frustration against the party partially fueled his violent attack against the government district and Utoya, a youth camp that hosted many of the nation’s future political leaders, on Friday.
Norway’s problems with multiculturalism date back into the 1980s, when refugees and students came in droves to the country in part due to a lax immigration policy. The Muslim population in the country as a whole have grown modestly, making up around three percent of the country’s population. But in Oslo, the number is more than double that and many Muslims are grouped together in poorer districts, which some cite as evidence that the goal of creating a multicultural society in Norway has failed.
“His views concerning immigration and Muslims and the multicultural society, they’re not fringe views. It isn’t that the police were not looking hard enough, it’s simply that his publically stated views were similar to many other people’s,” said Norell.
Others say that Norwegian society’s stance has been creeping to the right since the beginning of the anti-immigration debate in the country, and what were once considered extreme views are now considered mainstream.
“What is scary about this is that if you look past this act of extreme terror and the pain that this man has inflicted on so many lives in Norway, you see that his politics are no longer that extreme for Norway, and that is dangerous,” said Aslak Sira Myhre, a liberal commentator and former politician.
Myhre said that the tragedy may lead to a severe reduction of anti-immigration rhetoric in Norwegian politics in the short term. “As a society, we have crossed the line,” he said. “Hopefully this tragedy will be useful in that for some time it will become impossible in Norway to use the sort of rhetoric that has become more and more widespread in the past decades.”
More HERE
States' Rights Key to Immigration Control
One of the most tired clichés of the immigration debate is that “immigrants do the jobs Americans won’t do.” With 16 million Americans out of work, this justification for not enforcing our immigration laws rings hollower than ever.
There are an estimated 7-8 million illegal aliens in the workforce. Virtually all of them are in unskilled sectors such as agriculture, food service and preparation, and construction; which also have extremely high levels of native born unemployment.
Freeing up those jobs for Americans should be common sense during a recession.
Hiring illegal aliens is already a crime under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, but neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama enforced this law. Part of the problem is that it is easy for “undocumented” immigrants to get fake documents. Under the current system, an honest employer may be duped into hiring or an illegal, while unscrupulous businesses can intentionally look the other way and plead ignorance if they get caught.
In 1996, Congress created the E-Verify program to help close this loophole. E-Verify is an electronic system that allows an employer to enter the social security or alien registration number of a potential employee. This gets checked against a government database to confirm whether an employee is here legally within minutes. When I served in Congress I cosponsored a number of pieces of legislation to mandate E-Verify nationwide.
These bills never made it through Congress, so states and localities began to do the job the federal government wouldn’t do. In 2006, Hazleton, PA, under the leadership of their mayor Lou Barletta, passed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. The next year, Arizona passed the Legal Arizona Worker Act (LAWA.) Following Arizona’s lead, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, and many other states passed their own E-Verify laws.
Predictably, the ACLU sued Hazleton and the Chamber of Commerce sued Arizona on the grounds that states were preempted from enforcing immigration law.
In May, the Supreme Court ruled that LAWA was constitutional in Chamber of Commerce vs. Whiting. The next week, they upheld the Hazleton law. This opens the door for even more states to pass E-Verify laws when they go back in session.
In the wake of all this momentum in favor of state laws and E-Verify, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Lamar Smith (R-TX) introduced the H.R. 2164, The Legal Workforce Act in June. On the surface, the Legal Workforce Act is a great bill. It requires E-Verify for all new hires and improves the system to prevent identity theft. Unfortunately, the bill includes a preemption provision that will prevent States and localities from enforcing employer sanctions on illegal immigration unless the federal government acts first. This, in effect, will completely wipe out our victory in the Supreme Court.
By including the preemption section, Rep. Smith has won the support of the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups who lobbied against every previous piece of immigration control legislation because it restricts their supply of cheap labor.
However, he has lost the support of some conservatives. Lou Barletta, who is now a freshman Congressman (R-PA), opposes the bill. He claims, “If this bill becomes law, states and municipalities will be powerless without the federal government acting first. Waiting for the federal government to enforce its own immigration laws is how we got into this mess in the first place.”
Rep. Barletta is right. While E-Verify is an excellent program, if the federal government was serious about enforcing the laws on the book, it probably would not be necessary. At the same time, nothing will be accomplished by passing an E-Verify law if the federal government won’t enforce it. There are already states and localities enforcing the law, and taking away their right in exchange for the hope the federal government will act is a risky bargain.
As Arizona Senate President and SB 1070 author Russell Pearce wrote in a column for the Poltico, “It all boils down to one question: Whom do you trust to enforce the law: Obama or Arizona?” Rep. Barletta and Sen. Pearce are not alone in their concern over the Legal Workforce Act. Many conservative and immigration control leaders like Kris Kobach, Bay Buchanan, Phyllis Schlafly, and Tom Tancredo say the bill needs to be amended.
In a column in Townhall.com, Lamar Smith dismisses the concerns over states’ rights because “although the Legal Workforce Act preempts state E-Verify laws, it grants states and localities the right to issue or rescind business licenses based on the requirement that the employer use E-Verify as directed by federal law.” This misses the point. The problem is that it is unlikely that federal government will enforce the law. Allowing states to act only act after the federal government sanctions a business fails to address this concern.
Rep. Smith also argues that blue states with high illegal populations like New York and California are unlikely to pass statewide E-Verify laws, so unless we pass a nationwide law there would be nothing to keep illegals from getting jobs in those states. This may be true, but it once again assumes that the federal government will enforce the law at all. It also assumes we can’t pass an E-Verify bill without pre-emption.
As he notes in his column, a Rasmussen poll showed that 82% of Americans want mandatory E-Verify. With that level of support, why should we water down the bill?
I am not criticizing the preemption language to disparage Lamar Smith who I know is genuinely concerned about fighting illegal immigration. However, it is a huge mistake to sacrifice States’ Rights on immigration control in exchange for the slim possibility that the Obama administration will enforce our laws.
SOURCE
2 August, 2011
'Elite' EU border guards sent to Europe's crisis spots are powerless to stop migrants
They are an elite cadre of EU immigration guards sent to police border hotspots with hi-tech surveillance equipment. But officers in the multi-million pound Rapid Border Intervention Team are in fact powerless to turn migrants away or send them back to their home countries, a report reveals today.
The team was sent to Greece in November to help control the surge of migrants heading for continental Europe through the Turkish border – including many heading for the UK.
Members of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee visited the border to see the 175-strong RABIT team there in action. Their report said: ‘They cannot act to intercept migrants until they have already crossed the border into Greece, and they cannot send them back.’
Officers are unable to stop migrants before the border as they operate from within the EU, on the Greek side.
The team, part of EU border agency Frontex, lacks the powers to send immigrants back unless they can prove where they came from. But many destroy their documents, making it impossible to establish their home country.
The committee’s report said: ‘The Frontex operation is not performing a significantly different role from that played by the Greek authorities, other than providing increased personnel and provision of technical assistance in the form of cameras, helicopters and so forth.’ The cost of the RABIT team was put at £4.15million by the time it left Greece in March.
Eurosceptic Tory MP Douglas Carswell described the situation as ‘absurd’, adding: ‘Despite the cost of Frontex and its fancy insignia and uniforms all they are doing is apprehending people who have entered the EU illegally and then not removing them.’
Around half of all illegal migrants trying to enter the EU do so along the 124-mile land border between Turkey and Greece. At the end of 2010, around 350 migrants were trying to cross it every day, around one in three heading for the UK.
The MPs’ report said it was the ‘main loophole’ for immigrants trying to get into Europe. It said border controls in Turkey needed to be strengthened before it is allowed to join the EU.
Turkish accession to the EU is supported by both Labour and the Coalition Government but has been stalled by opposition from other countries, such as France.
Estimates of the number of migrants likely to come to Europe from Turkey if it joined range between half a million and 4.4million.
Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz said: ‘The UK Government and its EU partners must do everything they can to assist Turkey in tightening its border controls.’
SOURCE
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
1. Statement before the House subcommittee on immigration on the HALT Act (Testimony)
2. The U.S. Needs a Way to “Score” Immigration Bills (Blog)
3. Three Bright Spots in an Otherwise Dull Senate Hearing (Blog)
4. All College Student (F-1) Visa Fraud Comes in Three Parts (Blog)
5. The Grassroot Latino Concern About Immigration (Blog)
6. Case History: DHS, In Effect, Grants 2.5 Citizenships to One Illegal Alien (Blog)
1 August, 2011
The pro-immigration Left should stop using Anders Breivik to further its political agenda
According to Thorbjørn Jagland, a senior member of the Norwegian Labour Party and chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, centre-Right politicians like David Cameron and Angela Merkel should stop criticising multiculturalism in case their words inspire another Anders Breivik. In an interview in today’s Observer, the former Norwegian Prime Minister says:We have to be very careful how we are discussing these issues, what words are used. Political leaders have got to defend the fact that society has become more diverse. We have to defend the reality, otherwise we are going to get into a mess. I think political leaders have to send a clear message to embrace it and benefit from it. We should be very cautious now, we should not play with fire. Therefore I think the words we are using are very important because it can lead to much more.
This is cynical political opportunism of the worst kind. Has Thorbjørn Jagland ever spoken out against Islamist hate preachers on the grounds that their words may inspire terrorist acts? Of course not. Nevertheless, he doesn’t hesitate before exploiting the deaths of 77 innocent Norwegians to promote his own multiculturalist agenda. (Note: from 2000 to 20006, he chaired the Socialist International Committee on the Middle East and was an outspoken critic of Islamophobia.)
Anders Breivik’s crimes are completely appalling, but we shouldn’t allow the Left to exploit the public outrage they’ve quite naturally given rise to in order to suppress free speech. The fact that Breivik claims to have been “inspired” by the opinions of Melanie Phillips and other journalists and authors who’ve questioned multiculturalism doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t in future be allowed to express those views. You might as well argue that since Mark Chapman was “inspired” to shoot John Lennon by Catcher in the Rye that J D Salinger’s book should be withdrawn from public libraries.
David Cameron and Angela Merkel should be applauded for having the courage to confront the centre left consensus about multiculturalism. Whatever your feelings about the manner in which immigration has transformed the countries of Western Europe, you should welcome the opportunity to engage in a public debate on the subject. For Thorbjørn Jagland to invoke the crimes of Anders Breivik in order to avoid doing so is a disgrace and suggests that he’s not confident this is an argument he and his fellow multiculturalists can win.
SOURCE
The Australian Leftist government's latest bright idea has not stopped the illegals from coming
PEOPLE-SMUGGLERS in Indonesia are understood to be preparing at least two more asylum boats as Immigration Minister Chris Bowen conceded some of the 800 boatpeople transferred to Malaysia may end up back in Australia.
As authorities on Christmas Island readied themselves for the arrival of 54 asylum-seekers whose boat was intercepted yesterday, and who will be among the first transferred as part of the government's Malaysia Solution, Tony Abbott predicted the new arrangements would fail.
"The ink is scarcely dry on that deal, yet another boat arrives," the Opposition Leader said yesterday. "I'm very doubtful this is really going to stop the boats."
Mr Bowen told the Sky News Australian Agenda program the 54 would be sent to Malaysia within "weeks" once they had been identified and screened.
Vulnerable asylum-seekers, such as unaccompanied minors, will almost certainly avoid transfer to Malaysia, although Mr Bowen was careful to insist there would be no blanket exemptions for fear smugglers would exploit loopholes in the regime.
"We've got appropriate staff now on Christmas Island," Mr Bowen said of the arrangements being made to effect the first transfer. We've got counsellors, we've got assessment staff, and we also have a Federal Police and security presence to make sure that all the appropriate arrangements are in place, and that's what will apply."
The minister's tough line followed the interception on Sunday morning of the latest asylum boat, which had among its personnel several Afghans and two crew, northwest of Scott Reef off the West Australian coast. It was the first boat to arrive since the Gillard government's Malaysia pact came into effect.
Under the arrangement, which was signed in Kuala Lumpur last Monday, Australia will transfer up to 800 boatpeople, taking in return 4000 declared refugees from Malaysia over four years.
A source close to the South Asian syndicates operating from Jakarta told The Australian yesterday the vessel was organised by a group headed by the jailed Pakistani Haji Sakhi, alias Zamin Ali, one of three people-smugglers being sought for extradition by Australia.
Two more boats are being organised by the Jakarta syndicates, one by an Afghan operator formerly part of the Sajjad group and the other by an Iraqi group.
News coverage of protests against the Malaysian deal in Australia and Kuala Lumpur has raised awareness of the risks among potential passengers and, according to sources in Jakarta, that threatens a slowdown in the traffic in the months ahead
But as the AFP prepared to force asylum-seekers on to planes, the shadow of legal action fell over the government's plan and threatened to delay, or prevent, any pending transfers.
Prominent refugee lawyer David Manne, whose advocacy on behalf of Sri Lankan asylum-seekers is credited by some for effectively ending the system of offshore refugee processing, hinted that he might oppose any attempt to deport the 54 asylum-seekers. "Wherever you have a situation of life or death, matters involving such significant rights and interests, and the government shirking its basic obligations in terms of protect obligations, then you certainly couldn't rule out a challenge," Mr Manne said.
Mr Bowen moved to manage public expectations about the implementation of the plan, saying the initial transfer would not occur within the 72-hour timeframe stated in the agreement. Instead, there would be a "ramp-up" period of a few weeks.
Mr Bowen's office confirmed none of the transit facilities that would hold the asylum-seekers was ready, nor had the government signed leases for any of the buildings, which were likely to be old hotels.
He said that while none of the 800 sent to Malaysia would be included in the quota of 4000 refugees coming back, some could find their way to Australia via normal resettlement channels.
"If the UNHCR makes the decision that somebody in Malaysia who has been transferred by us is a compelling case and it's appropriate to be resettled, then we would consider that in the normal course of events," Mr Bowen said. "But there would be no special treatment for those people."
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison leapt on the admission, saying it was further evidence of the government's lack of resolve. "They've exposed too many chinks in this thing, in terms of how they've announced it," he said. "I think the deals dying the death of a thousand cuts."
The Greens also condemned the deal, with their immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, calling on the government to process the 54 asylum-seekers in Australia. "These people are being sent to an unknown fate because despite claims from (Ms) Gillard, there is no guarantee their human rights will be protected because there have been no changes in Malaysian domestic law," she said.
Mr Bowen insisted the transfer sent a "very clear message" to anyone considering the boat journey to Australia. "We're going to take you back to where you started that boat journey," he told Sky News. "You have nothing to gain out of that boat journey."
SOURCE
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: You usually CAN buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.