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31 August, 2012

Massachusetts college sets up scholarship program for illegal immigrants

Hampshire College has created an endowment for students not eligible for loans or federal grants because they are undocumented immigrants.

The college has raised $350,000 from students, alumni, parents and donors, and the first undocumented student drawing on the endowment will arrive on campus next month, said Margaret Cerullo, a professor who organized the campaign.

"The issues touched a strong chord," she said. "Students and alums know how much their education cost and believe it should be accessible to everyone, not just those with family money. Parents recognized the unfairness of their children being able to have a first-rate education and other children not, due to economic circumstances or citizenship status."

Cerullo declined to discuss the student who will be receiving assistance from the endowment this fall, citing a continued threat to him or her from immigration authorities. The student will receive $25,000 in assistance each year for four years, to supplement merit-based awards that Hampshire provides, she said.

The college hopes to increase the endowment to $1 million, to enable it to make the same commitment to an incoming student every year, she said.

Hampshire's new endowment has sparked movements to create similar programs at Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges, as well as at Guilford College in North Carolina, Cerullo said.

"I felt it was unconscionable that Hampshire encourages social engagement and students are involved with these issues, such as working as paralegals and studying the immigration movement, but we couldn't have undocumented students," she said. "That seemed completely contradictory and unjust."

Many alumni responded to the appeal with donations that included the message that the drive had made them feel proud of Hampshire, Cerullo said. There were many small donations, several pledges of $5,000 a year for four years, and one contribution of $250,000, she said.

Cerullo teaches courses in social movements, political theory and feminism, and will teach one this year on the Occupy Wall Street protests. Last year, she co-taught a course called "People Out of Place" about leaving one's native country.

SOURCE






Border Agency decision threatens thousands of international students in Britain

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has revoked London Metropolitan University's power to teach or recruit international students, leaving nearly 3,000 students facing deportation unless they can find another place to study within 60 days.

The university's vice-chancellor, Malcolm Gillies, has warned that the decision to revoke its licence to take non-EU students would create a £30m loss – equal to nearly a fifth of the university's budget – and threatens the institution's future. Of the 30,000 students expected at the university in the new academic year, about 2,700 from outside the EU.

A statement posted on the university's website on Wednesday night said: "The implications of the revocation are hugely significant and far-reaching, and the university has already started to deal with these. It will be working very closely with the UKBA, Higher Education Funding Council for England [HEFCE], the NUS and its own students' union. Our absolute priority is to our students, both current and prospective, and the university will meet all its obligations to them."

The NUS has contacted David Cameron and the home secretary, Theresa May, to "express anger at the way that decisions have been made in recent weeks and to reiterate the potentially catastrophic effects on higher education as a £12.5bn a year export industry for the UK".

The university's "highly trusted status" for sponsoring international students was suspended last month over fears that "a small minority" of students did not have accurate documentation.

The revocation of this status means that any students not involved in the failures around monitoring their status will be allowed to remain in the UK and given 60 days to find a new sponsor, "regularise their stay" or leave the UK. Any longer stay may lead to deportation and refusal for any application to enter the country for 10 years. The Home Office guidance to universities states: "If a student has already been given a visa when we revoke your licence, we will cancel it if they have not travelled to the UK. If they then travel to the UK, we will refuse them entry."

A border agency spokesman said the decision had been made after the university "failed to address serious and systemic failings that were identified … six months ago." He added: "We have been working with them since then, but the latest audit revealed problems with 61% of files randomly sampled. Allowing London Metropolitan University to continue to sponsor and teach international students was not an option."

The universities minister, David Willetts, said a taskforce led by the HEFCE and Universities UK would help overseas students affected by the decision: "It is important that genuine students who are affected through no fault of their own are offered prompt advice and help, including, if necessary, with finding other institutions at which to finish their studies.

The taskforce, which will also include UKBA and the NUS, will work with London Metropolitan University "to support affected students and enable them to continue their studies in the UK".

In an email before the licence was revoked, Gillies appealed for help to Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, saying university leaders "absolutely accept" some processes on international student recruitment "will need further adapting".

In a letter to Home Office minister Damian Green, Vaz said: "While the committee is fully supportive of the government's efforts to clamp down on the abuse of student visas, and the need to follow rigorous processes, I share the vice-chancellor's concerns about the procedure in the case."

Liam Burns, NUS president, said: "It is disgusting that international students continue to be used as a political football by politicians who seem either incapable of understanding, or are simply uncaring about the impact of their decisions on individuals, universities and the UK economy.

"This decision will create panic and potential heartbreak for students not just at London Met but also all around the country. The needs of students must be at the heart of any process to find new places of study and NUS will be working with UUK and HEFCE to support affected students and ensure as far as possible that they can continue studying in the UK."

"Politicians need to realise that a continued attitude of suspicion towards international students could endanger the continuation of higher education as a successful export industry. This heavy-handed decision makes no sense for students, no sense for institutions and no sense for the country. This situation and the botched process by which the decision was arrived at could be avoided if international students were not included in statistics of permanent migrants."

SOURCE




30 August, 2012

Administration Cooks the Books to Achieve Deportation Numbers

Widespread suspicions validated

The House Judiciary Committee has obtained internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) documents, which show that the Obama administration is cooking the books to achieve their so-called ‘record’ deportation numbers for illegal immigrants and that removals are actually significantly down – not up – from 2009.

Beginning in 2011, the Committee has learned that Obama administration officials at the Department of Homeland Security started to include numbers from the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP) in its year-end removal numbers. The ATEP is a joint effort between ICE and Customs and Border Protection that transfers illegal immigrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border to another point along the Southwest border for removal. But it is illegitimate to count illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol along the Southwest border as ICE removals. There are no penalties or bars attached when illegal immigrants are sent back via ATEP and they can simply attempt re-entry.

When ATEP removals are subtracted from ICE’s deportation numbers, the 2011 removal total would drop from approximately 397,000 to roughly 360,000 and the 2012 removal total would drop from about 334,000 to around 263,000 (annualized this is estimated to be a drop from about 400,000 to 315,000). This means that ICE removals for this year will be about 14% below 2008 (369,000) and 19% below 2009 (389,000).

The internal documents also reveal a discrepancy between arrests and actual removals. Specifically, ICE has reported 221,656 arrests yet report 334,249 removals for 2012 so far – a discrepancy of nearly 112,000 removals. ATEP accounts for 72,030 removals within this discrepancy, but there are over 40,000 removals that remain unaccounted for.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) released the statement below criticizing the Administration for artificially inflating their deportation numbers.

Chairman Smith: “Internal Department of Homeland Security documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee reveal that President Obama and other administration officials have falsified their record to achieve their so-called historic deportation numbers. Administration officials claim that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported a record number of illegal immigrants but the facts show that they have fabricated their deportation statistics by illegitimately adding over 100,000 removals to their deportation figures for the past two years.

“Since 2011, the Obama administration has included numbers from a Border Patrol program that returns illegal immigrants to Mexico right after they cross the Southwest border in their year-end deportation statistics. It is dishonest to count illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol along the border as ICE removals. And these ‘removals’ from the Border Patrol program do not subject the illegal immigrant to any penalties or bars for returning to the U.S. This means a single illegal immigrant can show up at the border and be removed numerous times in a single year – and counted each time as a removal. When the numbers from this Border Patrol program are removed from this year’s deportation data, it shows that removals are actually down nearly 20% from 2009. Another 40,000 removals are also included in the final deportation count but it is unclear where these removals came from.

“In a campaign season when Administration officials have made a habit of spinning their numbers to ignore their real record, it’s no surprise that they are doing the same to their immigration record. It seems like President Obama is trying to trick the American people into thinking he is enforcing our immigration laws. But no amount of spin can cover up the facts. It’s bad enough that the President has neglected to enforce our immigration laws but it’s even worse that his Administration would distort statistics to deceive the American people.”

SOURCE





Study Projects Hispanic Vote in Presidential Election

Increased Voter Participation Nationally; Less Than 4% of Electorate in Majority of Swing States

A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies projects the share of Hispanic voters nationally and in battleground states for the upcoming 2012 election. Using Census Bureau data from prior election years and data collected this year we project that Hispanics will be 8.9 percent of the electorate in 2012 — a 1.5 percentage point increase from 7.4 percent in 2008. The report also finds that Hispanics will comprise a somewhat smaller share of voters in battleground states than they do nationally. However, there is significant variation in Hispanic shares across battleground states.

The study can be found here

Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research, notes, “While Hispanic voters are a small share of the electorate, in a close election they could decide the outcome. Of course, the same is true of many other voting blocs, such as veterans or senior citizens. It would a mistake to overemphasize race to the exclusion of other factors.”

National share of the vote:

We project that in November 2012 Hispanics will comprise 17.2 percent of the total U.S. population, 15 percent of adults, 11.2 percent of adult citizens, and 8.9 percent of actual voters.

In 2012, non-Hispanic whites are expected to be 73.4 percent of the national vote and non-Hispanic blacks are expected to be 12.2 percent.

To place the Hispanic share of the electorate into perspective, eight percentage points of the Hispanic vote nationally equals slightly less than one percentage point of the non-Hispanic white vote.

The 8.9 percent Hispanic share of voters compares to veterans (12 percent), those with family incomes above $100,000 (18 percent), seniors 65 and older (19 percent), married persons (60 percent), and those who live in owner-occupied housing (80 percent).

In terms of voter turnout, we project that 52.7 percent (± 0.6) of eligible Hispanics will vote in the upcoming election, an increase from 49.9 percent in 2008 and a continuation of the past decade’s long upward trend.

The projected Hispanic voter participation rate of 52.7 percent compares to 66.1 percent for non-Hispanic whites and 65.2 percent for non-Hispanic blacks in 2008.

Share in Battleground States:

In the seven states listed by The Cook Political Report in July as “toss-ups”, we project that Hispanics will average 8.0 percent of voters in 2012, compared to 8.9 percent nationally. The seven toss-up states are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia.

In the four states listed by Cook as “leaning” toward one party or the other, the Hispanic vote will average 2.8 percent of the electorate in November. The four leaning states are Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.

In the seven states Cook identifies as “likely” for one party or the other, Hispanics will average 9.8 percent of the vote. Excluding New Mexico, they will average 4.4 percent of voters in the remaining six “likely” states. The likely states are Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Maine, Minnesota, and New Mexico.

Taken together Hispanics will average 7.6 percent of the electorate across the “toss-up”, “leaning”, and “likely” states. If we combine the populations of these states and calculate the Hispanic share of the electorate, Hispanics are projected to be 6.6 percent of the vote.

The Hispanic share of voters varies significantly in the 18 battleground states. In 12 of the 18 states, Hispanics are projected to be less than 4 percent of the electorate (Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, and Maine). But in four of the states (New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona), Hispanics will be more than 16 percent of the vote.

Non-Hispanic whites are projected to be slightly overrepresented (79.4 percent) in battleground states relative to their share of the national electorate. Like Hispanics, non-Hispanic blacks (9.4 percent) tend to be slightly underrepresented in battleground states.

Methodology:

To project the Hispanic share of the population and their share of the vote we use the May Current Population Survey (CPS) from prior election years and from 2012. The CPS is collected monthly by the Census Bureau and is one of the nation’s primary sources of demographic information. We compare the May CPS to the November CPS Voting and Registration Supplement from prior election years to project the growth of the Hispanic electorate. We used this same approach in August of 2010 to correctly project the Hispanic share of electorate voters in the 2010 mid-term election to within one-tenth of 1 percent.

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


29 August, 2012

ICE says Obama is deporting immigrants faster than Bush. Republicans don’t think that’s enough

The GOP is toughening its stance on immigration in its 2012 party platform. But that’s partly in response to Obama’s own hawkish stance on immigration enforcement. In fact, both parties are now pushing different programs with the same goal: to increase enforcement of laws that target illegal immigration on the local level.

As of July, Obama deported 1.4 million illegal immigrants since the beginning of his administration — that’s 1.5 times more immigrants on average than Bush deported every month, according to official numbers from the Department of Homeland Security*. But that’s only part of Obama’s deportation strategy: The administration’s stated goal is to prioritize the deportation of criminal, dangerous illegal immigrants. And it’s promised to make a new program called Secure Communities mandatory by 2013, which would force local law enforcement to share fingerprints of those arrested with FBI and federal immigration officials.

The GOP platform, however, accuses the Obama administration of having “undermined the rule of law at every turn” and “failed to enforce the legal means for workers or employers who want to operate within the law,” according to a draft version that Politico obtained. The platform doubles down on Obama’s own promise to prioritize the deportation of immigrants with a criminal history. The GOP is calling to “expedite expulsion of criminal aliens” — and wants to expand the list of deportable offenses to include “gang membership,” though it’s unclear how that would be defined.

Moreover, Republicans want to revive a program called 287(g). Under this program, local communities can opt to have law enforcement officials trained by federal agents to arrest and detain suspects because of immigration status. The program peaked under Bush, but Obama has scaled it back with the intention of phasing it out altogether. The Obama administration revoked part of its 287(g) agreements with Arizona in June, citing the Justice Department’s lawsuit allegations of racial profiling and civil rights abuses by local law enforcement, including Maricopa County’s infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

There is also evidence that 287(g) hasn’t been meeting the Obama administration’s stated goal of targeting dangerous, criminal immigrants for deportation: According to a study from the independent Migration Policy Institute, half of those detained under 287(g) were people who had committed misdemeanors or traffic offenses. What’s more, MPI found that “state and local officials operate 287(g) programs according to priorities shaped largely by political pressures.” That’s another reason why the Obama administration wants to transition to Secure Communities, which would shift more enforcement authority to the federal government. “It takes those decisions out of the hands of local police officers,” says Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center.

So both parties want local law enforcement to participate vigorously in immigration enforcement. The major difference is that Republicans want to give more power and discretion to local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws, while Obama wants local authorities to use a federal biometric database to inform decisions about immigration enforcement.

Pro-immigration and civil liberties advocates aren’t thrilled with either option: They argue that Secure Communities is also prone to abuse. A October 2011 report from UC-Berkeley law school points out that a much higher number of those arrested through the program are placed in federal detention than usual, for instance. Others worry that Secure Communities program could still encourage racial profiling if local law enforcement knows that those arrested will be screened for their immigration status. “It sounds great on paper, but in practice, a lot of people are picked up and arrested who might not be otherwise,” says Giovagnoli.

To be sure, the GOP platform includes a host of other immigration measures that go well beyond what Obama and the Democrats support — prohibiting in-state tuition for college students who are undocumented, opposing amnesty of any kind, and reiterating the GOP’s 2008 platform proposal to force employers to check their workers’ immigration status through E-Verify.

But on local immigration enforcement, Obama and Republicans are effectively competing to see whose policies are tougher.

*Clarification: Bush deported 2 million immigrants over the course of two terms. That’s more than the 1.4 million that Obama has deported to date during his first term. But Obama is deporting them in higher numbers every month than Bush did—1.5 times more. Sorry for any earlier confusion.

The Obama administration has also used what a 2010 Post story deemed to be “unusual methods” to increase deportations, including the extension of a repatriation program that counted for 6,500 deportations to Mexico in 2010, although it denies that it was “cooking the books” to raise its numbers. The House Judiciary Committee also says it’s unearthed new evidence that the White House was inflating its deportation numbers. I’ve contacted the White House and outside experts to clarify, and I’ll likely write a separate post on the issue when I hear back.

SOURCE






Australia denies new asylum-seeker policy not working

Australia said Tuesday its new policy to deter asylum-seekers by shipping them to small Pacific islands would take time to work, after figures showed more than 1,000 boatpeople had arrived since it was adopted.

Canberra announced its intention to transfer asylum-seekers to tiny Nauru and Papua New Guinea on August 13 and since then 18 boats carrying 1,072 people have arrived, according to releases from Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen rejected the idea that the new approach designed to crack down on people-smugglers and deter refugees from making the dangerous boat journey was not working.

"It's not having an effect yet, but it does take time to work," Bowen told radio station 2SM.

"It will become more effective when we actually have planes going to Nauru and PNG."

Australia has said that people now arriving by boat without a visa run the risk of transfer to a regional processing country. The new policy applies to those who arrived after August 13.

But the camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, which will eventually have a total capacity of 2,100 people, are not yet up and running.

The temporary processing facility on Nauru being built by the Australian military is expected to hold some 500 people by the end of September.

Offshore processing is a sensitive issue in Australia, and is likely to be discussed by leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum, which gets under way this week.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard adopted the policy after months of bitter political debate and after several boats capsized while making the treacherous crossing to Australia and dozens of people died.

The government wants to shut down people-smugglers bringing asylum-seekers to Australia from transit hubs in places such as Indonesia amid an influx of arrivals originally from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

More than 8,800 asylum-seekers have arrived on 134 boats since the start of the year, surpassing the 2010 record of 134 boats carrying 6,555 people.

Government minister Brendan O'Connor said an increase in arrivals had been anticipated as people-smugglers "lied to those that they wanted to lure onto those vessels, in many cases unseaworthy vessels".

"That's happening now as they tell them to get in quick," he told Sky News.

O'Connor said he still believed there would be a "very significant decline in these irregular maritime arrivals" as a result of the new policy.

The policy signals a return to the policies of the previous conservative government, which sent asylum-seekers to Nauru and Manus but which center-left Labor rolled back soon after taking office in late 2007.

SOURCE




28 August, 2012

Sununu urges comprehensive action on immigration

Republicans hope to use their convention to spotlight some of the party’s rising Latino stars -- Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Senate hopeful Ted Cruz of Texas all have prominent speaking roles.

But at Monday’s news briefing for Spanish-language press, the headliner was neither rising nor Latino, but John H. Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire and chief of staff in George H.W. Bush’s White House.

Despite his Palestinian and Lebanese ancestry, Sununu speaks fairly fluent Spanish by virtue of his mother’s birth in El Salvador and his childhood in Havana. At 73, he has actively campaigned for Mitt Romney. Monday, he showed off his bilingual ability in defending Romney’s record on immigration and attacking President Obama for having presided over a stagnant economy that, Sununu said, had hurt Latino families.

Asked in Spanish how a Romney administration might handle young people who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents, Sununu suggested that Romney might support a law to protect them – something that Romney himself has not said. Earlier this summer, before Obama announced his administration’s new policy, Rubio said he was trying to round up support among Republicans for a measure that would provide some type of legal status for the so-called Dream Act young people. Romney conspicuously did not endorse the idea.

Sununu appeared to take a step toward that. “We need to do something by law,” not just executive action, he said in Spanish. What one president does by executive action, a later president could undo, he noted.

“I think that if he becomes president, Mitt Romney understands that he needs to speak with people, with Sen. Rubio and other people that understand all the complexities of this situation. We need to make significant steps -- but step by step,” he said. “This problem cannot be solved in one strike.”

When the questioner -- a reporter from the Telemundo network -- noted that the Republican platform does not offer any protection to undocumented students and other young people, Sununu replied, again in Spanish, “But it doesn’t say they won’t give it to them.”

He then mentioned two other aspects of the Republican platform on immigration -- an expanded guest worker program and a larger number of visas for legal entry. Those two steps, along with the situation of the young people, are the “three most important things” to be fixed, he said.

Responding to a subsequent question in English about immigration policy, Sununu was slightly less explicit about the so-called Dream Act youngsters.

Romney has “made it clear that there’s a whole series of steps that have to be taken,” Sununu said. “One is the expanded guest worker program, one is the expanded program for visas. And “one is to deal with the young people who came here through no fault of their own,” he said.

“I actually believe that what you have to do is move with a series of steps that create confidence on both sides of what is a very difficult and emotional issue,” he continued. To do that will require a “comprehensive package addressing the problems,” he said.

“Those components coming together have a strong possibility of becoming law. But the most important thing to get a law is to have a president who knows how to lead.”

SOURCE





British government Minister raps politicians' silence on immigration

A minister has criticised the ‘failure of mainstream politics’ to discuss immigration as the Government launched a three-pronged crackdown on illegal migrants.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said for years it had been ‘almost impolite’ for politicians to raise concerns about unprecedented numbers flowing into the UK, a silence which he said had allowed extremist parties, such as the BNP, to harvest votes.

He spoke out as it emerged a university had become the first in the UK to be stripped of its right to educate foreign students.

A UK Border Agency audit found numerous failings at London Metropolitan University, including allowing students to take lessons without valid visas and failing to report that some who had been granted visas, then failed to enrol on or attend courses.

Meanwhile, Home Secretary Theresa May launched a drive to stop abuse of the UK’s marriage laws which have allowed migrants to stay here illegally.

Ministers will change the rules so ceremonies can be delayed for investigations. Last year a vicar was jailed for staging 300 fake weddings - including couples who did not speak the same language.

Mr Green said the silence around the UK’s doors being thrown open was filled by extremist parties such as the BNP, who then harvested votes from those who were concerned.

Nearly 3.5million immigrants arrived in the UK during Labour’s 13 years in power between 1997 and 2010, with the tide increasing when ten former Soviet Bloc countries joined the European Union in 2004.

Critics say public services, including schools, hospitals and transport, have struggled to cope with the influx, while some employers have been accused of using cheap, or illegal, foreign workers.

In a radio interview with LBC Radio, Mr Green said immigration had been like ‘turning on a tap’ under Labour.

He added: ‘On top of that, it was almost impolite to talk about immigration and the result of those two things happening at once was the rise of extremist politicians who scapegoated, really unpleasant parties like the BNP.

‘You saw that they rose at a time when politicians were afraid to talk about immigration so it’s very important that mainstream, moderate politicians of all parties actual deal with it as a problem.’

He compared immigration under Labour to ‘an oil tanker steaming hard in the wrong direction’ but insisted the Government was ‘getting to grips’ with the issue.

He spoke out as it emerged a controversial university had become the first in the country to be stripped of its right to educate foreign students.

London Metropolitan University’s licence will be revoked after the Home Office branded it a ‘threat to immigration control’.

Officials at the UK Border Agency identified so many failings at LMU, which has 2,600 students from outside the European Union, that it could not be trusted to ensure foreign students did not become illegal immigrants.

An audit found the university allowed students to take lessons without valid visas to stay in Britain, did not report that some granted visas failed to enrol on or attend courses, and did not test students to check they could speak English.

Malcolm Gillies, LMU’s vice-chancellor, said the university was ‘disappointed’ by the news.

He said in the past six weeks the university had ‘done everything it could to demonstrate that it... has worked to remedy past weaknesses’.

Mr Green said a national campaign to crackdown on foreigners who stayed in the UK after their student visas had expired had caught 2,000.

He said: ‘We find that a lot of those are people who came here on a student visa, maybe did study for a year or maybe didn’t study at all, but they then hang around after their visa is over and it’s clear that their main intention for coming here was to work. That kind of abuse enrages people.'

Mr Green said: ‘At the moment a registrar has the duty to marry someone if they can’t see any legal impediment then they have to marry them.

‘What we’re going to do is give the powers to say, “Actually I’m not going to marry you, because this doesn’t look like a proper marriage to me”.’

In the third prong of the crackdown, migrants who falsely claim benefits after coming to Britain to work, study or visit face being stripped of welfare payments, according to leaked documents.

Nearly 20,000 people who arrived from outside Europe will be the first to be targeted in the new crackdown which will begin next month.

They will receive a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) telling them to send back a photocopy of their passport or residence permit within 28 days, according to the Sunday Telegraph. If they cannot, they must email the UK Border Agency (UKBA) with a range of identifying information.

In total, 370,000 people who came to Britain as visitors, students or workers are now on work-related benefits.

Foreign-born claimants is understood to make up 6.5 per cent of the total 5.5 people on benefits in the UK.

SOURCE






27 August, 2012

Immigration lawsuit revives DREAM Act debate

Gaby Pacheco calls herself an aspiring U.S. citizen who is compiling the paperwork and trying to get the $465 needed to apply for a two-year reprieve from getting deported.

James D. Doebler says his superiors at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are threatening to suspend him for putting an arrested illegal immigrant into the hearing process that could lead to deportation.

The two are on opposite sides of a lawsuit filed this week by Doebler and nine other ICE agents that challenges a new Obama administration policy intended to remove the threat of deportation faced by young illegal immigrants who arrived in America as children and have good student or military records.

Doebler and his fellow complainants argue the new policy on immigration law enforcement exceeds the administration's authority and puts ICE agents in the position of facing disciplinary action for doing their jobs.

"They're in a position now that's just untenable," argued Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, an advocacy group for more restrictive immigration that is bankrolling the lawsuit.

The goal of the lawsuit is to force a court ruling on whether the new administration policy is legal, Beck told CNN on Friday. If so, then the ICE agents are protected; and if not, the case would halt what the former journalist called a harmful influx of illegal workers at a time when young Americans are struggling to find jobs.

"Obviously, we would not be pleased if they say this is a legal order," Beck said, adding: "We do believe strongly that the president doesn't have the right to do this."

Pacheco and others reject the premise of the lawsuit, calling it a politically motivated effort to undermine the "deferred action" directive by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that went into full effect last week.

"I think they're using this as a political plan to rally the voters in election season," said Pacheco, the political director of United We Dream, an advocacy group for young illegal immigrants like herself.

A statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the lawsuit lacked a sound legal basis, noting that "over 100 of the nation's top constitutional and immigration law scholars signed on to a letter" attesting to the constitutionality of the new administration policy.

Trumka's statement added that the suing agents "are working with some of the most anti-immigrant forces in the country; forces that have long sowed division and destruction."

The agents are represented by Kris Kobach, the Republican Kansas secretary of state who worked on Arizona's controversial immigration law and is an informal adviser to presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, according to NumbersUSA.

CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Friday that the lawsuit lacked legal merit.

"I can't imagine any judge would even give them standing to file the case, much less decide it on the merits," Toobin said. "I am unaware of any law that allows federal employees to challenge the legality of the actions of their superiors."

Filed Thursday in federal court in Dallas, the lawsuit challenges the two-year deferred action policy of the Obama administration, as well the policy of "prosecutorial discretion," in which ICE agents are supposed to focus their attention on dangerous criminals who are illegal immigrants.

In a nutshell, the agents involved do not want to obey the new policies and do not want to face any disciplinary actions or lawsuits if they continue to arrest any type of immigrant who is in the United States illegally.

"We are federal law enforcement officers who are being ordered to break the law," said Chris Crane, one of the agents filing suit and the president of the ICE agents and officers union. "This directive puts ICE agents and officers in a horrible position."

According to the lawsuit, Doebler "arrested an alien who was unlawfully present in the United States and issued the alien an NTA (notice to appear), contrary to the general directions of his supervisors that he should decline to issue NTAs to certain illegal aliens."

"Plaintiff Doebler was issued a Notice of Proposed Suspension," the lawsuit says. "Plaintiff Doebler is facing a three-day suspension for arresting and processing the alien for a hearing rather than exercising the 'prosecutorial discretion' commanded by his supervisors. Plaintiff Doebler requested a written directive ordering him not to issue the NTA. His supervisors have refused to give him a written directive and would not sign any paperwork authorizing the use of 'prosecutorial discretion.' "

Now, the lawsuit says, Doebler "reasonably fears, based on his past experience, that if he follows the requirements of federal law, contrary to the 'Directive,' and arrests an alien or issues the alien an NTA, he will be disciplined again. He reasonably fears that a second disciplinary action will result in the loss of his job."

Matt Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, responded Thursday that the department "uses prosecutorial discretion to assist in focusing vigorously on the removal of individuals who are convicted criminals, repeat immigration law violators, and recent border-crossers."

In fiscal year 2011, ICE removed 216,000 criminal illegal immigrants, Chandler said, adding that it was the largest annual figure in history and an 89% increase over the administration of President George W. Bush.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals decision is a temporary measure until Congress takes action on reforming immigration policies, Chandler continued, adding that it "ensures that responsible young people, who are Americans in every way but on paper, have an opportunity to remain in the country and make their fullest contribution."

Pacheco, who came to America with her parents from Ecuador at the age of 8, described herself in similar terms. She graduated from Miami Dade College and now wants to get a master's degree, she said.

"We speak the language. We are part of the fabric of this nation," she said. "This is my home. They are telling me that I do not belong, that I am not American."

President Barack Obama made a similar point in announcing the policy change in June, calling the decision to halt deportations of people like Pacheco "the right thing to do."

Under the new policy, the Obama administration will give a two-year deferral from deportation to illegal immigrants who entered the United States as children if they are younger than 30, arrived in the country before the age of 16, pose no criminal or security threat, and were successful students or served in the military.

Supporters stress the plan does not grant immunity or provide a shortcut to citizenship, but instead affords undocumented immigrant children a chance to be productive workers while removing the threat of deportation for two years.

Opponents say the policy amounts to granting backdoor amnesty to people who came to America illegally and tightening an already poor job market for young Americans. As many as 1.7 million youths may qualify for the program, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

The deferred deportation policy includes some of the provisions of a Democratic proposal called the DREAM Act that failed to win enough Republican support to become law.

Obama made clear that the new policy was intended to be a temporary step until Congress passes a more comprehensive immigration law that addresses the situation of young illegal immigrants who have essentially grown up as Americans.

Beck called such an approach misguided.

"We're going to do something that's not allowed by law in order to get Congress to pass something which they have defeated repeatedly," he said. "It's just such an abuse of power."

His group raised $100,000 for the lawsuit Thursday, Beck said, adding that he expected the case to cost "a few hundred thousand dollars."

"If it goes to the Supreme Court, who knows?" he added.

SOURCE






100 "asylum-seekers" on hunger strike in Australia

This is excellent news and it is even being publicized in Pakistan! It will have a significant deterrent effect on others thinking to sail for Australia. Such demonstrations were a major component of stopping the illegals under the Howard government

Up to 100 asylum-seekers in detention in Australia were on hunger strike Sunday after being informed they would be transferred to a remote Pacific island under a tough new refugee policy.

An immigration department spokesman said “around 100” asylum-seekers being held at the Christmas Island detention centre had launched the strike on Saturday night after they were told they would be sent to Nauru.

They will be among the first group transferred to the tiny and remote Pacific island to await the processing of their refugee claims under a strict new policy Canberra hopes will deter a record flow of people-smuggling ships. “They were informed yesterday of the decision to transfer them to Nauru, and obviously it’s pretty difficult news to take,” the spokesman told AFP. “We’re managing that and trying to provide all the support and assistance we can, it’s obviously pretty difficult all round.” Under new legislation passed by parliament this month asylum-seekers who arrive by boat will be sent to either Nauru or Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island for indefinite periods while their visas are assessed.

It represents an about-face by the Labor Party which abandoned the policy after winning power in 2007, after complaints people had languished for years on the islands before being resettled under the previous government. Authorities have not clarified how long people would have to wait on Nauru or Manus before being resettled and have admitted that the remote facilities are so run down they were not yet suitable for use.

Refugee activists said “around 67” detainees were believed to be on hunger strike in the Christmas Island facility and “scores” of police had also been sent to the remote immigration centre to head off any protests. “The hunger strikers say that their treatment is unfair — they were not aware of any changed policy by the Australian government,” said activist Ian Rintoul.

There were reportedly similar starvation protests occurring at facilities in the northern city of Darwin, where refugee advocates said a group that included unaccompanied minors was “shocked” to learn they would also be sent offshore. “The fact that unaccompanied minors may be sent to remote locations for unknown periods of time should be a source of shame for the minister for immigration and the Australian government,” said Darwin activist Peter Robson. “There is little wonder as a result that there are reports that there are large hunger strikes now occurring in Darwin.”

The immigration spokesman said food, water and medical assistance was available to all detainees and they were “obviously encouraged” to eat and drink. “These sorts of protests and activities don’t have any effect on the outcome of their case, and likewise it won’t alter government policy,” he said. afp

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26 August, 2012

GOP platform calls for more Arizona-style immigration laws

The Republican Party has officially endorsed its backing for Arizona-style state immigration laws, adding into its platform language that such laws should be "encouraged, not attacked" and calling for the federal government to drop its lawsuits against the laws.

That language and other provisions were widely approved by the party after being introduced by the co-author of the Arizona law, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R).

"I was pleased at how overwhelming the majorities were, it was a voice vote and I think there were maybe 80 percent supporting it," Kobach told The Hill shortly after the hard-line immigration language was added to the party's official platform. "The Republican Platform is now very strongly opposed to illegal immigration."

The official party position now reads that "State efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked," and says the Department of Justice should immediately drop its lawsuits against controversial state immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah.

That language is likely to please immigration hard-liners — but it could further damage the party's standing with Hispanic voters, a key voting bloc in a number of swing states. Many Hispanics see Arizona-style laws as discriminatory.

"I think it's an expression of support for Arizona-style laws," Kobach said. "The platform also encourages states to create laws in this area."

Kobach's amendment, which is now official party policy, also includes calls to withhold federal funding for any universities that provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants as well as "sanctuary cities" that refuse to enforce state and federal laws on immigration, and calls for the government to complete construction of a fence along the Mexican border that Congress authorized in 2006.

Another amendment he backed that was included in the party platform strengthens the GOP's previous support of a national "E-Verify" system.

The broader party's inclusion of Kobach's amendments reverses a subcommittee's decision the day before to reject the language, and shows his power within the party.

"Of the amendments that Chris either made or spoke in favor of, each and every one was adopted," Indiana RNC Committeeman James Bopp, a constitutional scholar who chaired one of the party's platform subcommittees. "He had a significant impact on the formulation of the platform. People respect his views and listen to him carefully on these issues."

Kobach was an early supporter of Mitt Romney during the primary, citing his immigration positions, and at one point advised Romney on immigration policy, though Romney's campaign denied that he was an official policy adviser to the campaign.

Romney ran hard to the right on immigration during the primary, but has sought since then to temper his rhetoric when talking about the emotional issue.

But Kobach said he was happy with where the party stood on immigration, and said he was unconcerned with Romney's recent remarks on the subject.

"Other issues have just come to the fore and dominated his remarks more than immigration and that's fine — I don't think he's changed his stance," he said. "If we start with the premise that illegal means illegal we need to address that specific things can be done to make that become a reality."

SOURCE





California OKs bill shielding undocumented immigrants

California state legislators passed a bill Friday that seeks to protect undocumented immigrants charged with relatively minor crimes from being deported.

The bill, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, would prohibit local police from detaining anyone on an immigration hold if the person is not charged with or has not been convicted of a serious or violent crime.

The bill, which only needs the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown to become law, passed the Assembly on Friday after being amended in the state Senate to remove language that would have required police departments to develop plans to guard against racial profiling.

Advocates and critics alike said the legislation is the largest challenge to the use of immigration holds in local jails, including President Obama's Secure Communities program, because it would impact law enforcement throughout the most populous state, one with a significant immigrant population.

"What we're trying to do here is to protect the innocent," said Ammiano, the bill's chief sponsor. "The fact that you're undocumented doesn't make you a criminal."

It's unclear whether Brown will support the legislation. Brown spokesman Gil Duran said the governor would not comment on the matter.

Enforcement issue

The issue of whether local police should enforce federal immigration law has long been a contentious issue, most recently with the Secure Communities program. Once an individual is fingerprinted and booked in a local jail, their fingerprints are sent to the FBI. Under Secure Communities, the FBI sends those fingerprints to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration. If that person has previously come into contact with Homeland security, their data would match. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement then determines if the person is in the country illegally.

Local discretion

The enforcement agency then can request that the jail hold the person for up to 48 hours. But because it is merely a request, local jurisdictions have discretion, and the federal government has not forced the issue.

Santa Clara and San Francisco counties have policies that prohibit or restrict the use of so-called immigration holds. So does Cook County, Illinois; Taos, New Mexico; and Washington, D.C.

Opponents of the state bill said they were stunned.

"It removes the discretion of local law enforcement agencies in deciding what to do about noncitizens that end up in their custody," said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that calls for tighter immigration laws. "It would force them to release people they believe are a threat to the public."

Critics and advocates paint wildly different portraits of the impact of the law.

Crime to rise, foes say

Opponents say that criminals often commit lesser crimes, but might be known to law enforcement as being a gang member.

The example they point to is that of Edwin Ramos, who had two juvenile felony convictions, but San Francisco officials did not turn him over to immigration authorities. Ramos later killed Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, in San Francisco.

"It is virtually guaranteed that there will be more crimes committed, more victims of dangerous criminals if this policy goes into effect," said Vaughan.

Backers distrust ICE

On the flip side, advocates point to Juana Reyes, 46, who was arrested and jailed in June for trespassing after she sold tamales in a Walmart parking lot in Sacramento. The mother of two had no criminal record and was facing deportation.

"You cannot trust (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when they say 'give us these fingerprints, give us these people and we will decide who to release and who not to,' " said Angela Chan, staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco. "Local law enforcement should not be engaged in immigration law enforcement."

SOURCE







24 August, 2012

Napolitano sued over new immigration policy

The author of the strict Arizona immigration law that was mostly shot down by the Supreme Court this summer has filed a lawsuit on behalf of 10 immigration officials against the Obama administration for its recently revamped deferred-deportation policy.

Kansas Secretary of State and immigration hardliner Kris Kobach filed the lawsuit on Thursday against Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton on behalf of 10 ICE officials, including the head of the immigration agency’s labor union, Chris Crane.

The suit was filed in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas and challenges a new policy announced by Napolitano earlier this year by arguing that it forces officers to break the law.

“We are federal law enforcement officers who are being ordered to break the law,” said Crane in a statement. “This directive puts ICE agents and officers in a horrible position.”

Napolitano issued a directive that allows her agency to exercise its prosecutorial discretion for certain illegal immigrants who are under 30 years of age and who wish to defer their deportation from the country for two-year periods in order to work.
Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have strongly opposed the administration’s move, applauded the lawsuit on Thursday.

“The Obama administration makes it impossible for ICE agents to do their jobs,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in a statement issued along with fellow Texas Republicans Reps. John Carter and Louie Gohmert.

“Instead of enforcing the law, the Obama administration requires ICE agents to release illegal immigrants,” Smith said.

Congressional Democrats have ferociously defended the administration’s move, calling it a key step towards fixing a broken immigration system that penalizes many young people who were brought into the United States illegally by their parents.

The announcement by Napolitano was made in June and bypasses Congress in the face of stalled efforts to pass a bill with similar provisions. For several years, Republicans have blocked the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, saying that it provides “amnesty” to illegal immigrants and could threaten to take away the jobs of U.S. citizens.

Under the administration’s new system, ICE and DHS officials are allowed to prioritize the deportation of people in the country illegally who have existing criminal records.

The young illegal people who are eligible to delay their deportation must have a clean criminal record, be enrolled or graduated from an education program and demonstrate a financial need to work, among other requirements.

Kobach’s lawsuit on Thursday was not the first threat of legal action against the administration over the recent deferred deportation changes.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has repeatedly said he plans on filing his own lawsuit against Napolitano arguing that the immigration directive is unconstitutional because it bypassed Congress’s authority.

On Thursday, King’s office told The Hill that he would be filing the lawsuit “in the coming weeks,” and pointed to comments he issued last week.

“I said that I would bring a lawsuit against the President and that process is underway,” said King. “With just a few puzzle pieces to get in the right place, I will soon file that lawsuit.”

Kobach came into the public eye recently for his role in crafting Arizona’s strict law that would have allowed the state to bring criminal charges against an immigrant who was stopped by authorities without his or her legal papers. It would have also have made it a state crime for illegal immigrant to try and work in the border state.

In June the Supreme Court struck down the most stringent of the Arizona law’s provisions, serving a blow to Kobach and his supporters. But the court ruled in favor of the state implementing a strict provision that requires law enforcement officials to verify the legal status of anyone they stop who they suspect of being in the country illegally.

Opponents of the provision say it is tantamount to racial profiling, but supporters say it will help cut down on illegal immigration. A federal judge in Arizona began hearing arguments this week from attorneys trying to block the provision’s implementation.

SOURCE




Australia Increases Refugee Quota in Broad Immigration Reform

Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Thursday ordered an immediate increase in the number of refugees that her country accepts yearly, part of an immigration reform package aimed at encouraging migrants to use official channels for asylum rather than long and dangerous boat journeys.

The increase in the annual refugee intake — to 20,000 from 13,700, the biggest increase in 30 years — caps two weeks of bruising debate after the release of an expert report on immigration commissioned by the Australian government. The debate has led Ms. Gillard’s governing Labor Party to reverse its longstanding opposition to reopening remote offshore detention centers that were closed when the party came to power in 2007.

“This increase is targeted to those in most need: those vulnerable people offshore, not those getting on boats,” Ms. Gillard told reporters. “Message No. 1: If you get on a boat, you are at risk of being transferred to Nauru or P.N.G.,” she said, referring to a small Pacific island nation and to Papua New Guinea.

She continued, “Message No. 2: If you stay where you are, then there are more resettlement places available in Australia.”

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced that the camps would cost 150 million Australian dollars, or $157 million, through the 2012-13 fiscal year. Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea could begin accepting detainees within days, he said, depending on negotiations.

But Mr. Bowen told reporters that the Nauru center would house only 1,500 people when fully operational, while Manus would hold 600 refugees, raising questions about their efficacy as deterrents. A total of 8,439 asylum seekers have arrived by boat in Australia this year, according to local news reports.

Graham Thom, an expert on immigration at Amnesty International, said that while the increase was a positive step, given the complex factors driving people to seek asylum, it was far from clear that camps of the type outlined Thursday would actually deter desperate refugees.

“For people fleeing violence and persecution, how they move and where they move is a complex interplay of both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors,” Mr. Thom said. “With the situation in countries like Afghanistan likely to continue to force significant numbers to flee, whether or not they choose to continue to try and reach Australia, even with the reintroduction of offshore processing, remains to be seen.”

Thousands of people try to reach Australia each year on rickety, overcrowded vessels, leading to accidents at sea that have killed more than 600 people since late 2009. Around 90 asylum seekers are believed to have died in June when their boat capsized south of the Indonesian island of Java, reigniting a debate that has smoldered for more than a decade.

Australia has tried for years to formulate a policy that would deter would-be immigrants from trying to reach Christmas Island, a territory in the Indian Ocean that is Australia’s closest point to Indonesia. Ms. Gillard had proposed sending asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing, but the plan was rejected by Australia’s highest court and negotiations over a replacement plan broke down.

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23 August, 2012

Governor says he's pleased with what's left of the Alabama immigration law

Gov. Robert Bentley says he's pleased with how much of Alabama's immigration law got left intact by a federal appeals court, and he's uncertain whether the state will appeal the ruling.

Bentley commented Tuesday after assessing the ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

He said the appeals court left intact key provisions designed to keep illegal immigrants from getting jobs and state licenses.

The appeals court did block schools from checking the immigration status of new students. Bentley said he did not feel that part of the law was necessary to achieve Alabama's goals, but he didn't like losing on any issue on appeal.

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New computer database launched to track down 150,000 illegal immigrants in Britain

The Brits will manage to bungle that too

An immigration computer database is being set up to track down the 150,000 people who are staying in Britain illegally, it was revealed yesterday.

Border chiefs are due to launch the project next month to deal with the huge backlog of foreign nationals who have overstayed their student or temporary work visas.

Letters will be sent to those in the 'migration refusal pool' warning that they will be deported and barred from entering the UK if they do not leave within 28 days.

Private companies currently tendering for the multi-million pound contract include G4S, the controversial security firm which failed to deliver enough staff for the Olympic Games.

Passenger records held in the e-borders database, which covers details of all flights outside Europe to and from Britain, will be checked and there will be careful monitoring of the 100 immigrants whose visas expire daily.

It comes after it was revealed last month that 40 per cent of immigrants who have been refused leave to stay in the country have not been sent the forms demanding they leave.

Tens of thousands of these lapsed visa cases date back more than five years and are a legacy of Labour's catastrophic mismanagement of Britain's immigration system.

Immigration minister Damian Green said he hoped the new scheme would allow Border Agency staff more time to carry out enforcement operations and reduce the backlog.

He said: 'We're concentrating much more on enforcement. From debrief interviews we've found that a third of people decide to overstay at the point their visa expires. 'If we can send these people letters warning of the consequences of illegally overstaying then I'm sure we can reduce the total number deciding to remain.'

The move follows a UKBA summer-long drive to remove visa 'overstayers' that has led to thousands being removed, with 2,000 of those being in London alone.

The majority of those targeted entered the country on student visas which have now expired. Mr Green said they mainly came from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Brazil and Nigeria and were now working illegally.

An operation in the capital yesterday resulted in three arrests. Two Pakistani nationals and an Iranian man were arrested in Walworth and Brixton, South London, for allegedly working illegally.

One 28-year-old Iranian was arrested by the same immigration officer at a Halal butchers three years ago. Another Pakistani man smirked as he was led away in handcuffs in what was his third arrest by UKBA staff.

The chief inspector of immigration, John Vine, criticised the UKBA for not having a strategy for reducing the pool of overstayers last month. The only guidance staff were given for dealing with cases in this 150,000-strong group was that the total size of the pool should not be allowed to increase.

Vine said his greatest concern during his inspection of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight immigration team was over the '150,000-plus cases nationally that are sitting in a migration refusal pool'.

The chief inspector concluded that UKBA staff reported it being impossible to know whether the 150,000 were still in Britain or had left voluntarily.

In total, the UKBA faces an enormous backlog of 276,000 immigration cases. The growing total includes asylum seekers, foreign criminals and illegal migrants and is equivalent to the population of Newcastle.

MPs sitting on the Commons Home Affairs Committee said the UK has become a 'Bermuda Triangle' for migrants, a country where it is 'easy to get in, but impossible to keep track of everyone, let alone get them out.'

In addition, around 21,000 new asylum cases have built up because officials were able to process only 63 per cent of last year's applications. There are also 3,900 foreign criminals living in the community and free to commit more crimes, including more than 800 who have been at large for five years or more.

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22 August, 2012

The High Price of Obama’s Amnesty

$585 million dollars. That is the estimate of what Obama’s new amnesty will cost the American taxpayer. This back door plan, put into action by imperial edict without any input from Congress, is just another nail in the coffin of our economy. This past week thousands of children of illegal immigrants were granted the right to apply for “deferred action” in order to stay in this country and sign up for employment opportunities. Starting August 15th, illegal aliens up to the age of 30 who meet certain requirements can begin submitting their applications that will allow them to remain in the country for a period of two years, with indefinite renewals. They may also apply for work authorization, adding an estimated 2 million job-seekers to the workforce when we have record unemployment.

Take a look at Immigrationreform.com and read the ten things that you need to know about Obama’s amnesty and it will make your head spin.

Really? How does Congress allow this to happen? They just ignore this issue and sweep it under the rug hoping that the American people are on summer vacation and won’t notice that we have just opened wide the doors to 2 million illegal’s! Once again they let this President steam roll over them. It seems like they have forgotten that the Dream Act was defeated as recently as 2010.

What are the unintended consequences of this amnesty? Well, let’s see. Not only will it cost the American taxpayers an (estimated) $585 million dollars just to implement the program, but on top of that there are millions or perhaps billions more. Once they become permanent legal residents the floodgates open. Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, education, not to mention the earned income tax credit that would cost tens of billions annually. This will also encourage even more illegal immigration when others figure out how to work the system.

This also opens the door to rampant fraud. When an applicant goes online for the form there are no safeguards in place to prevent fraud even to satisfy this administration’s low standards of eligibility. In fact, the application explicitly states that “you do not need to submit original documents unless the USCIS requests them.” Under Obama’s guidance, do you think they will ever be requested?

What about the millions of immigrants who have gone about applying for citizenship the right way? How do they feel when they have been pushed to the back of the line because of this irresponsible act? And as for the Hispanic and Black Americans, do you think they are happy knowing that Obama’s job killing policies have hurt their communities? The unemployment rate for Hispanics is 3 percent higher than the national average hovering around 11 percent. In the Black community the unemployment rate for Black youth is a staggering 40.5% as of March 2012. This new policy will not only take jobs away from them, but also from the millions of other Americans hoping to find work in a diminished economy.

This is illegal in so many ways yet Congress chooses not to recognize it. Is it because they are afraid to touch the forbidden area of immigration? Do they think they will be accused of being racists? Well, I have news, they’ve already been accused of it so it’s time to get over it and stand up for what is right for this country and the American people.

We can’t afford this. We are faltering under a national debt that could reach as high as 40 trillion dollars within a decade and illegal immigration is a big part of that number. The money has to come from somewhere. Since Congress didn’t pass this legislation and did not appropriate funds for it, where will the money come from? Tax dollars alone will not pay for all of it, so the cost will be satisfied by illegally raiding other programs. Veterans hospitals or border control stations that monitor drug trafficking could be the victims. Who knows what else might be raided?

At least Governor Jan Brewer is stepping up to the plate. She signed an executive order to stop public benefits for these young illegal aliens. She gets it; she knows what the costs will be to her state.

We need to fix the immigration problem, not add to it. Everyone knows that Obama only did this to gain Hispanic support in the upcoming election. It is transparent pandering and everyone can see right through it. (Pardon the pun.) If he really wanted to do this, why did he wait until now? He had both houses of Congress and complete power at the beginning of his term yet he said that he couldn’t do it without Congressional authority. Funny how things change when desperation sets in and he needs every special interest group he can grab to be re-elected.

Unfortunately he loses in the long run because the majority of the American people see what the costs of this massive amnesty program are. They see their own families struggling while law breakers are reaping the benefits. Immigrants who have gone through the process the right way are fighting mad about this and rightly so. They see now that it would have been easier to stay illegal and reap the rewards.

I am not a racist. Neither are most Americans. We understand that people want a better life. All we are asking for the privilege of living in this great country is that you come here “legally”, abide by the rules, and start off your new life the right way. Don’t burden us with uncontrollable costs that bring down the standard of living in America. Become one of us, work hard and contribute to the greatness of this country. If it is done the right way, the legal way, American citizenship is valued much more.

SOURCE





Rick Perry Says Obama Deportation Policy Doesn't Change Texas Immigration Rules

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has become the latest state governor to lash out at the Obama administration over the implementation of a new policy that gives a two-year, renewable period of relief from deportation to some immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.

In a letter dated Aug. 16, Perry told state agencies that the Obama administration's new policy is "a slap in the face to the rule of law," and said Texas' immigration policies won't change.

Perry's letter comes after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said last week that the new policy does not change existing law prohibiting undocumented immigrants from applying for driver's licenses or accessing other state benefits in the state. Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman made a similar announcement on Saturday.

In Texas, people who apply for a driver's license or other state ID must prove legal residency, according to the Austin-American Statesman. The only states that allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses are New Mexico and Washington.

The letter was addressed and sent Monday to all agency heads individually, as well as to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. Perry said he sought to "avoid any confusion on the impact of the Obama administration's actions."

The federal policy confers "absolutely no legal status whatsoever to any alien who qualifies," he wrote.

Under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an added set of guidelines establishing deportation priorities by Obama, immigrants 30 or younger will be eligible for a two-year reprieve from deportation if they demonstrate they came to the U.S. before their 16th birthday, lived in the country for the past five years, and have not been convicted of certain crimes or pose a national security threat.

Last week, young people around the nation formed long lines to attend information sessions and briefings on the new program.

In his letter, Perry referred to media reports that "thousands of aliens in Texas are eligible to apply for relief from deportation under the guidelines." He criticized the Obama administration for attempting to "unilaterally undermine the law through a policy statement issued under the cover of so-called 'prosecutorial discretion.'"

He called the move "a slap in the face to the rule of law and our Constitutional framework of separated powers."

But Perry also wrote that the program "does not undermine or change our state laws" and that he expects state agencies to keep enforcing them.

Perry's spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said that even though the policy won't alter state law, Perry has been very clear in opposing it.

During his unsuccessful run for president, Perry strongly defended a Texas law that grants cheaper, in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who attended a Texas high school for at least three years. He also was a vocal opponent of a fence stretching the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Frazier said Perry opposed the way the new policy was implemented: "They basically circumvented the whole process."

Abbott's spokeswoman, Lauren Bean, echoed Frazier, saying the Obama administration doesn't have the authority to ignore the law.

"As it does in all cases, the Attorney General's Office is prepared to defend Texas law -- and any state agencies that are challenged for following the law and complying with the governor's directive," Bean said in a statement Monday.

Perry's letter does not direct any action in response to the new program. Instead, Frazier said, the governor "wanted, on the record, to let agencies know what he expects of them."

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21 August, 2012

Obama's immigration plan will be among the 'most fraud-ridden' in history

The top Republicans on the House and Senate Judiciary committees warned this week that President Obama's plan to delay the deportation of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children will end up being one of the most fraud-ridden programs in the history of U.S. immigration programs.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) were reacting to an Aug. 3 announcement from the Department of Homeland Security, which outlined how DHS will accept applications for deferred deportation action.

That announcement said illegal immigrants will be able to apply for deferred action and U.S. work authorization if they can show they are in or have been in school, or have any military service. DHS is setting up these guidelines in anticipation of implementing the policy starting Aug. 15.

But in a Monday letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Smith and Grassley said there do not appear to be any anti-fraud provisions in place.

"While potentially millions of illegal immigrants will be permitted to compete with American workers for jobs, there seems to be little if any mechanism in place for vetting fraudulent applications and documentation submitted by those who seek deferred action," they wrote. "This administration will undoubtedly preside over one of the most fraud-ridden immigration programs in our history.

"Illegal immigrants will be eager to purchase or create fake documents showing that they arrived in the United States before the age of 16 and meet the continued physical presence requirements," they added. "DHS will be sorely taxed by the burden of disproving the evidence presented in each application."

Their letter cited immigration fraud in a program that granted amnesty to Special Agricultural Workers, the so-called SAW program. They said this program led to significant fraud, as about two-thirds of those amnesty applications were fraudulent.

One problem, they said, is that those applications were held confidentially, which is what DHS plans to do in this case.

"Due to the confidentiality provisions, fraud in SAW applications could not be used to deny or revoke applications, to place aliens in removal proceedings, or to show that aliens committed fraud in the past when seeking other immigration benefits," they wrote.

They also rejected the administration's decision not to use fraud prevention techniques that they said are "too expensive" or take too much time to implement.

"This attitude blatantly demonstrates that the Department has little regard for preventing fraud, especially since the law allows the Department to impose fees for the benefit of deferred action," they wrote. "The illegal immigrants themselves, rather than the American taxpayer or legal immigrants, should bear any expense associated with the program."

It said the most basic check would be to demand school transcripts as proof applicants are in school, but that the administration has said it would not require this step. "This is the single most effective anti-fraud step the Department could take, but it appears that little effort will be taken to detect fraud on the other end," the letter said.

Aside from asking why that step will not be taken, the letter asks Napolitano what steps will be taken to prevent fraud, whether applicants will be required to verify affidavits and what penalties people might face for submitting fraudulent applications.

SOURCE






Recent posts at CIS below

See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.

Commentary

1. Today Is A-Day: The president’s unconstitutional DREAM amnesty gets rolling (Op-ed)

Blogs

2. Californians Need Not Apply — Grim Precedent Set for Grad Students (Blog)

3. DHS Belatedly Launches Mandatory Public Comment Period on DACA Process (Blog)

4. GOP Platform: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs — for Illegal Aliens? (Blog)

5. Sometimes a Government Agency LIKES to Be Sued (Blog)

6. ABA Expands Its Open-Borders Agenda, Embraces SPLC (Blog)

7. How to Break the Immigration Policy Impasse (11): Why Immigration Grand Bargains Fail — The Incentive Dimension of Amnesties (Blog)

8. Amnesty Kickoff Today (Blog)

9. DACA Eligibility Widens Again, Mayorkas Confirms (Blog)

10. DACA Watch: Maybe the Devil Creates Those Details (Blog)

11. While the Flood Gates Are Opening, a Small Spigot May Be Tightening (Blog)

12. Cleaning Up a Dirty Business (Blog)



20 August, 2012

All immigrants are not the same

We see below the usual Leftist failure to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants are highly selected and are undoubtedly beneficial to America. Illegal immigrants are however mostly bottom of the barrell and get by only because of "free" services such as health and schooling.

Murdoch would have gone along with the nonsense for the sake of political expediency. It may be noted, however, that his Wall St. Journal is an open-borders outfit. Businesses like cheap labor

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, the independent mayor of New York City, is no one's idea of a hardline Republican conservative. Media titan Rupert Murdoch, whose empire includes Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, is no one's idea of a squishy Republican moderate. And Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, a lifelong Democrat, is no one's idea of a Republican at all.

It isn't every day that three men with such disparate ideological profiles find common cause, let alone on a high-profile issue that has been roiling American politics for years. But there they were at Boston's Seaport Hotel one evening last week, jointly making a nonpartisan case that reforming the nation's dysfunctional immigration system is essential for economic revival. Without the growth fueled by immigrants -- especially foreign-born entrepreneurs -- the United States is unlikely to retain its preeminent position in the world. In Bloomberg's vivid phrase, America is "committing economic suicide" by making it too hard for ambitious foreigners to enter the US and unleash their drive and ingenuity.

Opening the Boston forum, Menino was effusive in his praise for Bloomberg , whose social liberalism, especially on gun control, complements his. "I am proud to call him my friend," Menino said.

But the mayor was at loss for something nice to say about Murdoch, the former owner of the conservative Boston Herald. The best he could manage was to thank him "for being here and sharing his views." He started to make a dig about "those headlines, Rupert" -- then apparently thought better of it, and merely observed wryly that the News Corp. chairman ensures "a diversity of opinion."

What was striking about the discussion that followed, however, was its unity of opinion, above all on the subject of immigrants and their economic impact.

Menino ran through some local numbers. There are 8,800 immigrant-owned small business in Boston, he said, producing nearly $3.7 billion in annual sales and employing more than 18,000 people. New Americans have swelled Boston's population to 625,000, its healthiest level since 1970 -- healthy because "more people mean more talent, more ideas, and more innovation." They also mean more revenue: Boston's immigrants spend $4 billion per year, generating $1.3 billion in state and federal taxes. For generations immigrants have rejuvenated Boston, said the mayor. "They make this old city new again and again."

He got no argument on that score from Murdoch, an Australian native who became a US citizen in 1985. "An immigrant is more likely to start a small business than a non-immigrant," said Murdoch, whose career exemplifies the phenomenon. "You go to Silicon Valley, and you realize it's misnamed: It's not the silicon" that makes it such a high-tech dynamo. "It's the immigrants." Ambitious foreigners "want to dream the American dream," and it's in America's national interest to help them do so.

There is an abundance of empirical evidence that immigration is a tremendous economic driver. A study by the Partnership for a New American Economy, a coalition of mayors and business leaders advocating for more rational immigration laws, is awash with eye-opening data on immigrant entrepreneurship. More than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, and immigrants are now more than twice as likely as US natives to start a business. Though the foreign-born account for less than 13 percent of the US population, they created 28 percent of all new American businesses in 2011.

Murdoch and Bloomberg, two of the partnership's co-chairmen, argue that if only more Americans understood what remarkable job-creators immigrants tend to be, fewer politicians would feel the need to play to anti-immigrant xenophobia. Fewer voters would believe the popular canard that foreigners enter America to live off welfare -- or the equally popular, if contradictory, canard that immigrants steal jobs that would otherwise go to Americans.

"People don't come here to put their feet up and collect welfare," Bloomberg said. They come here to work. If there are no jobs, they don't come." You'd never know it from the clamor over illegal immigration -- "Put a damn fence on the border … and start shooting," one GOP congressional candidate recently advised -- but illegal border crossings have sharply declined.

What hasn't declined is the hunger of strivers and dreamers the world over -- talented entrepreneurs eager to bring their gifts here and make a success of themselves. Those would-be immigrants are an extraordinary growth hormone we can't afford to spurn. A broken immigration system threatens America's future economic vitality. Fixing that system must become a priority -- for left, right, and center alike.

SOURCE





Britain needs to stop treating views on immigration as an IQ test – there are sensible ways to attract tourists from China

Theresa May has set herself up as a figure of scorn once again, by blocking plans to make it easier for the Chinese to get Visas to Britain over fears about organised crime. The Home Secretary is in conflict with Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who wants to treble the number of Chinese tourists to Britain: only 147,000 came here last year, compared to 1.2 million visiting France.

Views on immigration are taken as a sort of de facto IQ test in some circles, or at least a test of emotional intelligence. That’s why Mrs May was scorned over the “cat” issue, even though her critics were happy to ignore the fact that violent criminals were allowed to roam the streets. And when the Government announced plans to restrict family-based immigration, largely from South Asia, they were warned that it would toxify the Tory brand, ruin their chances with minority voters, and damage Britain’s relations with other countries. As it turned out, the Government went ahead with the reforms, Labour supported them, knowing the state of public opinion, and everyone agreed it was quite a reasonable measure.

France can afford to be more relaxed about Chinese tourists, because France makes it easier to deport foreign criminals: the laws toughened up in 2010. In Britain, by contrast, deporting foreign criminals is still a palaver. Magistrates have to deal with serial offenders who are repeatedly allowed to remain in the country. (It’s also easier to work in Britain, both because there are more unskilled jobs suited towards the people-trafficking industry, and because there are fewer checks, there being no identity cards.)

It’s certainly in our interests to encourage Chinese tourists, and co-operation with China generally, although it’s likely that the Chinese will continue to flock to France in large numbers, partly because the Chinese have a great interest in France (they even built a replica Paris). But the Home Secretary’s first job is to protect the home front, and she must balance the interests of the tourism industry with her job of fighting crime (McMafia as the author Misha Glenny calls the new variety of organised crime).

In the immediate future, we could build our relationship with China by ensuring that Mandarin is taught in schools (I’m quite interested in the idea of setting up a bilingual free school in London, with an emphasis on Chinese culture). More broadly, with a more mobile global elite than in previous eras, it’s important for a country to attract the super-rich, which it can do not just through an attractive tax system but also through branding. National branding is more important than ever, which is why it’s a paradox that, while the Olympics were sold on a very modern idea of Britian, what draws people to our country is a certain old-fashioned Britishness described by Harry Mount (Steve Sailer calls this the Harry Potter Effect, and indeed JK Rowling has probably done more to promote “brand Britain” than anyone in history).

In the longer term, we’ll want to attract more Chinese visitors, and will be able to, as Chinese average incomes rise. That’s because the most beneficial type of immigration, from the receiving country’s point of view, is between states of relatively equal economic development. It follows from this that Britain should adopt very strict immigration policies towards the developing world (especially towards family migration, the least progressive form), but have fairly open borders with countries above a median average income of $12,000.

The real question is whether China would reciprocate. So far, none of the countries outside the European world have adopted Western-style immigration policies, nor have any Asian countries embraced the ideology behind “diversity”. So when China reaches the Lewis turning point, will it start importing millions of people from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Africa to do the jobs the Chinese wont do? I would bet my bottom yuan that the answer will be no.

SOURCE




19 August, 2012

Interview with Mark Krikorian on America's immigration DREAM

In this interview with Joseph Cotto, Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, lays out some of the important issues and explains why the Libertarian movement has no part in a solution

Joseph F. Cotto: Illegal immigration is a political lightning rod. What would you say is the most effective manner of handling it?

Mark Krikorian: It's a "lightning rod" only because politicians are afraid of being called names. The public abhors illegal immigration and a firm stance against it is popular. But politicians taking such a stance also need to understand that strident, fringe-y rhetoric is going to turn off people, as it should. So a hawkish stand on immigration enforcement, but delivered in a tone that's not scary and is combined with a welcoming outreach to legal immigrants, is the way to go.

Cotto: Despite the federal government's numerous attempts to stimulate the economy, America remains caught within the Great Recession's clutches. Do you believe that our current immigration policy is partly to blame for this?

Krikorian: There are a lot of reasons for the economic doldrums we're in. Whatever our immigration policy, the business cycle won't go away. But at a time when more than 22 million Americans are unemployed or involuntarily underemployed, the idea that we are continuing to import 100,000 *legal* foreign workers each month is absurd. Curbing immigration wouldn't make the Great Recession go away, but it would soften the blow for large numbers of people, especially the less-skilled and young workers just entering the job market.

Cotto: What role does illegal immigration play in our national security?

Krikorian: Immigration control needs to be a central feature of a modern nation's approach to security. While we will always face the conventional kinds of military threats, the terrorist threat to our homeland (which can come not just from non-state groups like al Qaeda but also states like Iran or North Korea) is a danger we will have to face for the indefinite future. And terrorists can't attack our territory if they can't get here. This is not to say that we need only security-related immigration measures, such as better watch-lists or background checks.

A look at the records of the dozens of terrorists who have been active in the U.S. shows that even ordinary immigration enforcement would have stopped many of them. For instance, not one of the 19 9/11 hijackers should have been granted a visa on normal grounds — they all had profiles that almost screamed "future illegal alien," meaning that young, unattached men from the Third World, without money and without homes or other encumbrances at home, are very likely to just stay after their period of stay in the U.S. expires. In another example, three of the Ft. Dix plotters were illegal aliens who had been stopped by police dozens of times for traffic and other offences, and yet no one ever checked their immigration status.

Cotto: Many political forecasters are saying that the future of the American center-right belongs to libertarians, specifically those of the Ron Paul variety. Do you share this view? Regardless, from your perspective, would U.S. immigration policy fare well under strong libertarian influence?

Krikorian: The Center for Immigration Studies has no involvement in electoral politics, but personally, I think libertarianism is an infantile disorder, an "ideology" in the worst, anti-Burkean sense of the word. That is not to say that many Americans who call themselves "libertarians" share that disorder — I think the appeal of the label comes from the Republican Party's pathetic big-government record over the past couple of decades. Despite the many patriotic Americans who call themselves "libertarians" as a kind of protest, the ideology of libertarianISM is a post-American creed that rejects national borders and nationhood itself. Obviously, this has immigration consequences, namely that libertarianISM is inseparable from open borders.

Cotto: How did you came to be such a prominent voice in America's immigration debate? Tell us a bit about your life and career.

Krikorian: Though I was born here, as were my parents, I grew up in an immigrant-heavy Armenian-American environment and didn't speak English until I started kindergarten — it wasn't until high school that I realized there were old people who spoke without accents. I went to Georgetown as an undergraduate and got my master's degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, which is affiliated with Tufts.

I also spent two years in then-Soviet Armenia as a student. I think that combination of immigrant experience and international experience means I don't have anything to prove — and it's a sense of ethnic inadequacy, if there is such a term, that impels a number of prominent people to support amnesty and open borders — people like Jeb Bush, who feels inadequate that he doesn't have any recent immigrant background, or former senator and cabinet secretary Spencer Abraham, whose grandparents immigrated from Lebanon but who feels guilty that he has no meaningful connection to his immigrant heritage and so advocates for open borders as a way to make up for that.

As for how I became a prominent voice on immigration — I have no idea. I guess there wasn't much competition on the pro-control/lower-numbers side of the issue, so even someone like me, who has a face made for radio, was able to get attention!

SOURCE





Let us enforce our law on immigration now, Utah argues

State says U.S. Supreme Court ruling is on its side, but feds disagree

The Utah Attorney General’s Office urged a federal judge Friday to forgo a hearing on the state’s enforcement-only immigration law and, instead, simply put it into effect immediately.

The 15-page brief, written by Barry Lawrence, Philip Lott and Timothy Evans, argued the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona’s enforcement-only law, SB1070, gave Utah’s version plenty of room to exist without violating the U.S. Constitution.

"That decision," the brief said, "reflects that the state of Utah acted prudently when it rejected some of the Arizona provisions and reworked others."

Utah’s law, HB497, took hold for about 12 hours before a temporary restraining order was granted by U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups in May 2011.

Waddoups had heard arguments on the case but said he didn’t want to rule on Utah’s law until the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision on Arizona’s.

On June 25, a majority of the high court tossed out several provisions of the Arizona law that weren’t a part of Utah’s HB497.

Those pieces included making it a crime for illegal immigrants to seek employment or fail to carry proper documents as proof of a right to be in the state. The court also forbid allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without warrants.

But the justices upheld SB1070’s requirement that police check legal status upon any lawful stop.

In their brief, Utah’s lawyers said the portion of HB497 that makes it different from SB1070 is where it instructs police that they "shall request verification of the citizenship or the immigration status of the person, except as allowed if the person is arrested for an alleged offense that is a class A misdemeanor or a felony."

"The focus of the Arizona law is for law enforcement officials to make an initial status determination," the attorneys wrote. "Whereas, in Utah, law enforcement is simply required to identify the individual and leave all status determinations up to the federal government."

U.S. Justice Department lawyers, in their brief, acknowledged the verification provision in HB497 "does not require immediate pre-emption."

But they also said they would challenge that part if the "scope of enforcement by the state, or its interpretation by state courts, interferes with the administration of federal immigration laws."

Instead, the federal attorneys leveled much of their firepower at Utah’s warrantless arrest provision and the language making it a felony to induce an illegal immigrant to Utah. They argued Utah’s law "suffers from the same flaws" identified by the Supreme Court in Arizona’s statute, including granting police "authority to effect warrantless arrest based on nothing more than possible removability."

And the lawyers said the warrantless arrest provision in HB497 is misdirected when it allows an arrest absent any request, instruction or approval from the federal government.

"Neither a federal order of removal nor an aggravated felony charge functions as a request from the federal government to have an alien arrested," the Justice Department wrote in its July brief.

The federal government joined the initial lawsuit against Utah by the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and the National Immigration Law Center — both of which were attempting to stop HB497 from taking effect.

SOURCE




17 August, 2012

Immigration muddle

Boston -- President Barack Obama has created what looks to be a 50-state muddle as local officials are left to grapple with the consequences of his unilateral rewriting of the nation’s immigration policy.

Now make no mistake, we’re with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and News Corp. [NWS] head Rupert Murdoch (the former owner of this paper) in their call for genuine immigration reform that will contribute to the country’s growth. The two men were in town Tuesday to make their pitch for just such a new and dispassionate look at the issue.

But Obama’s election year epiphany that he could implement his own version of the DREAM Act by executive order, granting at least a temporary amnesty to young illegal immigrants, has left states to sort out what exactly that will mean.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program yesterday began accepting applications from illegal immigrants under the age of 31 who were brought here prior to age 16, can prove they are either in school or have graduated or entered the military and have no serious criminal offenses on their record. In return for a $465 filing fee, those approved will get work permits and a Social Security number.

Now there is a school of thought that with a legal Social Security number there’s nothing to prohibit illegal immigrants from obtaining a driver’s license or applying for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. This being Massachusetts — where the governor actually vetoed a provision in the state budget requiring drivers prove legal U.S. residency to obtain a motor vehicle registration — you can bet that will happen in a heartbeat (also by executive fiat no doubt). Other states are unlikely to be as generous.

So any guesses as to where young illegal immigrants are likely to gravitate? Arizona? Texas? Florida? Not real likely. How about the state where someone hands them a shiny new driver’s license and a bargain education?

SOURCE




Young illegal immigrants will be eligible for California driver's licenses

California will issue driver's licenses to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants once the Obama administration grants them work permits, the state Department of Motor Vehicles says.

The state's decision is the opposite from Arizona's, where Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday afternoon signed an executive order outlawing driver's licenses for anyone who benefits from the new federal deportation relief.

The starkly different responses from neighboring states show that the benefits of the new federal directive could vary depending on where young immigrants live.

The Obama administration left it up to the states to decide if they will issue driver's licenses and other state services to the young people brought to the country illegally as children but now eligible for temporary work permits.

Arizona was the first to say no, and California -- home to more than 400,000 young immigrants expected to qualify -- the first to say yes.

A 1993 California law banning driver's licenses for illegal immigrants remains in place, but the DMV will treat as "temporary legal residents" anyone who qualifies for the federal deportation relief program, meaning the state ban no longer applies to them, DMV spokesman Mike Marando said Wednesday.

"California law is not changing. California is and remains a 'legal presence' state, however those applicants approved by (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) will become temporary legal residents," Marando said.

That did not sit well with Southern California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Hesperia. "I think there's going to be a huge debate right here in California over that very issue," said Donnelly, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration. "The vast majority of Californians are adamantly opposed to giving driver's licenses to illegals."

The federal government will give qualifying applicants an employment permit and Social Security number that can be used to prove their legal residency at the DMV, Marando said.

Immigrant advocates celebrated California's move and denounced Arizona's. "Not having access to driver's licenses gives them less opportunity to move around freely without fear," said Diana Tellefson Torres, executive director of the United Farm Workers Foundation. "It has a heavy impact."

Being able to drive is essential for many California and Arizona workers, she said, especially farm workers who travel long distances to follow the crops.

"In the Central Valley, there isn't much public transportation," she said. "They don't have access to the BART system. A lot of times, they end up driving in large vans where they get charged on a daily basis, sometimes exorbitant amounts of money."

Some states already allow illegal immigrants to drive and others have no formal policy, but California is among the majority outlawing licenses to people who cannot prove their legal residency.

Many illegal immigrants drive in California anyway, with no license, despite the risk of deportation, criminal charges, car impoundments and expensive penalty fees.

In 1993, California prohibited issuing driver's licenses to people who couldn't prove they were "a citizen or legal resident of the United States under federal law." Signed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, the driving ban was a precursor to 1994's voter-approved Prop. 187, which sought to exclude illegal immigrants from public schools and other services.

Judges overturned most of Prop. 187, but the driver ban has lasted nearly two decades despite some Democratic lawmakers' perennial attempts to overturn it.

A short-lived repeal of the 1993 license ban was one of the last bills signed by Democratic Gov. Gray Davis before voters recalled him in 2003. Just weeks after he took office, incoming Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature reverted to the ban.

It should remain in place, said Donnelly, who added that he believed both the Obama administration and California officials were waving "a magic wand" to grant benefits.

SOURCE



16 August, 2012

AUSTRALIA: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ROUNDUP

Three articles below

Coalition will back Nauru, Manus centres

Tony Abbott (conservative leader) and Julia Gillard (Leftist leader) stared one-another down and Julia crumpled first. She needed to. It is a great triumph for Abbott's political judgment. The new scheme won't work under Labor but it gives Tony the tools to make it work when he gains power next year

URGENT government legislation to reinstate offshore processing of asylum seekers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea will have the support of the federal opposition.

"We've been asking the prime minister to do this for four years," opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison told ABC television on Tuesday.

But the coalition won't back any attempt to resurrect the Malaysia people-swap deal through the "back door".

The legislation, likely to be rushed into parliament on Tuesday, will not nominate specific sites for offshore processing.

Instead that will be done by ministerial regulation, a measure that could be overturned by a vote of parliament.

Mr Morrison described the Malaysia deal, quashed by the High Court last year, as a "purely hypothetical" option. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen welcomed Mr Morrison's support.

The man who headed an expert panel on asylum seeker policy options says processing centres in Nauru and on Manus Island in PNG will not operate as detention centres.

"It will be quite different to what was set up last time," former defence force chief Angus Houston told ABC radio. "These will be much better conditions for people to live in."

However offshore processing would still act as a deterrent to people risking their lives at sea.

"We believe spending time at Nauru or Manus will reduce the attractiveness of the option of trying to come to Australia on a leaky boat," Mr Houston said.

SOURCE

No 5-star treatment for refugees: Abbott

ASYLUM seekers who may be stuck in tents on Nauru under new laws to revive offshore processing cannot expect five-star or even three-star treatment, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.

New legislation before parliament, modelled on the recommendations of former defence chief Angus Houston's expert panel, is still being debated after a marathon session into Tuesday night.

It means offshore processing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea will be allowed to proceed with coalition support.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has conceded asylum seekers initially may be living in tents.

Mr Abbott says Ms Gillard could have had the centres ready by now.

"If they got cracking on Nauru at Christmas time, as they should have, the centre would be done and they wouldn't be living in tents," he told the Nine Network on Wednesday.

However, Mr Abbott said if people were living in tents, "so be it". "People who arrive illegally by boat need to be treated humanely, but they can't expect five-star treatment or even three-star treatment," he said. "The important thing is we have rigorous offshore processing.

Australian Greens leader Christine Milne does not believe it is humane to house people in tents. She also says it's costly to set up the tents and the army doesn't have the resources to man the centres.

"It just highlights, on the one hand Angus Houston is saying people will be treated better this time, and in the next breath we are going to be setting up these huge, temporary tent camps, and we are taking away people's human rights," Senator Milne told reporters.

Mental illness programs will be needed to deal with people who have been "driven to despair" by the situation, she said.

Nationals senate leader Barnaby Joyce says asylum seekers will regard the prospect of living in a tent as a better alternative than losing their life at sea.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon wants a robust parliamentary debate about the government's plan. "It ought to be debated thoroughly, it ought not to be gagged," he told reporters.

SOURCE

Processing to start in weeks but detention to last years

THE first asylum seekers will be processed on Nauru and Manus Island within a month but kept there for years under plans by the government to speed up the establishment of detention camps on the islands.

The government said today these could include some 200 asylum seekers who have been picked up since 4.45pm on Monday, the cut-off time set by the government for being guaranteed processing on Christmas Island and resettlement in Australia.
The Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers comprised by Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston c Professor Michael L'Estrange R and Paris Aristotle

With legislation to re-establish a harsher version of the "Pacific solution" set to pass the House of Representatives today, and the Senate by the end of the week, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, will send a team of defence officials to each location on Friday to scope out sites for new detention facilities.

These will take several months to build, but Ms Gillard said the first people sent there would be housed in temporary accommodation, such as tents.

She reaffirmed that those sent there would be subject to "no advantage" principles and would be resettled no sooner than if they were in a refugee camp in Malaysia, Indonesia or elsewhere. The government would discuss with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees a suitable time but estimates range as high as four to five years.

The government is acting after an expert panel, comprising the former Defence Force chief Angus Houston, the refugee expert Paris Aristotle and the former diplomat Michael L'Estrange, issued 22 recommendations.

It said until a long-term regional solution was reached, short-term circuit breakers such as Nauru and Manus Island were needed. They also said the Malaysia plan was integral to stopping the boats but it needed further negotiated safeguards for vulnerable asylum seekers sent back to Malaysia before it should be implemented.

Ms Gillard rang her Malaysian counterpart yesterday to get talks under way, but even if a deal is reached, the Parliament would never allow Malaysia, meaning Nauru and Manus Island will become the centrepieces of the new policy.

Ms Gillard phoned the President of Nauru, Sprent Dabwido, and the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Peter O'Neill, yesterday to request the use of their territory. They agreed but last night a Papua New Guinean politician, Powes Parkop, protested against the use of Manus Island.

The opposition has agreed to pass the legislation enabling the "Pacific solution" but was merciless in in its attacks on the government yesterday for abandoning the policy four years ago.

The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, said Ms Gillard bore responsibility for the 22,000 "illegal immigrants" who had arrived in that time, the almost 1000 who died trying to reach Australia and for the $4.7 billion hit to the budget.

Mr Abbott said he was not blaming Ms Gillard personally for the deaths but "the government's policy failures gave the people smugglers a business model".

"Let us thank God that after four years the government has come to its senses and admitted that it was wrong," he said.

Ms Gillard refused to engage but said as either Prime Minister, deputy prime minster or just an MP: "I accept responsibility for my actions".

Mr Aristotle said adopting the recommendations would not blow the budget but save money.

Presently, the government has budgeted $5 billion over four years to accommodate 450 boat arrivals each month but this figure would have blown out because about 1800 a month are arriving at the moment.

The panel was advised by the Department of Finance that all its recommendations, including Malaysia, would cost $4.6 billion over four years.

SOURCE






15 August, 2012

Murders by illegals who were blocked from deportation

Due to a very questionable U.S. policy, thousands of criminal aliens from countries like Pakistan, Cuba, Mexico, China and Vietnam remain free to commit additional crimes because their home nations won’t take them back, Fox News reports.

Based on a 2001 Supreme Court decision, U.S. immigration officials are only allowed to hold someone for six months after their incarceration. If the immigrant’s home country refuses to take back their national, the U.S. is required to let them walk — no matter what crime they have committed.

While some lawmakers are attempting to correct the problem by punishing nations that won’t take back their own criminals, the Obama administration and several Democrats in Congress are blocking punitive legislation, advocating that the State Department handle the issue through diplomatic measures.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) wants to change the law to include the withholding of visas to countries that refuse to take back their nationals.

“I don’t know why the State Department seems to take the side of foreign countries over our own American interest in the United States,” Poe said, urging the U.S. to tell those countries: “Look, you take these people back or the consequence is going to be no visas for your nation.”

More than 50,000 criminal illegal aliens ordered deported remain in the U.S.

Poe says there were three particularly gruesome crimes committed by illegal aliens that brought the issue to his attention:

In June, a judge sentenced 22-year-old Shafiqul Islam from Bangladesh for the murder of 73-year-old Lois Decker. Before murdering Decker, Islam served a year in prison for sexually assaulting a child. After his release from prison, a judge ordered Islam be deported, however, Bangladesh would not take him back. So he remained in the United States and went on to kill a U.S. citizen.

Binh Thai Luc, 35, was a career criminal who spent eight years in a California prison when a judge ruled he be deported. Vietnam refused to take him back, so he was released onto the streets of San Francisco. He would go on to allegedly bludgeon to death a family of five in March of 2012.

In Boston, a Cambodian thug stabbed and beat 16-year-old Ashton Cline-McMurray to death with a golf club. The boy suffered from cerebral palsy and was attacked while on his way home from a football game. After striking a plea deal in 2003, Loeun Heng was supposed to be deported last year following his release from prison. Instead, his country refused to take him back and he was cut loose in the U.S. He remains free.

Fox News has more:

But these cases caught Poe’s attention. His first bill introduced last year refused any visas — student, business or tourist — to any country that refused to repatriate their criminals. That bill went nowhere, opposed by the travel industry, the administration and Democrats in Congress

Back again in the House Immigration Subcommittee, Poe is trying again. This year, his bill only applies to visas for diplomatic staff from countries that refuse deported nationals. But many Democrats believe even that is too aggressive.

“What Poe’s bill will do is throw a monkey wrench into diplomatic relations. It is a nonstarter for that reason,” says immigration attorney Dave Leopold. “It makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the secretary of State and the secretary of Homeland Security to make intelligent decisions about when to stop issuing visas to countries that refuse to take their criminal alien deportees.”

Poe argues that the State Department already retains the power to withhold visas from offending nations but has only used it once in 2005 against the small country of Guyana, who then agreed to take back its 100 citizens. His current bill in committee would make the sanctions mandatory.

“These people don’t go back. They stay here. They commit crimes. And the countries that are responsible for them don’t do anything about it. It’s time the United States do something about it and hold these countries accountable,” Poe added. “They aren’t going to have any choice if we pass this law.”

SOURCE




Gov. Jan Brewer's Lawyers Fight for Arizona Immigration Laws

Do Arizona immigration laws use racial profiling? Many opponents claim so, but Gov. Jan Brewer's lawyers argue those claims are merely speculations, and have asked a federal judge to reject a bid to prevent police from enforcing the statute's most contentious section.

The Republican governor's attorneys told U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in a filing Friday that the law's requirement that police check the immigration status of people they stop for violations other than immigration should be allowed to take effect.

Opponents have called this the "show me your papers provision" and say that it will inevitably lead to discrimination against Hispanics.

A coalition of civil rights, religious and business groups that oppose the law launched a fresh attack after the U.S. Supreme Court in late June upheld the section in question and rejected others.

The opponents asked Bolton to block enforcement of the provision before it takes effect, arguing that Latinos in Arizona would face systematic racial profiling and unreasonably long detentions if that section is enforced.

They also argued that special patrols, known as immigration sweeps, launched in recent years by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio show that the law's requirement will disproportionately affect Latinos.

Arpaio's office has been accused by both a small group of Latinos and the U.S. Justice Department of racial profiling, a charge the sheriff has vigorously denied.

Written closing arguments are due Thursday in a racial profiling case filed by the group of Latinos against Arpaio's office. No trial date has yet been set in a separate civil rights case filed against the sheriff's office by the Justice Department.

Brewer's lawyers said the opponents haven't shown that enforcement of the questioning requirement will lead to racial profiling or prolonged detentions of Latinos. They also said the allegations against the sheriff's department are unrelated to the 2010 law.

The governor's attorneys also pointed out that the law explicitly prohibits discriminatory policing and that the state's police training and licensing board developed standards for enforcement that avoid profiling.

If the judge agrees with Brewer's lawyers it's unclear exactly when police could begin to enforce the requirement.

Legal experts say the opponents face an uphill battle in trying to persuade Bolton to bar enforcement of the requirement because the lower courts might want to wait until the requirement is enforced to consider actual injuries from the law, rather than confront the potential for harm.

Even if opponents don't succeed in getting the requirement put on hold, some backers of the law are questioning the level of cooperation they will get from federal immigration authorities, who will be called to verify people's immigration status and be responsible for picking up illegal immigrants from local officers.

Federal immigration officers have said they will help, but only if doing so conforms to their priorities, including catching repeat violators and identifying and removing those who threaten public safety and national security.

If federal agents decline to pick up illegal immigrants, local officers in some cases will likely have to let them go unless they're suspected of committing a crime that would require them to be brought to jail.

SOURCE




14 August, 2012

Australia's Leftist government bites the bullet on illegal immigration

It is reverting to the policies of the previous conservative administration -- which successfully stopped illegal immigration. The same policies will probably be less effective under a weak-kneed Leftist administration, however

Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants asylum seekers to be processed on Nauru and Manus Island with the government to introduce legislation to parliament tomorrow.

Family reunion for boat arrivals will also be scrapped as a matter of urgency and all 22 recommendations from the Houston panel report adopted in principle by the government.

Ms Gillard said she wouldn’t claim a “victory” in the asylum debate.

The panel’s recommendation dealt a blow to the government’s Malaysia people swap, deeming the deal not yet up to protection and security standards needed.

After more than a year of clinging to the deal and refusing to adopt Nauru without the people swap, Ms Gillard said she would move immediately to reinstate the Howard government processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island. “I will compromise in order to enact the recommendations of this report,” Ms Gillard said.

The government has accepted recommendations that more work be done on its Malaysia deal.

SOURCE




Recent posts at CIS below

See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.

New CIS Publications

1. Immigrants in the United States: A Profile of America's Foreign-Born Population

2. What Does the USCIS Ombudsman Do, and Not Do?

Blogs

3. No One Will Say 'You Don't Look 30' – A DREAM Scheme Note (Blog)

4. Olympic Visa Overstayers (Blog)

5. Firms Get a Bonus for Hiring Aliens with Degrees in Undersea Warfare (Blog)

6. On Nationwide Tour, Documentary Film Stirs Discussion in a Washington, D.C., Suburb (Blog)

7. Rewarding Illegal Alien Identity Thieves, Sacrificing Innocent American Children (Blog)

8. DREAM Scheme: 25% Bigger and with New Initials! (Blog)

9. The Two Big Fig Leaves on the DREAM Scheme Revealed (Blog)

10. 'On Point' on the Federal Betrayal of American Workers, Part 2 (Blog)

11. IBM: 'The Cost Difference Is Too Great for the Business Not to Look for' H-1B Workers (Blog)

12. GOP Veepstakes and Immigration (Blog)




13 August, 2012

New SC immigration police unit to focus on serious crimes

A new police unit is set to hit the streets in South Carolina to track down immigrants who commit crimes, but its officers will not have the authority to check suspects’ residency status.

The S.C. Immigration Enforcement Unit – the only one of its kind in the nation – was created by state lawmakers to target immigrants who are in South Carolina illegally and might also be breaking other laws.

But it did not receive the necessary federal approval for its officers to check a person’s residency status. That’s because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) discontinued the program that empowered local agencies to act on the federal government’s behalf.

Still, the unit’s commander said not knowing who is here legally or illegally will not handicap his officers – and that they will still investigate crimes committed by immigrants.

The six officers in the new unit mostly will work undercover as they investigate immigrants who are involved in drug smuggling, human trafficking and other serious crimes. The unit will not spend its time hunting for illegal immigrants on the state’s highways or at job sites, said Lt. Eddie C. Johnson, the commander.

“We’re not trying to start a panic with people saying that these folks are out there trying to snatch people up,” Johnson said.

But advocates for the state’s Hispanic community are concerned that the unit will overstep its authority because it lacks the ability to determine whether anyone is in the country illegally.

“They will be stepping into dangerous territory if they don’t have the required training,” said Tammy Beshearse, an attorney with the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center.

The S.C. Immigration Enforcement Unit was created in 2011 when the state’s latest immigration law went into effect. The unit, which falls under the S.C. Department of Public Safety, has been in the organizational stages for the past year. Now its officers are almost ready to begin working the streets, Johnson said.

There have been few models to follow as no other state has a similar unit, said Johnson, an S.C. Highway Patrol veteran who came out of retirement to command the unit.

“When I say we started from scratch, I mean we started from scratch,” Johnson said. “There was nothing but an empty room.”

The unit, which has its own insignia and uniforms, was designed to have 12 members, including a commander and an administrative assistant. So far, six officers have been hired, Johnson said. Plans for hiring four more officers have not been finalized, he said.

The state gave the unit $1.3 million last year to start up but organizers only spent $440,723. This year, the unit will operate on a $689,780 budget.

Although the S.C. unit didn’t receive ICE’s approval to check immigration status, they still have been working with the federal agency.

The six officers have been training with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies, Johnson said. The unit also will provide immigration enforcement training to other police agencies in South Carolina.

The General Assembly created the unit at the request of Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, who did not agree with an earlier provision that would have allowed police officers to be sued if they failed to comply with requirements to check people’s immigration status.

The law required the unit to sign an agreement with ICE that would give its officers authority to investigate suspects’ immigration status.

However, ICE discontinued those agreements in February because federal authorities did not find them to be effective, said Vincent Picard, a spokesman in ICE’s Atlanta office. Other programs such as Secure Communities, which checks immigration status of anyone booked in a jail, work better, he said. That program operates in all county jails in South Carolina.

Beshearse, who serves as an advocate for immigrants, said she thought the unit’s purpose was to assist local sheriffs and police departments in determining whether someone is a legal immigrant. Without the federal agreement, though, she said she was concerned about how the officers would determine which criminals were immigrants.

“They run the risk of the federal government stepping in and saying ‘What are you doing?’” she said.

The immigration unit will be able to investigate people suspected of violating state law and make arrests for those crimes. But when it comes to determining their residency status, they must call ICE, Picard said.

Johnson said his unit will work closely with ICE as it investigates foreign-born criminals. And he is aware that his officers could be walking a fine line when it comes to racial profiling.

“I don’t think anyone should think that just because of race, color or religion that they should expect to see us,” he said.

SOURCE





PA: Hazleton's immigration law back in court Wed.

Lawyers on both sides of an immigration battle that propelled Hazleton into the national spotlight nearly six years ago will base testimony on court rulings from related disputes in Arizona and Farmers Branch, Texas, when the case resumes Wednesday in federal appeals court.

Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and the city of Hazleton have filed briefs and will make oral arguments before the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

The appeals court, ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to take another look at Hazleton's case, will write the next chapter in a long-standing dispute over the city's rental registration ordinance and related Illegal Immigration Relief Act.

The laws, which were never enforced, essentially bar businesses from hiring, and landlords from harboring, illegal immigrants.

The case that has become known as "Lozano, et al. v. City of Hazleton" includes plaintiffs Pedro Lozano, Casa Dominicana of Hazleton Inc., Hazleton Hispanic Business Association and the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition.

Parties on both sides of the dispute say they're confident heading into Wednesday's appearance before the appeals court.

Omar C. Jadwat, an attorney with ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, filed a 32-page brief on behalf of plaintiffs addressing the effects a Supreme Court ruling on Arizona's immigration law has on Hazleton's ordinances.

"In certain ways, they're both kind of directed at the same end - to make life miserable for people so that they leave," Jadwat contends. "The Hazleton law, in certain ways, is more direct about prohibiting basically residence of certain people in the City of Hazleton."

Kris Kobach, a lawyer who wrote Hazleton's ordinances and serves as Kansas secretary of state, believes Supreme Court rulings on similar immigration law in Arizona and Farmers Branch bolster Hazleton's chances of getting a ruling in its favor.

Similar laws

The Supreme Court in late June struck down parts of the Arizona law but upheld a portion that gave law enforcement the ability to check the immigration status of people they arrest. Federal officials who challenged the Arizona law did not contest changes made to a previous law that forces Arizona's employers to use the federal E-Verify system to confirm eligibility of employees and imposes penalties on employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens.

The latter provisions are similar to Hazleton's ordinances.

Kobach filed a brief on Aug. 1 that calls the Third Circuit Court's attention to a ruling from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court that vacates a previous panel decision regarding an immigration ordinance proposed in Farmers Branch, Texas.

A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit was split 2-1 on the Farmers Branch ordinance, which would require that tenants register with a building inspector who would verify their lawful immigration status.

On July 31, however, the Fifth Circuit granted a petition for a rehearing en banc in the Farmers Branch case, which Kobach said in a legal brief has "the immediate effect of vacating the panel decision in that case."

Kobach said plaintiffs in Hazleton's case argued in March that the Third Circuit court follow the now-vacated Farmers Branch opinion.

"Such reliance would be misplaced, due to the fact that the panel opinion no longer has any precedential effect," Kobach wrote. "There is now no opinion in any circuit concerning an ordinance similar to Hazleton's that can be said to offer an even indirect support for Plaintiff-Appellees's position."

More HERE


12 August, 2012

Arizona: New Challenge Puts ‘Show Me Your Papers’ Provision on Hold

The one part of the Arizona immigration law that survived the Supreme Court’s decision in June may be a step closer to implementation, but its ultimate fate has yet to be decided.

The provision known as “show me your papers” — which requires police conduct mandatory immigration checks on people stopped for arrested for another reason — is back in the hands of U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, after routing through the high court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit , the Associated Press reported.

Judge Bolton could remove the injunction on the regulation, which she ordered in 2010, but a decision may be several weeks away, because civil and immigration rights groups have filed a motion asking for the enforcement to be blocked.

The motion argues that the “show me your papers” provision will lead to the unconstitutional detention of people and racial profiling against Hispanics, regardless of their immigration status, according to FoxNews Latino.

“We’re asking the judge to take into account our request to halt the implementation based on examples we’re going to present next week concerning people who are being detained for longer periods to verify their immigration status,” Alessandra Soler, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said to Spanish news agency EFE.

The ACLU — which filed a complaint against the State of Arizona over the immigration law and last month asked for the remaining section of the law to be blocked — hopes the judge will wait to consider the pending case before enforcing the provision. The Supreme Court’s ruling in June said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to block the provision. The ACLU is focusing on presenting that evidence — examples of people being detained to verify their immigration status — despite the provision not being in force.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority in the Supreme Court decision, said if the “show me your papers” regulation “only requires state officers to conduct a status check during the course of an authorized, lawful detention or after a detainee has been released, the provision would likely survive preemption — at least absent some showing that it has other consequences that are adverse to federal law and its objectives.”

The state has until Friday to respond to the ACLU’s motion, and Judge Bolton gave an additional week for plaintiffs to respond, which means a decision isn’t likely to come before Aug. 17.

SOURCE





France declares war on illegal immigrants: Socialist government smashes up gipsy camps just days after Greece rounded up thousands of migrants

France's socialist government has begun smashing up Roma gipsy camps across the country and deporting the illegal immigrants living in them.

It comes days after Greek police rounded up 6,000 migrants in Athens at the weekend - detaining 1,600 for deportation.

Destruction of Roma gipsy camps and deportations began in Paris yesterday and will move to other major French cities, where camps have mushroomed in recent years.

Caravans and huts were destroyed in Paris, leaving an estimated 100 people homeless, including women and children.

An estimated 300 Romas have lost their homes in France this week as another hundred were today moved on from a site in Villleurbanne, a district of Lyon, with similar round-ups happening in other major cities including Marseille.

An Interior Ministry source said many of those evicted will be flown to Romania before the end of this week, adding that the deportations were all aimed at ridding France of 'illegal' communities.

It echoes the action taken in debt-ridden Greece where thousands of suspected illegal immigrants were rounded up in major cities this week.

Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said Greece could not afford an ‘invasion of immigrants’, blaming mass immigration for bringing the country to the ‘brink of collapse’.

The stance on illegal Roma gypsies by the new socialist government in France is a result of a controversial policy formulated by conservative ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was frequently accused of trying to win over far right nationalists objecting to foreigners settling in France.

But despite a new government on the other side of the French political spectrum, the policy has stood firm.

The former government linked Roma camps with crime, suggesting that many of the sneak thieves and muggers operating in cities like Paris were Romanians without fixed abodes.

With a socialist government in place many expected a more relaxed attitude towards immigrants and especially ones from other European Union countries like Romania.

But Manuel Valls, the new Interior Minister, said the camps were a 'challenge' to 'people living together', and said the police would uphold all court orders aimed at dismantling them.

Mr Valls said neighbours of the camps often complained about noise and anti-social behaviour, as well as serious crimes.

Humanitarian organisations have warned that the camps are linked to ill-health, including serious diseases like tuberculosis.

He assured that everything would be done to ensure that vulnerable people, and particularly 'children and pregnant women', were re-housed as quickly as possible.

Mr Sarkozy started a purge on Romas in the summer of 2010, pointing to the fact that up to 15,000 were living in camps across France.

Mr Sarkozy even proposed that French police travel to Romania to fight trafficking and other crimes by Roma.

In turn, Roma groups accused Mr Sarkozy of 'ethnic cleansing', in reference to gypsies had been targeted by the Nazis during World War II.

They claim that the purge is part of a generally racist strategy adopted by Mr Sarkozy against all foreign groups, including some six million Muslims living in France.

Romania has been a full member of the European Union since 2007, and its citizens can enter France without a visa, but they must get residency permits if they want to settle long term and work.

SOURCE





10 August, 2012

UK pays to refit foreign prisons: Taxpayers foot bill to revamp jails in Nigeria and Jamaica so criminals can be deported without breaching their human rights

British taxpayers are paying to make jails in Jamaica and Nigeria more comfortable in a desperate bid to persuade foreign criminals to serve their sentences at home.

Ministers have resorted to the tactic – designed to satisfy the human rights of inmates – after it emerged that the UK’s own prison system has turned into a ‘United Nations of crime’.

Research by the House of Commons library, seen by the Mail, reveals how our jails contain inmates from a staggering 156 countries – more than three out of every four member states of the UN.

Worryingly, the total number of foreign prisoners is rising – despite pledges by David Cameron to fix the mess. By March this year, there were 11,127 behind bars, at an estimated cost to the UK public purse of more than £420million. This is up from 10,778 in 2011.

The group, which includes rapists, murderers and burglars, now makes up more than one in every eight convicts.

The figures were disclosed as the Prime Minister faced more criticism yesterday over his foreign aid commitments.

Mr Cameron was taking part in a radio phone-in when a pensioner called to tell him it was wrong that she was denied a cancer drug while billions were spent on overseas aid.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the dire need to create space in our packed jails has prompted ministers to take the extraordinary step of establishing a £3million annual pot to make it easier for convicts to serve their sentences back home.

Splashing money on prisons abroad is certain to prove controversial. But officials insist it will be cheaper in the long run than the annual £38,000 bill for keeping a single prisoner locked up here.

Currently, money is being spent in Jamaica to ‘assist Jamaican authorities in modernising their prison service and rehabilitation and reintegration activities’.

In Nigeria, one project supports the provision of ‘human rights training for prison officers’. A second project will construct new facilities at a women’s prison in its biggest city, Lagos, to reduce overcrowding.

Jamaica tops the list of the nations with most prisoners in British jails, with 900 inmates. There are 594 Nigerians.

Last night Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: ‘To some extent, this is the inevitable legacy of mass immigration of 3.5million people under Labour. ‘The resources necessary to tackle the rising number of foreign prisoners have not been made available.’

Tory MP Priti Patel said: ‘Prison is always the best place for dangerous criminals, but our jails should not be used as hotels for foreigners. Ministers need to take action to deport them to serve their sentences in the countries they come from and then stop them from coming back to Britain.

‘Living in Britain is a privilege and foreigners who come here and flout our laws should be sent packing without delay.’

In November 2010, the Mail revealed how the Prime Minister had decided to spearhead a campaign for foreign criminals to serve their sentences back home.

To do this, ministers must be able to convince the courts that the offenders will not suffer breaches of their human rights by being made to stay in squalid conditions.
Worst offenders

The Ministry of Justice said it had just signed a new agreement which should see a greater number of Albanian prisoners being transferred from the UK to complete their sentences.

The compulsory prisoner transfer agreement is the first they have managed to agree with a nation with a large number of foreign national offenders in UK prisons. They now hope to agree more.

There are currently around 180 Albanian prisoners in UK prisons, of whom over 100 may be eligible for transfer.

The agreement also means that British citizens who are serving prison sentences in Albania may also be compulsorily transferred back to the UK. Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt said: ‘We are already removing thousands of foreign criminals at the end of their sentence, or under transfer agreements to serve the rest of their sentence back home.

‘We believe that, wherever possible, foreign national prisoners should serve their sentences in their own country. ‘Not only will it save money for the UK, it will also mean that these prisoners will be closer to family and friends.This helps to support prisoners’ social rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

‘Transfers also help their home country to put in place any appropriate public protection measures on their release.

‘I hope this compulsory prisoner transfer agreement will be the first of many arrangements to free up prison spaces and reduce the burden to taxpayers of foreign criminals who should rightly become the responsibility of their own country and not the UK.’

The last government tried a string of desperate tactics to reduce the number of overseas inmates. Offenders were offered credit cards pre-loaded with more than £450 - funded by the taxpayer - if they agreed to return home.

The perk was part of a package worth up to £5,000 designed to ‘bribe’ them to leave the UK.

SOURCE






Legacy of immigration to U.S.

Traumas suffered by a society generations ago can still have a negative effect centuries later.

This is something Americans of a certain age should have no difficulty understanding. Half a century ago, we had to grapple with a dysfunctional and unjustifiable system of legally imposed racial segregation. It was a legacy of the Civil War a century before and of slavery before that.

Americans managed to reform that system, but it wasn't easy. Getting rid of policies that are the responses to long-ago traumas is a difficult business.

Two current instances, one facing America and the other facing Europe, come to mind. Both result from strong desires to learn from the mistakes made in the years following World War I -- the Great War, as it was called at the time -- which began nearly a century ago.

The first case involves American immigration policy. Many Americans were uneasy about the millions of immigrants who had flowed in from Eastern and Southern Europe in the years after the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. World War I showed them that government could control the flow of people, and in 1924 Congress cut off the flow of Ellis Islanders.

This came to seem an injustice, especially to their descendants, and in 1965 Congress rewrote immigration law to allow large-scale low-skill and family-reunification migration. It was an attempt to atone for a mistake made in the wake of war.

But like most reforms, it had unintended consequences. Large-scale immigration came not from Europe, as expected, but from Latin America, especially Mexico, and also from Asia. The United States failed to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the land border with Mexico and Congress rejected a national identity card that might have prevented illegals from getting jobs. By 2007 we had 12 million immigrants and the controversy over what to do about them frustrated attempts to rationalize immigration law.

Now some illegals are returning home, but we still have a system that favors extended-family reunification over the high-skill immigrants that Canada and Australia have been favoring for years. Decisions made years ago leave us with a dysfunctional immigration system.

Europe's historic problems and current plight are worse than ours. The extremist nationalism that led to the two world wars left postwar reformers like Jean Monnet convinced that European unity was necessary to prevent a third.

European elites, with minimal consultation with voters, created the Common Market, originally a free-trade area, which became the European Community, in which Brussels busybodies override national authorities on all sorts of domestic legislation (must fruit be priced by kilo rather than pound?).

In looking at both these painfully unresolved issues, it seems that a determination not to repeat the mistakes -- in some cases, the horrifying mistakes -- of the past has made policymakers and publics timid about adjusting to changes in the future.

America's illegal immigration problem could be alleviated with identification technology that no longer seems scary. And as the illegal numbers seem to be declining, we could leave that issue aside and provide more openings for the high-skill immigrants we plainly need.

As for the euro, by the 1990s it was plain that Germany and France were never going to war again -- and that Brussels bureaucrats could never bludgeon or cajole them, much less their Mediterranean neighbors, into following identical economic or fiscal policies.

In the meantime, credit card technology and financial innovation were making it easier to deal with different currencies.

The lesson: Heed history, but keep an eye out for changes that make historical lessons obsolete.

SOURCE







9 August, 2012

Immigration + Welfare = Bad News

By Mark Krikorian

Robert Rector’s piece today on Obama’s latest unconstitutional usurpation — this time, ending welfare reform as we know it — reminded me of the central role immigration played in the original debate in Congress over welfare reform in 1995–96. (For young people who don’t remember, “Congress” used to be the place where laws were debated and passed, back before it assumed the role of the Roman Senate under Diocletian.) The claim at the time was that close to half the projected savings from welfare reform would come from the limits on legal immigrants’ access to taxpayer-funded benefits.

While welfare reform overall was a great success, the projections regarding immigrants didn’t pan out. The immediate reasons for the failure of the immigrant portion of welfare reform were laid out by George Borjas: Immigrant-heavy states picked up the slack by extending benefits to immigrants, and the immigrant groups most dependent on welfare before the reform saw the largest increases in naturalization rates (enabling them to escape the welfare restrictions specific to non-citizens).

Also, the longstanding requirement that immigrants not be admitted in the first place if they’re “likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence” (known as the “public charge” doctrine) has been gutted in a way that’s almost comical. According to the immigration service, “non-cash or special purpose cash benefits” are not considered when determining whether an immigrant has become a public charge. That means an immigrant family could be living in public housing, receiving food stamps, on Medicaid, and having their children eat three free meals a day at school and they wouldn’t be considered “primarily dependent” on the government!

But even if we entered Bizarro World, where we are able to enforce all the limitations people have proposed on immigrant access to welfare, it still wouldn’t eliminate the problem. A new, detailed profile of the immigration population by my colleague Steve Camarota suggests why this must necessarily be the case if we continue mass immigration, no matter what prophylactic measures we take. The basic problem is that in a modern, post-industrial, knowledge-intensive economy, people with low levels of education (who will always account for the bulk of any large-scale immigration flow) just can’t earn enough money to provide for themselves and their children, no matter how many jobs they hold down. As Steve writes:

Nor does the relatively high use of welfare programs reflect a lack of work on the part of immigrants. In 2010, 84.2 percent of immigrant households had at least one worker, compared to 75.8 percent of native households. Work in no way precludes welfare use, particularly use of the non-cash programs.

And non-cash programs are the whole game — Medicaid alone costs more than all other welfare, cash and non-cash, combined. In fact, the whole point of our welfare system is to support the working poor who have children — which is a pretty good description of our immigrant population.

You can read the numbers for yourself, but here are a few: Of households headed by a Mexican immigrant, 57 percent use at least one welfare program; the number is 50 percent for Central Americans. On the other hand, welfare use for immigrants from India is 14 percent, and it’s 19 percent for Filipinos. (Even those numbers are kind of disturbing.) This doesn’t mean Indians and Filipinos are better than Mexicans or Salvadorans, just that the ones who come here are more educated, thus they earn more and are less likely to need or qualify for welfare. That said, even at any given level of education, immigrants make heavier use of taxpayer-funded benefits: Nine percent of households headed by a native-born college graduate use welfare, as opposed to more than 16 percent of households headed by an immigrant college graduate.

As Milton Friedman said, “it’s just obvious that you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.” An immigration maximalist might respond that we therefore need to get rid of the welfare state. Let me know when you succeed — in the meantime, the sooner we curb mass immigration the better.

SOURCE





A Profile of the U.S. Foreign-Born Population?

Study Finds Poverty & Welfare Common among Immigrants; Many Longtime Immigrant Residents Still Struggling

A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies uses Census Bureau data from 2010 and 2011 to provide a detailed picture of the nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) by country of birth, state, and legal status.

A key finding is that immigration has dramatically increased the size of the nation’s low-income population. In general, immigrants make significant progress the longer they live in the country. But even with this progress, immigrants who have been in the country for 20 years are still much more likely to be poor, lack health insurance, and access the welfare system than native-born Americans. The large share of immigrants with little education partly explains this phenomenon.

“There is considerable concern about issues like poverty and the large uninsured population. But what has generally not been acknowledged is the impact of immigration on these problems,” notes Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research. “Absent a change in policy, 11 to 15 million new immigrants are likely to settle in this country in the next decade and may exacerbate present problems.”

The study can be found here. Press releases specific to the top immigrant receiving states can be found here

Among the study’s findings:

* Immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) account for one-fourth of all persons in poverty and nearly one-third of the population lacking health insurance.

* In 2010, 36 percent of immigrant-headed households used at least one major welfare program (primarily food assistance and Medicaid) compared to 23 percent of native households.

* Of immigrant households with children 57 percent accessed one or more welfare programs, compared to 40 percent of native households with children.

* The high rates of poverty, uninsurance and welfare use are not due to an unwillingness to work. The share of working-age immigrants (18 to 65) holding a job in 2011 was the same as natives — 68 percent. Immigrant men actually have higher rates of work than native-born men.

* The primary reason for high immigrant poverty and welfare use is the large share of immigrants who arrived as adults with relatively little education.

* Of adult immigrants (25 to 65), 28 percent have not completed high school, compared to 7 percent of natives. The share of immigrants (25 to 65) with at least a bachelor’s degree is somewhat lower than that of natives — 29 vs. 33 percent.

* Among the top states of immigrant settlement, immigrants tend to be the poorest and least educated in Arizona, North Carolina, Minnesota, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, and California. Immigrants tend to be the most educated and prosperous in Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts.

* There is a very significant variation across sending-countries and regions. Immigrants from East Asia, India and Europe tend to be the most educated and have the highest incomes, while those from Mexico and Latin American tend to be the least-educated and have the lowest incomes.

* Many immigrants make significant progress the longer they live in the country. However, as a group, immigrants who have lived in the United States for 20 years have not come close to closing the gap with natives.

* The poverty rate of adult immigrants who have lived in the United States for 20 years is 50 percent higher than that of adult natives.

* The share of adult immigrants who have lived in the United States for 20 years who lack health insurance is twice that of adult natives.

* The share of households headed by an immigrant who has lived in the United States for 20 years using one or more welfare programs is nearly twice that of native-headed households.

* The share of households headed by an immigrant who has lived in the United States for 20 years that are owner occupied is 22 percent lower than that of native households.

* Most immigrants are not recent arrivals. Nearly two-thirds have been in the United States for more than 10 years and their average length of residence in the U.S. is 19 years.

* There are 10.4 million students from immigrant households in public schools, accounting for one in five public school students.

* Overall, one in four public school students now speaks a language other than English at home.

* Of immigrant households, 53 percent are owner-occupied, compared to 68 percent of native households.

* In 2010, 13 percent of immigrant households were overcrowded, compared to 2 percent of native households. Immigrant households account for half of all overcrowded households.

* Immigrants and natives have very similar rates of entrepreneurship — 11.7 percent of natives and 11.5 percent of immigrants are self-employed.

Illegal immigrants.

Our best estimate is that 28 percent of the nation’s immigrants are in the country illegally. Illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) account for 5 percent of the nation’s overall population, 10 percent those in poverty, 15 percent of the uninsured and 7 percent of the school age population.

Data Source:

The data for this paper come primarily from the public-use files of the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) and the March 2011 Current Population Survey (CPS). In some cases, for state-specific information, we combine the March 2010 and 2011 CPS to get statistically robust results.

In this report, the terms foreign-born and immigrant are used synonymously. Immigrants are persons living in the United States who were not American citizens at birth. This includes naturalized American citizens, legal permanent residents (green card holders), illegal immigrants, and people on long-term temporary visas such as foreign students or guest workers.

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. CONTACTS: Marguerite Telford, Steven Camarota sac@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




8 August, 2012

Estimate of Undocumented Immigrants Who Could Avoid Deportation Rises

Nearly 1.8 million undocumented immigrants could have their deportations suspended for two years, and legally obtain jobs here, under President Obama’s recent policy to give them leniency.

That number is significantly higher than the earlier estimate of a maximum of 1.3 million immigrants who could benefit, thanks to newly released guidelines that expanded the pool of eligible applicants, said the Migration Policy Institute.

The Migration Policy Institute, or MPI, had come up with the earlier number of 1.3 million after analyzing data, but on Tuesday raised the number. The President's plan aims to give reprieve to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors.

Obama Administration officials have said their estimates put the number of immigrants who would qualify at about 800,000; that was before the new guidelines. Initially, the guidelines called for applicants to have graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED.

The new MPI report said the revised estimate reflects “the updated DHS guidelines that youth lacking a high school or GED degree would be eligible to apply for deferred action as long as they have re-enrolled by the date of their application.”

“MPI estimates 350,000 unauthorized young adult immigrants (ages 16 and older) without a high school degree or GED could potentially be eligible for relief from deportation if they meet the enrollment criteria.”

Under the administration plan, undocumented immigrants will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, complete – or are in the process of completing – high school or served in the military. They also can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed.

The President’s plan to give relief to these immigrants stems from the view of many advocates of more lenient immigration policies that undocumented people brought to the United States as minors should not be penalized for the decision of their parents to break immigration laws. These advocates argue that those brought here as minors grew up in the United States, see this as their homeland, and can contribute to U.S. society.

Efforts to pass national legislation – called the DREAM Act, which stands for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors -- granting them a pathway to legalization have failed several times since first being introduced in 2001.

Those who want tougher immigration enforcement reacted to news about the higher estimate with more condemnation of Obama’s plan to give the so-called DREAMers relief. They say that giving a reprieve to undocumented immigrants is equal to rewarding law-breaking.

“No surprise here; without a proper legislative foundation, without a proper evaluation of the impact on taxpayers, communities and the labor market, with only the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen, we see here an assertion of absolute power that will simply corrupt indefinitely,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington D.C.-based group that favors strict immigration enforcement.

“The numbers from here will grow and grow. The Administration is asserting a virtually limitless new power, governed only by its own political judgment and interests. It is a dangerous violations of the civil rights of all Americans."

The President’s plan, called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative, will decide applications on a case-by-case basis. The administration says it will begin processing applications on August 15.

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has said he opposes the DREAM Act, though he says he supports giving some type of conditional legal status to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors who commit to serving in the military.

SOURCE





Arizona Immigration Ruling Prompts Pushback in Other States

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that upheld a section of Arizona’s immigration law, several U.S. cities and at least one state have taken jabs at the measure by proposing their own immigration policies.

The Supreme Court’s unanimous 8-0 ruling (Justice Elena Kagan did not vote) upholding the provision in S.B. 1070 allows Arizona law-enforcement officials to check the immigration status of anyone they stop, arrest or detain if the officer has “reasonable suspicion” the person is in the country illegally.

The court’s decision prompted responses across the country.

In Washington, D.C., the City Council unanimously passed a bill that detains only those who have been previously convicted of a serious crime or felony, and allows local police to hold immigration detainees no more than 24 hours beyond the time that they would otherwise be held. Detainees can only be held longer if the federal government pays the expense, and it prohibits city officials from participating in a “generalized search of or inquiry about inmates conducted by federal authorities.”

Chicago’s Safe Families Ordinance Act protects illegal immigrants from being detained unless they were convicted of a serious crime.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Scribe, “This is a violation of a fundamental responsibility of law enforcement.”

“The federal government … threatened to cut off funds [to Chicago], or at least talked about it, but has not done it,” Sessions added. “They need to do it.”

Under California’s TRUST Act, local police officers would not be able to refer a detainee to immigration officials unless the perpetrator has been convicted of a “serious crime” or felony. The TRUST Act passed 21-13 in the California Senate in June and awaits decision from the Assembly.

“If we do detain people, it’s at our expense,” said author of the bill, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-CA).

Police officer Scott Erickson, a contributor to The Foundry, said, “The passage of this bill is more of an affirmation of what has long been a de-facto, state-wide repudiation of any effort to improve the collaborative relationship between state and local law enforcement and their federal immigration counterparts.”

Erickson believes that while passage of the California bill may not impact police officers’ day-to-day activities, it will impact the state more broadly, especially considering that millions of illegal immigrants reside in California.

Given that nearby states like Arizona are creating a “less hospitable climate for illegal immigrants,” said Erickson, “it should be expected that many more illegal immigrants will flock to welcoming states like California.”

The United States needs “sensible reform of our immigration laws,” Heritage’s Jessica Zuckerman points out, particularly in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. United States. This includes maintaining and increasing efforts to enhance border security, rejecting amnesty proposals, strengthening interior enforcement measures in the United States, reforming U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to handle legal immigration more effectively and efficiently, and enhancing temporary-worker programs to provide legal avenues of immigration that meet the needs of employers and immigrants.

“States should not have to beg the federal government for permission to enforce laws within their borders,” Zuckerman said. She notes that the United States is in an advantageous position to control its borders and thwart illegal immigration due to “the increase of manpower and technology along the border,” but that Congress and the administration must actually support the Supreme Court’s decision.

“In order for the Administration to create a ‘well-ordered’ immigration enforcement environment,” said Zuckerman, “it should not only focus on the removal of criminal aliens but also rebuild respect for the rule of law regarding immigration and workplace enforcement.”

SOURCE



7 August, 2012

As Greece Rounds Up Migrants, Official Says ‘Invasion’ Imperils National Stability

A vast police operation here aimed at identifying illegal immigrants found that, of 6,000 people detained over the weekend, 1,400 did not have proper documentation, leading the minister of public order to say that Greece was suffering an “unprecedented invasion” that was threatening the stability of the debt-racked nation.

The minister, Nikos Dendias, defended the mass detentions, saying that a failure to curb a relentless flow of immigrants into Greece would lead the country, which is surviving on foreign loans, to collapse. “Our social fabric is at risk of unraveling,” Mr. Dendias told a private television channel, Skai. “The immigration problem is perhaps even greater than the financial one.”

He said he would resign if he was obstructed. “There would be no point in me staying on,” he said. That appeared to be a warning to left-wing opposition parties, one of which called the operation a pogrom.

About 4,500 officers conducted raids on streets and in run-down apartment blocks in central Athens, a police spokesman said, calling the sweep one of the largest ever by the force. Eighty-eight Pakistanis were flown back home on a chartered flight on Sunday, said the spokesman, who spoke on the standard ground rules of anonymity. He said more deportations were expected in the coming days.

With its position on the southeastern flank of the European Union, Greece has long been the most common transit country for impoverished migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. But the global economic malaise and the revolutions of the Arab Spring have sharply increased the flow of migrants, and the government has been calling for more help from the European Union.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised to crack down on illegal immigration in campaigning before the general elections in June, which his conservative New Democracy party won by a small margin, followed by Syriza, the party that denounced the weekend operation. But no mass efforts had been made before that, fueling the fury of ascendant right-wing groups.

Last week, the authorities decided to transfer hundreds of officers to Greece’s land border with Turkey, a popular route for smugglers sneaking migrants from Africa and Asia into the country for a fee. Many of those officers have been moved to border guard duty from the security details of politicians as part of an overhaul of the force. The reinforcements were sent amid fears of an increased influx of refugees from Syria, where political tumult has devolved into civil war.

The growing population of immigrants in Greece — about 800,000 are registered, and an estimated 350,000 or more are in the country illegally — adds to the anxieties of many Greeks, who are seeing the government’s once-generous social spending evaporate. They complain that the foreign residents are depriving them of jobs and threatening the national identity.

Such frustrations have been exploited politically, notably by Golden Dawn, a far-right group that has been widely linked to a rising number of apparently racially motivated assaults but vehemently denies being a neo-Nazi group. Once obscure, it drew 7 percent of the vote in the June elections.

The party has called for the immediate deportation of all immigrants and has accused Mr. Samaras of reneging on his pre-election promises to curb illegal immigration. The party has won public support through a range of initiatives, including the distribution of free food, but only for those who can show Greek identity cards.

SOURCE





 Recent posts at CIS  below

See  here for the blog.  The CIS main page is here. 

Commentary

1. Immigration Policies under a President Romney: Less Illegal, More Legal (Op-ed)

Blogs

2. DREAM Scheme Now Termed 'Childhood Arrivals' — Filing Starts August 15

3. Massachusetts Closes Illegal Alien Driving Loophole

4. 'On Point' on the Federal Betrayal of American Workers, Part 1

5. The Migrant's Prerogative

6. Supervisor of H-1Bs Forced Out of Job

7. It's the Immigration, Doctor!

8. Will the DREAM Scheme Bring Millions to J.P. Morgan?

9. The Strange Case of the 219 Missing EB-5 Decisions

10. DHS Plans Deep (and Possibly Illegal) Discount on Amnesty Application Fees for DREAMers

11. New Report: Obama Catch and Release Policies Result in More Crimes, More Victims

12. Brookings Claims of H-1B Demand Not Supported by Their Data

13. Appeals Body for Would-Be Educators of Foreign Students]



6 August, 2012

Obama's new system starts August 15

All done without legislative authorization

Obama administration officials said on Friday that, come the 15th of August, thousands of young illegal immigrants could seek two-year deferrals of deportation, bringing to a close months of uncertainty and ambiguity, following the President’s historic  decision.

While explaining how the process would work, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas said that the total cost for the application process will be $465 and that illegal immigrants who came into the country as children, younger than 16, who have graduated high school or served in the military can apply for deferment. Moreover, they can also apply for work permits.

The applicants apart from filling the forms, provide valid identification, would be photographed and would have to give their finger prints.

The announcement of the much awaited date has seen prospective applicants scurrying for their birth-certificates, high school diplomas and military records to prove that they qualify for the amnesty program. An estimated 800,000 illegal immigrants are likely to apply for deferrals and work permits.

With apprehensions and misgivings regarding the plan, announced by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in June, been assuaged, the illegal immigrants are fearful of being misled or fleeced by real or fake immigration attorneys.

Gerardo Salinas, 25, himself an illegal immigrant entered the country, courtesy his parents, who brought him to Chicago 12 years ago. He said following, Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s life changing announcement, he approached two attorneys who had marketed their services over the radio. Both said that it would cost him $1700 for them to assess his paperwork and submit it to the relevant authorities.

He declined to pay the fees. The visibly-challenged Salinas, who lost his eyesight when he was 12, and wants to become an immigration attorney said that he was shocked and saddened to see people exploiting a life-altering situation for the Latino youth.

“They’re Latinos,” he said of the attorneys. “They may not be undocumented, but they have relatives, friends who are or were undocumented. They should know how much we suffer to work, how much we suffer getting health care, with school. It’s sad.”

Similar stories of exploitation and deceitful practices have been flooding the offices of civil rights groups and members of the Congress for weeks. So much so that it has prompted around a dozen Congressmen to counsel the people against attorneys, who are also referred to as “notarios.” Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif. said, “Please don’t be taken advantage of. You don’t need an attorney.”

Even those illegal immigrants can apply who have already been earmarked for deportation and are in the middle of extradition proceedings, officials said.

Jacqueline Esposito, of the New York Immigration Coalition said that the fears of many, that the government will use the program to identify and capture relatives who are illegal immigrants is baseless and unfounded.  He said that information provided in the applications would be kept confidential and would not be disclosed, nor would it be used to apprehend people.

“There’s a lot of skepticism about DHS and this administration,” Esposito said. “We are assuring them that they’re not putting their families at risk if they apply.”

“We’re going to issue a very clear statement that information used in the (deferred action) request will not be used for enforcement purposes,” a senior administration official said.

“I think that was one of the biggest concerns,” said Benita Veliz, 27, a St. Mary’s University graduate whose deportation case was closed last year but who has not been eligible for a work permit. “For them to be able to assure applicants for the information not being able to be used against them is very important for people to be able to take advantage of the policy.”

However, applicants were cautioned not to attempt to defraud the system. Not only would it have serious legal consequences for them, it would also belittle and dilute the entire movement and hinder the path for their entitled brethren.

“Tell the truth on the applications;” said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., one of the original sponsors of the DREAM Act, “There is nothing that will hurt our long-term cause or your individual situation more than misrepresenting critical facts on that form. It will come back to haunt you in ways you can’t anticipate.”

Officials, however, said that even though they would not use the application process to round up illegal immigrants, applicants who falsify on the forms, those who have serious criminal histories, those who pose a threat to public safety or are security risks could be prosecuted for deportation.

Other factors that could disqualify applicants include “committing a felony or a “significant” transgression like firearms or burglary or three or more misdemeanors.” However, driving without a license would not give cause to disqualify as most illegal immigrants, at some time or the other have infringed on this, as they did not qualify for licenses owing to their illegality.

Mayorkas did not put a figure on how much the whole process would cost or how many new staff would be needed and at what cost. However, it is estimated that it could cost up to $585 million, with most of the cost being met by the $465 application fees. It does seem, though, that the government will come up a little short.

Officials becalmed fears that tax dollars may be used to meet the shortfall and said that there would be no waivers of the application fee. The entire process could take months to complete.

Critics, especially Republicans were quick to dismiss Obama’s amnesty scheme as a ploy to win the Hispanic vote and called it a stop-gap arrangement, but even they stopped short of saying that it should be revoked and rescinded. The risk of alienating an important voting bloc, especially in the Presidential year was just not worth taking.

Those opposed to the program, including Rep. Lamar Smith R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said that the guidance issued “leaves the door wide open for fraud.” Moreover, he alleged, the program will divert funding from Citizenship and Immigration Services officers working on legal visa applications.

He said it was surprising how, on a day when the national unemployment rate rose to 8.3 percent; the administration could be straining themselves to help illegal immigrants.

“Today’s guidance undermines the rule of law and gives lawbreakers an unfair advantage over legal immigrants,” Smith said. “When will this president’s assault on the rule of law and the American people end?

SOURCE





Criminality among illegals

I put this up on Dissecting Leftism yesterday but it clearly has a place here too

I have found what sound like  some better statistics on  illegal immigrants than what can be inferred from Obama's broad brush claim that he "only" deports serious criminals.   We read:

"The 2011 figures show slightly more undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes were deported last year than in the prior year. ICE reported that 216,698 of the unauthorized immigrants removed in the 2011 fiscal year were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, making up about 55 percent of the total removals"

Even so, if we scale up 216,698 over just 10 years we still have 2 million out of 12 million illegals who are offenders, and that is not at all consonant with claims by Ron Unz and others that offending among illegals is rare.

All statistics in this field have to be regarded as wobbly but deportation statistics would seem most likely to be solidly grounded -- JR



5 August, 2012


ICE Agents Punished For Enforcing the Law

ICE agents are now getting in trouble – for doing their job. When President Obama unilaterally changed the immigration policy to allow younger illegal immigrants to stay in the country the administration said these individuals would have to meet certain requirements. From the DHS announcement:

The department continues to focus its enforcement resources on the removal of individuals who pose a national security or public safety risk, including immigrants convicted of crimes, violent criminals, felons, and repeat immigration law offenders. Today's action further enhances the Department's ability to focus on these priority removals.

Under this directive, individuals who demonstrate that they meet the following criteria will be eligible for an exercise of discretion, specifically deferred action, on a case-by-case basis:

1. Came to the United States under the age of sixteen;

2. Have continuously resided in the United States for a least five years preceding the date of this memorandum and are present in the United States on the date of this memorandum;

3. Are currently in school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a general education development certificate, or are honorably discharged veterans of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States;

4. Have not been convicted of a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, multiple misdemeanor offenses, or otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety;

5. Are not above the age of thirty.

As it turns out, the administration never had any intention of enforcing these aspects of the new policy. In early July, The Washington Times was already reporting that the requirements were essentially being ignored. Making matters worse, top immigration officials recently came out saying that criminals are being set free as DREAMers without question or charges, which only highlights the administration’s feigned interest in national security and public safety.

Now, agents are being punished for following the requirements set forth in the directive.

The unidentified agent could face a three-day suspension after he arrested a 35-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who had as many as 10 traffic violations.

The agent was ordered by supervisors to release the individual because he was not a "priority target." When the officer balked, he was threatened with a three-day suspension and the illegal alien was let go.

Sen. Sessions isn’t having any of it:

"The actions that it appears were taken by your agency send a message to agents in the field that they will be punished for doing their duty and enforcing the law," Sessions wrote in an letter to ICE Director John Morton and obtained exclusively by Fox News.

  The administration’s policies and retaliatory tactics are stripping the agency of any ability to do their job and protect the American people despite internal will. They’ve even stooped to a new low by deleting immigration enforcement success stories from everyone’s memory.

Agents are bearing the unfortunate brunt of Washington politics and it’s taking its toll:

“They’ve got their heads down,” Crane said, referring to ICE agents. “We feel like the administration is against us and not the people who are violating our laws.”

According to a survey conducted by bestplacestowork.org, ICE is ranked 222 out of 240 with a workplace score of 52.5.

Crane said he is not surprised. “We can’t do anything anymore under these new guidelines,” he said.

It will soon be, if it’s not already, an agency in name only.

SOURCE




Republicans pounce on Obama plan for young illegal immigrants

House Republicans, responding to new details of the Obama administration's plan to allow some young illegal immigrants to apply for work permits and stay temporarily, charged that it could create delays for legal immigrants trying to enter the United States.

"This will lead to a backlog for legal immigrants who followed the rules, while allowing lawbreakers to skip to the front of the line," Rep. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who heads the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

Obama administration officials released new information about the application process on Friday.

The plan, originally announced in June, is "another example of how the president's policies put the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants," said Smith, who is concerned that applicants will lie about their age and when they came into the United States.

Smith is concerned that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, faced with a surge in paperwork, will be "forced to put off processing legal immigration applications in favor of the illegal immigrant applications." The government is not hiring more immigration officers to handle the additional work.

Immigration is a polarizing issue in the presidential campaign. The Republican Party has struggled to attract Latino voters in recent years, and Obama's decision to halt the deportation of some illegal immigrants was seen as a move to energize Latino voters in the run-up to election day.

Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, took a hard line against comprehensive immigration reform during the primaries, but has softened his rhetoric in recent months. Romney hasn't said whether or not he would eliminate the new rules if elected. But his campaign criticized Obama for playing election-year politics with the immigration issue.

Starting Aug. 15, the Department of Homeland Security will begin receiving applications for "deferred action" from illegal immigrants who were born after June 15, 1981, and were brought to the United States before they turned 16, among other factors. Officials said that the application will be confidential and won't result in deportation unless the person is a convicted criminal, is considered a national security or public safety threat, or files a fraudulent application.

Applicants will pay $85 to apply to stay for at least two years and $360 to apply for permission to work during that time. They must submit fingerprints, undergo a background check, and prove they have graduated from high school or received a GED, are currently enrolled in school, or have been honorably discharged from the U.S. military.

"The excitement is electric," said Rep.Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who sees this process as a "stepping stone" to broader immigration reforms. Gutierrez is helping organize events in Chicago on Aug. 15 to celebrate the opening of the application process and assist applicants in filing their paperwork. Advocates have dubbed the date "DREAM Relief Day."

The change could benefit up to 1.4 million people, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group.

"By spending less time and fewer resources chasing high school and college students, the Department of Homeland Security can spend a lot more time and resources actually securing the homeland," said Gutierrez.

SOURCE



3 August, 2012

Obama Immigration Policy Devastating Morale Among ICE Agents

President Barack Obama’s changes to the nation’s immigration enforcement policy has morale “in the toilet right now” among Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the head of a national organization that represents such personnel says.

“Morale is in the toilet right now,” Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council, told Fox News on Thursday. The group represents about 7,600 officers, agents and other ICE employees. “Most of the guys out in the field are just in an uproar.”

The White House announced in June that the federal government would use “prosecutorial discretion” in allowing younger illegal aliens to stay in the United States and obtain work permits. The administration, however, said the policy does not grant illegals citizenship.

The policy has been criticized as “backdoor amnesty” and closely mirrors the DREAM Act, the controversial measure popular among Hispanics that has been debated in Congress since it was first introduced in 2001 and which died in the Senate last year.

“They call it discretion but it’s not our discretion,” Crane told Fox. “We have no discretion.”

Crane told Fox about a case involving a longtime ICE agent who arrested an illegal alien who was not a “primary target.” The agent’s superiors ordered the 35-year-old man released – even though he did not meet the criteria listed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The officer would not follow orders and is now facing a three-day suspension, Crane told Fox, and the illegal immigrant – with 10 traffic violations – was released.

An ICE spokesman did not return calls for comment, according to Fox.

“They’ve got their heads down,” Crane told Fox, referring to ICE agents. “We feel like the administration is against us and not the people who are violating our laws.”

SOURCE






Illegal immigrant rearrest rate is 16%, study says

Given the story above, you have to wonder about how comprehensive is  the count below

A study finds dozens of examples of migrants who were let go and later arrested, but the overall rate is far below that of the general prison population.

In January, Evin Adonis Ortiz was arrested and charged with killing a 24-year-old man in Los Angeles. After running Ortiz's fingerprints through an FBI database, police learned he was in the country illegally — and this wasn't his first arrest.

Ortiz had convictions for driving without a license and attempted grand larceny.

A congressional study released Tuesday found dozens of examples of illegal immigrants who were released and later arrested in connection with felonies, including murder.

The report, by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, studied the cases of 46,734 illegal immigrants. It concluded that those who had been arrested and released were later arrested in connection with 19 murders, three attempted murders and 142 sex crimes, among other infractions.

About 16% of illegal immigrants who were arrested were rearrested within three years, according to the study, which was based on data the Judiciary Committee had subpoenaed from the Obama administration.

That recidivism rate, however, is significantly lower than that of the general prison population. About 43% of prisoners released in 2004 nationwide were returned to prison within three years, according to a study by the Pew Center on the States, a nonprofit research institute. In California's state system, about 65% of released prisoners are back behind bars within three years.  [The general prison population is 50% black and they tend to be prolific offenders.  A comparison with whites only would be much more informative]

The illegal immigrant rearrest rate is "pretty modest ... proportionally as compared with what happens in the criminal justice system in general," said Doris Meissner, a former head of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service who is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials noted that none of the people accused of murder in the report had been convicted. Ortiz has pleaded not guilty.

Ortiz, 22 when booked into jail, was charged in the slaying of Danilo Morales, who was shot in the head while trying to help his grandfather during a robbery outside a Sun Valley home.

The Obama administration, arguing that it is making the best use of a limited budget, has put convicted criminals and serial immigration violators at the front of the line for deportation.

But some Republicans argue that all arrested illegal immigrants should be deported. "President Obama has imposed a policy that allows thousands of illegal immigrants to be released into our communities," said Smith, who has been critical of the administration's expanded use of prosecutorial discretion.

The study looked at the criminal records of people who were arrested by police, fingerprinted and brought to the attention of immigration officials through a controversial information-sharing program called Secure Communities. It found that between October 2008 and July 2011, 46,734 illegal immigrants were booked into jail but were released before immigration officials took them into custody.

"The idea that somehow ICE is knowingly taking people into custody who are removable and then releasing them is simply false," John Morton, the agency's director, said in an interview. "I strongly refute the Judiciary Committee's conclusions. It does a disservice to the facts."

Morton said ICE offices were sometimes far from the site of an arrest, or a person was arrested and booked on a minor charge and released within an hour, making it hard for immigration agents to respond in time.  "ICE cannot have a manned presence in every single state, local and county lock-up," he said.

Morton said Secure Communities was partly responsible for nearly doubling the number of deportations of convicted criminals and repeat immigration violators, from 114,415 in 2008 to 216,698 in 2011. The number of people deported from the U.S. has increased slightly every year since Obama took office.

Secure Communities, which links the FBI criminal database with immigration records, has met opposition from some police officials who fear it deters immigrants from reporting crimes and helping law enforcement.

But some experts consider Secure Communities an improvement over earlier programs that relied on police who had been deputized to enforce federal immigration law.

Secure Communities is used in 3,074 jurisdictions out of 3,181 nationwide — 97% of all state, local and tribal police departments. Alabama and Illinois are the only states where it is not in every police department.

SOURCE



2 August, 2012

Australia should say no to boat arrivals, says ex-Immigration official

A FORMER top Immigration Department official says Australia must close the door on boat people.

Former first assistant secretary Des Storer has told the Gillard Government's expert panel on asylum seekers that the current system was a confusing and contradictory farce.

Mr Storer, who was highly respected by both the Coalition and Labor governments, said in his submission that the only solution was for Australia to change migration laws to stop boat arrivals applying for visas.

"This can be done by excising Australia for the purposes of migration. This would mean that all unauthorised arrivals would be detained," he said in the submission co-authored by fellow Monash academic Adrienne Millbank.

Mr Storer told the Herald Sun yesterday that asylum seekers should be given options such as being sent back to Indonesia, returned to their home countries or sent to refugee camps of their choice.

"If you really want to stop the boats and protect people's lives that is the best way," he said.

Under the proposal, Australia would legally not be in breach of its international refugee obligations, and High Court challenges to offshore processing would be avoided.

Mr Storer and Ms Millbank said the money saved from processing and detaining asylum seekers could be used to double Australias official refugee intake to up to 25,000, with priority given to people in most need in overseas camps.

Mr Storer, who retired in 2008 and is now an adjunct professor at Monash University, said that many of those reaching Indonesia had the money to pay people smugglers who promised access to Australia's attractive legal system.

"Some may or may not be escaping serious persecution...they're taking advantage of the opportunities to be able to utilise the system better than other people can who are trapped in camps in much more serious conditions," he said.

SOURCE




 Recent posts at CIS  below

See  here for the blog.  The CIS main page is here. 

1. An Overview of E-Verify Policies at the State Level (Backgrounder)

Blogs

2. Illegal Alien Advocates Push DHS for Leniency in DREAM Amnesty (Blog)

3. Why Were Mexicans Illegally Training to be Pilots in South Texas? (Blog)

4. Israel and Arizona: Similarities, Differences, Questions (Blog)

5. USCIS Opens New EB-5 Entity AND Predicts Sharp Decline in Applications (Blog)

6. 'Process, Process, Process, but No Action' Sen. Feinstein Fumes at Hearing (Blog)

7. How to Break the Immigration Policy Impasse (10): Why Immigration Grand Bargains Fail — The Fairness Dimension of Amnesties (Blog)

8. Jihadist Gets 17 Years in Prison (Blog)

9. GAO Slams DHS on Lax Controls of Schools with Foreign Students (Blog)

10. H-1B Case Study: The Persistent Liquor Store and the Kazakh Candidate (Blog)



1 August, 2012


Polygamous immigrant families to be paid more benefits after British Government blunder

Immigrants with more than one wife will qualify for extra benefits under reforms to Britain’s welfare system, after an attempt to crack down on the problem backfired.

Polygamous marriages, largely confined to Muslim families, are only recognised in Britain if they took place in countries where they are legal.

Currently, any additional wives can receive reduced individual income support, meaning the husband and his first wife are paid up to £111.45.

Subsequent spouses living under the same roof receive around £40. Under the new system of Universal Credit, which comes in next year, polygamous marriages will not be recognised at all.

Ministers pledged to end the ‘absurd’ benefits regime which has seen multiple wives allowed to claim extra welfare payments.

But a House of Commons Library paper has highlighted a loophole in the rules which will allow additional wives to claim a full single person’s allowance, currently worth up to £71, while the original married couple will still get a married couple’s allowance.

The paper said: ‘Treating second and subsequent partners in polygamous relationships as separate claimants could mean that polygamous households receive more under Universal Credit than under the current rules.’

The Department for Work and Pensions admitted the loophole but said there were fewer than 50 polygamous families claiming benefits.

The first Asian woman to receive a peerage, Baroness Flather, has spoken out widely on the issue of polygamous families claiming benefits.

There are around 1,000 polygamous homes in Britain, the majority of which are Muslim

'Under Islamic Sharia law, polygamy is permissible. So a man can return to Pakistan, take another bride and then, in a repetition of the process, bring her to England where they also have children together — obtaining yet more money from the state,' she wrote in the Mail last year.

'Because such Islamic multiple-marriages are not recognised in Britain, the women are regarded by the welfare system as single mothers — and are therefore entitled to the full range of lone-parent payments. We cannot continue like this.

'Why are they allowed to have more than one wife,' she added.

'We should prosecute one or two people for bigamy, that would sort it out.'

Currently in the UK it is illegal to marry more than once.  But if the multiple marriages took place abroad then it is not.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions told MailOnline said that the loophole will exist because extra wives in a polygamous home are treated as single.

'Polygamy is illegal in this country and it would be wrong for the benefits system to legitimise these arrangements by recognising them in any way,' they said.

SOURCE  





New Report Analyzes State-Level E-Verify Policies

Online Tool Used at 900,000 Worksites. 1,200 New Businesses Sign Up Weekly

WASHINGTON, DC (July 30, 2012) – The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) today released a new report, An Overview of E-Verify Policies at the State Level, detailing the growing and varied use of E-Verify by states since being upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2011. Use of E-Verify, the federally run employment authorization program, is required by 16 states for some or all employers; such mandates play a key role in state level efforts to discourage illegal immigration.

“There is much variability in the state use of E-Verify. Some states require all businesses to use the program and some require only public agencies or contractors; some states have stringent enforcement policies, and some ignore enforcement altogether,” comments Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center. “This new report allows policymakers to compare and evaluate differing state immigration laws and decide how to best incorporate E-Verify into their own state immigration laws so as to increase compliance.”

The report can be found online here

E-Verify is a free, Internet-based system that allows businesses to determine new hires' eligibility to work in the United States by comparing a new employee’s name, Social Security number, and date of birth against millions of government records. The program generally provides results in three to five seconds. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), more than 353,000 employers use E-Verify at nearly 900,000 worksites. About 1,200 new businesses sign up each week. In fiscal year 2011, the program ran more than 17.4 million queries. The federal government requires its contractors to use E-Verify, but use of the system has not yet been made mandatory for all employers nationwide.

The report, authored by Jon Feere, Legal Policy Analyst, examines the E-Verify policies implemented by the 16 states, as well as the three states (Colorado, Utah, and Tennessee) which require some verification system, though not necessarily E-Verify, and the three states (California, Rhode Island and Illinois) which either prohibit E-Verify or discourage E-Verify mandates.

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










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.