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31 August, 2023

NYC scrambles as hundreds more migrant kids enroll in school — just days before classes return

The Big Apple is scrambling to get up to speed for the first day of school next week with 500 new migrant kids enrolled for the first time and a possible school bus strike looming. And yet, New York City School Chancellor David Banks claims it’s just business as usual.

“Everything has been okay,” Banks assured New Yorkers at a press conference Wednesday. “We have room for the students, our principals, our superintendents, outside communities have worked extremely well.”

Just over 19,000 kids in temporary housing are enrolled in the city school system — the overwhelming majority of whom are asylum seekers, according to the Department of Education.

As classes get started on Sept. 7, another 500 have been added to the mix this week — with more arriving weekly.

Banks says the district has 3,400 English as a new language teachers and about 1,700 teachers who are fluent in Spanish, the primary language spoken by the vast majority of the nearly 60,000 migrants overall who are now being housed by the city.

Migrant parents who have arrived in the Big Apple in the past year are now scrambling to get their kids enrolled in New York City schools — with some telling The Post that getting clothes and supplies for school has been a challenge.

This week, state officials warned Empire State school districts that they have no choice but to make sure that migrant children are enrolled in school.   “We recognize that this specific student population faces additional challenges and that the schools need the additional resources to fully support them,” Banks said.

“Our focus remains undeterred on the education wellbeing, holistic development of every student that steps into the public school, regardless of where they come from, or the language that they speak at home.”

However, educators say they have been left to handle it themselves.  “I mean, there’s a plan from me,” one frustrated principal told The Post. “But not from the DOE.”

City Councilman Eric Dinowitz (D-The Bronx), who sits on the Education Committee, said he worried that there hasn’t been enough coordination between city agencies, including social services.

“I know they [the DOE] struggle a lot to coordinate efforts with other city agencies, although they have been responsive when specific needs have been brought to their attention,” Dinowitz said.

“I hope that their plan going forward isn’t just waiting for local council members to call.

“It’s hard enough for people who have been here and lived here with years to deal with getting enrolled in school and getting services,” he continued.

“It’s going to really be challenging and has been challenging, for migrants. I was in the DOE for almost 14 years, and too often, bureaucrats are more interested in looking like they’re doing the right thing than helping students.”

“We didn’t bring anything with us, just the clothes we were wearing,” said Jackie Alvarez, a 28-year-old from Belize who crossed the border with her partner and two children, who are 8 and 4 years old. “I don’t have school supplies for the kids,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I bought the kids some clothes at the Salvation Army. They don’t have enough clothes or footwear or school supplies. I have some pens and paper in the shelter but not proper school supplies.”

Karen Maldonado, a single mom from Ecuador, said she was only able to get her children, who are 6 and 7 years old, enrolled in school at the Family Welcome Center on Friday.

“I don’t know if the teachers at the school can speak Spanish,” she said. “I hope so because my daughters want to learn English. We fled our country to come to America for a better future, so it is important my daughters learn English.”

https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/nyc-scrambles-as-hundreds-more-migrant-kids-enroll-in-school/

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30 August, 2023

How Georgia Meloni plans to stop the boats

Few can argue that the arrival of 100,000 illegal migrants to Britain from France by small boat since 2018 is nothing short of a catastrophe.

So what word would best describe the arrival in Italy by sea from North Africa of 100,000 illegal migrants already this year?

So Meloni’s main focus is not on dealing with the migrants once they are in Italy but on stopping them getting to Italy

That is well over double the number of migrant sea arrivals in Italy during the same period in 2022. It means this year’s total will almost certainly break the record set in 2016 of 181,436. This weekend alone more than 4,000 migrants arrived by boat on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa half way between Tunisia and Italy.

The record number of illegal migrant sea arrivals in Italy this year would seem to prove that the country’s new conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, like her British counterpart Rishi Sunak, has totally and utterly failed to honour her 2022 election campaign pledge to stop the boats.

But, in fact, the situation in Italy – thus Europe – would be far worse if she were not in charge.

She knows, as everyone knows, that once migrants set foot in your country it is virtually impossible to deport them anywhere, let alone to Rwanda.

So Meloni’s main focus is not on dealing with the migrants once they are in Italy but on stopping them getting to Italy.

Since coming to power last October she has devoted much of her energy to cajoling reluctant European Union leaders into agreeing that the migrant crisis is not just Italy’s but Europe’s problem and that the EU should pay – i.e. bribe – North Africa to stop migrants at the source.

Traditionally, Libya has been the preferred people smuggler departure point in the central Mediterranean, even though it is over 300 miles away from Sicily. However, this year for the first time there are more migrant departures from Tunisia which is far closer.

Tunisia verges on bankruptcy and collapse. The dreams that inspired its Arab Spring have disappeared into the Sahara. Its president, Kais Saied, who was elected in 2019 suspended democracy in 2021, and rules by decree.

It is to Tunisia in particular that Meloni has turned her attention.

In March, she warned EU leaders at a European Council summit that ‘if Tunisia collapses’ Italy – and thus Europe – risks the arrival by sea of ‘900,000 migrants from Tunisia.’

Italy’s secret services meanwhile warned of a further 685,000 migrants ready to cross to Italy from Libya which has been the traditional migrant departure point since ‘we’ deposed Colonel Gaddafi’s in 2011.

The Italians, though founder members of the EU, are traditionally mocked and derided by the smarmy French and Germans, despite Italy’s history as the beating heart of Europe.

But Meloni is steadily emerging as the most important leader in Europe.

This is above all due to the general move to the right across the Continent. But it is also because of the failure of either Emmanuel Macron or the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to fill the vacuum left by Angela Merkel as de facto EU leader.

As a result, in July, the European Union signed a deal in Tunis with President Saied, orchestrated by Meloni after months of intense diplomatic activity. The EU promised to give €105 million to Tunisia to stop the boats. It also gave Tunisia €150 million in aid as the first tranche of a promised €1 billion aid and investment package. Both Meloni and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen were present.

This is similar to the deal the EU struck in 2016, after Merkel’s disastrous decision to open the floodgates to all and sundry in 2015, when it agreed to give Recep Erdogan €6 billion to stop boats crossing to Greece.

In the case of Turkey, many of those seeking to cross to Greece were genuine refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. In the case of Tunisia and Libya, many come from countries that are not war zones.

There are thought to be at least half a million illegal migrants in Italy at any one time. Many move on to countries in the north, such as Britain, where work and welfare are easier to get.

Last year, there were 105,129 migrant sea arrivals in Italy. The top three countries of origin were Egypt, Tunisia, and Bangladesh, where there are no wars, though Syria and Afghanistan came in at fourth and fifth. There were 77,195  asylum requests. Of requests decided in 2022 (which does not correspond to requests made), only 12 per cent were granted refugee status, though many more were granted leave to remain. But Italy only ever actually deports about 5,000 migrants a year. So it makes little difference.

This year’s migrant sea arrivals have already exceeded last year’s total and the top three countries of origin are not war zones: Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Tunisia.

But at least the deal with Tunisia is reducing the flow.

Thanks to the EU deal that Meloni masterminded, the Tunisian coastguard has stopped and returned to Tunisia this summer boats headed for Italy containing 40,000 migrants – compared with only 15,000 in the whole of 2022. On the night of 14-15 August alone they stopped 18 boats with 630 migrants on board.

If only the French coastguard did the same in the English Channel.

In Libya, meanwhile, since 2017 successive left-wing Italian governments paid for and equipped the Libyan coastguard to stop and return migrant boats to Libya, at a rate of around 30,000 migrants a year.

The Italian left and its global allies try to keep quiet about this initiative. But even the left, when push came to shove, realised that there was no alternative.

In February, Meloni renewed Italy’s payments to the Libyan coastguard for a further three years and supplied five more patrol vessels.

Meloni’s next move will be to convince her EU partners to establish hot spots in North Africa to process asylum applications. But she will not get very far until after next May’s Euro elections at which the right is expected to make massive gains and win majority control of the European Parliament for the first time in its history.

One thing is sure though: Meloni and Italy cannot defend Europe alone.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/how-georgia-meloni-plans-to-stop-the-boats/

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29 August, 2023

White House Responds to New York's Immigration Crisis Plea: Says Congress would need to approve

The White House says its ability to help New York with the state's illegal immigrant crisis is limited without congressional action.

“Without congressional action, this Administration has been working to build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system and has worked to identify ways to improve efficiencies and maximize the resources the federal government can provide to communities across the country to support the flow of migrants,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement on Aug. 25 to CNN.

“We will continue to partner with communities across the country to ensure they can receive the support they need. Only Congress can provide additional funding for these efforts, which this Administration has already requested, and only Congress can fix the broken immigration system.”

The statement comes after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told President Joe Biden on Aug. 24 that the federal government needs to "take prompt and significant action" to "meet its obligation to New York State." Ms. Hochul said the federal government has the "direct responsibility to manage and [take] control of the nation's borders."

More than 100,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022, primarily from the U.S. southern border.

In the letter (pdf) addressed to President Biden, the governor also outlined various actions that the federal government must take, including helping New York with housing, support, and work authorization for the illegal immigrants, some of whom are seeking asylum in the United States.

She also requested Title 32 designation to grant funding for the roughly 2,000 New York National Guard members who have been providing logistical and operational support to shelter illegal immigrants across the state.

The federal government has contributed some $145 million in direct funding to the illegal immigrant surge. On Aug. 21, it also approved a plan to house at least 2,000 illegal immigrants at Floyd Bennett Field, a former naval air station in Brooklyn.

"While the State appreciates the $145 million contribution that the federal government has made to this effort, this allotment of funds is insufficient," Ms. Hochul told President Biden in her letter on Aug. 24. "The costs to provide services and assistance to migrants arriving in New York are high and the need for federal assistance is clear."

The governor didn't request any particular amount in her letter to President Biden, but did note that "based on the current trajectory and planning, this crisis could cost the State an additional $4.5 billion next year."

State and City Actions

Ms. Hochul's administration has already allocated $1.5 billion in state aid to address the influx of illegal immigrants. The funds go to "health care, shelter costs, National Guard personnel, legal services, and voluntary relocation programs," according to the governor's office.

The governor's office also recently announced a $20 million investment to help speed up the casework filing process for more than 30,000 asylum-seekers.

On Aug. 25, Ms. Hochul extended the executive order declaring a state of emergency over the illegal immigrant crisis.

New York City is projecting that the cost to the city will be $12 billion to support the illegal immigrants pouring in. As the numbers of illegal immigrants surge, Mayor Eric Adams has also called for increased federal and state action.

In July, the city announced that it would give illegal immigrants 60 days' notice to find alternate housing and move out of the shelters they had been provided with.

"We have no more room in this city," Mr. Adams said at the time.

New York’s illegal immigrant crisis has been blamed on the Biden administration by Republicans for its apparent unwillingness to secure the southern U.S. border with Mexico. More than 5.6 million migrants have illegally crossed the southern border since President Biden took office.

State authorities in Texas and other parts of the county who have been taking in the majority of illegal border-crossers have been sending them to sanctuary cities such as New York, which has seen its social services and shelter systems overwhelmed.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/white-house-responds-to-new-yorks-immigration-crisis-plea-5481348

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28 August, 2023

NYC anti-migrant rally turns violent at clash with counter-protesters outside Gracie Mansion

Protesters on both sides of the migrant dispute clashed outside Gracie Mansion on Sunday, as dozens of cops tried to keep the raucous crowd under control during the unprecedented crisis engulfing the Big Apple.

Some of the more than 100 demonstrators screamed and threw punches at each other at the Upper East Side rally as most bashed City Hall’s handling of the crisis while others shouting them down.

“No migrants on Long Island!” a Trump supporter shouted outside the Manhattan home of Mayor Eric Adams. “We pay a lot of property taxes!”

Shouted another, “Americans over migrants!”

Members of the anti-asylum seeker crowd held signs warning of “unvetted migrants” and cautioned that “our safety is in serious jeopardy.”

Nearly two dozen counter-protesters returned the verbal volley, yelling out, “F–k white supremacist NYPD!” as about 50 cops looked on.

The tense stand-off came as about 100,000 migrants from the US southern border have flooded the five boroughs, forcing Adams to come up with at least 200 emergency shelters to house them.

Guardian Angels founder and former mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa was among the throngs of angry New Yorkers outside Gracie Mansion on Sunday — and part of the small group busted by police.

He compared himself to the pacifist leader of India’s independence, Mahatma Gandhi — mocking the embattled Adams, who earlier this month said he himself is “Gandhi-like,” thinking and acting like the historical figure.

“The mayor said he’s Mayor Gandhi, right? He’s never done anything Gandhi-like,” said Sliwa, 69.

“I’m going to show him what Gandhi used to do” Sliwa said of his plan to get arrested for “peaceful protest.”

“These migrants have jumped the queue,” Sliwa told the crowd. “And by the way, if I were a migrant and you gave me an opportunity to jump the queue and stay in a hotel, give me three square meals … — basically give me more than homeless people born in America have or veterans who are down on their luck have — you’re damn right they’re gonna keep coming.”

It was the third time in less than two weeks that Sliwa was handcuffed protesting migrant sites.  Last week, he was arrested while protesting outside the shuttered Island Shores Senior Residences in Midland Beach on Staten Island, where a migrant shelter was set up. On Aug. 16, Sliwa also was taken into custody outside the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens.

The vocal group of Trump-supporting “patriots” made up the bulk of the 100-plus crowd, and faced off with the equally loud group of counter-protesters — with Sliwa part of a third and smaller group.

https://nypost.com/2023/08/27/trump-supporters-counter-protesters-clash-at-anti-migrant-rally-outside-gracie-mansion/

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27 August, 2023

Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul still clueless about the ongoing migrant crisis rocking NYC

For several years, news reports have chronicled how tens of thousands of wealthy and middle-class families have been fleeing New York City and state for less expensive and safer destinations.

More recently, news reports have chronicled how more than 100,000 illegal immigrants who crossed the southern border and claimed asylum have come to the city, with 60,000 of them living free of charge in publicly-funded hotels and shelters.

The sheer numbers are swamping the bureaucracy and budget and riling inundated neighborhoods.

Seen in relation to each other, the waves of departures and arrivals illustrate a rapid shift in the city’s population and tax base.

They also sound a warning that Gotham’s already-serious decline in public safety and order is likely to accelerate.

These dramatic changes serve as a backdrop for understanding Gov. Hochul’s belated and misguided plea for the White House to rescue New York from the asylum-seeker crisis.

Mayor Adams, who initially touted the city’s sanctuary status and arranged bus transportation for some border-crossers from Texas, was slow to understand the enormous burden he was committing to and the impact on city residents.

He now estimates the price tag for housing, feeding, transporting, educating and providing health care for the new immigrants will be an astonishing $12 billion over three years.

With no end in sight to the growing number of arrivals and faced with persistent pressure from the mayor, Hochul finally summoned the courage to publicly demand that Washington step up.

“New York has shouldered this burden for far too long,” said the governor, a Democrat like the mayor and the president.

“This crisis originated with the federal government, and it must be resolved through the federal government.”

So far, so good.

With Adams demanding more than the $1.5 billion the state has pledged, and pushing the governor to force the suburbs to accept migrants, Hochul needed to look like she was doing something.

If she gets federal money, she could presumably limit the state’s contributions and temporarily pacify the mayor.

But with a pol as risk-adverse as Hochul, it pays to note what she didn’t say.

Nowhere in a 10-minute speech or in a separate letter does she directly challenge President Biden over the cause of the problem — his open border polices.

It’s not a minor lapse.

As long as the gates are open and everyone who comes can legally wait years for their asylum claims to be heard, there is no limit to how many people will arrive in New York and how much it will cost taxpayers.

But merely to mention that obvious fact would inflame the far-left activists who rule the Democrats’ party and who say there should be no distinction between legal and illegal immigration.

So Hochul dare not speak the truth or point out the source of the “crisis” she bemoans.

That narrow approach is destined to fail because nearly every city, town and village in America could make a similar demand about the costs it has borne because of the open border, and that’s something the White House dreads.

So it quietly gave the city $140 million with no promises of more, lest it open the door to thousands of other demands.

It would have been bad enough if that were Hochul’s only mistake.

But she also made specific demands of Biden that would actually make New York’s problem worse — and permanent.

First, she wants approval for more federal sites in New York to be used for migrant housing.

She recently got the feds to allow a 2,000-bed shelter to be built at Floyd Bennett Field, a naval air station in Brooklyn that is located in the Gateway National Recreation Area, a decision that drew a large local protest.

But, as Adams notes, the city has opened more than 200 sites so far, and with thousands of migrants coming every week, each new shelter or hotel fills in days.

That’s why he wants a “decompression” plan to ship migrants out of the city.

Yet most egregious is the request by Hochul, with support from Adams, for Washington to speed up work authorization papers so the migrants can legally work here.

“Our quest continues to squarely tell the White House: Let them work,” she told reporters.

Her administration says it would be a matchmaker with many employers who have job openings and also aims to help the migrants find permanent housing.

As self-defeating ideas go, this one takes the cake.

On top of the city’s legal obligation to provide free shelter, giving out quick work permits and helping migrants get jobs and permanent housing would be a uniquely generous package of benefits that would serve as an invitation for even more migrants to come here.

Indeed, why would they go anywhere else?

With the border remaining open, what if the 100,000 already here becomes 200,000 and then 300,000?

Would Hochul change her tune then?

The same question applies to Adams, who took office on a pledge to crack down on crime.

He made meaningful progress, but his tenure is now being defined by how the migrant explosion distorts costs and strains services to residents.

Tax hikes seem inevitable.

https://nypost.com/2023/08/26/eric-adams-and-kathy-hochul-still-clueless-about-the-ongoing-migrant-crisis-rocking-nyc/

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25 August, 2023

One DeSantis Line Really Landed With the Audience at Last Night's Debate

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got his biggest round of applause during the first GOP presidential debate when he said he would work to ensure the Europeans pay their security obligations so the U.S. military does not need to go to Ukraine. He will instead send U.S. troops to secure the country's southern border.

DeSantis and Nikki Haley threw jabs at each other after Haley said the U.S. can both work to support Ukraine in their fight against Russia and work to secure our southern border at the same time.

"But we're not doing both!" DeSantis replied. "And so I am going to declare a national emergency. I'm not gonna send troops to Ukraine, but I AM gonna send 'em to our southern border! When these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across the border, that's gonna be the last thing they do! We're gonna use force, and we're gonna leave 'em stone cold dead!"

In an interview with "Fox & Friends" on Thursday, DeSantis promised to follow through on declaring Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations due to their tactics and the drugs that are killing Americans at record levels.

DeSantis also said there will be "maritime operations" to interdict Chinese companies who are shipping the precursor chemicals for fentanyl to Mexico.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2023/08/24/desantis-got-the-biggest-applause-during-the-debate-after-delivering-this-line-n2627472

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24 August, 2023

82% of NYers call migrant influx a serious problem, 58% want to stop the flow: poll

A whopping 82% of New York voters said the unrelenting influx of migrants to the state is a serious problem — and a strong majority now say it’s time to “slow the flow”, a new poll released Tuesday revealed.

“New Yorkers – including huge majorities of Democrats, Republicans, independents, upstaters and down-staters – overwhelmingly say that the recent influx of migrants to New York is a serious problem for the state,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg.

The Siena College survey found that 82% of voters said the surge of migrants to the Big Apple and the rest of the Empire State is a serious problem — with 54% of respondents saying it’s a “very serious” problem.

Only 16% of voters said it wasn’t a serious problem.

New York City and the Empire State have long backed sanctuary policies to aid asylum seekers and other undocumented immigrants who came here illegally looking for better opportunities.

But voters are losing their patience and getting fed up, feeling the massive influx of migrants crossing the southern border and arriving here is putting a strain on New York’s social service network for residents, including schools.

More than 100,000 migrants have passed through New York City, and 57,000 currently receive assistance or shelter, according to Mayor Eric Adams.

Voters were given two statements from which to choose: “Should New Yorkers accept new migrants and work to assimilate them into New York” or “New Yorkers have already done enough for new migrants and should now work to slow the flow of migrants to New York.”

In a landslide, 58% of voters said New Yorkers have done enough and it’s time to restrict migration, while only 36% of respondents said the state should accept more asylum seekers and help them assimilate.

Nearly 80% of Republicans and 60% of self-described independents said it’s time to curb the flow while Democrats were split between helping more immigrants and clamping down on arrivals.

Voters were also asked: “Turning to the issue of migrants coming to New York. Looking back over the past 20 years or so, do you think that migrants resettling in New York has been more of a benefit, or more of a burden to the state?

The result was stunning: a plurality of voters — 46% — said migration has been more of a burden, while only 32% of respondents said it was more of a benefit.

Sixty-seven percent of Republicans and black voters — by a 2-to-1 margin — said immigration has been more of a burden than a benefit.

Voters were also asked if they support or oppose relocating new migrants from temporary living conditions in New York City to more permanent housing in communities around the state.

Nearly two-thirds of New York City voters supported the relocation, while there was more opposition than support in the suburbs and upstate.

Many upstate and suburbanites and their elected officials have unleashed a fury of opposition to busing migrants from New York City to hotels in their communities.

Voters also gave Democrats President Biden, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams poor grades for their handling of the migrant influx.

Republicans told The Post they plan to hold them and other Democratic candidates accountable for the mess in upcoming campaigns.

A strong majority — 59% of respondents — flunked Biden’s handling of the crisis while only 31% of voters approved of his performance.

https://nypost.com/2023/08/22/82-of-nyers-call-migrant-influx-a-serious-problem-58-want-to-stop-the-flow-poll/

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23 August, 2023

British Government urged to explain ‘shambolic’ plan for new Brexit border checks

The government is under pressure to explain its plans for new Brexit border checks, amid confusion about when they will be introduced.

Businesses on Tuesday warned that ministers were giving them “no clarity” and “causing confusion” over the new bureaucracy – which is officially supposed to start from October but which is now expected to be delayed for a fifth time.

Labour has written to business secretary Kemi Badenoch demanding she explain the government’s plans – accusing her of “absolutely shambolic” and “chaotic” handling of the issue.


The new controls are to affect businesses moving products from the EU to the UK, with food importers predicting shortages and more price rises.

But ministers are yet to finalise the specifics of the so-called Border Target Operating Model and have refused to confirm or deny reports earlier this month that the new system will be delayed again.

The new checks have already been pushed back years and were originally set to apply from 2020, when the equivalent controls on moving goods from Britain to the EU began.

Now ministers are reportedly considering a further delay because of fears the new bureaucracy could increase prices and hit food supplies amid a cost of living crisis.

“The government’s handling of this important issue has been absolutely shambolic. They have delayed new border checks time and again, creating huge uncertainty for businesses, who are already struggling as a result of Conservative economic mismanagement,” Gareth Thomas, Labour’s shadow international trade minister said.

“With the deadlines for new checks just months away, it is unacceptable that businesses have not received a clear update from the government on whether the new border arrangements are even going to be introduced. The Tories’ trade barriers are stunting economic growth.”

The government says it “remains committed to delivering the best border in the world” and that it is “reflecting” on its plans.

Before Britain left the EU, its membership of the EU single market and customs union meant suppliers could bring food into the country from Europe without any paperwork.

But the decision to leave means a major increase in bureaucracy, with extra sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks and a requirement for health or veterinary certificates.

William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce told The Independent: “Business would have hoped to see the final version of the Border Target Operating Model by now. That would have been well in advance of any proposed introduction of export health certificates for inbound products to GB at the end of October. We have no clarity on the detail of Government plans. But neither is there denial of a potential delay into 2024 on cost of living grounds.

“For the companies we represent, the key issue before any new controls and processes are introduced is whether the physical infrastructure is ready. It is better to focus on this than set further arbitrary timelines which are put back once again. The full range of inbound goods issues needs to be sorted out before controls are introduced, including products moving west-east from the Republic of Ireland into Great Britain.

“The BCC favours a veterinary agreement being negotiated between the UK and EU. That would remove the requirement for export health certificates and most border controls for everyday food products moving in both directions.”

Tom Southall, executive director of the Cold Chain Federation, which represents the UK’s, refrigerated supply chain, said ministers’ taciturn approach was causing confusion.

“Although the reported 3-month delay to the first raft of import requirements on goods from the 31st of October is welcomed and would avoid the chance of disruption to supplies in the run-up to Christmas as well as cost rises for consumers, the Government’s failure to either confirm or deny these reports is causing confusion to businesses both in the UK and EU,” he told The Independent.

“Based on reports at the start of August, many businesses are assuming there will be a delay and adjusting their preparations accordingly, therefore the Government must provide certainty on whether this delay will happen or not to prevent the risk of an even greater level of unpreparedness and disruption should these rumours not be realised.”

A Government spokesperson said: “The Government remains committed to delivering the best border in the world. The Border Target Operating Model is key to delivering this and introduces an innovative approach to importing that will be introduced progressively.

“We are reflecting on the valuable feedback provided by a range of businesses and industry stakeholders and will publish the Border Target Operating Model shortly.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-border-checks-food-eu-b2397467.html?



21 August, 2023

The Problem With Biden’s Plan to House Illegal Aliens

Faced with an unrelenting surge of foreign nationals coming to the southern border, the Biden Administration has devised a new plan: More comfortable housing for people in the country illegally.

The White House is requesting roughly $1 billion in funding to set up new housing for illegal aliens while their overwhelmingly illegitimate asylum claims play out in the courts. Under the administration’s plan, beneficiaries of this new program would be free to go where they wish during the day, but would have to check in and stay the night in their houses, according to Axios.

But, here’s the kicker. According to the Washington Free Beacon, the language of the White House’s proposal would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to use any of its funding on housing for illegal aliens instead of enforcement. The use of the funds would be at the discretion of anti-borders Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. One can only imagine how Mayorkas is salivating at the potential opportunity to use his agency’s funding to further his anti-borders agenda.

As former Acting ICE Director and Immigration Reform Law Institute Senior Fellow Tom Homan put it, this program would “would serve as yet another enticement, another magnet that will bring more families to our borders.”

If this new housing program were to take effect, it would serve as further encouragement for foreign nationals to make the dangerous journey through Central America to the U.S. The Biden Administration spent the first half of 2023 concocting schemes to artificially lower the number of illegal crossings at the southern border, but those numbers still skyrocketed by more than 30 percent last month. The promise of new and improved housing for illegal aliens will surely cause those numbers to soar even higher, empowering the cartels, and causing many migrants to die in the process, while further disrupting border communities already overwhelmed by the crisis.

The administration’s proposed housing program appears to be another racket, designed to weaken our borders under the guise of compassion. Everyone agrees that foreign nationals, even those who cross our border illegally, deserve to be treated humanely and compassionately while they’re here, but this housing plan goes far beyond that. Instead, the  plan uses the promise of free housing and freedom of movement to lure more foreign nationals into the country, and it does so during a time when many Americans have been forced to live on the streets due to the lack of affordable housing in the U.S.

If you live in or have recently visited a major U.S. city, it is impossible not to notice the large number of Americans living in tents and blankets on the streets, and the statistics bear this reality out. More than 420,000 Americans are currently homeless, and that number has climbed by around six percent every year since 2017, according to National Alliance to End Homelessness. This includes roughly 37,000 veterans, who have been forced to sleep in the streets of the country they risked their lives to serve. If the Biden Administration is looking to expand housing for certain groups, they should start with the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are currently homeless.

Thankfully, Congress, not the administration, holds the power of the purse, and thus has the final say on whether this program will be funded. Congress should decline to play games with the administration’s misplaced priorities, and instead insist that any new funding for ICE and DHS go towards enforcement and border security, not increased comfort for those who have violated our laws and illegally crossed our border.

Almost every policy this administration proposes or enacts on this issue is designed to weaken America’s borders and import even more illegal aliens into the country. This new housing program is just the latest example of this.

https://townhall.com/columnists/williamdavis/2023/08/19/the-problem-with-bidens-plan-to-house-illegal-aliens-n2627240

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20 August, 2023

The Problem With Biden’s Plan to House Illegal Aliens

Faced with an unrelenting surge of foreign nationals coming to the southern border, the Biden Administration has devised a new plan: More comfortable housing for people in the country illegally.

The White House is requesting roughly $1 billion in funding to set up new housing for illegal aliens while their overwhelmingly illegitimate asylum claims play out in the courts. Under the administration’s plan, beneficiaries of this new program would be free to go where they wish during the day, but would have to check in and stay the night in their houses, according to Axios.

But, here’s the kicker. According to the Washington Free Beacon, the language of the White House’s proposal would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to use any of its funding on housing for illegal aliens instead of enforcement. The use of the funds would be at the discretion of anti-borders Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. One can only imagine how Mayorkas is salivating at the potential opportunity to use his agency’s funding to further his anti-borders agenda.

As former Acting ICE Director and Immigration Reform Law Institute Senior Fellow Tom Homan put it, this program would “would serve as yet another enticement, another magnet that will bring more families to our borders.”

If this new housing program were to take effect, it would serve as further encouragement for foreign nationals to make the dangerous journey through Central America to the U.S. The Biden Administration spent the first half of 2023 concocting schemes to artificially lower the number of illegal crossings at the southern border, but those numbers still skyrocketed by more than 30 percent last month. The promise of new and improved housing for illegal aliens will surely cause those numbers to soar even higher, empowering the cartels, and causing many migrants to die in the process, while further disrupting border communities already overwhelmed by the crisis.

The administration’s proposed housing program appears to be another racket, designed to weaken our borders under the guise of compassion. Everyone agrees that foreign nationals, even those who cross our border illegally, deserve to be treated humanely and compassionately while they’re here, but this housing plan goes far beyond that. Instead, the  plan uses the promise of free housing and freedom of movement to lure more foreign nationals into the country, and it does so during a time when many Americans have been forced to live on the streets due to the lack of affordable housing in the U.S.

If you live in or have recently visited a major U.S. city, it is impossible not to notice the large number of Americans living in tents and blankets on the streets, and the statistics bear this reality out. More than 420,000 Americans are currently homeless, and that number has climbed by around six percent every year since 2017, according to National Alliance to End Homelessness. This includes roughly 37,000 veterans, who have been forced to sleep in the streets of the country they risked their lives to serve. If the Biden Administration is looking to expand housing for certain groups, they should start with the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are currently homeless.

Thankfully, Congress, not the administration, holds the power of the purse, and thus has the final say on whether this program will be funded. Congress should decline to play games with the administration’s misplaced priorities, and instead insist that any new funding for ICE and DHS go towards enforcement and border security, not increased comfort for those who have violated our laws and illegally crossed our border.

Almost every policy this administration proposes or enacts on this issue is designed to weaken America’s borders and import even more illegal aliens into the country. This new housing program is just the latest example of this.

https://townhall.com/columnists/williamdavis/2023/08/19/the-problem-with-bidens-plan-to-house-illegal-aliens-n2627240

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18 August, 2023

Mayor Adams slams Hochul on migrants, calls for NY state to use executive order

Mayor Adams fired back Thursday after Gov. Hochul’s legal team wrote a scathing critique of the handling of the migrant crisis that is taking a financial bite out of the Big Apple.

Hizzoner complained it’s not right that New York City is responsible for housing “over 99 percent” of the shelters, arguing the crisis is statewide. He called on Hochul to issue an executive order to stop localities outside of NYC from banning migrant shelters.

“I think this is a national and statewide issue that has been unjustly dropped into the lap of New York City residents. We only make up .05 of the landmass in New York State!” a frustrated Adams said during a Manhattan-based press conference Thursday.

“That’s just unfair to New York City,” he added.

“We are going into individual court cases where everyone is finding creative ways not to be the state and country that we are,” Adams told reporters.

Gov. Hochul ripped City Hall’s handling of the migrant influx through her lawyer Wednesday, claiming not only has Adams been slow to respond to the crisis, but he’s even refused to use several locations as shelters provided by the state – despite claiming the shelter system is past its “breaking point.”

The situation appeared to reach a climax earlier this month when dozens of migrants slept outside the historic Roosevelt Hotel-turned-shelter after the city told them they couldn’t provide a bed for the night.

“There was never a desire to have anyone sleep outside. The dam burst! I don’t know how to get it clearer…for a year and eight months, no one was sleeping on our streets. I stood up at this podium day after day, stating that eventually, the dam is going to burst,” Hizzoner said.

“When the damn bursts, the water flow, and that water, in this case, were human beings that had to sleep outside of the Roosevelt Hotel.”

The city is appealing the decades-old right-to-shelter mandate requiring the Big Apple to provide a temporary bed to individuals who ask, arguing the migrant crisis has placed an emergency strain on the system.

In the meantime, City Hall instituted a new policy requiring single adults to reapply for shelter placement after 60 days in order to make room for families with children. So far, 2,900 individuals have received the notices.

Adams has appealed to the state to help house additional migrants, but in the Wednesday letter, the Hochul administration explained they’re not on board with moving more migrants outside the five boroughs.

“The sites that were given to us, some of them were in floodplains, some of them were not suitable to build. And so we analyzed each site,” said Adams, explaining why his staff denied the governor’s sites.

“We did not ignore any of the sites as part of our 3,000 sites that we looked at to house over a hundred thousand people.”

Meanwhile, Adams’ budget officials predict the crisis will cost $12 billion over the next three years should the steady flow of migrants into the Big Apple fail to slow down.

Roughly 101,200 migrants have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022, and over 58,500 are living in 201 taxpayer-funded shelters, according to the latest tally provided by City Hall.

https://nypost.com/2023/08/17/eric-adams-complains-nyc-unfairly-shouldering-most-of-the-migrant-crisis/

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17 August, 2023

The Border Invasion and the Perception Gap Between Left and Right

It is disheartening to learn of the gargantuan perceptual gap between Republicans and Democrats regarding the Southern border. A Gallup poll taken between June 1st and June 22nd of this year highlights the disparities. Sixty-five percent of Republicans regard the U.S. border situation with Mexico to be a crisis, and another 26% see it as a major problem. Thus, 91% of Republicans are concerned about the border situation.

Shielded for Life

Democrats, shielded by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the rest of the mainstream media, have a different view. Only 17% regard the situation as a crisis, down from 37% in 2019 when, wouldn’t you know it, Donald Trump was president. Among Democrats, 39% do regard the situation as a major problem.

So, a whopping 43% of Democrats either regard the border situation as a minor problem or not a problem at all: The Leftist media has perfected the art of gaslighting.

We have to presume that among the 43% of Democrats some are intelligent. Most of them can read. Some of them can reason. Yet, amidst the worst border crisis in our history – a 7+ million-person invasion – these Democrats don't have any qualms.

Because the hordes have crossed since Joe Biden was placed in office, is it an instant non-issue? After all, Biden is as pure as driven snow, and his administration is ultra-effective.

Roughly 1.4 million of the invaders cannot be accounted for. They have entered the U.S. and are in places unknown. Biden's press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, among the least intelligent individuals to ever hold the office, has made comments such as, "We actually saw the president's plan working." Working in what regard?

Working as in flooding the country with illegals so that our budgets, schools, hospitals, and first responders are strained to the max? Working as if our very sovereignty is in crisis?

The Gallup poll also found that 75% of Democrats are somewhat sympathetic about having illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. with 38% saying they are very sympathetic toward these law-breaking line-jumpers.

Nearly 40% of all illegal immigrants, who have been caught and allowed to stay in the U.S., have never been heard from or seen since. As many as 80% have never been issued a court summons to determine the legality of their status.

Scrambled Brains

How do Independents feel about the U.S. border crisis? Thirty-nine percent reported that they do regard it as a crisis and another 32% feel it is a major problem. So, 71% of Independents are aware of the lies coming from the Biden Administration.

With 43% of Democrats having no concern, 28% of Independents having no concern, and 9% of Republicans having no concern, one has to wonder: What do these people smoke? Have their brains been scrambled and they don't understand that the invasion is unprecedented?

Do they not understand how the people who have flooded our borders, generally speaking, are uneducated, without assets, and will offer little or no contribution to our society? They will be takers, not makers. It will require generations, if ever, for them to possibly participate in the U.S. economy mainstream.

A Time Bomb on Our Society

While we wait for generations, as New York and Massachusetts have discovered, they will be a drain on our resources, which rank-and-file Liberals simply cannot imagine. And that is the beauty of the Democrat’s plan to sink our country.

When you allow in multi millions, people who will have disastrous impacts on our sovereignty, and will be here for decades to come, you've dropped the ultimate time bomb on our society.

While Congressional Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, the Oversight Committee, and other committees wrangle about impeaching Biden, Harris, Mayorkas, Garland, Wray, etc., the problem continues day and night.

Yes, Biden Did It Intentionally

In 2022, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) estimated that 5.5 million illegals crossed the southern border since Biden’s presidency, climbing now to at least 7 million. Why the swelling numbers? During the 2020 campaign, Biden pledged to offer amnesty to illegal aliens in the U.S. On day one, Biden delivered an immigration bill to Congress that included amnesty and a path to citizenship for the line-jumpers.

Biden then preserved the Dreamers Act, stopped construction of the border wall, expanded asylum options, and tinkered with asylum cooperative agreements.

Biden opened the floodgate for unaccompanied minors and family units, resuscitated Obama's policy of closing deportation cases, and eased up applying for work permits, temporary protected status, screening, and vetting. The 144,571 illegal immigrants at the border this past June are the quintessential indicator that the border crisis rages on.

Joe Biden is the head puppet in the dismantling of the U.S., and it is completely intentional.

https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffdavidson/2023/08/10/border-n2626836

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August 16, 2023

The UK’s immigration impotence

We will never know precisely who Channel migrant number 100,000 was, but we do know he was one of around 700 arrivals brought into Dover on Thursday.

And we can be fairly confident that number 100,000 was indeed a ‘he’, as 85 per cent of the small boat migrants are male compared, for instance, to our authorised Ukrainian refugee scheme in which women have outnumbered men by a ratio of two to one.

The British state first acknowledged this illicit traffic to be a crisis on 29 December, 2018, when the then home secretary Sajid Javid cut short a family holiday to deal with the arrival of around 200 people by small boat that month.

By summer 2019, the new PM Boris Johnson felt the issue was sufficiently serious to record a piece to camera designed to create a deterrent effect, in which he pledged to prospective arrivals: ‘We will send you back.’

It is a measure of how the crisis has escalated to note that Johnson was at the time addressing himself to just the second cohort of 1,000 Channel migrants who were then preparing to set out for Blighty. In the ensuing four years we have seen the arrival of 98 further cohorts of 1,000 amid countless ministerial initiatives that were supposed to ‘break the business model of the people traffickers’. And aside from several hundred Albanians, very few have been sent back anywhere.

The official figures tell a grim story of government impotence. In 2018, there were 299 arrivals, in 2019 there were 1,843, in 2020 there were 8,466, in 2021 there were 28,526, and in 2022 there were 45,755. That left headroom of just 15,111 before the landing yesterday of Mr One-hundred-thousand.

With peak season for the Channel boats now getting underway, there is little reason to think that 2023’s final figure will be materially different from 2022’s. Rishi Sunak told us in January that he would do whatever was necessary to stop the boats. Whatever that thing might be, he hasn’t done it yet.

Some 50,000 migrants are currently being accommodated at vast taxpayer expense in hotel rooms, while just a couple of dozen were living on the headline-grabbing Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset, until they were all farcically evacuated this afternoon.

The past week has been full of gimmickry from ministers apparently under instruction to hype the issue of illegal immigration to discomfort the Labour party. Having Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson publicly tell the migrants to ‘f*** off back to France’ would be laughable were it not for the fact that his outburst seems no less likely to succeed than any other step that has been floated.

Today the idea of ‘pushbacks’ mid-Channel, first aired when Priti Patel was home secretary, is being mooted again. As ministers must know, there is zero chance of this ever happening to overburdened inflatables in the middle of the world’s busiest shipping lane.

In the absence of an offshore detention capacity or a firm intention to disapply the European human rights framework and the ludicrously outdated 1951 UN Refugee Convention, something close to a de facto right for foreign nationals to enter Britain illegally and live here permanently has arisen.

The corrosive impact on the social contract and public trust in the political process is now very marked, with Conservative-leaning voters far more exercised by the scandal than Labour-leaning ones. Ministers find themselves running the British public realm rather in the manner of rock festival organisers putting tickets on sale at the same time as declaring that gatecrashers will be welcomed in for nothing. Music fans would surely eschew such a deal, but UK taxpayers do not have the luxury of making a similar choice.

Establishment voices are right to say that the drastic step of withdrawing from the European Convention of Human Rights and therefore from the jurisdiction of its Strasbourg-based supervisory court would create several political headaches for the UK, including over the Good Friday Agreement and the terms of our Brexit deal with the EU.

But politics is all about priorities. No headache will be bigger than the issue of how to stop the Channel boats by the time the 200,000th arrival steps ashore at Dover. On current trends that will happen some time during the autumn of 2025.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/the-uks-immigration-impotence/

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August 15, 2023

Australia: Leftist government still issuing Covid permits to facilitate immigration

Almost 66,000 international students and temporary workers are having their stays in Australia extended under a special Covid-era permit, fuelling claims that the surge in visa approvals is creating a “Big Australia” by stealth.

The Australian can reveal new figures showing Labor has granted more pandemic event visas in its first 10 months than were given when international borders were shut.

The Albanese government has processed more Covid-19 special work visas than the ­Coalition granted over the 20 months before international borders began reopening in Nov­ember 2021.

Visa processing data provided by the Department of Home Affairs to Liberal senator James Paterson shows a surge in Labor’s use of the pandemic event visa to the end of March.

Despite calls from the international education industry to end the pandemic permit, the government issued 65,859 special Covid-19 visas between June and March – including almost 27,000 in the first three months of 2023.

Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said the jump in arrivals was “worsening housing shortages, driving record rent increases, adding to congestion, putting upward pressure on interest rates and impacting the environment”.

“The Covid-19 pandemic event visa is still open despite the fact the pandemic is over,” Mr Tehan told The Australian.

“Labor claim they don’t want a big Australia but judge them by their actions, not their words. Labor is bringing 1.5 million ­people to Australia over five years and they have no answers for where they will live, what this will do to congestion or how it will impact the environment and quality of life.”

About 23,900 Covid work visas were granted to international students by the government, eclipsing the 11,885 permits approved by the ­Coalition during the pandemic.

In February and March this year, more than 10,700 pandemic event visas for international students were processed. Since the special Covid working permit was established in April 2020, almost 160,000 pandemic event visas have been approved.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said Labor had inherited a migration system “with backlog after backlog, delays and waitlists” and the government “hadn’t wasted a day in cleaning up the mess left by the former Liberal government”.

“Under the Liberals, our migration system wasn’t working for anyone,” Mr Giles said.

“We had a pile of almost one million visa applications left in the in tray and no plan to deal with workforce shortages when the borders reopened.

“We’ve brought wait times down, and we’re working to make sure our migration system is working again for all Aus­tralians after a decade of mess and mismanagement under the Liberals.”

Amid severe labour shortages and employers struggling to find workers, the Covid-19 pandemic event visa (subclass 408) allows people to work if employed or if they have an offer of employment in any sector of the economy.

The Home Affairs website says temporary graduate visa holders can “apply for and be granted a pandemic event visa with a two-year period of stay”.

The pandemic event visa allows holders to remain in Australia for 12 months and include “members of the family unit in your application”.

In March, The Australian revealed that the international education industry was urging the government to end special pandemic work visas over fears it was being rorted by people who were in Australia to find a job rather than study.

International Education Association of Australia chief executive Phil Honeywood said the temporary visa must be abolished as it was being exploited as a backroom way for international students to get full work rights.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/covidera-visa-sparks-student-worker-boom/news-story/b8eb8abfd7e06f04bcb803b6761f89b1

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August 7, 2023

NYC Mayor Adams accused of using migrants as 'props' as they sleep outside Manhattan hotel

An immigrant advocacy group took aim at New York City Mayor Eric Adams, claiming the mayor is using asylum seekers as "props" to obtain more federal money.

"Mayor Adams should not be using asylum seekers as props to get the attention of the Biden administration or discourage asylum seekers from coming to New York," Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said, according to a report in The Associated Press.

The comments come after days of newly arriving migrants have overwhelmed the city, with the already-full Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan seeing lines of asylum seekers waiting outside the building and sleeping on the sidewalk as they await placement at a city shelter.

Adams has said that the city is out of room to host more migrants and attempted to discourage them from coming to New York.

However, Awawdeh believes the city could be doing more, arguing that people should not be left out to sleep on the street.

"It’s hard to imagine that there are not enough beds to actually accommodate the people that the Adams administration is leaving out on the street," he said.

The comments received pushback from Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom at a Thursday press briefing, who argued the city's shelter system is at a "breaking point."

"I don’t think I or any person in this administration would use people to do any type of a stunt," Williams-Isom said.

A Fox News Digital reporter captured the scene outside the Roosevelt Hotel earlier this week, with pictures showing migrants lined up around the outside of the building wrapped in blankets and sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder.

City officials told Fox News Digital the hotel is an arrival center for all migrants but only houses children and families, who are put at the front of the line upon their arrival. Adults seeking asylum who arrive at the hotel are not placed there, but meet with caseworkers, receive food and vaccinations, and await placement elsewhere.

"As we've said for a while now, with more than 93,000 asylum seekers coming through our intake system since last spring, our teams run out of space every single day and we do our best to offer placements wherever we have space available," Mayor Adams spokesperson Fabien Levy told Fox News Digital earlier this week.

"Children and families continue to be prioritized and are found a bed every night. We continue to do our best to at least offer adults a temporary place to wait off the sidewalks, but, in all honesty, New Yorkers may continue to see more and more migrants waiting outside as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive in our city seeking shelter every day," Levy said.

"This is the heartbreaking reality and something our teams have worked tirelessly to avoid, but while our compassion is limitless, our resources are not. We still desperately need help from our state and federal partners. In the meantime, we encourage migrants to take up placements available outside of New York City as they become available.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-mayor-adams-accused-of-using-migrants-as-props-as-they-sleep-outside-manhattan-hotel/ar-AA1eKjkO

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August 6, 2023

'There is no more room': NYC considers housing illegal immigrants in Central Park: Report

New York City officials are considering housing illegal immigrants in iconic Central Park, as local politicians said all options are "on the table" as the city attempts to deal with thousands of newcomers each week.

As reported by TimCast, New York City Mayor Eric Adams already said that "from this moment on, it's downhill. There is no more room," while his office acknowledged that more than 95,000 migrants have arrived in since spring 2022.

With hotels at capacity, hundreds of migrants have been seen sleeping on city sidewalks, often on pieces of cardboard, littering the streets with trash and clothing in what look like extremely inhumane conditions.

“Everything is on the table,” Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said Wednesday at a press conference, according to Bloomberg. The city is reportedly looking at 3,000 locations for possible housing relief.

Williams-Isom added that "the system is at a breaking point" in response to questions about housing the migrants in parks.

Outlets are in a frenzy as more and more information leaks about the city's alleged plans. The Gothamist reported that the city is looking to erect tents in Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Randalls Island, where officials opened a tent facility in a parking lot in autumn of 2022.

The information came from a source who reportedly was briefed on the plan, but wanted to remain anonymous.

The New York Daily News also reported on Randalls Island; the outlet stated it learned that there was a plan to house migrants on soccer fields, which reportedly prompted outrage from local stakeholders whose facilities would become unavailable.

City officials would reportedly not give a time frame for the relocation to city parks or say who is developing a plan.

The deputy mayor stated that 2,100 migrants are arriving in the city per week, which prompted mockery from Senator Ted Cruz.

"Come to South Texas. We’d LOVE to have only 2100 per week. (At over 7m under Biden, we’re looking at over 50,000 per week….)," he wrote on Twitter.

In May 2023, New York City enacted a "Homeless Bill of Rights" which includes the explicit right to sleep outdoors in public places, the right to complain about shelter accommodations without repercussion, and the right to be assigned to a space that corresponds to one's gender identity.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/nyc-migrants-tents-cities-parks

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August 3, 2023

Horowitz: As Biden admin undermines Texas border security, states should fight back

When in global history has a sovereign nation’s own government aided an invasion against its own people? At this point, we could build a 2,000-mile border wall up to the heavens, but if we don’t neutralize the malfeasant leadership at the DHS, they will simply bring the invaders through the front door.

Much like gas prices, which spiked to biblical levels and then settled at a very high and unacceptable baseline, the border numbers are still extremely high, but slightly off their peak. While much of that is a bait-and-switch, as our government moved the invaders to the ports of entry and admits them at even higher rates than before, some of the drop is due to Texas state security measures. Between the “hold the line” strategy of pushing back illegal aliens, constructing concertina wire boundaries on the shores of the Rio Grande River, and constructing barriers in the actual river, Texas has begun deterring and locking out new waves of migration.

In comes the DHS, in one of the greatest acts of betrayal, sabotage, and subversion of the people of the U.S., guiding illegal aliens through the Texas blockade. As border reporter Todd Bensman observed through firsthand interviews with those crossing, the DHS was coordinating with Mexican officials to let carefully targeted groups of 100-150 illegal aliens cross the river. “DPS don’t allow us to cross here, so they are looking for Border Patrol,” said one of the aliens through an interpreter to Bensman.

Fox News’ Bill Melugin has posted video of Border Patrol actively cutting through the Texas C-wire barrier to let the illegal aliens in!

In other words, the illegal aliens are now looking for those in the green uniforms (CBP) and trying to avoid those in the tan uniforms (Texas DPS). It’s gotten so bad that Bensman reports the DHS even leased a private pecan farm at the border in late May and bulldozed a perfect ramp up the bank of the river so that illegal aliens could seamlessly cross. Texas authorities reclaimed the territory and constructed barriers.

Thus, we are literally at a point in history when we would be better off without a Border Patrol. Border Patrol has now been marshalled into the smuggling operation and has become an indispensable component of the cartel operations to defeat the Texas border security. In addition, the Biden administration filed a lawsuit last week to force Texas to take down a floating marine barrier in the Rio Grande River. Whereas Art. IV Sec. 4 of the Constitution requires the federal government to protect the states from invasion, our government is protecting the invaders from the states.

In a sane world, DHS officials would be prosecuted for human trafficking. If a random Manhattan DA can prosecute Trump on bogus charges, then Texas officials should be able to prosecute top CBP and DHS officials for human smuggling.

Part of why Biden’s DHS wants to ensure illegal aliens aren’t confronted by Texas DPS is because Texas authorities will prosecute single adults. If the DHS gets to them first, however, they are “safe” and can be released. Now the DHS is having everyone around the world “apply” on the CBP One app to be admitted at a port of entry despite having no valid visa. All available data shows that 99% of applications are being approved. Officials have even released people on the FBI’s terror watch list into the interior. Also, nearly 2,500 illegal alien children with latent tuberculosis were released into 44 states. So we could be locked down without testing positive for a communicable disease, but illegal aliens can test positive and be released into our country.

What happens to these people after they are released into the interior? A new report shows that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to issue court summonses to 80% of these people under the administration’s parole program. Officials are ensuring the states cannot deal with the problem at the border before aliens are snuck into the country, necessitating that states deal with the fallout in their own communities.

How bad is the problem? There are now 4.8 million illegal aliens targeted by ICE for deportation who have already been ordered removed by a judge (and exhausted their final appeal) – yet they remain in the country indefinitely. Most people targeted for removal to begin with are criminal aliens, and many find ways to finagle status through endless litigation. That means these 4.8 million include many bad characters.

In addition to Texas doubling down on border security, red states need to form a state-based removal pact where they pool together resources and begin removing criminal aliens. The problem has gotten so bad that even a good federal administration, with merely 5,000 deportation officers, will be limited in how many of the worst offenders can be removed. The time has come for states to pick up the slack and protect their own communities.

https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-as-biden-admin-undermines-texas-border-security-states-should-fight-back

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August 2, 2023

Biden's 'asleep at the wheel': NYC Dems turn on White House over handling of migrant crisis

Democratic politicians in New York City protested outside City Hall on Monday, turning on the Biden administration for its handling of the ongoing migrant crisis they claim has taken over the city.

The rally was organized by Democratic state Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar of Queens, who called the situation "one of the most significant humanitarian crises our city has ever faced."

"This is an incredible citywide coalition, and not only 60 elected officials, but also faith leaders, unions, employers, migrants themselves and the people that care for the migrants in the shelters. Literally the whole city is coming together to ask President Biden for his urgent action," Rajkumar explained.

She called on the Biden administration to expedite work permits and form a plan to shelter migrants, many of whom are sleeping outside on the city's sidewalks due to a lack of available shelter space.

"The president's asleep at the wheel on this one, folks, and I'm a Democrat," said City Councilman Robert Holden of Queens. "Where is the Biden administration?"

https://www.theblaze.com/news/biden-s-asleep-at-the-wheel-nyc-dems-turn-on-white-house-over-handling-of-migrant-crisis

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August 1, 2023

It’s not racist to debate immigration levels

Have you ever wondered why Australia’s immigration levels have gone up and up but we’ve never really had a debate about whether this is in the national inter­est?

The same applies to questioning the extent to which the quantum of immigration should depend on the state of the labour market, the availability of housing and the quality of our infrastructure.

For the record, my view is that current levels of immigration (tipped to be 750,000 over two years) are much too high. Even the levels of the decade before the pandemic (averaging 240,000 a year) were too high, not because those migrants wouldn’t turn out to be good Australians but because bringing in a city the size of Canberra every two years puts downward pressure on wage rates, upward pressure on housing costs and massive pressure on infrastructure. And none of this is being done according to any cogent plan.

So why is that? Why is the issue of population and migration, so critical to our economy and our national character, a no-go zone for debate or proper and rigorous planning even though it’s the federal government that controls the rate of immigration by setting the rules under which people can arrive; and even though the numbers coming affect, at least to some extent, the lives of everyone who’s already here?

Like just about every Australian, I’m pro-immigration. How could we not be, given nearly all of us are migrants or the descendants of relatively recent migrants? Yet being pro-immigrant and appreciating all the ways immigration has created modern Australia doesn’t imply that immigration levels should always be going up.

During the Howard era, immigration averaged about 110,000 a year. Especially after the government brought the first wave of illegal migration by boat under control, immigration mostly had reasonable community support.

In the final Howard years, net overseas migration (the number of people arriving less the number leaving for more than 12 months) started to surge, largely due to universities admitting tens of thousands of overseas students and businesses bringing in more temporary workers, especially as the economy strengthened on the back of improving terms of trade due to China’s booming demand for our resources.

But every person who comes, other than as a tourist, needs a job, a home and a means of getting around. And immigration numbers subsequently kept rising, despite the global financial crisis, despite the growing pressure on infrastructure and despite the Rudd-Gillard government losing control of our borders, so that a significant proportion of our immigration program effectively came to be controlled by people-smugglers.

Meanwhile, as economic reform stalled, Treasury economists pushed ever higher migration as a way for reform-shy governments to keep delivering economic growth.

I will never forget sitting in a discussion with senior ministers hearing Treasury officials explain that the best way to get economic growth over 3 per cent was to boost immigration because each extra worker added to the size of the economy. And the officials’ dismay when the Abbott government engineered some modest (and short-lived) reductions in net overseas migration. Hence the constant official emphasis on how supposedly “skilled” our migration program is because migrants improve gross domestic product per person only if their skill levels, on average, exceed that of the existing population.

That’s despite the reality that most so-called skilled migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds are not working in their area of supposed skills five years after arriving; once here, they often end up working as cleaners, carers, waiters and drivers – all the jobs that Australians born here increasingly refuse to do.

In early 2018, when by then former prime minister Tony Abbott called for immigration to be halved back to the average of the Howard years, treasurer Scott Morrison claimed this would cost the budget $5bn due to reduced tax revenue.

It was a graphic illustration of the reform drought, post the 2014 budget, and an object lesson in the way unelected and unaccountable officialdom could manipulate elected politicians into continuing a policy regardless of its public support.

To this day, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone in authority that higher growth based on higher immigration is an economic mirage unless it’s accompanied by the higher productivity that only efficiency reforms can bring.

Universities are a massive lobby for higher migration via the overseas students who have become their business model.

Big business likewise because higher supply of labour keeps wages lower than they otherwise would be and because a larger population means more demand for goods and services.

For the federal government, at least, higher migration and its boost to overall GDP provides an apparent vindication of its economic management while its costs in extra demand for schools, hospitals, housing and transport infrastructure fall disproportionately on the states.

But what does that matter for a federal government desperate to avoid slow growth on its watch or, god forbid, a recession – officially two consecutive quarters of negative GDP – even if growth per capita is heading south?

But it’s not just the economic data that matters on this issue, it’s public sentiment. And, we now know, significant sections of the public are reluctant to voice their own instincts about ever higher migration lest they be accused of racism.

An important piece of research released on Wednesday by the Australian Population Research Institute shows, says its author, demographer Katharine Betts, that “many Australians feel silenced and afraid to speak on some public matters … because they don’t want to be labelled as racist”.

Her conclusion is based on a detailed survey last year of more than 3000 Australians (weighted to be representative) who were asked: “Do you think that people who raise questions about immigration being too high are sometimes seen as racist?” Only 36 per cent said no and 13 per cent “don’t know”.

The 51 per cent who said yes were then asked to choose between two statements: “This is unfair because very few of them are racist”, to which 33 per cent of the overall sample agreed; or “This is because they usually are racist”, to which 19 per cent agreed.

Betts says this 19 per cent, whom she terms “guardians against racism”, who were disproportionately in favour of high immigration and felt disproportion­ately more free to talk about their views, tended to be “younger, better educated and more financially secure than other voters” and therefore had a “pervasive … role in keeping a lid on open debate”.

“Theirs is a moral position, not a material one” she says, and “because of this they are likely to see those who don’t share their position as morally suspect and to see their shaming as legitimate”.

These guardians against rac­ism, Betts says, have created a “censorious climate” that “mutes public discussion but seems not to have changed the opinions of the majority”.

Overall, 70 per cent thought Australia should have “somewhat lower”, “much lower” or “nil” levels of net migration. Yet thanks to her so-called guardians against racism, Betts thinks, this strong majority is rarely heard in public debate and has almost no impact on public policy.

Is this going to change? As historian Geoffrey Blainey found when his 1984 comments about Australia becoming a “nation of tribes” created a firestorm and cost him his academic position at the time; and as John Howard found in 1988 when his comments about lowering the rate of Asian immigration helped to lose him the Liberal Party leadership, at least for a time, this is a debate that can easily go off the rails.

Yet it’s a debate that should be conducted carefully, rather than avoided, if a key element of public policy is to retain the electorate’s trust. Maybe if the voice referendum is defeated, despite the moral intimidation that voting No is at least implicitly racist, we might be able to have a more honest discussion about other things, too, including the rapid rise in our migration intake.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/its-not-racist-to-debate-immigration-levels/news-story/7814a7d7acb237a382844e48390d7856

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
    
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
 
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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