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31 December, 2007

Sheriff Seeks Leader Who Can Halt Illegal Immigration

SPENCER, Iowa -- The tiny jail here has housed many a typical small-town Iowa criminal since its bricks were laid in 1938 -- drunk drivers, drug abusers, the occasional thief. These days, though, Sheriff Randy Krukow walks the cell row and behind the bars sees a new kind of increasingly typical lawbreaker: illegal immigrants. Six of the eight men locked up this month were in the country illegally, accused of identity fraud and drug dealing.

They worry Krukow, as did the 99 illegal immigrants he watched being arrested on television last year when federal agents swarmed a meatpacking plant three hours down the road. Krukow has never entered the variety store that advertises "envios de dinero" -- money transfers -- to Mexico and Central America that opened two years ago on Grand Avenue in Spencer, where antique lampposts are a reminder of the town's founding more than 100 years ago. And across from Krukow's three-bedroom rancher, on a block filled with flags for the local high school and ribbons for U.S. troops, sits a worn beige rental with a sheet in the front window that is home to a group of Hispanic immigrants. "When the weather's nice, they're all out there talking on their cellphones. All 10 of them," said Krukow, 57. "Don't speak a lick of English, but they are hardworking."

Krukow understands and even sympathizes with what has brought his new neighbors. The hog and chicken confinement plants that opened a decade ago promise a decent wage and a better life. But he wants illegal immigrants gone before Clay County starts to resemble neighboring Buena Vista County, where half of the workforce at a Tyson meat plant is Hispanic and where one in eight residents is an immigrant. "We've only seen the tip of the iceberg," said Krukow, who has lived in these parts all his life and serves as an elder at a Pentecostal church. "It's still 'God, family, country' here. Illegal is illegal."

The sentiments of voters such as Krukow have propelled the issue of illegal immigration to the fore of the Republican race for president in Iowa, where a relatively small but concentrated influx of newcomers has begun to transform the largely rural, largely white state. Immigrants are drawn to jobs in the agriculture industry that Americans are not filling. About 20,000 immigrants, most of them Hispanic, have moved to Iowa in the last six years, and the state is now home to about 112,000 of them, according to 2006 U.S. Census figures. More than half are undocumented, according to a 2006 study by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The Republican presidential hopefuls, particularly front-runners Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, have seized on these numbers and are telling voters on the stump, in TV and radio commercials, and at debates that they will do the most to stem illegal immigration. Like many other Republicans, Krukow is torn between Huckabee and Romney, who has repeatedly criticized Huckabee's support for tuition breaks for the children of illegal immigrants while he was governor of Arkansas. Krukow agrees with Romney that undocumented immigrants should not receive government benefits such as tuition breaks, but he understands Huckabee's biblical argument about not punishing children for the sins of their fathers.

The sheriff also admires the Baptist-minister-turned-politician's unabashed Christian faith. It is the same faith that leads Krukow to services every Sunday morning at DaySpring Assembly of God, where the U.S. flag and a cross-bearing Christian banner adorn the stage. He and his wife, Suzanne, also host a Sunday night prayer group for couples at their home. Still, Krukow wonders whether Huckabee is too soft on immigration. The sheriff is looking for a hard-line candidate who will wall off the border and ensure that taxpayers are not subsidizing illegal immigrants.

More here



Border enforcement works as deterrent

A strict policy to arrest, prosecute and jail illegal aliens who cross into the U.S. has shown significant success in reducing crossings and crime along the Texas border, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials said this month.

The first 45 days of Operation Streamline - a collaborative effort of local, state and federal agencies in Texas - has resulted in decreased illegal border crossings and crime since its implementation Oct. 31 compared with last year's numbers, said Laredo Border Patrol Sector chief patrol agent Carlos X. Carrillo.

"As more and more illegal aliens are prosecuted and incarcerated under Streamline-Laredo, the word is spreading quickly that illegal entry has its consequences," Mr. Carrillo said. "Those found guilty of violating this statute face penalties that can include fines and up to six months in prison."

During the first 45-day period of Operation Streamline in the Laredo sector only 2,833 illegal entries were reported, compared with last fiscal year, when 4,424 illegal entries were reported during a similar period.

The operation covers a 60-mile span along the U.S.-Mexico border at Laredo. Mr. Carrillo also noted that there was an overall reduction of 33 percent in apprehensions along the entire 171-mile Laredo border corridor.

The Laredo Police Department's crime data for Oct. 31-Dec. 15 indicates a year-to-date reduction in reported crimes of approximately 30 percent, and a 36 percent decrease in major crimes during the 45-day Streamline-Laredo reporting period....

The program also shows the benefit of local law enforcement partnering with the immigration enforcement authorities and how it leads to a reduction in crime in general. There is a lesson here for sanctuary cities.

Source





30 December, 2007

Michigan: Illegal immigrants can't get licenses

Michigan joined the nation's majority on Thursday, when state Attorney General Mike Cox ruled that illegal immigrants no longer can get a state driver's license. State Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, said it's a matter of national security, but those who work with immigrants called the move political and unnecessary. "We were becoming a magnet for illegals, and it's dangerous," said Jones, who requested the Cox opinion overruling the 1995 official stance from former Attorney General Frank Kelley, a Democrat. Cox is a Republican. Jones said he was surprised to learn how easily illegal immigrants have obtained licenses. "Since 9/11, we've got to be more aware of these kinds of practices," the legislator warned.

Michigan has been one of seven states to allow undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses. Attorney general opinions are legally binding on state agencies and officers unless reversed by the courts. It was not known how soon the ruling might take effect nor what it means for illegal immigrants with currently valid licenses.

Michigan law prohibits the secretary of state from issuing a driver's license to a nonresident. Cox, whose opinion noted that a driver's license is routinely accepted as proof of identity, said it would be inconsistent with federal law to regard an illegal immigrant as a permanent resident in Michigan. His decision could boost momentum for legislation pushed by Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, a Republican, creating a new driver's license and state ID card. Only those who are Michigan residents and legally in the United States could get the new license under the plan.

"I thought the attorney general was above politics," said John Roy Castillo, executive director of the Cristo Rey Community Center. "We should be more concerned about more important things than this issue." He'd rather see politicians turn their attention to jobs, the economy and education. Without that focus, he's concerned that some populations will experience unfair treatment. "There's going to be more discrimination against Hispanics and more individuals that don't look white," Castillo said.

Maria Zavala, a Lansing resident who does health care outreach in the local immigrant community, also criticized Cox's decision. She believes illegal immigrants contribute more to the state's economy than most people understand. Without the legal ability to get driver's licenses for identification purposes, Zavala is concerned they will be more apt to falsify documents. "The people who come here really come here to work so they're not a burden on the state," she said. "Passing that law is helping to eliminate a whole working class - a nonvisible working class - that does help."

Source



The pain in Spain

The dream of most immigrants - at least when arriving to Spain - isn't to stay here. Rather its to strike it rich and then move back home. Striking it rich is relative, given that in many of the countries these people come from the monthly salary can be around 200 dollars. But with a small nest egg, perhaps a home that was built in the country of origin while living in Spain, and hopes of a small retirement pension, many immigrants are willing to take their chances living in a foreign country.

One such case is Cesar Augusto, who came with his cousin to visit Spain in 2002. The two Venezuelans caught a flight from Caracas and arrived on three-month tourist visas. Like thousands before them, they didn't bother returning when the visas expired. "My cousin decided to stay, so I thought I'd stay to accompany him," said Augusto. "Besides, things are very bad in Venezuela." And in Ecuador. And in Colombia. And in Argentina. And in Peru.

The economic and political upheaval in South America, along with a common language, have sent the numbers coming to Spain from that continent soaring into the hundreds of thousands, up from just tens of thousands at the turn of the century. That wave of late has been supplanted by workers from Eastern Europe as the borders drop and the European Union enlarges.

The face of Plaza Olavide has changed in the last 10 years. Nestled in the center of Madrid, the Chamberi neighborhood is one of the capital's most expensive areas to rent an apartment. But high prices haven't stopped poor immigrants from making this neighborhood their home to take advantage of its central location. Apartments are often rented, and then subsequently sublet to dozens of people - the going price can reach 300 euros for the right to a slot in a bunkbed and to use a communal toilet down the hall. The purchase price for a 130 square meter apartment in Chamberi can easily touch 750,000 dollars. One industrious Ecuadorean woman sublet to 30 people to finance the spacious apartment - when no immigrants were living there - where she and her family were living. The living room was divided into three rooms by curtains. With the rent money she was able to purchase a second apartment - and then move her family to London.

In the central plaza nearby the playground is filled with a rainbow of children from Africa, China, Eastern Europe and Latin America. In general, their parents have more children than the average Spanish family, sometimes even more than in their home countries - one of the local Chinese merchants has three children.

A walk around the circular plaza shows Romanian bartenders, a Cuban carpenter, a Peruvian sweets vendor, a French florist, an Egyptian ice cream vendor, and and Ecuadorean family in competition with their Peruvian colleagues across the square - and both selling Spanish tapas and drinks on popular terraces.

Make no mistake - there is work in Spain for immigrants. But immigrants - and I include myself in that number, not only as a US citizen, but also via my Peruvian wife - have to be willing to just that: work. These waves of immigration have helped prop Spain's economy, both by contributing to its welfare system and by supplying unpopular work to crucial sectors, such as construction and services. Included in the services sector is tourism, which contributes 12% to Spain's gross domestic product, or construction. But there are concerns as the construction sector is now seen on the decline, with a recent report from the large Spanish bank BBVA even suggesting there could be losses of upwards of a quarter of million jobs.

The concern is where those people will turn - the vast majority of them being immigrants. Many are already taking courses sponsored by the govenment to learn new job skills. But the fear not all will have taken such an opportunity.

Often the needs of the Spanish economy don't mesh perfectly with the needs of the arrivals. Many immigrants run the risk of being trapped in marginalized jobs, experts warn, preventing them from fully integrating into Spain's economy and society even while their numbers grow. Where just five years ago it was impossible to speak of immigrant ghettos, today there are neighborhoods where a Spanish face is foreign. With roughly 11% of the European Union's population and about 10% its GDP, Spain accounts for around 25% of Europe's immigration.

Ecuador alone sent more than 200,000 citizens to Spain from 1998 to 2001. Now, in 2007 there are over 420,000 legal Ecuadorians in Spain, with estimates that number could swell to over 750,000 if illegals were included. Colombia added almost 150,000 during the same years. Argentine net migration to Spain rose nearly threefold for the same period, although the absolute numbers were lower. By comparison, Morocco, a mere eight miles away and a country whose migration problems with Spain are widely publicized, sent just more than 100,000 to Spain during the same three years.

According to the latest figures, the largest single immigrant population remains Morocco with 575,000, followed by Rumania (525,000) Ecuador, United Kingdom (315,000), Colombia (260,000), Bolivia (200,000), Germany (165,000), Argentina (140,000), Italy (135,000), Bulgaria (120,000), China (105,000) and Peru (100,000). A closer look at those numbers shows that Latin American immigrants as a whole are the largest group in Spain.

With such numbers it should be no suprise that there is also talk that political parties are actively seeking the immigrant vote - most South Americans can claim Spanish nationality after living and working legally two years in the country. On top of those numbers are immigrants from other European Union countries. As Spain heads into General Elections in March there will most likely be initiatives that seek to woo this potentially crucial swing-vote.

One important area will be how immigrants view their as of late loss of purchasing power - many of them, while still sending money home, have bought into the dream of buying an apartment. But as of late mortgages are rising, with many immigrants finding that the price of paying the bank is now surpassing what they make. To make ends meet many immigrants fall back on the tried-and-true method of subleting any available space in their apartments. In one more than one case a bed placed on a cold hastily glassed-in terrace can fetch an extra hundred euros a month.

South American, and other, foreign workers are helping to pay unemployment benefits Spain can ill afford. But despite their contribution, the arrivals are bringing tensions often hidden by the common language and which bode ill for the future. It is often conjectured that for every one legal immigrant there are between three and five others who are illegal. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development routinely warns that immigrants face precarious conditions because they aren't legal, work on temporary contracts and tend to work long hours, sometimes paid below the contractual rate.....

Source





29 December, 2007

The latest from CIS

1. Immigration, Mainstream Media, and the 2008 Election

EXCERPT: The narratives about the election of 2008 and the rebellion against Establishment immigration policy are intertwined: their nexus will become increasingly palpable in the months ahead. Strange as it will therefore strike politically savvy Americans, a confluence that could significantly influence or prove decisive in the campaign will likely become known largely despite mainstream media rather than because of it - the exception being the rigged but ultimately uncontrollable debates among primary candidates. If this seems professionally unaccountable, a dereliction of the role of the press in a democracy, or just extremely curious that mainstream media appears determined to pass up what may be the scoop of the 2008 election, there's a reason if no rational justification. The explanation has nothing to do with a journalistic assessment of newsworthiness and everything to do with what the elite that controls the nation's traditional sources of news and opinion deems ideologically outre.

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2. The Case Against Immigration: Amy Chua gets a lot of things right but a few big things wrong

EXCERPT: . . . But Chua's useful note of caution is almost lost in a mountain of nonsense. First, to imply that Huntington, this nation's preeminent social scientist, is capable of 'scapegoating vitriol' is absurd. In his book, 'Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity' Huntington argues not that only WASPs can be Americans. He simply says that our institutions and culture were permanently shaped by British low-church Protestantism -- and that diluting that inheritance would undermine much of what has made America such a successful multi-ethnic society.....

The other restrictionist 'mistake' Chua points to is neglecting 'the indispensable role that immigrants have played in building American wealth and power.' The present-day examples she cites have nothing to do with 'a fierce global competition to attract the world's best high-tech scientists and engineers.' Intel cofounder Andy Grove, for instance, is a manager, not a technician, and Google cofounder Sergey Brin came here as a child as part of a refugee family. The push by high-tech firms to import more talent from abroad is simply a 21st century version of the eternal search for cheap labor.

And Chua's examples from the past are just that. Although today's immigrants are very similar to those of a century ago, we are a completely changed society. As I argue in my forthcoming book, 'The New Case Against Immigration,' immigration is simply incompatible with modern society. Our economy places a much higher premium than ever before on education. The United States already spends too much on an extensive welfare state. And advances in communications and transportation make immigration, even of the educated, deeply problematic for assimilation and security and sovereignty. In other words, the immigrants are the same, but we are different.

NOTE: "Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity," by Samuel Huntington can be purchased on line here

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3. Immigration, both legal and illegal, puts huge strain on the country

EXCERPT: The debate over immigration has become one of America's most heated. In a new report published by the Center for Immigration Studies, we provide a detailed picture of the nation's immigrant population. Our conclusions will probably not surprise most Californians: First, legal and illegal immigration is at record levels. Second, immigrants are generally hardworking, yet they create enormous strains on social services. Why? Put simply, many are uneducated.

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4. State Immigration Law Training and Enforcement Programs Enhance Homeland Security and Public Safety

EXCERPT: Nevada's adoption of a carefully thought out program of immigration law training and enforcement for state law enforcement agencies will contribute significantly to homeland security and enhance public safety for all its residents. Due to geography, the presence of a number of high-profile sites, and a history of significant crime problems with a nexus to illegal immigration, Nevada is an ideal candidate for participation in the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(g) program. This program provides advanced training in immigration law for selected state law enforcement officers, and enables trained officers, under the supervision of ICE, to identify, detain and begin the removal process for certain illegal aliens who come into contact with law enforcement. While a total of 34 jurisdictions have implemented 287(g) programs, there are three state programs in particular (Alabama, Colorado, and Florida) that seem best suited to Nevada's situation and homeland security objectives. In addition, the state should take further steps to achieve these objectives, such as adoption of state anti-smuggling and document/identity fraud laws; establishment of document verification protocols for licensing and other state benefits; mandatory screening for status of incarcerated foreign-born individuals; uniform state-wide policies on handling foreign-born encountered by police; universal immigration law training for law enforcement agencies; and deterrence of illegal employment.

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5. Immigrants in the United States, 2007: A Profile of America's Foreign-Born Population

EXCERPT: Among the report's findings:

* The nation's immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007.

* Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13.

* Overall, nearly one in three immigrants is an illegal alien. Half of Mexican and Central American immigrants and one-third of South American immigrants are illegal.

* Of adult immigrants, 31 percent have not completed high school, compared to 8 percent of natives. Since 2000, immigration increased the number of workers without a high school diploma by 14 percent, and all other workers by 3 percent.

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6. Farm Labor Shortages: How Real? What Response? Teleconference Transcript

Speakers:

Philip Martin, Professor of California Resource Economics, University of California, Davis Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies

Dr. Philip Martin's Backgrounder, entitled "Farm Labor Shortages: How Real? What Response?," is on line here

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7. Farmworker Farce: The shortage simply doesn't exist

EXCERPT: The lobbyists' "crops are rotting in the fields" story line has been repeated often and with little to back it up. This is one of those stories into which reporters buy so wholeheartedly, that they find no reason to actually check it out - like church burnings, or "Jeningrad." The New York Times, of course, is the gold standard for this sort of thing, though it's quite widespread . . .

Since only two percent of Americans still work in agriculture, many of the rest of us fall for this baloney. The research in this area, however, paints a very different picture. In a new paper, published by my Center for Immigration Studies, agricultural economist Philip Martin of the University of California, Davis, finds "little evidence" to support claims of a labor shortage on America's farms.



Austrian company offers to remove UK's 'disruptive' migrants in adapted aircraft

A company specialising in removing failed asylum-seekers is to approach the Government with plans to use specially adapted aircraft to deport hundreds of "disruptive" refugees. Asylum Airways, run by an Austrian aviation consultant with ties to British security firms, will operate aircraft for European countries which do not wish to use established airlines for the forced removal of asylum-seekers. The planes will have specially designed seats so that the "passengers" can be strapped down and restrained by guards. A deal could save the Government millions of pounds compared with the piecemeal contracts it has negotiated with dozens of airlines as well as reduce the number of aborted deportations.

Hundreds of asylum-seeker removals have had to be aborted in the past two years because of what the Home Office describes as "disruptive behaviour". And in the past few months airlines have been criticised for carrying failed asylum-seekers, many of whom allege they have been physically and racially abused by private security guards paid to escort them.

Earlier this year XL airlines announced that it would no longer work with the Home Office in removing failed asylum-seekers. But British Airways and others argue that they have a legal duty to take asylum-seekers on their aircraft.

Heinz Berger, who has set up the Asylum Airlines company and has worked with British companies providing security at British airports, says that he is still involved with the "bureaucracy" of the scheme but has identified Britain as a key market for his service. Mr Berger said that Britain was on a list of countries with whom he was seeking to do business. He said there was "ongoing interest all over Europe" for an airline that will organise flights around Europe, picking up failed asylum-seekers from various countries and then flying them back to their home nations around Africa, the Middle East and Asia. A special feature will be bespoke aircraft with padded rooms and restraining equipment.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the removal of hundreds of asylum-seekers each year has to be cancelled because of "disruptive behaviour". But this can include medical problems as well as complaints from passengers. A spokeswoman for the Home Office said that while the Government was "open to new ideas" she said the present arrangements were working "pretty well".

Source





28 December, 2007

Immigrant-rights groups critical of upcoming radio event

The usual Leftist attempt to silence opposition rather than debate it

Immigrant-rights groups are criticizing the organizers of an upcoming radio event that will promote a crackdown on illegal immigration. The groups accuse the Federation for American Immigration Reform of endorsing bigotry and racism. FAIR is sponsoring a broadcast marathon for Thursday and Friday in a downtown Des Moines hotel. The event is expected to attract 22 radio talk show hosts from across the country to discuss immigration. ``We don't agree with their views that are demonizing immigrants, and we don't appreciate their coming to Iowa telling us what we should think about immigrants,'' said Alicia Claypool, chairwoman of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

Dan Stein, president of FAIR, said his group is being demonized. ``They're trying to discredit an entire side of the debate,'' Stein said. FAIR held a similar radio event last spring in Washington that it claims influenced the U.S. Senate's defeat of a bill that would have created a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. FAIR placed an advertisement last week in The Des Moines Register taking note of the defeated legislation and promoting the upcoming marathon. ``Earlier this year, talk radio shook things up in Washington and helped stop an amnesty for illegal aliens,'' the ad stated.

Critics have said FAIR's hard anti-immigrant line has discouraged a fair debate. They note that the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, recently added FAIR to its list of hate groups operating in the United States. Stein said the law center's report contains ``serious fabrications. ... It's absolutely defamatory.''

FAIR's Web site - www.fairus.org - says the group advocates for improved border security, an end to illegal immigration, and immigration levels ``consistent with more traditional rates of about 300,000 a year.''

The Center for New Community, a Chicago-based immigrant rights advocacy group, disagrees with FAIR's purpose and encourages the hotel to cancel the event. The Rev. David Ostendorf, the center's executive director, said hotels and other places ``have no obligation to provide a platform for hate speech.'' Stein accused critics of the planned broadcasts of trying to obstruct free speech ``and people's right to be heard on public policy issues.''

Source



Iowa: Republicans take tough line as immigration becomes key election issue

The snow and fairy lights make Main Street resemble a scene from It's a Wonderful Life, with only a glimpse of a Mexican flag in the grocer's window or a handwritten sign in Spanish indicating that this is different from dozens of other mid-Western towns. But on the outskirts of Marshalltown, the grey windowless bulk of the Swift & Co meat plant looms out of the fog like a battleship. And it is there that workers hurry away from the gates, waving away questions with a polite "No hablo ingles".

In December last year US immigration agents raided the factory at dawn, divided the workers into two groups - US citizens on one side, Mexicans on the other - and detained 99 people for lacking legal documentation. Children arrived home to find that their parents were gone, others were left crying at school because there was no one to pick them up.

This Christmas, fears of deportation among the 7,000-strong Hispanic community have been exacerbated by a presidential election in which illegal immigration has emerged unexpectedly as the principal concern for Republican voters in Iowa. In this crucial state, where the nomination process begins on January 3, candidates for the White House have been loudly trumpeting - or tripping up over - the immigration issue.

Although Iowa remains overwhelmingly white - with Latinos accounting for less than 3 per cent of its population - the arrival of immigrants in places such as Marshalltown, where Hispanics number 7,000 and represent a proportion of perhaps 25 per cent, has caused some resentment. Bobbie Sullivan, 58, waiting for her boyfriend outside Swift & Co, describes a feeling of being "overwhelmed" in her church, where three quarters of the congregation are Spanish speakers. "It hurts when poor people here are without jobs to see all the Hispanics there," she says. "And they get all the overtime there is to be had, 'cos they work so hard."

Swift & Co denied The Times access to the plant where many of the 2,000-plus employed there undoubtedly have tough jobs. Notices in the security office refer to rooms dedicated to a "blood trough" or "old green meats" and, in a country built by immigrants, there is still much admiration expressed for the can-do attitude of Hispanic labour. This, however, has become tempered by a growing sense of insecurity fed by a constant diet of reports about America's "broken borders" and its 12 million-strong army of illegal immigrants.

The rapidly rising salience of the issue in presidential politics has taken some candidates by surprise. John McCain was almost destroyed this summer for backing, with President Bush, legal rights for undocumented worker immigrants. Other Republicans have largely fallen into line with a new orthodoxy with Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney stampeding to sound the toughest. Karl Rove, who masterminded Mr Bush's two presidential victories, worries that the Republicans are cutting themselves off from pro-family, socially conservative Latino voters, the fastest-growing section of the US electorate. But Hillary Clinton's recent fumbling of a question on whether illegal immigrants should be allowed driving licences illustrates why Democratic candidates are also viewing the subject nervously. Some strategists fear it has potential to be another "wedge issue" driving working class Democrats away from the party just as abortion and gay rights did before.

For Mary Ibarra, who grew up in Iowa as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and an American Indian mother, it has all become too much. Her partner, Mario, was deported for not having papers, and she has been left struggling to raise four children and hold down her job at the plant. She plans to move her family to Mexico. "If they don't want him here, that is their mistake," she says.

Source





27 December, 2007

Self-Deportation A Reality

Post below lifted from Captain's Quarters. See the original for links

While Congress tried to offer more and more legislation for immigration reform, a number of people wondered why the government didn't try harder to enforce the laws already on the books. Many suggested that employer enforcement would remove the incentives for illegal immigration and illegals would just return home. Reuters now reports that those predictions have proven accurate already (via Power Line):

The couple are among a growing number of illegal immigrants across the United States who are starting to pack their bags and move on as a crackdown on undocumented immigrants widens and the U.S. economy slows, turning a traditional Christmas trek home into a one-way trip. ... The toughening environment has been coupled with a turndown in the U.S. economy, which has tipped the balance toward self deportation for many illegal immigrants left struggling to find work.

Remember the concern over anchor babies, those children born in the US who have American citizenship despite the illegal status of their parents? It turns out that no one wants to split families. The Mexican government reports a "spike" in requests for Mexican citizenship for children born in the US, so that they can attend Mexican schools instead. Requests to bring household items duty-free across the border have also increased, indicating that those returning have little desire to cross back into the US.

As it turns out, the declining dollar has provided even more incentive for the illegals to self-deport. The value of the money they sent back home has dropped, and combined with the perceived economic stagnation here in the US and the much tougher enforcement environment, the risk outweighs the potential gain. The economy grew at an annual rate of 4.9% in the last quarter, but perceptions in this case is reality.

Some have just decided to move elsewhere in the US from hostile states like Arizona. Reuters suggests that some may even come to Minnesota. If they come this week, they won't stay long; we're already having the coldest winter in at least 10 years. They may try California instead, just in time to see government go bankrupt and precipitate another push to shut illegals out from public services. Tough enforcement of existing law can solve much of the problem; as long as we secure the border, we can then focus on a much smaller problem.



Britain rapidly becoming less English

At least a dozen British towns and cities will have no single ethnic group in a majority within the next 30 years. Leicester will become the first 'super-diverse' city in 2020, then Birmingham in 2024, followed by Slough and Luton, according to a new study of population trends in the UK.

The report reveals that Leicester has seen the proportion of its white population fall from 70.1 per cent in 1991 to 59.5 per cent today. By 2016 the white population will make up 52.2 per cent of the population, falling to 44.5 per cent by 2026. 'Britain is becoming ever more plural; our diversity ever more diverse,' said Danny Dorling, professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield, whose predictions are based on the most comprehensive study into the country's population trends. 'This increased diversity is most evident in its cities, with plurality becoming commonplace.'

The immigrant and ethnic populations are no longer characterised by large, well organised Afro-Caribbean and South Asian communities, said Dorling. Instead, increasing numbers come from countries scattered across the globe - from Germany to Guyana, from Sweden to Singapore.

'It is going to become increasingly difficult to generalise about Britain's plurality because different cities are experiencing different levels and types of diversity,' he said. 'This creates a complex challenge for those responsible for successfully managing the country's changing population.'

In the Thirties, the proportion of people living in Britain who were born in foreign countries was 2.5 per cent. Typically these individuals came from one of 15 countries, in particular Ireland and India. Today more than 10 per cent of the population were born abroad, with no single ethnic group dominating.

Sukhvinder Stubbs, chief executive of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, which commissioned Dorling's research, said the findings indicate key challenges facing Britain, including a need to reframe the immigration debate and to focus on the changing pressure on the country's resources. 'For Britain's major urban centres, ethnic diversity is the reality,' she said. 'Regardless of future immigration patterns, it is just a matter of time until cities such as Birmingham become plural. Even if we prohibited another single soul from entering the country, the trends have already laid root.'

In the period from 1991 to 2026, which will see Leicester's white population fall from 70.1 per cent to 44.5 per cent, the city's second largest ethnic group, Indians, is predicted to rise from 22.9 per cent to 26 per cent. The Pakistani population will triple to 3.3 per cent, while the proportion of Africans will rise from 0.4 per cent in 1991 to 11.2 per cent.

Birmingham's transition to plural city status will, however, be markedly different to Leicester's, added Dorling. The proportion of white people in its population will fall from 77 per cent to 47.7 per cent. But while much of Leicester's growth in ethnic minorities will be driven by African growth, Birmingham's population shift will be dominated by those of Pakistani descent.

Dorling's research also looks at the shifts in population patterns in towns that are not expected to become plural in the foreseeable future. Oldham, for example, will remain a town with an overwhelmingly white population. However, it will witness a significant change in its demographic profile, with the town's white population falling from more than 90 per cent to 74.4 per cent in the 30 years from 1991. 'Contrary to popular opinion, Oldham's ethnic minority population is not homogeneous,' said Dorling. 'The town's second largest ethnic group after whites is Pakistani, but by 2021 there are likely to be as many Bangladeshis in Oldham as there are Pakistanis.' [Few others would be able to tell the difference]

Dorling's research also shows that, although Greater London's population is already significantly diverse with a white population of 67.5 per cent, it is not likely to become plural in the near future. By 2026 the white population is predicted to reach 60.7 per cent, with just eight of London's 33 local authority areas predicted to become plural.

Source





26 December, 2007

Race for '08: Latino influx the talk of Iowa

Issue reverberates as GOP candidates hunt for caucus support

In 1990, this tranquil prairie town in central Iowa had 47 Latinos. But after 15 years of steady migration from Mexico and Central America, Latinos account for more than a quarter of Perry's 8,000 residents, co-existing with the descendants of the white European immigrants who settled the farm belt community in the 19th century. The demographic upheaval in Perry and other towns in Iowa, all hundreds of miles from the Mexican border, illustrates the extent of immigration into America's heartland. Since 1990, the number of Latinos in Iowa has increased from 32,647, which was then 1.2 percent of the state's population, to 112,987, or 3.8 percent of the current population of 2.9 million. Some demographers expect the number to triple again in just over 20 years, increasing to 335,000 by 2030.

The trend has pushed illegal immigration into the forefront of presidential politics - at least among Republicans - as Iowa prepares for its first-in-the-nation caucuses on Jan. 3. The topic reverberates through town hall meetings and Republican debates, with candidates scrambling to outdo one another in getting tough on illegal immigrants as they compete for fed-up voters who constitute a broad and vocal chunk of the GOP political base. "The immigration issue, just like security, is right at the top of the list," said state Republican Party Chairman Reinhold "Ray" Hoffman, adding that Iowans are "very frustrated" with what they perceive as unchecked illegal immigration to their state. "I've never been at a function when someone didn't ask about it."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has moved up in the polls, came to Iowa's immigration center on Thursday to appear at a rally in Marshalltown, the site of a highly publicized roundup of illegal immigrants at a Swift meatpacking plant just over a year ago. Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee also crossed the state in a six-day bus tour that included stops in Marshalltown and other communities with surging immigrant populations.

"I'm not prejudiced toward Mexicans. It's the illegal ones who are the problem," said Dennis Barnes, 63, of Marshalltown, after attending the Huckabee rally. Barnes said he worked for 19 years at the Swift plant but left in the 1980s as management began hiring Mexican immigrants at $3 an hour less than he was making. "It's a big issue and something has to be done," said Robert Ames, a 58-year-old retiree who lives near Marshalltown. "There are too many illegals in here, and if we don't do something, there is going to be a bigger problem later."

Perry's modern-day transformation, depicted in a documentary called "A Little Salsa on the Prairie," began less than two decades ago with a change of ownership of the local plant - the current owner is Tyson's Fresh Meats - and expanded as word-of-mouth and family connections brought more Latino immigrants. Latinos settled in then-vacant homes in various neighborhoods, rather than in one area, blending into the community. Latinos make up 40 percent of the school enrollment, and many high school graduates have gone to college and returned. Latino-oriented services are enmeshed in the community.

Renaldo Morales, 50, originally from Nicaragua, moved to Perry from San Diego with his wife and three children in 1993. He's a part-time manager at Tienda Latina, a downtown store stocked with Spanish-language videos and CDs, Latin cuisine and stocking caps with the logos of Latin soccer teams. His 22-year-old daughter attends Drake University, and a son, 21, plans to go to college next year.

A more recent transplant, who identifies himself as Jose Sanchez, came to the United States from El Salvador three years ago and acknowledged that he doesn't have "papers." A sister-in-law picked him up in Houston and brought him to Perry, where he works as a janitor. His wife and two teenage children have since joined him. Eddie Diaz, director of the Community Action Agency in Perry, said there undoubtedly are illegal immigrants in the community but the exact number is impossible to determine. But, legal or illegal, he said, they all share common goals: finding work, buying homes and pursuing "all the other issues in life."

With Huckabee moving to the front of the GOP pack, many Iowa voters are now closely scrutinizing his immigration positions. As Arkansas governor, Huckabee embraced legislation to grant college scholarships to illegal immigrants but, as a presidential candidate, he has toughened his tone with a recently released nine-point plan. He told Marshalltown residents that he welcomed an endorsement by Jim Gilchrist, the controversial founder of the Minuteman Project, a self-described "citizens' vigilance operation" that patrols the border. Pro-immigration groups said Huckabee's plan and the Gilchrist endorsement demolish any perception that he's a moderate on immigration.

Nearly all GOP candidates have spoken out against "amnesty" - the buzzword for unconditional legalization - although they differ on details. State and local leaders acknowledge that social acceptance of the cultural changes varies widely across the state. "It's a very tough issue," said former Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack, whose administration pursued an orderly flow of immigration to avoid an economic decline. "Some communities have embraced this. Some communities are probably having a difficult time with it."

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Immigrant Crackdown Falls Short

Despite Tough Rhetoric, Few Employers of Illegal Workers Face Criminal Charges

In its announced clampdown on companies that hire illegal workers, the federal government has arrested nearly four times as many people in the past year as it did two years ago, but only a tiny fraction of those arrests involved criminal charges against those who hired the workers, according to a year-end tally prepared by the Department of Homeland Security.

Fewer than 100 owners, supervisors or hiring officials were arrested in fiscal 2007, compared with nearly 4,900 arrests that involved illegal workers, providers of fake documents and others, the figures show. Immigration experts say the data illustrate the Bush administration's limited success at delivering on its rhetoric about stopping illegal hiring by corporate employers.

"I know what it takes to get a criminal case," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a former state prosecutor and member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. ". . . Why is it that hundreds of bar owners can be sanctioned in Missouri every year for letting somebody with a fake ID have a beer, but we can't manage to sanction hundreds of employers for letting people use fake identities to obtain a job?"

Democratic political consultants have advised the party's lawmakers -- who already are on the defensive about immigration policy -- that the Bush administration's failure to more aggressively target powerful corporations may be a vulnerability for Republican candidates who are seeking to make immigration a campaign issue.

Bush administration officials have promised to strike at the "magnet" of jobs luring illegal immigrants into the country, a goal supported by experts across the political spectrum. "The days of treating employers who violate these laws by giving them the equivalent of a corporate parking ticket -- those days are gone. It's now felonies, jail time, fines and forfeitures," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at a Nov. 6 news conference. In a year-end review this month, Chertoff added that the enforcement crackdown will "make a down payment on credibility with the American people." He said Americans' "profound public skepticism" about government efforts to control illegal immigration helped kill a broad, White House-backed overhaul in the Senate this summer.

But even though DHS has ratcheted up its enforcement effort, this year's 92 criminal arrests of employers still amount to a drop in the bucket of a national economy that includes 6 million companies that employ more than 7 million unauthorized workers, several analysts said. Only 17 firms faced criminal fines or other forfeitures this year. In one case, Richard M. Rosenbaum, the former president of Rosenbaum-Cunningham International, a nationwide cleaning contractor based in Florida, pleaded guilty in October to harboring illegal immigrants and conspiracy to defraud the government, agreeing to pay more than $17 million in restitution and forfeitures.

For decades, political opposition by the businesses that rely on such workers and by the communities where they are employed has helped water down the laws and other tools needed for a more sustained, less scattershot effort. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) "has gotten the message that employer enforcement is essential. . . . Nonetheless, the numbers show the chronic failure of employer enforcement under current laws," said Doris Meissner, commissioner of the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 through 2000 and now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, which studies migration patterns. "The whole point of employer sanctions is to punish those who provide jobs -- the primary incentive -- to illegal workers. That goal continues to be largely unmet," Meissner said.

Late in the Clinton administration and early in the current administration, the number of illegal immigrants arrested in work-site cases fell -- from 2,849 in 1999 to a low of 445 in 2003 -- although there has since been a rebound. The number of criminal cases brought against employers during that period fell from 182 to four. ICE reported that the 92 criminal arrests made in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 included 59 owners and 33 corporate officials, human resources workers, crew chiefs and others in the "supervisory chain." Of the remaining 771 criminal arrests, nearly 90 percent involved workers and other people accused of identity theft or document fraud, money laundering, providing transportation or documentation to illegal workers, or other crimes. Criminal fines and other penalties grew from $600,000 in 2003 to more than $30 million in 2007, but they were dominated by a few large payments, including Rosenbaum's.

ICE Director Julie Myers, who served as chief of staff to Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division from 2001 to 2003, wrote in response to McCaskill's criticism that it takes time to build criminal cases, and that DHS's tougher criminal enforcement approach is "fundamentally different" from the weak administrative fines and pinprick raids that resulted from a congressional backlash against actions against corporations in the late 1990s. In an interview, agency spokesman Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery said ICE focuses on "egregious" violators whose business models rely on hiring illegal immigrants, especially those whose practices may promote fraud or border breaches.

McCaskill called such arguments an excuse for not punishing big-money business and farm interests that want cheap labor, effectively penalizing law-abiding business owners and exploiting illegal immigrant workers. "The reality simply doesn't match their rhetoric," said McCaskill, who began pressing ICE to release the employer statistics in September.

In a bluntly worded memo last week, a consortium known as Democracy Corps, organized by Democratic Party consultants Stan Greenberg, Al Quinlan and James Carville, warned Democratic incumbents, candidates in House and Senate battleground districts, and presidential hopefuls that they "ignore the [immigration] issue at their peril." "If leaders do not show their own frustration with the problem, they will not be heard on this issue -- and many others," they wrote. "There is particular appeal for cracking down on unscrupulous corporations that exploit illegal and legal workers. Voters are eager to believe that companies' preferences for cheap labor are a source of the problem."

The Bush administration has said it is trying to improve its Internet-based E-Verify program, through which less than 1 percent of U.S. employers now voluntarily check new hires' Social Security numbers. It is also fighting major business, farm and labor groups in federal court to use Social Security data generated when suspect numbers are submitted to the government as a sweeping nationwide enforcement tool. A federal judge blocked the program from going forward in October, but the government is appealing. The administration is also attempting to modify its plan to mail "no-match" letters to 140,000 employers to meet conditions set by the judge.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to restrict immigration and has opposed the Bush administration's proposals for giving legal status to some illegal immigrants, said the importance of a sustained crackdown involving both raids and the "no-match" program "is to change businesses' expectations, in order to change their behavior." "Past enforcement actions have been regarded by business correctly as a passing thing. . . . They need to believe it's not just going to go away in a couple of months," Krikorian said. Illegal immigrant labor laws should be enforced as rigorously as child labor laws, he said.

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25 December, 2007

The GOP's Immigration Opportunity

Candidates Should Be Bold In Addressing Borders, Illegal Aliens

Republicans have an opportunity on immigration, if only they will seize it. The Democrats are positioning themselves to the left of public opinion. Howard Dean denounces Republicans for using "outrageous phrases like `illegal aliens.'" Hillary Clinton ties herself in knots for days over granting drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, almost everyone in public life favors - or, at any rate, feels compelled to claim to favor - tougher enforcement measures.

Yet Republicans are blowing the opportunity. They are engaged in petty backbiting over one another's records. Since very few politicians have good ones on this issue, that's a strategy of mutual assured destruction. It also obscures the choices we face now. Worse, the Republicans are picking on secondary or even tertiary issues. Gov. Mike Huckabee has taken a lot of criticism from the other presidential candidates, for example, for allowing the high-achieving children of illegal immigrants to receive favorable tuition rates at colleges and universities. It is the sort of question that would not even arise in a country that was serious about controlling its borders. A politician's position on the narrow question is important only insofar as it bears on what he or she would do about the broader one.

Even more beside the point has been the spectacle of Mitt Romney's attacking Rudy Giuliani for letting illegal immigrants in New York City talk to police without fear of being deported, or Giuliani's counterattack on Romney for employing a lawn-care company that hired illegals. A sensible federal policy would not place cities in the position of choosing between solving murders and turning a blind eye to illegality. It would also not place the onus of law enforcement on individual consumers.

The important divide concerns what we should do now. John McCain and Giuliani would step up enforcement, create a guest-worker program to meet employers' desire for immigrant labor, and allow illegal immigrants already here to become citizens if they meet certain conditions (such as learning English). We think that policy mix is a mistake. There is no pressing national need to bring illegal immigrants "out of the shadows," and the possibility that we will do so will only serve as a magnet for more illegal immigration. Moreover, immigrants would succeed, and assimilate, faster, with less friction from the native-born, if we took in fewer immigrants each year. Neither candidate takes any notice of this point.

Huckabee's campaign has outlined a pretty strong proposal - taken largely from the pages of National Review - to enforce the immigration laws, but the candidate himself has seemed ambivalent about it in public forums. Romney has said he opposes amnesty and favors increased enforcement, but has not been forthcoming about his overall approach to immigration policy. Fred Thompson, finally, has argued that we should follow a policy of attrition: If we step up enforcement, we can shrink the illegal population over time without having to deport millions of people all at once.

We would like to see more of the candidates pick up Thompson's banner, and wave it about with a bit more vigor than he has done. They should also explain that they will make it a priority to deport illegal immigrants who commit violent felonies. (Most people will be outraged to hear that we have not made it a priority already.)

Republicans should by all means remain open to immigrants of every hue. It would not be untoward for them even to express sympathy for people trapped in kleptocracies that crush their dreams and drive them to seek a better life elsewhere. But they should make no apologies for wanting a successful and sustainable immigration policy, and that requires both setting and enforcing limits. It requires that we keep up the pressure on Congress to build a fence at our southern border, and on the administration to penalize scofflaw employers.

And it requires one more thing, which may be the hardest of all to find: Republicans who are smart enough to see an opportunity and bold enough to take it.

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Britain: 'This isn't the country I grew up in. No one speaks a word of English these days,' says Dame Shirley Bassey



Few would recognise this rather slight figure as the vertiginously high-heeled, big-bosomed diva of Big Spender or Diamonds Are Forever, but this may be no bad thing. She is safe enough here within the portrait-lined walls of Cliveden House in Berkshire, the sort of hotel where the staff remember she is a Dame Commander of the British Empire. But a recent brush with the criminal classes has left her shaken. "It was all rather nerve-racking," she says. "I was Christmas shopping in Knightsbridge with my daughter Sharon. We'd been into Harvey Nichols to find some presents. "Somebody must have seen all the money and cards when I opened my bag to pay and followed me. I felt a bump but nothing more than that. And when I opened my bag at the next shop, there was no purse."

It seems unremarkable, perhaps. Pickpockets are a fact of life in most big European cities, and ever more so in London. But to someone used to the security of life in Monte Carlo - the ritzy, casino-laden side of Monaco - it was a genuine shock. "The worst of it is the worry," she says. "My cards can be cancelled but I worry who has my details or a picture of me. They took my residence card for Monaco."

She spends most of her time in the principality these days and, as she explains in her first interview for two years, the comparison with the life she sees back here is far from flattering. "This isn't England any more - at least it is not the country I remember growing up in," she says. "You don't hear English spoken here. You read about terrible things - not just drugs but all the killings. "When you live in a safe place like Monte Carlo, you can walk home at any time of the night and you don't have to worry. I don't feel at risk there. If I drive myself, I can leave the car doors unlocked. I wouldn't do that in London."

But at Christmas, not even the balmy warmth of the Mediterranean will keep her from flying over to be with her daughter Sharon and partner Des, and the rest of the family. Her business interests, too, are based in London and Shirley is at pains to say that she has not rejected Britain. However, the rising sense of physical danger here is not the only change to worry her. When the conversation comes to the unstoppable spread of reality television, she becomes animated, sitting forward on a silk chair in the Cliveden library for a heartfelt denunciation of what now passes for showbusiness.

"It seems there's no place for people with talent any more," she expostulates. "You have only to look at television to see that. And if people do have any talent, they get voted out of the shows. It's disgusting. It's an abuse. It seems that people want to be famous for doing nothing - or drinking. "It was totally different when I was breaking into the business. I learned by standing in the wings and watching established acts on stage. Today, no one seems to have any training. "I'm always being asked if I watch The X Factor and I do from time to time. I know it makes for great TV and that Simon Cowell has a real gift. "But it is a crying shame that kids who ought to have a great future are being ignored. "Another difference is that I was well looked after. Who advised Rhydian to have that hair? I don't call that looking after him."

Shirley had to scrap for her breaks. Raised by a lone mother in the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff, she was repeatedly dismissed until that extraordinary voice finally won over the record labels. By the early Sixties she had a string of hits and an EMI recording contract. Then, in 1964, she found international fame with the title song of Goldfinger, the Bond film. "If hard work and talent can't get you anywhere, what hope is there?" she asks, warming to the theme. "Someone like Tallulah Rendell, a young singer at my 70th party last Sunday, she's got a wonderful voice. "What can she do to get a chance? Why should you have to wear a dress slashed to your backside to get recognised alongside all these no-talent-nothings out there? "I'm for old-fashioned glamour. There's not enough of it. Glamour has gone out of our lives. It's very sad."

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24 December, 2007

Huckabee defends his record

So what happened to Tom Tancredo's Iowa supporters after his 'big announcement' earlier this week? We know that the former-candidate threw his support behind Mitt Romney, but on Friday Tancredo's Iowa state chairman Bill Salier announced that he was supporting Fred Thompson. And while riding through Muscatine on the Huckabus this week, Mike Huckabee was confronted by a very well informed former Tancredo staffer who argued with the Iowa frontrunner over the issue of immigration.

Deb Miller described herself as "looking" for a candidate after her old boss dropped out of the race, and she came to the afternoon rally at the Rendez Vous Banquet Hall equipped with a stack of information compiled from Newsmax and ImmigrationWatchdog.com to help her with her search. Reading from the papers in her lap, Miller asked Huckabee about a passage from his book that described enforcing current immigration laws as "sheer folly" and about three incidents from his time governor that showed questionable strength on combating illegal immigration.

Huckabee addressed her issues point by point, defending his immigration record as compassionate but firm. On giving welfare benefits to illegal aliens: "The point was not, that I supported giving benefits, the deal was I opposed creating another law to do what the law already did," Huckabee said, on his battle against a state legislator to defeat a law that would have curtailed the distribution of welfare benefits in Arkansas. According to Huckabee, the fight was to prevent redundant legislation, not protect illegal immigrant rights.

On his conflict with Immigration and Customs Enforcement regarding the raid of an Arkansas factory that employed illegal immigrants, Huckabee said that his issues surrounded ICE's failure to notify local authorities and to properly care for the children of the immigrants who were arrested. "You should never allow a six month old, a three month old or a six year old to wonder where his mother and father are," Huckabee said. "Nothing can be more traumatic to a child and I don't care if that child is here illegally. I don't want to be a part of a country that would ignore the humane treatment of a child."

But despite Huckabee's best efforts - including a one-on-one conversation after his speech in which he asked her to take a second glance at his record - the generally undecided Miller was still unconvinced. "The scripture says we're supposed to obey the laws of the land," Miller said. "As a Christian, that was my question. You know, how can you justify furthering - rewarding someone who has broken law upon law upon law."

Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul are the only candidates left in the race who truly address the immigration issue, Miller said, but "they don't have a chance," and so she is seriously considering following her old boss towards the Romney camp.

After it became clear that Miller was not going to be persuaded by Huckabee's stance on illegal immigration, the candidate made one last ditch effort for her vote, but couched it in his now infamous good humor: "I hope you'll take a look at our plan and vote for me before it's over, and if not, then stay home that night."

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American Jews still moving to Israel

And an organization which encourages and facilitates "Return" is helping to keep the numbers up



While Immigrant Absorption Ministry data show that aliya figures are down about 9.3 percent for 2007, immigration is up in countries in which Nefesh B'Nefesh operates, according to the organization.

Nefesh B'Nefesh said in a statement that more than 3,000 immigrants had come to Israel from the countries in which it operated this year. "Despite these discouraging figures, Nefesh B'Nefesh is celebrating our sixth year of consistent growth in the amount of olim we bring to Israel," said Nefesh B'Nefesh co-chairman and former ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon. "In truth, we could have brought many more people to Israel if we had more funds available to assist the growing number of Westerners wishing to make aliya."

According to aliya statistics provided by Nefesh B'Nefesh, the numbers of immigrants from North America have jumped from 1,848 in 2000 (when the organization was founded) to 3,190 this year. Because the total number of immigrants from around the world has dropped significantly over the last seven years (from 61,813 in 2000 to an estimated 19,330 this year), the percentage of immigrants from North America has gone up significantly - from just 3% in 2000 to 16.5% this year.

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23 December, 2007

Eyes on Arizona as it turns off immigration magnet

Arizona's get-tough approach on immigration is being watched closely around the nation, and here in Washington, by federal immigration enforcement officials, policymakers, lawmakers immigration advocates and opponents, just about anyone with any interest in the issue. What they're seeing so far is that in advance of a new Arizona law cracking down on the hiring of illegal immigrants that is set to take effect Jan. 1, employers are firing undocumented workers and illegal residents are also leaving the state, some saying they're departing for good.

The Arizona Republic, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and others, have all produced stories recently looking at what's occuring in Arizona. The Republic story, by reporter Daniel González, which ran earlier this week starts this way:

NOGALES, Sonora - It's a common scene this time of year: streams of overloaded cars, pickups and vans with U.S. license plates crossing into Mexico for the holidays. Most are filled with Hispanic families from Arizona and other states on their way to visit relatives south of the border for a few weeks before heading back to the U.S. But this year, the holiday travelers are being joined by scores of families such as Jorge and Liliana Franco, who are driving to Mexico not to visit but to stay - permanently.

Congress' failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform, immigration crackdowns, Arizona's new employer-sanctions law and a sluggish economy have combined to create a climate that undocumented families such as the Francos no longer find hospitable.

The number returning to Mexico is difficult to calculate, but there is no question that many families are leaving, according to Mexican government officials, local community leaders and immigrants themselves. "The situation in Arizona has become very tough," Jorge said minutes after driving into a Mexican immigration and customs checkpoint south of the border on Mexico 15.

Dozens of immigrants are leaving the U.S. daily, and even more are expected to leave once the sanctions law takes effect in January, provided the law survives a last-minute legal challenge, said Rosendo Hernandez, president of the advocacy group Immigrants Without Borders. "If people can't find work, they won't be able to pay their bills, so they will leave," Hernandez said.

The Associated Press had its own version of this story today. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal had a story last week by Miriam Jordan about business response to the new law.

PHOENIX - Arizona businesses are firing Hispanic immigrants, moving operations to Mexico and freezing expansion plans ahead of a new law that cracks down on employers who hire undocumented workers. The law, set to take effect on Jan. 1, thrusts Arizona into the heart of the national debate on illegal immigration, which has become a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail. Republican candidates, in particular, have been battling to show how tough they are on the issue.

Arizona's law, believed to be the strictest in the nation, is shaping up as a test of how employers will react when faced with real sanctions for hiring undocumented labor. It is being closely watched by businesses across the country. While proponents say the crackdown will save the state money on services for illegal immigrants, some businesspeople fear Arizona's economic growth may be at risk.

As the AP story indicates, some of the departing illegal residents could be "trying their luck in other states" which is likely. There are plenty of other states for them to try since no other state has yet gone as far as Arizona, essentially making it a state crime for any employer to knowingly keep an illegal immigrant on the payroll. According to this Stateline.org article, a few states -- Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia--have laws on the books that prevent state contractors from employing undocumented workers.

The manner in which many states have decided to crack down on illegal immigration is currently one of the most fascinating trends and exercises in public policy in the U.S. States have long been called the laboratories of democracy because of their cutting-edge role in trying out new policy initiatives that, when found effective, are expanded to other states and sometimes nationally as the federal government adopts them. (The Stateline.org article does an exhaustive job of describing who's doing what on the state level.)

Of course, some states, like Illinois, New York and California haven't been inclined to crack down, just the opposite. Illinois lawmakers, for instance, passed a law banning in-state employers from checking their employees' legal work status against a federal database. The state and the federal government recently agreed the state wouldn't enforce the law immediately, letting a Homeland Security Department lawsuit against Illinois work its way through the federal courts. But the states that are enacting the anti-immigration legislation appear to have the momentum on their side. And that momentum may become so forceful that we eventually see a defacto national program of immigration enforcement that will force the federal government to eventually act to acknowledge that new reality.

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Britain: Asylum-seekers from Congo face deportation

Britain won't ACTUALLY deport them, of course. They will just sit around being a drain on the taxpayer. That's British logic for you. Even being a criminal is not usually enough to get you deported from Britain -- in that respect rather like the USA

Thousands of failed asylum-seekers face forced removal to the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo, where they say they face rape, torture and even death, after a landmark immigration ruling. The hopes of Congolese asylum-seekers whose cases have been refused rested with one woman, known only as "BK". After a judicial review this year, it was decided that all removals would be put on hold until a ruling was made in her case. With BK's appeal dismissed on the grounds of insubstantial evidence, all those who fled the country's regime are now at risk of being returned.

Immigration experts belive there are 10,000 failed DRC asylum-seekers in the UK, although some think the figure may be as high as several hundred thousand. A two-year moratorium on removals to Zimbabwe ended last month after it was ruled that failed asylum-seekers would not necessarily face persecution on their return.

The DRC is widely acknowledged to be plagued by human rights abuses, and campaigners say returned asylum-seekers become prime targets on arrival because they are seen as traitors.

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22 December, 2007

British government relaxed about foreign criminals

Amusing that the BBC have substantially altered the article below since I downloaded it!

Immigration officials have "no interest" in deporting foreign prisoners who have served less than 12 months in jail, a leaked memo says. The admission was made in a memo from Prison Service deputy director general Michael Spurr to prison governors. The Tories say it means at least 4,000 foreign criminals a year being released rather than deported.

Ministers promised tougher measures after 1,013 foreign prisoners were not considered for deportation last year. They included serious offenders such as murderers and rapists, and the crisis led to the sacking of former home secretary Charles Clarke.

In May 2006 the then prime minister Tony Blair said he was prepared to change the law to ensure most foreign prisoners were deported automatically. Ministers pledged to remove 4,000 overseas prisoners by the end of 2007.

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said that the memo presented a different picture. While it did not go against official policy, the dismissive language used was potentially embarrassing for the government, he said. Mr Spurr wrote that immigration officials had confirmed that "as a rule they have no interest" in pursuing for deportation foreign nationals jailed for less than 12 months. The document also says foreign nationals who are awaiting removal for immigration offences could be moved to open prisons, to create space in other jails.

The Conservatives say that would increase the risk of foreign prisoners absconding, and ignoring prisoners who serve less than 12 months would mean at least 4,000 criminals would escape deportation. Shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert said: "The result will be that foreign thieves, fraudsters, burglars and drugs dealers will be released back into the community. "Gordon Brown claimed that he wanted to send a message that foreign criminals would be deported. "It takes a special kind of cynicism to promise tough action on foreign criminals while simultaneously instructing that the majority of them are to be released."

In October, it was revealed that two prisons, Bullwood Hall in Essex and Canterbury Prison in Kent, had been converted to hold only foreign prisoners. The Ministry of Justice said the jails, which have immigration and language services, were part of a plan to deport as many foreign prisoners as possible. In total, 2,784 prisoners from abroad were deported or removed between April 2006 and March 2007. More than 11,000 of the 81,000 prison population are foreign nationals

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Thompson Says Enforce Immigration Law

Republican Fred Thompson said Thursday there should be few if any exceptions when it comes to enforcing U.S. immigration laws, or the flow of illegal immigrants would continue. Thompson was responding to a question from a man who told of a friend who is a chicken farmer and has to hire workers from Mexico, hoping they have legal status.

While the U.S. president represents that chicken farmer, Thompson said, he also represents millions of other people and future generations who want the nation's laws enforced. "It is not good, in my opinion, for our country to start becoming dependent on a constant flow of illegal immigrants that are usually less educated and come here only because they'll work cheaper than somebody else will," he said. "And when and if they were to assimilate into American society, we would need another 11 or 12 million (illegal immigrants), and another 11 or 12 million after that."

Thompson said the legal immigration system in the U.S. has inefficiencies and people get caught up in the bureaucracy. But he said the rule of law must be the top priority. "We have to look out No. 1 for what is right, what is the law. If you're coming and saying 'It's against the law, but,' I think you've got to have a very good reason, and I very seldom see a reason that justifies the 'but' if it's against the law."

Thompson said the U.S. is capable of making changes to immigration laws that allow employers to meet their work force demands. "We can address, I think, our needs ... without succumbing to the notion that we have to have a constant flow of illegal immigrants," he said.

When the same man pressed Thompson further to talk about his plan for illegal immigrants already in the country, the former Tennessee senator said he believes the issue will be resolved through "enforcement by attrition." Thompson proposes cutting off incentives to illegal immigrants. That means keeping employers from hiring them in the first place, and sealing the borders to keep illegal immigrants going back and forth between jobs and family. He said it also means shutting down sanctuary cities and keeping illegal immigrants from getting college and other breaks. "Over a period of time, I think the situation will reverse itself," he said.

After the event, Thompson was asked by reporters what should happen to children who are born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. - making the children citizens - if their parents are deported. "The parents make that decision, just as parents would under any circumstances," he said. "If they are going to be leaving the country, I would expect them to make the decision to take their child with them. But, if they make other arrangements with a loved one or someone who is here for that child, then they could do that, too."

When asked if the policy allowing those children to have U.S. citizenship should be altered, he said that would require a difficult change to the Constitution. "That's not really as much of a current issue in terms of our illegal immigration problem as chain migration is," he said. "These children can be used as so-called anchor babies and they can grow up and bring in many, many other members of their family. I think that ought to be limited ... to spouses and children. I think that's where our concentration needs to be focusing."

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21 December, 2007

U.S. Senate OKs Myers for Immigration Job

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Julie L. Myers as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two years after President Bush appointed her to the position amid questions about her qualifications to lead the government's second-largest law enforcement agency. Myers was among more than 30 people whose appointments were approved by a voice vote of the Senate as it concluded its session.

Bush had used a recess appointment in 2005 to put Myers, then 36, in charge of ICE, the branch of the Homeland Security Department that enforces immigration laws, when the Senate appeared unlikely to confirm her. Although she was a former Treasury official and assistant U.S. attorney, lawmakers debated whether she had enough experience to lead the agency.

Critics also noted her personal connections within the Bush administration. She was engaged - and is now married - to John F. Wood, who was chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and is now the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo. Ret. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is her uncle. Myers herself was Chertoff's chief of staff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division. However, her appointment in 2005 came after Hurricane Katrina, which brought criticism over the experience of those handling the federal response to the disaster.

Her appointment ran into trouble again this fall when she gave the "most original" costume award to a white employee who came to the agency's Halloween party dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and darkened skin. The incident drew complaints of racial insensitivity and elicited an apology from Myers.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., the Senate's most vocal opponent of Myers' permanent appointment as head of ICE, placed a hold on her nomination after the Halloween incident. The senator's spokeswoman, Adrianne Marsh, said McCaskill "still believes Julie Myers isn't focused enough on employer enforcement and she's not the right pick, but there simply were not enough votes to oppose her nomination."

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the Senate's approval validates Myers' hard work and accomplishments. ICE was formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when parts of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs agencies were merged.

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Democrats immigration dilemma

Post below lifted from Prairie Pundit. See the original for links

Democracy Corps is made up of Democratic operatives like James Carville and Stan Greenberg. They recently did a comprehensive study of the immigration issue and noted some key vulnerabilities.

They note that benefits beyond emergency care and education are opposed by most Democrats, not to mention Republicans. Counter arguments on safety were clearly rejected. Employer enforcement is also strongly supported. In other words on this issue the Democrats are much closer to Republican positions than their own candidates.

What the study does not address is a key vulnerability of the Democrat candidates on the issue of benefits. Around one third of the uninsured in this country are illegal immigrants, yet every Democrat candidate has a proposal to give them health care coverage. They appear to be headed for a collision with their own supporters on this issue and not one has addressed it. Hopefully, Republicans will not make that mistake.

Health care which Democrats think is their issue will turn out to be a real problem for them before this campaign is finished.

BTW, the study appears to suggest that a path to citizenship plan might get majority support. I think Republicans can counter this with an obvious solution. There is already a path to citizenship called an application, and those who came here illegally should not jump in line ahead of those who play by the rules.

This study was not good news for Democrats on an issue that is important to voters of both parties. It will be interesting to see how Democrat "core beliefs" confirm to the survey.



Business as usual

Post below lifted from Dinocrat. See the original for links

The United States government, ever unserious, is busy at work in the final hours before Christmas recess - in a reasonably bi-partisan effort, of course. Washington Times:

Congress last night passed a giant new spending bill that undermines current plans for a U.S.-Mexico border fence, allowing the Homeland Security Department to build a single-tier barrier rather than the two-tier version that has worked in California. The spending bill, written by Democrats and passed 253-154 with mostly their votes, surrenders to President Bush's budget demands.The 2006 Secure Fence Act specifically called for "two layers of reinforced fencing" and listed five specific sections of border where it should be installed. The new spending bill removes the two-tier requirement and the list of locations.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas Republican who has led the charge to change the 2006 law, said she wants to give Homeland Security more flexibility and wants local officials and landowners to be consulted.Rep. Peter T. King, who sponsored the Secure Fence Act, said if the goal was to give DHS flexibility, the senators have failed. "This is either a blatant oversight or a deliberate attempt to disregard the border security of our country," the New York Republican said. "As it's currently written, the omnibus language guts the Secure Fence Act almost entirely. Quite simply, it is unacceptable."

In some important ways, the controversy last summer about the immigration bill was really about the unwillingness of the political elites to honor the mandate of the majority of citizens (of virtually every party and ethnic background) that the government execute some of its bedrock responsibilities with at least a minimum of competence and respect for the electorate - an electorate whose wishes were routinely mocked, belittled, and then ignored by the grandees. Apparently the people are still held in the same disdain by their betters in Congress. Last March, when stumping for his comprehensive bill, President Bush said:

A lot of Americans are skeptical about immigration reform primarily because they don't think the government can fix the problems. And my answer to the skeptics is, give us a chance to fix the problems in a comprehensive way that enforces our border.

"give us a chance to fix the problems." A chance was given; from the looks of things, the government appears to have failed once more. (Congress did choose to fund attorneys for illegal immigrants, so Congress would appear to be making a definitive statement about its priorities.) Though we understand that this is a tiny provision in a large bill, a veto might be an interesting idea in the interests of the GOP in 2008 - but then again President Bush has never really seemed to be serious about border enforcement.





20 December, 2007

No Immigration Reform May Cost NY Farms

This is an old wail but agricultural subsidies have given America far more farmers than it needs so losing a few would be a boon to the taxpayer. And how come American farmers are so piss-weak that they need cheap illegals to operate? Australian farmers export to world markets without such labor

Congress' failure to ensure that there are enough migrant workers in the nation's labor force could eventually cost New York agriculture hundreds of millions of dollars in lost crops and hundreds of thousands of acres in lost farmland, analysts say. "Our country is reaping what Congress has sown," said Craig Regelbrugge, a vice president of the American Nursery and Landscape Association and co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a national coalition of more than 300 agricultural producer associations. The federal government's failure to deal with immigration reform — particularly ensuring there are enough legal migrant farm workers for agricultural states like New York — "constitutes nothing short of a national emergency," Regelbrugge said Tuesday during an agribusiness conference at Cornell University.

The annual conference also took up other farm issues — soaring fuel costs, collapsed housing prices and the impact of biofuel on livestock feed costs. But access to migrant labor is critical for agriculture, which differs from other economic sectors in that most farm work is seasonal. In the 1990s, the American economy created more jobs than it had domestic workers, leaving agriculture even more reliant on an illegal labor force. Nationwide, there are about 1.6 million full-time farm workers, said Regelbrugge. About 80 percent of those workers are foreign born — and nearly seven out of ten are working illegally, he said.

Despite repeated attempts, Congress and the Bush administration have been unable to come up with a long-term strategy on immigration reform and the current temporary worker program is "hobbled by bureaucracy, excessive and burdensome paperwork and restrictive wages," Regelbrugge said. "The situation in agriculture is bad and deteriorating and agriculture needs relief," he said.

Data collected by the Farm Credit Association of New York indicates that failing to develop a functional immigration worker program could cripple operations on over 800 New York farms and put sales of approximately $700 million of agricultural products at risk, said Regelbrugge. Without enough workers, as much as 750,000 acres of farmland could be converted to less labor-intensive — and less profitable — crops, while as many as 16,000 jobs that depend on the farm sector could be lost, he said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported there were approximately 35,000 farms in New York in 2006, down about 600 from 2005. Those farms produced roughly $3.7 billion in products on about 7.5 million acres.

Reports from around the state indicated that labor supplies were sufficient this year, said Thomas Maloney, a senior extension associate in applied economics at Cornell who studies agriculture-immigration issues in New York. Maloney said he knew of no reports of measurable economic losses due to labor shortages. But he said surveys showed the lack of reform has led to anxiety among growers, who worry that they will not have enough workers for future harvests. "As a result of immigration enforcement activities, New York's farm managers are beginning to make choices they would not otherwise make," Maloney said. Such choices include holding off expansion plans, exploring alternative labor pools, and switching to less labor-intensive crops.

Maloney said Cornell researchers are trying to come up with an exact number of unauthorized immigrant farm workers in New York. In a survey last year of 105 Hispanic dairy farm workers, Maloney found nearly two-thirds were in the U.S. illegally. If the federal government cannot resolve the larger issue of immigration reform, it should at least come up with a separate worker program for agriculture, Maloney and Regelbrugge said.

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English a minority language in 1,300 British schools

Children with English as their first language are now in the minority in more than 1,300 schools, according to official figures. The Daily Telegraph has obtained data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families illustrating the impact of high levels of immigration on the education system. The figures show that in a total of 1,338 primary and secondary schools - more than one in 20 of all schools in England - children with English as their first language are in the minority. In 600 of these schools, fewer than a third of pupils speak English as their first language.

The disclosure led to warnings that the rising number of foreign pupils without a decent grasp of English was putting intense pressure on teachers and undermining education standards. The figures have fuelled demands from teachers' leaders for more money to help meet the costs of teaching foreign-born children. Teachers' unions said educating a single non-English-speaking pupil could cost as much as œ30,000 a year. Coping with large numbers of foreign children risked undermining the quality of teaching given to all pupils, they said.

Philip Parkin, the general secretary of the Professional Association of Teachers, said rising levels of immigration and a lack of multi-lingual teaching staff were "providing serious challenges" for schools trying to maintain standards. Dealing with non-English- speaking children "makes it much harder to deliver the curriculum", Mr Parkin said. "Schools that are in that position need considerable support in order to give those children help with English and help with our curriculum. "The Government needs to be looking at funding the employment of teachers or teaching assistants, in addition to the staff they have, who are bilingual or multilingual."

Last month, the National Association of Head Teachers said some schools were struggling to cope with the influx of foreign pupils. Mick Brookes, the union's general secretary, told a Lords committee that the situation was "out of control". A rush of migrants into an area can "strain or even break the resources of the school", he said. Last night, Mr Brookes said the latest figures proved the case for putting additional resources into the areas dealing with large numbers of non-English speakers. "There are children who cannot speak the language," he said. "Others are refugees who may have witnessed some horrible things. "These children may not just need support to speak English, but often they require counselling to talk them through the trauma they have witnessed."

Data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families show that in 574 of the 17,361 primary schools in England, children without English as a first language make up between 51 and 70 per cent of all pupils. Another 569 primaries have more than 70 per cent who count English as a second language. In 112 of the 3,343 secondary schools, children without English as a first language make up 51 to 70 per cent of all pupils. In another 83 secondary schools, the proportion is above 70 per cent. The total number of schools where pupils with a first language other than English make up at least 51 per cent of the population is 1,338.

Following patterns of immigration, children who do not speak English as a first language are heavily concentrated in certain areas of the country, especially London. The 20 councils with the highest concentration of non-English speaking children are in London. In the borough of Newham, nine out of 10 schools have a non-English first language majority. The same is true of a third of schools in Leicester and in Blackburn, and a quarter of schools in Birmingham.

Gordon Brown last week repeated calls for immigrants to learn English, but critics say he is not doing enough to fund proper language teaching for immigrant children. David Davis, the Conservative shadow home secretary, accused the Government of failing to meet the costs of its immigration policy. "We have been warning the Government for years now of the consequences for schools of the very high rate of immigration," he said. "This shows how many schools will face real difficulties."

The Government said last night that it was properly funding schools facing extra costs from children struggling with English. A DCSF spokesman said: "We have listened to the unions' concerns and are increasing funding in the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant to œ206 million by 2010. "We have also introduced new guidance for teachers to work with new arrivals. There's actually surplus money in the school system to deal with any 'exceptional circumstances'."

But even Labour MPs have expressed concern that the Government is failing to keep up with immigration. Phyllis Starkey, the Labour chairman of the communities and local government committee of MPs, last week warned Mr Brown that funding delays risked inflaming "community conflict". Many of the pupils without English as their first language are the children of the 600,000 eastern Europeans who have come to Britain since the European Union's eastward expansion in 2004. Official statistics last week showed that one in five births in Britain last year was to a woman from overseas.

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New Australian Immigration Minister grants residency to wrongfully detained refugee

This is mere justice for a man who has been so badly hurt by official bungling

Tony Tran, a refugee whose health and family life was blighted after he was wrongfully detained 5« years ago, has been granted permission to live in Australia. The resolution of his case marks the first step by the new Labor Government to resolve the cases of 247 people found to have been unlawfully detained by immigration authorities in recent years. The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, announced yesterday that he had granted Binh Van Tran, known as Tony Tran, permanent resident status.

Mr Tran was detained for breaching immigration laws. It was later discovered that the Immigration Department had failed to notify him that his visa had expired. After being detained, he was separated from his wife, who returned to South Korea, and from his young Australian-born son, whom officials sought to deport. During his detention, Mr Tran was stabbed and bashed by another detainee and still suffers from health problems as a result. His case was aired by ABC television during the election campaign and was one of 247 cases referred to the Commonwealth Ombudsman by the Immigration Department in 2005 and last year.

Mr Tran had lived in Australia for seven years, married and had a mortgage before his detention. He was detained months after coming to the attention of immigration officials, when he inquired about a spouse visa for his wife. Mr Tran, who was born in Vietnam but had grown up in the United States as a refugee, had come to Australia on a visa. He had believed he was on a valid visa at the time of his arrest in Brisbane for being an illegal resident.

"I am committed to resolving outstanding issues I have inherited in this portfolio," Senator Evans said. "Part of the process of resolving these outstanding issues is my decision today to grant Mr Tran permanent residence. This is a longstanding case on which the Ombudsman has reported, and which my department has been working on to reach a resolution. "We need to continue to resolve these outstanding cases so that we can rebuild confidence in the system."

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19 December, 2007

Intifada On The Mexican Border

Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links

This is just lovely. It seems that US Border Patrol agents are coming under increasing numbers of attacks - mostly by rock-throwing Mexicans - at the US border with Mexico. Agents have responded more aggressively in recent months as longer-range, non-lethal weapons have become available. The agents are firing pepper ball weapons and teargas back at the rock-throwers.

The Border Patrol says its agents have been attacked nearly 1,000 times during a one-year period. The agency's top official in San Diego, Mike Fisher, said agents are taking action because Mexican authorities have been slow to respond. When an attack happens, he said, American authorities often wait hours for them to come, and help usually never arrives. "We have been taking steps to ensure that our agents are safe," Fisher said.

Mexico's acting consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda, has insisted that U.S. authorities stop firing onto Mexican soil. He met with Border Patrol officials last month after the agency fired tear gas into Mexico. The agency defended that counterattack, saying agents were being hit with a hail of ball bearings from slingshots in Mexico.

U.S. officials say the violence indicates that smugglers are growing more desperate as stepped-up security makes it harder to sneak across the border. The assailants try to distract agents long enough to let people dash in the United States.

The head of a union representing Border Patrol employees said the violence also results from the decision to put agents right up against the border, a departure from the early 1990s when they waited farther back to make arrests. "When you get that close to the fence, your agents are sitting ducks," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

Border Patrol agents were attacked 987 times along the U.S.-Mexico border during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, the agency said. That's up 31 percent from 752 attacks a year earlier, and it's the highest number since the agency began recording attacks in the late 1990s. About two-thirds of the attacks were with rocks. Many of the rest involved physical assaults, such as illegal immigrants getting into fist fights with guards. About one of every four attacks occurred in San Diego, and most of those happened along a heavily fortified, 10-mile stretch of the border starting at the Pacific Ocean.

By refusing to deal with this on their side of the border, Mexico is inviting a tragedy. When it comes - and it likely will - it will be their fault, not the fault of the United States.



Illegal immigrant was working at front desk of Britain's Home Office

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith faced huge embarrassment last night after it emerged that an illegal immigrant had been caught working on the front desk at the Home Office. The Nigerian man was picked up as immigration officers examined the status of more than 11,000 foreigners mistakenly cleared to work across Britain. Aides said the Home Secretary was furious over the discovery of an illegal worker within her own department. The security guard had been in the department for about 18 months, checking the passes of visitors to the Home Office. The man, supplied to the department by a sub-contractor, faces deportation after being arrested on Friday night.

The Border and Immigration Agency had been examining the records of 11,100 non-European Union nationals given permission to work by the Security Industry Authority (SIA). It uncovered problems with a sub-contractor and the trail led it to the Home Office, its own department headquarters. One security guard was detained and the immigration status of all others supplied by the sub-contractor to Ms Smith's department are being checked.

The Home Secretary added in a written statement to MPs last night: "The Permanent Secretary has taken immediate steps to tighten the procedures for checking the immigration status of those working in the Home Office, whether as a civil servant, employed by a contractor, or in any other capacity."

The latest episode echoes the discovery last year of five illegal immigrants working as cleaners in immigration offices just days after John Reid became the Home Secretary.

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said Ms Smith had been at pains last week to blame employers for the "SIA shambles". He said: "If she is going to try and avoid responsibility in such away she should at least check her own house is in order. "Who will the Home Office now prosecute and fine? Itself?" He added: "It is clear this Government is part of the problem, not the solution." Jeremy Browne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "The Home Office seems to mess up with depressing regularity, but this latest breach of security goes literally to the heart of government."

The blunder over security guards emerged in the summer after an illegal immigrant was found guarding the yard where the Prime Minister's car was taken for repairs. It was also disclosed that Ms Smith had accepted Home Office press office advice in August not to tell the public about immigration control mistakes. When the problem became public, initial estimates put the figure of numbers affected at 5,000. But last week Ms Smith indicated the figure could be as high as 11,100. She disclosed that the SIA handed permits to 6,650 illegal workers, plus a further 4,450 people who officials believe may not have the right to work.

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Italy: Jail for immigrant who murdered commuter with umbrella

A ROMANIAN woman who killed a Rome metro passenger by stabbing her through the eye with an umbrella was jailed for 16 years today, judicial sources said.

The crime shocked Italy and was one of a serious of violent crimes that rallied anti-immigration activists this year to strengthen the hand of law enforcement. Doina Matei, 21 was caught on closed-circuit security cameras fleeing the subway station after attacking the 23-year-old woman victim.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government issued a decree last month that has allowed officials to expel potentially dangerous immigrants from European Union nations like Romania.

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18 December, 2007

GOP Candidates Get Religion On Immigration

By Michelle Malkin

EVERY DEMOCRAT RUNNING for president thinks anti-illegal immigration activists are all racists and xenophobes. Do we really need a Republican nominee for president who thinks the same way?

Breakout GOP candidate Mike Huckabee, the soft-on-border control former governor of Arkansas, scored a jaw-dropping endorsement Tuesday from Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. Despite a long gubernatorial record opposing employer sanctions and pushing tax-subsidized illegal alien education benefits, Huckabee won Gilchrist's support by unveiling a last-minute, tough-sounding homeland security plan Trouble is, Huckabee has downright and longstanding contempt for his new bedfellows of convenience.

Just two years ago, Huckabee appeared before the open-borders Hispanic group, The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), preaching an open-door policy. According to the Arkansas News Bureau, Huckabee also criticized state legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and enhanced reporting of illegal aliens as un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life - not to mention "inflammatory," "race-baiting" and "demagoguery." Just last year, Huckabee lambasted opponents of the bipartisan shamnesty bill providing a mass pardon to illegal aliens as "driven by racism or nativism."

He called strict immigration enforcement - the kind he now supports - "sheer folly" in his campaign-timed book released earlier this year. He actively invited the Mexican government to establish a consulate in Arkansas - giving its office a $1 per year special office space rate - so that its foreign officials could start dispensing security-undermining matricula consular ID cards to illegal aliens for banking and employment purposes. And he's not only for government in-state illegal alien discounts, he's for expanding them far beyond what the federal DREAM Act proposed.

But now that he needs to establish his border control bona fides, Huckabee is all honey. "Frankly, Jim," he said to the Minuteman Project founder at a press conference in Iowa on Tuesday, "I've got to tell you there were times in the early days of the Minutemen I thought, `What are these guys doing, what are they about?' I confess I owe you an apology."

It's Gilchrist and those who allow themselves to be snowed by Huckabee's cynical conversion who'll be sorry and deep in apology debt, I guarantee you.

Huckabee showed his true colors at the Univision Spanish-language debate last weekend, when he pandered to the crowd by lamenting "racial profiling" of immigrants - while remaining silent about catch-and-release policies that fail to detain criminal aliens who go on to commit more heinous crimes because politically correct politicians and police chiefs are more concerned with being accused of "racial profiling" than protecting the public.

Huckabee isn't the only shameless border control cross-dresser in the GOP field, of course. Rudy "I-supported sanctuary-policies-before-I-was-against-them, but-my-sanctuary-policy-wasn't-really-a-sanctuary-policy,-anyway" Giuliani now quotes "the advice of a great man, Father Hesburgh, who said, `We must close the back door of illegal immigration in order to preserve the front door of legal immigration.'" In an interview with Washington Examiner reporter and author Bill Sammon, Giuliani now says he really, truly would have deported 400,000 illegal aliens in New York if he could have. Never mind that small matter of the lawsuit he brought against the feds to block them from enforcing immigration laws. Never mind that he was openly inviting illegal aliens into his open-borders safe harbors.

Reports Sammon: "Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens," the mayor said at a 1994 press conference. "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair."

Bringing up the false convert rear is Sen. John McCain. Earlier this year, he was the most vocal critic of grass-roots conservatives who mobilized against the amnesty bill. He now says he has learned his lesson and supports securing the border. He has learned nothing.

During the shamnesty debacle, he called Rush Limbaugh a "nativist;" over the weekend, he repeated such contemptuous "straight talk" at the Univision debate by assailing what he called anti-Hispanic rhetoric. In an interview with the New Yorker, he dismissed immigration concerns in Iowa as marginal and irrational - just a bunch of "senior citizens" in Iowa caught up in the "emotion" of a cultural assault.

Bad enough that the Democrat candidates are still stuck in a 9/10 mentality on the nexus between immigration and national security. The question for conservatives is: Would a Republican immigration drag queen be any better - or worse?

Source



Britain: Immigration centre riot after detainees 'went wild'

Detainees at an Oxfordshire immigration centre "went wild" on Monday after security guards in riot gear removed an inmate from his cell, campaigners said. Police and fire services were called to Campsfield House near Kidlington after reports of a disturbance in the early hours. Supporters from the Campaign to Close Campsfield said that "a handful" of detainees had broken CCTV cameras and light fittings, flooded toilets and set fire to blankets. They said the violence erupted shortly after 5.20am when ten officers entered the cell of Davis Osagie in Blue Block.

Campaigner Bob Hughes said: "They told me that the guards did not give the man a chance to go quietly. Ten men in riot gear walked straight in at 5.20am and almost went straight in with boots and fists." A handful of detainees "went wild and broke things", he said. He said that detainees reported that the building was now cold with water everywhere and some men had not eaten breakfast and were all confined in their rooms "too exhausted" to create any more trouble.

The centre holds 218 male detainees and was converted in 1993 to hold immigrants awaiting deportation. It has been the subject of a campaign to close it for many years.

In March this year nine people were taken to hospital suffering smoke inhalation after violence broke out and fires were set. Months later, in August, 26 men broke out after starting fires. Police recaptured 12 men the following day but some still remain at large.

A Border and Immigration Agency spokesman said: "The Prison Service and police have assisted the Border and Immigration Agency by securing the perimeter which has not been breached. GEO, who run the site, have asked the Prison Service for assistance, and a number of specially-trained prison officers have been sent to Campsfield."

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17 December, 2007

Immigration issue of concern to Democrats too

The prairie fire ignited by immigration is turning into an inferno, with potentially explosive impact on the 2008 election. Already, it has become the defining issue in the battle between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee for first place in Iowa's Jan. 3 presidential caucuses. But while immigration is drawing attention as a Republican issue - driven by attack and response ads on TV - it's not solely a concern of Republican voters.

Immigration is also a worry for a significant, and possibly growing, number of Democrats and independents, too. And that could pose an especially tricky problem for the Democratic nominee, who will almost certainly have to deal with Republican attempts to use immigration as a wedge issue to split off Democratic votes in the fall election.

The other day, when Democratic candidate John Edwards came to Marshalltown, about an hour's drive through the countryside from the capital city of Des Moines, getting the immigration problem fixed was on the minds of some of those who heard his pitch. "It has taken a lot of our jobs away," says Clyde Knoll, 74, who has lived in this town of 27,000 all his life. "What are you going to do about immigration, to stop all the erosion of our jobs and stuff that's coming into this country?"

Edwards assured the roomful of prospective caucus-goers that he was fully aware of just "how hot and divisive this issue is. I do understand that." Still, the "mess" on "our southern border" can be remedied, he says. Technology, including unmanned drones, more border patrol agents and new fences at strategic spots along the U.S.-Mexico line could help stop illegal entry into this country. The government also needs to crack down on employers who violate the law, he says. Then he added a final point, one that, he acknowledges, is "a little more controversial - If you want to become an American citizen, you ought to learn to speak English." The nearly all-white audience burst into applause.

As they left the room, Iowa voters confronted a table arrayed with a variety of Edwards campaign literature, one of which omitted his English-before-citizenship message: A stack of full-color brochures, printed on slick magazine paper with text completely in Spanish, promoted "John Edwards para Presidente. Caucuses de Iowa - 3 de enero."

The Spanish-language fliers, aimed at Iowa's small but expanding Latino population, touted his plans to end the war in Iraq, strengthen schools for all children, toughen civil rights enforcement and gain passage in Congress of the DREAM act, which would offer a way for younger illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens. The brochure also detailed Edwards' immigration plan: strengthen border enforcement, punish employers and devise a path to citizenship that would reunite families kept apart by immigration problems. His proposal to make proficiency in English a requirement for citizenship wasn't mentioned. (The flier did give the Internet address of Edwards' Spanish language Web site, which includes the English-language requirement.)

Once the general election campaign gets under way, it may not be so easy for Democrats to offer selective messages to different audiences on this incendiary issue. And while most of the Republican candidates seem ready, if not eager, to capitalize on anti-immigrant attitudes, the Democratic nominee will have to walk a more nuanced line.

The reason for that balancing act lies in one of the biggest advantages Democrats are thought to enjoy in the '08 election: lopsided support across the country from Hispanic voters, whose influence could be pivotal. These voters are concentrated in a number of states that President Bush carried narrowly in the last election, including New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Florida. If Hispanics vote Democratic in large enough numbers next fall, they could bring those states to the Democratic side.

The meeting with Edwards left Knoll dissatisfied with the candidate's answer to his question about immigration. The Democratic voter said that his party's politicians aren't getting nearly tough enough on the problem. "I'm sorry to say, a lot of them even favor this immigration," Knoll says.

This heartland state might be far from the Mexican border, but the immigration issue has become inflamed in recent years. Politicians of both parties point to a variety of causes, from economic anxieties to racism to the drumbeat from conservative and populist commentators such as CNN's Lou Dobbs. Here in Marshalltown, where anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 Mexicans have moved in since the early 1990s, local officials have worked hard to cope with the influx. A raid by the Immigration service at a meatpacking plant last December drew national attention, but some residents say the community has turned a corner in dealing with the strains on local schools and other social problems.

Many remain troubled, though. Ken Callen, 58, retired from his job as a production controller at the Lennox Industries factory, feels that things were better before Hispanics migrated to his hometown. An independent voter who plans to caucus for Edwards, he believes the recent arrivals should have to learn English. Shown a copy of his candidate's Spanish language brochure, he shrugged. "Well, you've got to reach the masses," he says with a smile. He also thinks folks in other parts of the country are kidding themselves if they believe illegal immigration won't become a problem for them, too. "This is probably a bad comparison, but it's like your neighbor has 10 or 12 cockroaches," he says. "Or mice. Or rabbits."

Recent national opinion surveys confirm a sharp swing toward the Democrats among Hispanics, who increasingly regard the Republican Party as hostile to their interests. That shift is due, at least in part, to Congress's failure to approve comprehensive immigration reform this year and a perception that Republicans were largely to blame. Registered Latino voters favor Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 34 percentage points, up from 21 points from last year, according to a nationwide survey by the Pew Hispanic Center. But Latinos may cast less than 7 percent of the vote in next fall's election, the Pew center also reported.

Democratic gains among Hispanics could be neutralized in the selection of the next president if a tough Republican line on immigration attracts a significant number of independent and Democratic votes. That could certainly be the case in closely contested Iowa, where Democrats barely won in 2000 and Republicans prevailed by a narrow margin in 2004. Strategists will be watching other swing states as well, to see how one of the hottest issues plays out next fall.

Source



Britain fiddles with immigration restrictions

If they were serious, they would start arresting the huge numbers who have been denied residency but who just stay on anyway

Plans for a crackdown on foreign visitors to Britain are to be unveiled this week in a fresh attempt to tighten the country's borders. Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, will propose restrictions on millions of people, including those who take advantage of a system of "sponsored family visits". Families who "sponsor" visits, on temporary visas, from relatives abroad may have to put up a cash bond - possibly of 1,000 pounds - before their visitors are allowed in.

The move is also set to see the ordinary tourist visa having its limit halved from six months to three. The plans will potentially affect millions of people who come to Britain on temporary visas every year from outside the European Union.

Mr Byrne told The Sunday Telegraph last night: "Over the next 12 months we will see the biggest shake-up of the immigration system in its history. The final front, I believe, is foreign visitor routes where change is needed."

The crackdown comes as Gordon Brown's Government seeks to regain the political initiative, following a series of crises over the past few months which have seen Labour's support plunge in the opinion polls. One survey has put the party 11 points behind the Conservatives. The Prime Minister and senior ministers intend to use immigration and plans for stronger borders as part of a New Year initiative to outflank the Tories, who they claim are weak on the issue.

Labour strategists believe that if the Tories oppose the plan for new restrictions on foreign visitors, they will alienate their Right-of-centre core vote. Conservative leader David Cameron has so far fought shy of addressing immigration directly, although he has admitted that he believes overall numbers are currently "too high".

Earlier this year, Mr Byrne announced plans to streamline the system of allowing foreign visitors into Britain from outside the EU into just four categories of visas: tourist, business, student and sponsored family visit. Only the new student category has come into force. The shake-up was announced when Tony Blair was prime minister and John Reid was home secretary. This week's announcement - going significantly further than the original plan - is designed to show that Mr Brown and Jacqui Smith, Mr Reid's successor, are prepared to be even tougher than their predecessors. Mr Byrne is now tightening the sponsored family visit option, proposing it should be available only to British citizens who have full residency in the UK. The sponsor would in effect be fined the amount of the bond, should family visitors overstay their time in Britain or breach the terms of their visas.

Ministers originally proposed such a system in March but it was rejected after strong protests from immigration rights groups. The Government is now proposing bringing the bond measure back as part of the wide-ranging consultation exercise Mr Byrne will unveil this week. The right of appeal against any decision by immigration authorities not to allow a visa could also be scaled back or withdrawn altogether.

Home Office immigration figures show some 12.9 million people came into Britain temporarily last year, up more than 2.5 million over 10 years. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "This is yet another desperate grab for headlines by an immigration minister who does not recognise the need for a strict limit on the number of economic migrants coming into Britain."

Source





16 December, 2007

Romney vows to eradicate illegal immigration

Turning up the already heated rhetoric on border security marking the GOP presidential race, Mitt Romney promised Friday "no illegal immigration" when he's in charge. In the west-central Iowa town of Carroll, his presidential campaign attached the billing "Strategy for a Stronger America: Enforcing Our Immigration Laws" to a standard stump talk and question-and-answer session with 100 people.

None of them asked about immigration, but the former Massachusetts governor spent several minutes explaining his proposals to address undocumented workers. (He also took shots at former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, the ex-governor of Arkansas, for their past support of policies that he said encouraged illegal immigrants to work or attend college in the United States.)

One of Romney's ideas calls for a national "employment verification system" to ensure that people entering the country are carded and legally employed. "Those here illegally won't be able to get a job, because they won't have that employment verification card," he said. Then the candidate looked toward the back of the room at Carroll County Sheriff Doug Bass. "Sheriff Bass, that would make your job a little easier, wouldn't it?" Bass agreed, but dispassionately.

Afterward, the longtime sheriff told The Kansas City Star that illegal immigrants didn't present much of a problem in Carroll County, population 21,000. "We have some. Don't have a lot. They really don't cause us a lot of grief," Bass said. "Once or twice a month we'll go out and arrest someone here illegally, take him to jail and let (federal authorities) pick him up."

Neighboring Crawford County has a far greater population of illegal immigrants because of packing houses there. But Douglas Burns, a local newspaper columnist who attended the Romney event, said: "They are saving the economy of western Iowa. "We have a worker shortage as it is - too many elderly people," said Burns, who noted that the area's Hispanic population was young.

Romney's comments were applauded nonetheless. Even Bass (who is a Democrat) said he agreed in principle that the nation needed enforceable immigration laws. And on other issues, Romney strikes him as "pretty impressive."

Source



A modern tale of two cities

A sweeping reform bill failed to pass Congress this summer, leaving communities frustrated over how to deal with the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the US. That has led many to take matters into their own hands, enacting tough new laws to tackle illegal immigration.

Some of the toughest measures have been introduced in Virginia's Prince William County. There, a new resolution allows local police to check the immigration status of anyone they arrest if they suspect them of being in the country illegally. That person can then be detained and handed over to federal immigration officials for possible deportation.

"Many residents are very upset that people are coming into the country illegally and then demanding rights, demanding that people speak their language, and at the same time, impacting their community," says Prince William's top elected official, Corey Stewart, Chairman of the Board of County Supervisors. "We have two hospitals in the county, both of which have emergency rooms that are filled with lines of what we believe are mostly illegal immigrants there to receive routine medical care. "And the reason they go to the emergency medical rooms is they know that under federal law, the hospitals must treat them if the person says it's an emergency, even though it's not. "I think Prince William County and the problems that we're having with illegal immigration are a microcosm of the country as a whole."

Local newspaper reporter Keith Walker says the issue has dominated the front pages of the Potomac News for several months, with most residents supporting the county measures. "These are the sort of letters we've been getting here," he says, opening the paper. "Since when did it become so hard to understand right from wrong?," he reads. "When did people forget that illegal meant unlawful? The pro-illegal groups like to draw no distinction between a legal immigrant and illegal immigrant, but there is a world of difference. "Legal immigrants respect our country enough to follow its laws. Illegals think they are above reproach and should be rewarded."

But at the Potomac Mills Mall, not everybody doing their holiday shopping is happy. "I think it's horrible actually," says one young mother. "I think it's a bill that is not being just to the immigrants and they do a lot of work for us, be it construction jobs to working in McDonalds - things that Americans won't do. So I'm very much against it." Another resident who emigrated legally from the Czech Republic agrees. "It's awful, really awful," he says. "Maybe illegal immigration is a problem - but you have to be practical. "Once the people are here, have lived many years here, have families, you cannot just kick them out."

Other regions have taken the opposite approach to illegal immigration, believing that integration is a better way forward. In Takoma Park, Maryland, the local government has declared the city an "immigration sanctuary". "People who are not US citizens, whether they are in this country with documentation or not, have full access to all city services," says City Mayor Kathy Porter. "It also means that our police department does not co-operate with the federal immigration and customs enforcement department in enforcing federal immigration laws."

Ms Porter believes that the federal immigration policy is the responsibility of the federal government alone. "As a local official, my responsibility is to provide services to my residents," she adds. "And I believe that having an open policy towards immigrants helps preserve public order because it encourages a relationship of trust between the police department and our immigrant communities."

Advocacy groups say the growing patchwork of state and local legislation is not the solution to America's immigration issue. Mary Waslin, of the Immigration Policy Centre, says it should be the responsibility of Congress - and that some of the harsher local laws are causing deep division across the country. "You cannot tell somebody's immigration status simply by looking at them, by their appearance," she says. "So where these proposals have come up we've seen a great deal of discrimination and racial profiling. "People assume that certain people are immigrants or assume that they are undocumented immigrants based on their appearance. "And so what we've seen is that the entire Latino community, for instance, is feeling increasingly under attack, regardless of their immigration status."

Many regions are facing legal challenges to their local immigration laws. And with Congress unlikely to tackle the crisis for at least another year or more, immigration has become a hot topic among White House contenders. Finding a new way forward will be one of the most pressing tasks facing the new president.

Source





15 December, 2007

Leftists hate FAIR

What the far-Left SPLC says below. Anybody who disagrees with the Left is a "racist", of course. George Bush is even a Nazi! Language is a devalued currency among Leftists and giving the full facts of anything seems to be beyond them. And quoting Belgium as an authority is amusing. See here for a comment on where most of the "hate speech" in America comes from.

Note that the attack is entirely "ad hominem" -- a method of argument that is of no scholarly repute whatever and which logicians identify as a fallacy. In other words they just abuse the arguer rather than address the facts and arguments put forward by the arguer. All typically Leftist, of course

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is almost certainly the most-quoted immigration restriction organization in America. In just the last few weeks, its leaders have enlightened cable viewers with their views on such topics as "American `Intifada' in Our Future?" "Driving While Illegal," "Should ALL Illegal Aliens Be Deported?" and "Economic Impact of Migration." In the past six years, FAIR officials have testified at least 30 times to Congress. Day in and day out, FAIR is taken seriously as a mainstream commentator on the immigration debate.

It shouldn't be. The founder, chief ideologue and long-time funder of FAIR is a racist. Key staff members have ties to white supremacist groups, some are members, and some have spoken at hate group functions. FAIR has accepted more than $1 million from a racist foundation devoted to studies of race and IQ, and to eugenics - the pseudo-science of breeding a better human race that was utterly discredited by the Nazi euthanasia program. It spreads racist conspiracy theories. Its political ads have caused numerous politicians, Democratic and Republican, to denounce it.

Much of this has been known for years. But last February, underlining the way that FAIR does business, its leaders met with the leaders of Vlaams Belang - a hastily renamed Belgian party that under a prior appellation, Vlaams Blok, was officially banned by the Belgian Supreme Court as a racist and xenophobic group. It was, for some, a final straw - the Rubicon of hate, as it were. When FAIR officials met with Vlaams Belang leaders to seek their "advice" on immigration, we decided to take another look at FAIR. When our work was done, it was obvious that FAIR qualified as a hate group. Early next year, when the Southern Poverty Law Center's annual hate group list is published, FAIR will be on the list.

The results of our investigation are contained in an article being published today in SPLC's Intelligence Report and on the Web. In addition to this evidence, the Report in 2002 published a major investigation of John Tanton, who founded FAIR and remains a key player on its board today. A 2001 Report article also included brief profiles of immigration restrictionist groups, including FAIR.

The identification of FAIR as a bona fide hate group is important. FAIR is the hub of the American nativist movement, the group that more than any other has contributed to the rancid turn the national immigration discussion has taken. With FAIR fanning the flames of xenophobic intolerance, hate groups, hate crimes and hate speech directed at foreigners and Latinos continue to rise in America.

Source



Quick summary of the Republican contenders from Reuters

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani

Supports building the border fence and maintaining 20,000 Border Patrol agents. Urges issuing a single biometric identification card to foreigners, creating a national database and removing those immigrants who have overstayed their visas. Backs deporting illegal immigrants who commit felonies and requiring immigrants to read, write and speak English. Opposes driver's licenses or similar identification for illegal immigrants.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee

Says securing borders must be a top priority and has reached the level of a national emergency. Supports the $3 billion the Senate has voted for border security. Says people caught trying to enter the United States illegally must be detained, processed and deported. Opposes giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and supports legislation to prevent states from doing so.

Arizona Sen. John McCain

Initially supported temporary guest worker program for illegal immigrants but has since shifted his position to emphasize border security first.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney

Backs securing the border with a wall, fence or electronic surveillance. Urges creating a biometric documentation program and establishing a verification system. Supports an increase in legal immigration into the United States and opposes compromise on immigration amnesty. Against driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson

Opposes providing any legal status to illegal immigrants and urges tougher enforcement against them and their employers. Backs cutting off federal funds to cities that try to restrict communications with the Department of Homeland Security about an individual's immigration status. Urges finishing border wall by 2010, expanding Border Patrol to at least 25,000, making English the official language and improving the legal immigration process.

Source



Reuters on the facts about U.S. immigration

Here are some facts on immigration in the United States.

* There were an estimated 34.2 million immigrants in the United States in 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Of these, 18.3 million came from Latin America, 8.7 million from Asia and 4.7 million from Europe.

* An estimated 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants live and work in the United States, roughly one in every 20 workers, according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center based on government figures.

* Some 1.1 million people were arrested crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in 2006, most of them from Mexico and Central America.

* In 2006, President George W. Bush proposed an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws, offering a path to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, together with a guest worker program, and tougher border and workplace enforcement.

* The legislation was opposed by Republicans in the House of Representatives who backed a tougher security program but were against any effort to grant citizenship rights to illegal immigrants.

Source





14 December, 2007

Israel has illegal immigration problems too

Arguing that his unit has learned from mistakes that generated uncomplimentary headlines, Immigration Police Lt.-Cmdr. Effi Mor promised in an interview with The Jerusalem Post this week that his officers have been getting a crash course in displaying greater sensitivity as they tackle one of their more difficult challenges: dealing with people whose sole crime is being here illegally.

Just over two years ago, the Hotline for Migrant Workers, a watchdog body that lobbies for the rights of thousands of foreign workers in Israel, petitioned the High Court of Justice, accusing the Immigration Police of being violent and overly aggressive in its search for illegal aliens and chided the unit for not going after the real criminals - the agencies that brought them here. Both before the lawsuit and in the months that followed, the local media had a field day reporting on dozens of cases of migrant workers, some legal and others who are here illegally (sometimes for legitimate reasons), who had been mistreated, beaten and eventually deported at the hands of this newly established body.

In the five-and-a-half years since its inception, the Immigration Police has undergone a transformation in both its behavior on the ground and its focus in general, claims Mor, the newly appointed chief of the Immigration Police, who took over this challenging role less than three months ago. The irony of our work, says the 57-year-old Ashkelon native, is that the police are trained to deal with criminals and most of these illegal workers are not criminals. "Their only crime is to be in the country illegally, and in the past our work ended up infringing on innocent people's basic rights," he says. "Because of that we had a lot of negative headlines, but we have learned now."

By learning, Mor means that his department of 382 officers has gone through a rigorous training process in an attempt to be more sensitive to a population of ordinary working-class people in search of a better life. Among the steps taken by the unit is the establishment of a database of translators to help navigate the myriad of languages spoken by more than 90,000 illegal foreign workers, and a refocusing of its priorities away from midnight raids and other brutal tactics. "We see a lot of social issues and now realize that in most cases, the worker has left his native country, his family and his culture to come here and make money to help his family back home," says Mor, who formerly headed the force's Lachish District. "Sadly, there are many people who take advantage of them, and that's what we have to focus on now."

To catch those who are behind this very lucrative business, Mor talks about establishing a National Immigration Authority, instituting biometric checks and tackling the current loopholes that allows this phenomenon to continue.

Much more here



Britain: 11,000 bouncers are illegals

A bit amusing somehow. It's typical British bureaucratic bungledom, that's for sure

The number of migrants found to be illegally working in the private security industry is more than double the figure given by the Home Office last month. More than 11,000 migrants were issued with the licences by the organisation set up to vet those employed as security guards and doormen, despite having no right to work in this country. The latest figures show that an estimated one in four of 40,000 nonEuropean foreigners issued with licences by the Security Industry Authority (SIA) had no right to work in Britain - the first large-scale view of the extent of illegal working in low-paid jobs.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, told MPs yesterday that more than 6,600 immigrants had been given licences to work, 1,600 more than the estimate given to MPs last month. She said that the SIA had issued permits to a further 4,400 people who immigration officials now believe may not be entitled to work. Initial estimates had put the figure at 5,000 but the figure has mounted as the SIA carried out a review of about 40,000 licences issued and checked the names against a database held by the Border and Immigration Agency. Despite the admission that thousands of immigrants have been given licences, only 409 licences have been revoked. The SIA said that it took a minimum of 42 days to revoke a licence as those issued with the document had a right of appeal.

Ms Smith told MPs that the authority had written to more than 10,000 people telling them that their authorisation could be withdrawn. She said that the Border and Immigration Agency had started investigations into 328 of those referred to it, carried out 101 enforcement visits and arrested 15 people. By the end of January they planned at least 400 further visits. The scandal emerged five weeks ago and it was disclosed that one of the illegal workers had been responsible for Tony Blair's car while it was being repaired. Mr Blair was Prime Minister at the time. It was also disclosed that Ms Smith had accepted Home Office press office advice in August not to tell the public about the mistakes.

The SIA was set up by Labour to vet doormen and security personnel, with the intention of screening out those with a criminal record. The checks allow successful applicants to work on pub and club doors, as well as in sensitive security posts. Officials in the Home Office were first alerted to a possible problem in April, and in July the checks on everyone who had been issued with a licence began. The Security Industry Authority has admitted that a form given to those seeking a licence does not contain a question asking them if they have the right to work in the United Kingdom. It was only in July that processes were introduced under which information on applicants is sent to the Border and Immigration Agency for it to check against databases that show who has the right to work. Until the beginning of October a foreigner could be given a licence without necessarily producing a passport.

Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "We now know that over one in four employees may be working illegally, and that the most basic checks on their right to work were not taking place. Worse still, the Government appears to have been extremely slow in recognising the problem and slower still in coming clean about the sheer scale of it." Mr Clegg added: "Is it any coincidence that this statement has been smuggled out on the same day as 24 government statements, Gordon Brown's appearance before the Liaison Committee and the signing of a new EU treaty?" David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, demanded to know how the system had "gone so badly wrong" and said that there had been a "huge policy failure" at the Home Office.

Source





13 December, 2007

Say NO to Huckabee -- and Jim Gilchrist

by William Gheen

In August of 2005, I was called for an interview by THV-TV News out of Little Rock Arkansas to comment on Governor Mike Huckabee's comments complaining about an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on local chicken plants, which resulted in the arrest of 119 illegal aliens. What I said during the interview is even more relevant today "Governor Huckabee is known nationally as an illegal alien's best friend!"

At the time, Mike Huckabee was known nationally for supporting in-state tuition for illegal aliens, which is massively opposed by American voters four to one! This plan forces American taxpayers to subsidize tuition for illegal aliens, thus replacing American students in the limited seats in colleges, while providing the wrong message and encouraging more people to illegally immigrate and bring their children into the U.S. to be trained for jobs, it is illegal for them to have!

The fact that Mike Huckabee would support a policy change despised by 80% of those he swore to represent in public office says a lot about what we could expect from the man as President. Furthermore, his open denouncement of ICE raids in Arkansas is probably the result of his heavy financial support from Open Borders corporations like Tyson Foods. In Arkansas, the chicken processing lobby is so powerful they call it "Big Chicken".

While the public was cheering the raids, Tyson Foods was upset about ICE raids and so was their bought and paid for politician Mike Huckabee! Tyson Foods Inc., has their global headquarters located in Springdale, Arkansas and they are the worlds largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork. They were large contributors to Mike Huckabee as Governor and now their federal political action committee, TYPAC, is backing his campaign for President.

Tyson Foods Inc. is one of the most egregious corporate violators of our Federal laws against hiring illegals in America! In 2003, the U.S. Justice Department claimed that 15 Tyson plants in nine states had been conspiring since 1994 to recruit illegal immigrants, and that this practice was known by senior executives at Tyson corporate headquarters. It was determined in court that Tyson managers had been intentionally working with organized crime elements and temporary service agencies to import illegal alien workers, replace their American workers, and drive down wages. Tyson agreed to join the basic pilot program to screen new employees in 2004, but later raids continued to find large numbers of illegal aliens working for Tyson!

Mike Huckabee is now experiencing a surge in the polls as GOP core voters continue to abandon John McCain and Rudy Giuliani for their pro Amnesty pro illegal alien records and stances. This is bringing Huckabee's immigration stances into the limelight for scrutiny and his campaign is fully aware that missteps on this issue can send him back down the ladder like McCain and Giuliani.

That is why his campaign has released the "The Secure America Plan" which details his 9-point plan to facilitate the "enforcement of our immigration laws and results in the attrition of the illegal immigrant population" This is exactly what America wants to hear, America wants to hear about reducing the number or illegal aliens in America. Americans want illegal aliens to return to their home nations as current law dictates!

However, there is a big problem with Huckabee's plan. While most of the provisions will be positively received by the American public, especially voters, his promises to crack down on employers, build a fence, and bolster the border patrol are all nullified by positions number 3 and 9. Huckabee makes it clear that illegal aliens will have to leave the U.S. However, what he is advocating is the 'touch back' provision which was a trick fielded by the supporters of the failed "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" amnesty bills in the U.S. Senate this year.

In position #9, Huckabee says he would increase visas and expedite immigration processes so "those patiently and responsibly seeking to come here legally will not have to wait decades to share in the American Dream". Such changes would clearly increase legal immigration levels, which already stand at 1.4 million per year, making America the most generous nation in the world for legal immigration. The majority of the American public, while generally supportive of legal immigrants, is in no mood for such a massive expansion of legal immigration levels considering the intense public backlash against illegal immigration.

Huckabee's intent to expedite legal immigration ties into the real problem with his plan. This is revealed in item #3, where he would grant amnesty to illegal aliens by having them sign up with the government and then leave the U.S. for a day or two and later on pick up new documents across the border to walk back in and say "Look at me! I came in legally this time!"

What a devilish farce! Millions of illegal aliens in America would quickly have no fear of immigration law enforcement and would be on the "path to citizenship" receiving benefits at the taxpayers' expense. This provision would in effect nullify all of the other immigration enforcement promises of Mike Huckabee.

The mere fact that Mike Huckabee's campaign is imitating the tactics that the pro Amnesty lobby in Washington, DC deployed earlier this year tells us exactly who he serves and that he is willing to try and deceive the American public to accomplish his political agenda! Mike Huckabee has is now promoting the Pence Plan that we call SHAMNESTY! ...

Mike Huckabee is clearly an Open Borders fanatic. This is why there is a shockwave moving through the immigration enforcement movement after hearing of the endorsement of the Huckabee campaign by Co-Founder of the original Minuteman Project, Jim Gilchrist.

The embarrassing truth is that Jim Gilchrist has forced distance between himself and the vast majority of other groups and leaders in the immigration enforcement movement over the last year because of his egotistical, unstable, destructive, and growingly bizarre behavior. His behind the scenes actions have created a great deal of alarm from groups such as ALIPAC who were a part of the original Minuteman effort and who have supported Mr. Gilchrist in the past.

After Jim Gilchrist split with co-founder Chris Simcox of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, he quickly made enemies out of any group that refused to take a side in the conflict. He would not respect the neutrality of other sovereign groups and adopted an "with us or against us" stance that drove many away. Jim Gilchrist's last attempt to muster Minutemen volunteers fell apart during the Laredo Texas operations he launched. While the opening day had many attendees, within one week there were less than ten volunteers on the border and Gilchrist himself was not even present most of the time...

As Americans representing the 80% of our fellow countrymen and women who oppose this radical Open Borders agenda, we must do all we can to expose Mike Huckabee's true stances and record. We must also make it clear to Jim Gilchrist that he has just erased any positive contributions he may have made in the past to the immigration enforcement movement by lending his support to an 'Illegal Alien's best friend'.

More here



An Irish viewpoint

MANY people's reaction to Morning Ireland's report last Monday about a new road safety scheme specifically targeted at citizens from eastern Europe would have been "not a moment too soon".

Although the Road Safety Authority doesn't keep statistics on background, they agreed that most east Europeans living here - usually young and male - fit into the classic profile of those most likely to commit traffic offences. The anecdotal evidence would suggest some didn't just bring their rye bread with them from the Baltic region but their drink-driving culture as well.

If you switched frequencies that morning, you could hear Trevor Phillips, the head of Britain's new Equality and Human Rights Agency, attacking "politically correct" critics of traditional Christmas festivities for undermining diversity in society and condemning attempts to "brush Christmas under the carpet" for fear of offending other religions.

Citing cases such as schools scrapping nativity plays, he says that being oversensitive to minority views can lead to pointless embarrassment. He went on to claim that many of the efforts to downplay Christmas were not done at religious minorities' behest but in pursuance of other, more sinister agendas. The effect, he claimed, was to make minorities more aware of their difference, not less.

Two related but distinct societies, two radically different approaches to the challenge of migration. In Ireland, there is an expectation that newcomers will try to conform to certain norms of behaviour. In Britain, over-sensitivity to the feelings of minorities has become such a problem that the (Afro-Caribbean, Labour Party-supporting) man charged with defending them feels obliged to stand up for the majority culture. So too does John Sentamu, the Uganda-born Archbishop of York.

As Conor Lenihan, the minister with special responsibility for integration policy, prepares for his own Christmas break, he would do well to read a new book by Britain's Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks.Entitled The Home We Build Together, Sacks makes an impassioned defence of tolerance and liberal democracy over the claims of a rights-based culture.

Tolerance, as Sacks concedes, is a very difficult concept to define: it is very easily confused with many others, including multiculturalism. But at its most basic, a tolerant society is one that ignores difference, while a multicultural society is one that makes an issue of differences at almost every point. Tolerance creates integration; multiculturalism risks creating a society of conflicting ghettoes. A tolerant society is one held together by a strong civil society and a shared set of values. A multicultural society is one in which there is no dominant culture and where a multiplicity of cultures compete for attention. And when you are competing for attention in today's media, the loudest voice wins.

According to Sacks, the result is that civil society becomes an arena of conflicting interest groups in which neutral spaces are politicised and become, in effect, surrogate conflict zones in which the concept of the common good becomes attenuated and may eventually die. That is no small claim coming from the leading representative of a community that has suffered more than most from prejudice and discrimination.

There are many reasons for this politicisation of schools, universities, charities and membership organisations, but one is worth singling out.

Most European nation states, including the Free State which became the Republic, were born in the late 19th century and early 20th century. More often than not they were the product of war, but also of communications technology, the technology of print but specifically of newspapers. As the philosopher Hegel put it, "modern man has taken to reading newspaper as a substitute for morning prayer".

The nation state is being deconstructed by another revolution in communications technology, the whole infrastructure of international global instantaneous communications. Tempting as it is to believe, immigration to Ireland did not begin in the 1990s: it's just the scale that is different. Even non-European immigration has a long history. The first Indians arrived more than 200 years ago, never forget.

In those days, however, migration was not something to be considered lightly. The Huguenots, for example, who are fully assimilated nowadays, had a very clear sense of leaving one culture, one identity and moving to another.

Modern communications, though, allow migrants to be physically in one place but emotionally and intellectually in another. Migrants nowadays can keep closely in touch with home by watching satellite TV, reading newspapers written in their mother tongue (not least on the internet), chatting with family and friends for a few cent a minute, and travelling back to their country of origin as cheaply as taking a train from Dublin to Cork.

In many ways, this is one of globalisation's upsides. The downside is that coming here no longer means really leaving there. We can sometimes be closer to people thousands of miles away than we are to our next door neighbour. That is fragmenting the nation state deeply. It would be fine if we had a substitute for the nation state, but we don't and, therefore, it is not fine.

And what we have seen recently - the teddy bear episode in the Sudan being just the latest - is that conflicts can go global almost instantly. The result is that local politics where issues can be dealt with by people who know one other, who know the issues, who know the sensitivities and the personalities, all of a sudden andincreasingly run out of control. The issue as to whether Sikhs in the garda¡ should be allowed to wear turbans on duty was just a first taste of this.

WHAT'S to be done in a situation like this? One suggestion is that we must somehow reassert western European countries' Christian roots. John Bruton's notion that the (now restyled) European constitution make explicit reference to religion would have been a step along that path. Still, it's pretty hard to go back to the past.

Reactionary politics - as we know to our cost from the experience of Northern Ireland - is not going to help one bit.

Sacks's alternative is to engage in society building. Diverse societies are exciting and creative, but they need something that holds them together: a national narrative, national moments of celebration, thinking about citizenship in far broader terms than merely the language of rights.

Currently, those who are not of Irish descent can become Irish citizens by virtue of residence or marriage. There is no requirement to be able to speak one of the official languages or to know anything about Irish history, institutions and ways of doing things.

Citizenship `tests' have been ridiculed in some other countries because many native-born citizens cannot answer all, or even most, of the questions. It's a fair point, but some kind of test would send a signal, at least, that migrants are expected not merely to reside in Ireland without breaking the law, but to participate positively in Irish society. I suspect we will hear more about this from Conor Lenihan in 2008.

More here





12 December, 2007

AZ: Feds to test "virtual fence"

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made it official Friday _ the government has conditionally accepted a high-tech virtual fence in southern Arizona aimed at detecting and intercepting illegal entries into the country. Chertoff said the Border Patrol will begin a 45-day trial use of a virtual fence made of nine tall towers strung across 28 miles near Sasabe southwest of Tucson. The trial will test the efficiency of the towers, packed with an array of sensors, radar and cameras. The government has paid contractor Boeing Co. about $16 million of its $20 million pricetag. Software glitches delayed operation for nearly six months.

Chertoff told reporters in Washington the virtual fence will give the Border Patrol better visibility and ability to respond to entries than it has currently, but that the system can and will be improved. In addition to the virtual fence, Chertoff said plans call for most of the Arizona border to have a mix of pedestrian or vehicle fencing. Plans call for about 670 miles of such barriers covering 90 to 95 percent of the border from the Pacific Ocean to the New Mexico-Texas border by the end of 2008, he said - assuming Congress appropriates money for all the construction.

Chertoff also said letters are being sent to landowners along 225 noncontiguous miles stretching from California to Texas that they have 30 days to give the government permission to access their properties to assess whether it's possible to build fencing on their lands. Those not agreeing to such access within 30 days will face court action, possibly including eminent domain proceedings, Chertoff said. Most of those who have not complied are in Texas, he added.

Source



Who's soft on immigration?

By Deroy Murdock

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has accused fellow GOP presidential contender Rudolph W. Giuliani of operating a "sanctuary city" while New York mayor. Presumably, Giuliani waved illegal immigrants into Gotham, like a third-base coach urging runners home ahead of a mighty outfielder's throw. In fact, Giuliani was tougher on illegal immigrants than Romney claims. Conversely, Romney was easier on illegals than his current hard-line posture suggests.

In last month's CNN/YouTube debate, Romney quoted Giuliani: "If you come here, and you work hard, and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people that we want in this city." Romney conveniently omitted this sentence from Giuliani's June 1994 press conference remarks: "And if you're somebody who comes here, and you want to violate the drug laws, the laws against violence, the laws to protect us in other ways, then I'd like to see you apprehended and put in prison and then sent back to where you came from."

Among New York's 400,000 illegals, the feds deported 776 in 1994. With the Clinton administration spurning expulsions, Giuliani did the best he could. Giuliani maintained city policies that let illegal immigrants report crimes without risking ejection. With 1,946 homicides and 600,346 serious crimes the year he was elected, Giuliani wanted illegals to identify criminals. They similarly could receive emergency medicine, rather than remain untreated, possibly sickening others. Illegals also could send their children to public schools, rather than have 70,000 kids roaming the streets, attracting criminals, and possibly committing violations themselves.

Giuliani's anti-crime campaign otherwise targeted illegal-immigrant offenders. "We'd like to see a situation in which we can put 'em on a plane and charge INS for the ticket," Katie Lapp, Giuliani's criminal justice coordinator, told Newsday in November 1994. "It's the mayor's position that INS should increase border patrols and keep these people out of the country in the first place." INS never approved what Newsday dubbed "Air Giuliani." In April 1994, however, Giuliani restored alerts to INS whenever police arrested illegal criminal suspects. In January 1993, INS claimed it lacked resources to pursue such reports and asked Democratic mayor David Dinkins to stop making them.

In contrast, Romney waited until 18 days before leaving office to secure federal permission for state troopers to arrest illegal immigrants. Actually, this program never commenced. As promised, Romney's Democratic successor, Gov. Deval Patrick, scrapped it before troopers began relevant training. Romney's immigration record was ho-hum long before this 11th-hour initiative. Beyond opposing drivers' licenses and in-state college tuition for illegals, Romney's failures helped keep Massachusetts attractive to them.

It may be a private matter that illegal immigrants raked Romney's lawn as recently as Nov. 29. But Romney's administration should have scrutinized state employees more carefully. Among nine Massachusetts public-works sites examined in the June 18, 2006 Boston Globe, 38 percent of weekly wage-earners lacked valid Social Security numbers. At one university masonry project, 55 of the contractor's 87 workers had dodgy Social Security numbers. Some belonged to dead people. One jail-construction worker offered this unusual Social Security number: 666-66-6666. "The governor is not surprised that our current immigration laws are a mess," Romney's gubernatorial spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom shrugged.

Meanwhile, Romney let Brewster, Brookline, Cambridge, Lexington, Orleans and Somerville, Massachusetts openly flout federal immigration laws. "I'm not going to break the trust we have built up with the immigrant community to enforce the misguided policies of the federal government," Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone said in the July 6 Somerville News. Romney could have pressured or sued these six sanctuary cities to become non-sanctuaries. He also could have slashed their allowances. Instead, state tax dollars cascaded into their coffers. Romney's proposed assistance to these locales grew from $103,218,421 in fiscal fear 2004 to $107,419,246 in fiscal year 2007 -- up 4.1 percent.

Did Romney challenge these sanctuary cities? "Absolutely not," Cambridge mayoral spokesman John Clifford told the American Spectator's Philip Klein. Clifford laughed: "He never took on Cambridge, except out of state." "Romney's being a hypocrite on this issue," Somerville's Joseph Curtatone told ABC News. "I did not receive a mandate, any communication, anything at all from him about this. If it's so important to him, why didn't he have the state police enforcing it?"

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11 December, 2007

GOP performance on Spanish TV

On the tricky question of what to do with the 12 million immigrants here illegally, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain last night stood out in a Republican presidential field that has clashed harshly over illegal immigration. Only Giuliani and McCain indicated that many undocumented immigrants could stay in this country while seeking legal status, while the others demanded that "the rule of law" be enforced and that the immigrants return to their home countries first.

But in the first GOP forum on Hispanic issues, broadcast in Spanish by Univision from the University of Miami to millions of households, seven candidates sought to soften their contentious language as they appealed to a group that polls say is abandoning their party.

That erosion of support among the fastest-growing immigrant group in America, amid the GOP's fierce internal battle over immigration, led comprehensive immigration reform sponsor McCain to sound an alarm. "I'll say to you what I said at the last debate before a non-Hispanic audience," McCain said. "And that is: We have to address this issue with compassion and love, because these are human beings." "I think some of the rhetoric that many Hispanics hear about illegal immigration makes some of them believe that we are not in favor of or seek the support of Hispanic citizens in this country," he said.

Immigration dominated the 90-minute forum - its moderators said that 85 percent of the questions viewers submitted had to do with that issue. But the discussion, which was simultaneously translated to and from Spanish and English, ranged over many issues, including education and foreign policy.

None of the candidates changed positions - all demanded a border fence and tough enforcement. But they differed on those already here. Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee both demanded the illegal immigrants leave. Once again, Giuliani clashed with the conservative libertarian Ron Paul, this time over how to deal with dictators like Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Ch vez in Venezuela. "We create the Chavezes of the world, we create the Castros of the world by interfering and creating chaos in their countries," Paul said, drawing boos from the 3,000 students and Republican Party officials in the audience. "I actually agree with the way King Juan Carlos spoke to Chavez," said Giuliani, referring to the regent's recent demand that he "shut up."

They also disagreed over Giuliani's proposal to require every noncitizen in the United States to get a tamper-proof ID card. "How can you have a tamper-proof ID for illegals or immigrants, without doing it to everybody else?" Paul asked. "That's going to lead to a national ID card, which I absolutely oppose."

In this debate, rescheduled from earlier this year when only Mike Huckabee agreed to participate, the GOP contenders found themselves walking a fine line, seeking to soothe Hispanics while trying not to alienate the mostly white conservative base in Iowa. Giuliani made education a centerpiece, emphasizing his attendance at Catholic schools and advocating a voucher plan that would give parents the choice of whether to send their children to public, private or home schools. The softer tone of the forum was made possible in part by the absence of contender Tom Tancredo, who is running as the anti-immigration candidate.

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Australia: Burmese Muslims granted asylum by new Leftist government

A first signal that the gates are being thrown open to millions of "refugees"? The world is full of oppressive countries. Do all the oppressed now sail to Australia?

SEVEN Burmese men held in detention on Nauru for more than a year have been granted refugee status and will be resettled in Australia, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said yesterday. The men, who have been held on Nauru since being found on Ashmore Reef, 610km north of Broome, in August last year, sought asylum because they are Muslims from Burma's persecuted Rohingya minority. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship said yesterday that it had determined the men had been assessed as having a well-founded fear of persecution if they were returned home.

The decision heralds the new Labor Government's first move towards delivering its promise to dismantle the Coalition's offshore processing regime. "We are moving quickly to resolve the status of the people on Nauru as the first step in ending the Pacific Solution," Senator Evans said yesterday. "There is no reason why the Burmese should not have been finalised and resettled by now."

Immigration officials left for Nauru yesterday to finalise the Burmese applications and to begin working out resettlement arrangements. The group of seven, who took the previous government to the High Court to get their applications considered, will arrive in Australia before Christmas and will be resettled in Brisbane.

Senator Evans said the Pacific Solution had been a "costly failure". "The vast majority of those people sent to Nauru and Manus (Papua New Guinea) ultimately settling in Australia highlights the bankruptcy of the Pacific Solution," he said.

However, a far greater political challenge to realising the end of offshore immigration processing will be how the new Government deals with a group of 82 Sri Lankans also held on Nauru. The group includes 74 men who have been found to be genuine refugees but not resettled and seven other Sri Lankans who have been charged over the alleged rape and sexual assault of a local woman. Their case is believed to be returning to court on Nauru this month. Senator Evans said the remaining Sri Lankans would be processed "in accordance with normal arrangements".

Department of Immigration and Citizenship secretary Andrew Metcalfe signalled progress on the matter was imminent. "Further decisions will be made soon about the arrangements for the 74 Sri Lankans in Nauru who have also been found to be refugees," he said. "Decisions on a further eight Sri Lankans on Nauru are pending. One of these people is having a refugee refusal decision reviewed and seven are facing criminal charges in Nauru."

Lawyer for the Burmese refugees, David Manne, from the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, said he was "delighted and relieved" that the new Government had moved so decisively to resolve "what has really been anightmare with no real end insight". "The process has been so unnecessarily drawn out and damaging to those detained," Mr Manne said. "This is a policy that has caused profound suffering and abuse and ridiculous expense to the taxpayer - all of which has been completely unnecessary. "This is a commonsense, fair decision and we can only hope that such a damaging and unnecessary process is not inflicted on anyone in the future."

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10 December, 2007

Arizona Illegal Immigration Law Challenge Thrown Out Of Court

Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links

A Federal judge tossed out a challenge to a new Arizona law that provides penalties for businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Both business groups and illegal immigrant advocates had filed suit against the law, scheduled to take effect on January 1st.

In his ruling on Friday, U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake wrote that the lawsuit was premature because there was no evidence that anybody had been harmed, and that the plaintiffs - a coalition of business and immigrant rights groups - were suing the wrong people.

The ruling said the law gives only investigatory authority to the governor and state attorney general, who were named as defendants. Wake said county prosecutors, who weren't defendants, actually have the power to enforce the law.

The plaintiffs had asked for a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect. Farrell Quinlan, a spokesman for business groups in the suit, said they planned to file more information with the judge to answer what he sees as shortcomings in the complaint.

Alfredo Gutierrez, a spokesman for immigrant rights groups, said they plan to refile the lawsuit after Jan. 1, when they might be able to show damages caused by the law.

The law provides for penalties up to and including the permanent revocation of business licenses for offending companies. State authorities believe that the law is in full compliance with Federal laws. Since the Federal government appears to be stuck at top dead center, states and local governments are having to step in and do something.



A Leftist viewpoint

Below find a promotional email from "The New Yorker" which summarizes a forthcoming article there -- under the heading "Behind the Republicans' Anti-Immigration Frenzy"

In "Return of the Nativist" (p. 46), in the December 17, 2007, issue of The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza analyzes how the immigration issue has affected the Republican race, with two major candidates-Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney-following the lead of Tom Tancredo, the congressman who led the opposition to the immigration-reform bill this year. "The emergence of Tancredoism as an ideological touchstone for two Republican front-runners is a stunning development," Lizza writes, "another indication of the Party's rejection of nearly everything associated with the approach taken by George W. Bush." In the face of mounting anti-immigration rhetoric, the other candidates, including John McCain and Mike Huckabee, have had to respond to what has become "the dominant and obsessive issue of the Republican primaries."

McCain, whose campaign suffered from his championing of the reform bill, suspects that his opponents' anti-immigration passion has to do with the disproportionate in?uence of a few small states in the nominating process. "It's the in?ux of illegals into places where they've never seen a Hispanic in?uence before," he tells Lizza. "You probably see more emotion in Iowa than you do in Arizona on this issue....They see this as an assault on their culture." Another Republican candidate, Huckabee, is "the latest victim of the Republican shift on the immigration issue," Lizza writes. "Nobody's asked about Iraq-doesn't ever come up," he tells Lizza of his experiences on the campaign trail. "The ?rst question out of the box, everywhere I go-Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, it doesn't matter-is immigration. It's just red hot, and I don't fully understand it."

Romney has quickly adopted the negative code words of the anti-immigration movement-"sanctuary cities," "amnesty"-and used them to attack both Huckabee and McCain. Lizza writes, "My own sense, from talking to Huckabee, a Southern populist, and McCain, a border-state senator, is that they are genuinely appalled by Romney's tactics, not only because of the damage to their campaigns but also because of the damage they believe he's doing to the Party's image." "He's clearly distorted my record as well as my position," Huckabee tells Lizza. "But I'm not interested in getting in a war with him to see which of us can be the meanest son of a gun running for President." Nevertheless, last week Huckabee announced the Secure America Plan, which included tough language about enforcement and pressuring illegal immigrants to return home, leaving McCain as "the only Republican candidate who hasn't folded in the face of Romney's attacks." McCain, for his part, points out that Romney once supported Bush's immigration legislation. "Both he and Rudy had the same position I did. In fact, Rudy was even more liberal," he says, adding, "I don't want to be President that bad."

If the Republicans continue, in the general election, to make immigration a central issue, they may find that it has much less currency on the national stage. When Lizza asks Tancredo if he is leading his party "over a cliff" or "to the promised land," he says, "I see manna out there." But the evidence, Lizza writes, "points to a cliff. In several election contests in the past two years, Republicans tried and failed to deploy immigration as a campaign weapon." Meanwhile, some Democratic strategists are "quietly cheering" the fact that Republicans are making immigration a key issue. Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, tells Lizza, "The Bush strategy-enlightened on race, smart on immigration, developed in Texas and Florida with Jeb Bush-has been replaced by the Tancredo-Romney strategy, which is demonizing and scapegoating immigrants, and that is a catastrophic event for the Republican Party."





9 December, 2007

GOP ratchets up immigration rhetoric

With the first presidential contests less than a month away and the race in a state of flux, most Republican contenders are competing to see who can be more muscular in their opposition to illegal immigration. Regardless of their past views on border security and illegal immigration, the candidates are in the words of Tom Tancredo - who is running hard on anti-immigration issues - trying to "out-Tancredo Tancredo."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani repeatedly have traded jabs, in increasingly personal terms, over who was more lax in dealing with illegal immigrants while in office. Romney, whose leads in Iowa and New Hampshire have been shrinking, also has gone after two candidates who have been making gains in those early contests, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Arizona Sen. John McCain. In the second tier of GOP hopefuls, Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson have centered much of their campaigns on their plans to crack down on illegal immigration. Even Ron Paul, the Texas congressman who spends much of his time on the campaign trail telling voters how he'd get government out of their lives, is pledging a more robust federal response.

Though only a fraction [a fraction? Snide journalist-speak. What fraction? Three-quarters is a fraction] of Americans identify illegal immigration as their most pressing concern, the issue has gained an outsized importance in the GOP primary as candidates scramble for favor with a conservative base deeply troubled by the nation's porous borders. The topic is sure to be a major focus of the next Republican debate, scheduled for Sunday night in Miami. The debate, sponsored by the Spanish-language network Univision, will feature every GOP candidate but Tancredo, who is boycotting because he contends it undercuts the message that immigrants need to learn English.

The dominance of immigration in the Republican contest was in evidence during the Nov. 28 CNN/YouTube debate, which sizzled with attacks and counterattacks by Giuliani and Romney - such as when Giuliani accused his rival of living in a "sanctuary mansion." But an inconvenient fact for the Romney and Giuliani campaigns is that both men were significantly more immigration-friendly while in office. Romney often highlights New York's status as a haven for illegal immigrants during Giuliani's administration, while the ex-mayor has countered that Romney did nothing to deter sanctuary cities in his own state.

Now, both men denounce this year's Senate bill, backed by President Bush, that would have placed millions of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. However, both were supportive of similar legislation when it first came up in 2006. Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, also previously spoke more favorably about bringing the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants into legal standing in society. And in contrast to his tough rhetoric now, while he was in the Senate Thompson favored increasing visa quotas for high-skilled foreigners and seasonal agricultural workers. Even McCain, a prominent drafter of the Senate bill, hardened his stance after dipping dramatically in the polls and fundraising amid a conservative rebellion over his support for the legislation. Still, he and Huckabee are the only two GOP candidates who try at times to soften the debate's harder edges. While Huckabee supports giving illegal immigrant children access to in-state college tuition, he unveiled an enforcement-heavy immigration platform.

For most of the Republican contenders, they can't be too tough on those illegally in the United States. Tancredo, the Colorado congressman, who forced the issue to his party's consciousness, has aired two television ads linking terrorism and gang violence to illegal immigration.

The sharp-edged rhetoric and the candidates' changed positions have stunned Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which is lobbying for illegal immigrants' legalization. "It's like watching a slow-motion car wreck that you can't believe is happening," said Sharry, who argues the GOP is harming itself for the long run with Latino voters and independents in pursuit of votes. Some prominent Republicans say they worry that the tenor of the debate could prove risky and be interpreted as anti-Hispanic. "My suggestion to those engaging in the Republican primary battle is to be very careful that you don't give the wrong impression by either how you talk about it or the tone you use," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "It can quickly get out of hand if you're not careful."

Texas advertising executive Lionel Sosa, a Republican who is supporting Democratic candidate Bill Richardson, argues the eventual GOP nominee will temper his stance on immigration during the general election. "The Republicans have to court their base if they want to be nominated," Sosa said. "After one of them becomes the nominee, I can almost guarantee that the position will be softer and they are counting on the fact that by then the disappointment that Latinos are feeling with Republicans will be largely a thing of the past."

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Spain is getting desperate

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Saturday called for an EU-Africa pact to combat illegal immigration in Europe, which he termed "the dramatic result of a collective failure." Zapatero raised the issue on behalf of the European Union at a landmark EU-Africa summit in Lisbon, with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi acting as the spokesman for the African leaders, Spanish government sources said. Kadhafi said Europe should return resources "stolen" from Africa during colonisation or risk seeing more illegal immigrants, a source in the conference room said. He also suggested the EU should give the continent "one billion euros" to resolve the problem of immigration. Africa "is a beggar continent in the eyes of the world," the source quoted him as saying.

Immigration is one of the main issues on the agenda at the two-day summit of 67 African and EU leaders in the Portuguese capital. "Illegal immigration is the dramatic result of a collective failure" by both Europe and Africa, Zapatero told EU and African leaders at a closed-door session on the first day of the conference. "It produces people who are subject to organised crime and abuse and without rights in the countries where they live. The only decent policy is the establishment of legal channels of migration," he said. He noted that "some 10 million African illegals live in Europe," and 812,000 of them live legally in Spain.

The Socialist prime minister proposed "a pact based on three main points -- education, the generation of employment for young people and the development of an infrastructure that energises the social and economic fabric of the countries of origin." The accord must seek to "avoid brain drain" and encourage people to return to Africa, he said.

In a final declaration to be adopted at the summit, Africa and the EU are to pledge to forge strategies to stem the tide of illegal migration to Europe by promoting and better managing legal migration. Under the deal, the two sides want to especially facilitate the transfer of money by immigrants back home and help set up centres to better advise Africans on ways to legally emigrate.

A European Union border agency patrolling west African coasts since last year alongside several west African countries, has successfully warded off illegal migrants heading to the Spanish Canary islands, the main entry point into Europe. After a record 31,000 Africans landed in the Canaries in 2006, the number of arrivals there has dropped by more than 60 percent so far this year.

The hardest hit of the European countries, Spain has in recent months upped its diplomatic initiatives in west Africa. Most illegal immigrants that made port in Spain last year originated from west Africa. Spanish authorities fear many of the thousands of Africans who make the perilous journey towards Spain die of thirst or exposure on the risky voyages, but there is no way of knowing exactly how many have died.

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8 December, 2007

Iowa Republican Kingmaker Makes Immigration a Household Issue

When a roofing crew arrived at U.S. Representative Steve King's Iowa home earlier this year, he made a ``point to check the people pounding nails,'' his ear tuned for any hint of Spanish. The lawmaker, who's positioning himself as the state's Republican kingmaker before the Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, is subjecting his party's candidates to similar scrutiny over their policies on illegal immigration to ensure they share his views. ``If you're not willing to send someone back to their home country under U.S. law, then you are by definition supporting an amnesty,'' says King, 58, the only Republican lawmaker in Iowa who plans to back a candidate, in the first contest of the presidential election.

Immigration is increasingly resonating across the country among likely Republican voters, with 23 percent of them citing it as their top priority, according to a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll. Forty percent of all Republicans say undocumented workers and their families should be denied all social services, compared with 22 percent of Democrats.

King may be leaning toward former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whose failure to check the immigration status of workers at his home exposed him to attacks from Rudy Giuliani, who accused Romney of running a ``sanctuary mansion.'' On Dec. 4, Romney, 60, fired his landscaping company for ``failure to comply with the law.'' He has attacked Giuliani, 63, of New York as the former mayor of a ``sanctuary city'' for not terminating social services to paper-less immigrants.

Romney has been courting King for more than a year-and-a- half. King says Romney is ``solid'' on the issue. ``I have taken him down this path, and he's willingly gone,'' he says.

A King endorsement would send ``an important message'' to voters concerned about immigration ``that they are better off going to Romney,'' says Dennis Goldford, a politics professor at Drake University in Des Moines. ``Steve King certainly has his credentials on immigration,'' says Goldford.

Immigration isn't as burning an issue for Democratic voters, although Senator Hillary Clinton's recent stumble over the question of whether undocumented residents should be allowed to get driver's licenses suggests it might also pose a danger to candidates in that party. Many of the leading Republican candidates, including Romney and Giuliani, have only recently adopted strong anti-immigration platforms, having left behind a paper trail for their opponents to criticize.

As Mike Huckabee, 52, has risen in Iowa and national polls, Romney has highlighted the former Arkansas governor's earlier support for allowing children of illegal immigrants to compete for college scholarships. That charge may find fertile ground among party voters: Only 8 percent of Republicans nationwide support providing in-state discounts on college tuition to undocumented residents, according to the Bloomberg/L.A. Times poll. The poll of 1,467 adults, including 1,245 registered voters, was taken Nov. 30-Dec. 3. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In Iowa, the presence of mostly Hispanic-speaking illegal immigrants, who come to work in the meat-packing industry, is driving this year's political conversation more than any other issue, say local Republican officials. ``At the county level, we have to deal with the social ills of immigration,'' says Sheriff Randy Krukow of Clay County in northwest Iowa. ``We're looking for a national solution from the candidates.'' Eighty percent of those incarcerated at his county jail are Hispanic and all are ``illegals,'' says Krukow, president of the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies Association.

Iowa has 115,000 Hispanics, just 3.8 percent of the state's population of almost 3 million, according to 2006 U.S. Census estimates. Still, the number of Hispanics is up 38 percent from six years ago, says Jeff Passel, a senior research associate at the Pew Hispanic Center. Nationally, 42 percent of Republicans say illegal immigrants have had a negative impact on their communities, compared with 29 percent of Democrats, according to the Bloomberg/L.A. Times poll. Of those who think immigration has had a negative impact, 39 percent of Republicans cited crime, drugs and gangs as the ways it has most affected their communities. That compares with 23 percent of Democrats who cited those ills. Democrats are more likely to blame undocumented workers for taking jobs from Americans or hurting their wages, with 40 percent citing those as the main drawbacks to illegal immigration.

Providing driver's licenses to undocumented workers angers members of both parties. Only 14 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Democrats think undocumented workers should have access to driver's licenses.

Confusing the matter for King is that almost all the candidates now claim to share his views. During the summer, he was moving toward endorsing his ``good friend,'' Representative Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who has taken the lead in Congress in opposing illegal immigration. Now, King says Tancredo may lack ``the juice'' to influence ``the debate beyond the earliest part of January.''

Huckabee worries him for two reasons. First, King hasn't ``heard him say anything that would convince'' him he has the proper ``conviction'' on immigration. Second, an Iowa triumph for Huckabee might amount to a tactical win for Giuliani nationally, King says, because it might mortally wound Romney. King says he expects to make his endorsement soon.

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Australian Labor Party sends Indonesian "refugees" home

SIXTEEN Indonesians detained on Christmas Island are to be returned to Indonesia after interviews and health checks, Immigration Minister Chris Evans says. Their claim to be economic refugees has been rejected as a legitimate reason for refugee status. The three men, three women and 10 children were rescued from a leaking fishing boat in the Timor Sea on November 20 after their stricken vessel pulled up alongside the Jabiru Venture oil ship, 600km west of Darwin. The families, from the Indonesian island of Roti, said they had been suffering economic losses from Australia's crackdown on illegal fishing in the region and had no choice but to flee their homeland.

But Senator Evans said his department had carefully explored with the group their reasons for travelling to Australia. "On the information provided, my department is satisfied that they have not raised issues which might engage Australia's protection obligations," he said. "This represents a firm but fair approach to the orderly migration of people to Australia."

Senator Evans said the asylum seekers had been treated fairly and been dealt with appropriately. "They simply have not engaged our protection obligations under the Refugees Convention," he said. "My department is making arrangements to return the group in coordination with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Indonesian government as soon as possible." Senator Evans said he was a great supporter of the Refugees Convention and Australia was among the top three resettlement countries in the world. "However, people from other countries do not have a right to stay in Australia just because they would be economically better off here," he said.

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7 December, 2007

Immigration on America's terms

A key to solving America's immigration crisis can be summed up by paraphrasing JFK: "Ask not what our country can do for you, but what you are able to contribute to our country." Putting America's needs first, say three co-authors of an important new study, means ditching the idea that immigration should mostly benefit the immigrants. Manhattan Institute fellows Steven Malanga, Heather Mac Donald and syndicated columnist Victor Davis Hanson point out in "The Immigration Solution" that unenforced laws, generous welfare benefits and sanctuary policies create huge incentives for uneducated, unskilled foreigners to sneak over the border. Our legal immigration system's family preference policy also puts the needs of immigrants before the needs of the country.

Australia followed a similar policy during the 1990s, with 70 percent of its immigrants admitted because of family ties. Since then, however, the land Down Under has executed a U-turn - 70 percent of all newcomers are admitted for the needed skills they bring, with extra credit for those who speak English. There's no reason the United States cannot do the same. Especially since two additional studies commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences confirm that today's second wave immigrants cost American taxpayers much more in government benefits than the economic gains they produce.

Often arriving with little or no formal education, fewer recent immigrants are learning English or trying to assimilate than did those in America's first wave of immigration 100 years ago. And because our public and private institutions no longer emphasize assimilation, more of today's immigrants and their children fall behind academically and economically, and stay behind. What we are really doing, Malanga told The Examiner, is importing a new form of hard-core, intergenerational poverty that will take decades to eradicate.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans listened when a large majority of Americans consistently told them to enforce existing immigration laws, but that may be changing. Earlier this month, Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., and Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., introduced a three-part plan to reduce drastically the flow of illegal immigration that is inundating their states.

Unlike this summer's failed immigration bill, the Shuler-Bilbray Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act (SAVE) is a get-tough measure that focuses on increasing border security with 8,000 new Border Patrol agents, stepped-up law enforcement, and stringent new employment verification efforts. A companion bill has also been introduced in the Senate. Shuler-Bilbray is a big step in the right direction toward overhauling our legal immigration system to favor those with something to contribute to American society. The privilege of immigration should be on our terms, not those of the illegal immigrant.

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Germany, others pour cold water on EU immigration plans

Germany and other countries poured cold water Thursday on proposals meant to lure educated migrants to the European Union while cracking down on illegal workers. Doubts over granting European Union officials more say in immigration policy resurfaced at a combined meeting of justice, interior and employment ministers, who face increasing pressure to respond to migration and labor trends. The union has a growing shortage of skilled and educated labor but faces increased flows of often uneducated migrants from Africa and Asia.

While all 27 EU governments have accepted the need to cooperate more closely on immigration, agreeing on specific plans is painfully slow. Germany's employment minister, Olaf Scholz, said plans drafted by the European Commission to set up a common workers visa program to attract educated labor were not needed. ``We have 3.5 million unemployed and that means that companies can find workers within Germany,'' Scholz said. He said specific shortages should be addressed on a sector-by-sector basis on national level, without Brussels having a say. Scholz suggested EU nations also look to new eastern European members of the union for professionals to fill gaps. Citizens from new EU members are currently barred from working freely in some western EU countries, under transition clauses in their membership agreements. Those rules were set up because older members feared they would be hit by a wave of cheap labor.

The plan to set up a European ``Blue Card'' workers visa program, styled after the U.S. ``Green Card'' permit, has raised doubts in several nations. Austria, the Netherlands and Britain also voiced concerns over whether the EU should handle such a program, officials said. Spain expressed fears the program would cause a ``brain drain'' from Africa. Greece and Malta called for more protection from illegal migrants on the EU's southern borders.

The EU plan calls for governments to institute a ``one-stop-shop'' visa application, offering qualified job seekers a simpler way to get jobs within the EU, doing away with 27 different, often complex, national procedures. Franco Frattini, the EU's justice and interior affairs commissioner, who drafted the plan, argued an EU-wide system is needed to ensure Europe can compete with trade rivals like the United States, Canada or Australia, all of which use special work permits to attract professionals. ``I continue to be convinced that common rules to regulate people entering the EU are necessary,'' Frattini said. ``I don't believe Germany is against this principle.''

Germany also criticized Frattini's plans for an EU system of fines and other penalties for employers who hire illegal workers. Frattini said, however, that such rules are needed to prevent the entry of illegal migrants who are often exploited and mistreated. European nations are struggling to cope with the arrival of up to half a million illegals a year, many brought in by human trafficking rings. The EU nations have been haggling over how to draft a common asylum and immigration policy since 1999 [A good argument for national independence] and have set a 2010 deadline by which to approve common rules. A review of progress made to date is to be made by EU leaders at a summit in Brussels next week.

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6 December, 2007

Crackdown in Britain announced

No word of any action on illegals, though. As in the USA, deportation orders are commonly ignored. Not even anything as obvious as that is being seriously tackled

A holiday romance that leads to marriage will in future need more than love to sustain it. The Home Office said a foreign spouse would have to speak English before being allowed into the country. The measure was among a package of new immigration measures announced by ministers.

Others include shutting the door to low skilled workers from outside the EU. Under a new points system, they will not be able to come to Britain if there are enough home-grown and EU workers able to fill vacancies.

But the English test for spouses is the most controversial component of what Ministers called ''the biggest ever overaul of the immigration system". Each year, nearly 50,000 foreigners are allowed into the country as a spouse or fiance. Ministers believe that insisting upon proficiency in English will make it easy for new arrivals to integrate. But the plan, should it be introduced, will inevitably lead to court challenges. The Human Rights Act guarantees a right to family life which could be jeopardised if a new husband must leave his bride behind.

English tests were introduced for foreigners taking British citizenship from November 2005 and extended to those seeking settlement in April this year. But the latest proposal would stop a spouse even getting to the UK and will have a particular impact on south Asian communities. Britain's Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshis between them saw 17,000 spouses or fiances enter the UK from their home countries last year, sometimes as a result of arranged marriages.

Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said: "We are underlining how important we see command of the English language. ''If we are serious about English, shouldn't we give these individuals a flying start in the UK by asking them to speak English from the day they arrive?" Research has found that when UK nationals who themselves speak English poorly - or only outside the home - marry non-English speakers from outside Britain, they often form families where English is never spoken fluently.

A consultation paper proposes that the required level of English should only be "very basic". A spouse or fiance would be expected to understand simple questions, read common signs and symbols and understand simple instructions. If they failed the test, they might be prevented from joining their spouse, even if they have children. However, officials said in such circumstances they might be allowed in temporarily to learn English.

The measures are part of Labour's effort to rebuild public confidence in the immigration system. The new points-based system will be phased in next year, starting with highly-skilled workers like entrepreneurs and doctors. They will be fast-tracked into the country and will no longer need to have a job to go to.

Mr Byrne said low-skilled workers from outside the European Union would not get in "for the forseeable future" under this scheme. The Government will also take new powers to refuse British citizenship to people with a criminal record. Anyone with an unspent conviction will be unable to take British nationality.

Mr Byrne said: "These are the biggest changes to the immigration system in its history. "We did not expect that reform would be pain free." He also dismissed complaints from some in the business world that tighter controls could make it harder to recruit workers. "We are not running the immigration policy on the exclusive interests of the UK business community, we are running it in Britain's national interest," he said. "We will continue to listen to the voice of British business but we are trying to strike the right balance on immigration policy while we listen to the evidence."

Source



New Australian PM takes tough stand on illegals and refugees

This is not entirely new. Beazley (former Labor leader) also supported Howard (former conservative PM) over the Tampa "boat people" incident. The workers who still vote Labor are generally hostile to illegal immigration

Labor leader Kevin Rudd says he will take a tough stance on border security, including turning back boat people. In an interview with The Australian on Friday, Mr Rudd said a Labor government would take asylum seekers rescued from leaking vessels to Christmas Island, but would turn back seaworthy boats. He also said Labor would not lift the current intake of African refugees. The measures bring Labor broadly into line with the coalition's policies.

"You would turn them back," Mr Rudd said of boats approaching Australia. He said Labor believed in an orderly immigration system enforced by deterrence. A Labor government would aim to deter asylum seekers by using the threat of detention and Australia's close ties with Indonesia. "You cannot have anything that is orderly if you allow people who do not have a lawful visa in the country to roam free," he told The Australian. "That's why you need a detention system. I know that's politically contentious, but one follows from the other. "Deterrence is effective through the detention system, but also your preparedness to take appropriate action as the vessels approach Australian waters on the high seas."

Mr Rudd's stand comes as a boatload of Indonesians were pulled from a leaking vessel in the Timor Sea earlier this week.

Source





5 December, 2007

Illegal Immigration, Focused on Hispanics as Political Issue, Affects Other Immigrant Groups

As Asians generally are low-crime, high-achieving people, it is a pity that there are not better legal options for them. If your maid were an Asian, her son might end up being your doctor

Illegal immigration continues to be a key issue for voters and candidates one year before the U.S. presidential election. A New York Times poll conducted in Iowa shows 86 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Democrats view immigration as a very or somewhat serious problem. Much of the debate over undocumented migrants has focused on Hispanics, but political analysts say the issue affects other groups as well. Steve Mort reports for VOA from Orlando -- home to one of Florida's largest Asian communities, including immigrants who feel the effects of the political stalemate.

In Florida's Orange County, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates nearly 45,000 residents are of Asian descent, an increase of 13,000 in just six years. As in other migrant communities, illegal immigration is an important issue for many people here. Local immigration attorney Agnes Chau explains, "There's 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Out of the 12 million around 9 percent is from Asia". The Pew Hispanic Center estimates the number to be higher than that. In a 2006 survey, Pew found 13 percent of illegal immigrants came from Asia. And government statistics show that Asians made up 25 percent of the entire U.S. foreign-born population in 2005.

Agnes Chau says most illegal Asian immigrants she meets in Orlando leave their home countries to find a good education for their children. "They're developing countries, so a lot of times, especially education, they do not have those means or ability to let all of the children pursue the education they want," she said.

Professor Robert Moore, head of Asian studies at Orlando's Rollins College, says undocumented Asians are usually wealthier than those from Latin America. "I think Hispanic immigrants tend to go into working class jobs. These are more likely to find themselves in these kind of small entrepreneurial ventures". Outside Florida, Moore claims New York's Chinatown is home to tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. He says many have paid smugglers to bring them to the U.S., in some cases as much as $60,000. "The smugglers have tried to find routes that won't attract the attention of the authorities so that the authorities won't be looking for their cargo of illegal immigrants," said Professor Moore.

In China, Fujian Province is now believed to be the biggest source of migrants to America. The U.S. State Department cites, as reasons, Fujian's relative economic liberalization and export industry. But Moore suggests rising living standards in China eventually will lead to a decline in the number of people trying to leave. In the U.S., Congress earlier this year failed to pass legislation to overhaul America's immigration laws. The reform would have given illegal immigrants, including those from Asia, a way to remain in the U.S. legally.

Source



Progress in Arizona

Under pressure from advocates for stricter immigration laws, the mayor of Phoenix said on Monday that he no longer backed a Police Department order barring officers from routinely asking the immigration status of people it arrested and announced a panel to study a policy change. A spokesman for Mayor Phil Gordon, Scott Phelps, said the policy was "written for another time" on the belief that the federal government "would fulfill all of its immigration responsibilities, and clearly that has changed."

But Mr. Gordon, a Democrat, announced the change at a time when sentiment against illegal immigrants has intensified in Phoenix after the shooting death two months ago of a police officer, Nick Erfle, by an illegal immigrant. There have also been weekly protests at a furniture store whose owners have pressed the authorities to arrest day laborers who congregate there and who are believed to be in the country illegally.

Mr. Phelps cited both the clamor over the police officer's shooting and the protests as changes that forced Mr. Gordon to change his position. "It is getting ugly out there," Mr. Phelps said, adding that the mayor wanted to cool tensions with a policy change many rank-and-file officers supported for a city, the nation's fifth largest, 150 miles from the Mexican border.

Like the police in several other big cities, including New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Phoenix police have operated under a 20-year-old order barring officers in most cases from asking a person's immigration status or detaining them for the sole purpose of determining it. The policy is intended to foster greater cooperation with police investigations in communities with large numbers of immigrants.

But the orders have come under fire. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group based in Washington, has a lawsuit pending against Los Angeles, which enacted its policy in 1979. The group sent a representative to Phoenix last week and said it was preparing litigation against the city.

In August, the New Jersey attorney general, Anne Milgram, issued a directive to local law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status of criminal suspects after the authorities in Newark said a man charged in the killing of three young people was in the country illegally and never had his status checked in previous arrests.

The United States Justice Department inspector general said in a report in January that of 99 state, county and municipal law enforcement agencies that responded to a survey, 30 said they did not check the immigration status of arrestees. Many other agencies do not have a formal policy either way, legal experts said.

Law enforcement chiefs in the Phoenix area have generally opposed checking immigration status with the notable exception of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, home to Phoenix. Sheriff Arpaio has made it a practice of arresting people suspected of being in the country illegally. His deputies apprehended eight people Sunday suspected of violating immigration laws who were protesting at a furniture store that has become a flash point of the immigration debate in Phoenix.

The owner of M.D. Pruitt's furniture store has hired off-duty sheriff's deputies to keep day laborers off the property, drawing protests over the last six weekends from immigrant advocates.

Police Chief Jack Harris of Phoenix, who did not attend the mayor's news conference, said through a spokesman that, "I welcome all input into any proposed changes on this policy and will carefully consider all recommendations." He has ardently defended the policy.

A number of critics, including bloggers, radio talk show hosts and the city police union, had urged a change in the policy to reflect a surge of immigration into Arizona in the past two decades after the federal government intensified enforcement of the Mexican border in California and Texas.

Mr. Gordon said the government had not done enough to patrol the border and to enact changes to immigration law to slow the pace. He said he now advocated giving the police the authority to check the immigration status of anyone accused of breaking the law, though he recommended it be done in a way that did not lead to racial or ethnic profiling. Mr. Gordon appointed a panel of two former United States attorneys, a former state attorney general and a former county attorney to recommend changes to the policy to the city manager and the chief by Dec. 31.

Chris Farrell, director of research at Judicial Watch, applauded the mayor. "I'm glad he is finally coming to grips with the fact he is wrong and Chief Harris is wrong," Mr. Farrell said. "The existing order is deeply flawed." But Alfredo Gutierrez, a former Arizona lawmaker and immigrant advocate, said Mr. Gordon had "crumbled" politically in a "cowardly way" before loud anti-immigrant voices that did not necessarily represent the city.

Source





4 December, 2007

Dallas immigration officials cracking down on those who ignore deportation orders

Every day in Dallas, a bus loaded with Mexican deportees pulls out of a Homeland Security Department office near an interstate highway. Some days, there are two buses. It's a get-tough testament to the federal crackdown against illegal immigrants - enforcement unseen in decades in the U.S. "We are definitely doing all we can to tackle illegal immigration," said Nuria Prendes, head of regional detention and removal operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas since 2003. Detention and removal operations took more than 40 percent of ICE's $4.7 billion budget last fiscal year.

And Ms. Prendes is part of a new emphasis on what the law enforcement agency calls fugitive operations - that is, the removal of illegal immigrants who have outstanding deportation or exclusion orders. In October 2006, there were nearly 624,000 persons who fit ICE's profile of a fugitive, according to federal audits done by the Office of Inspector General for the Homeland Security Department.

Such high numbers of illegal immigrants who ignored deportation orders - or in some cases never received them - come, in part, because ICE resources are stretched thin and detention bed space is sparse, the report said. But that effectively "created an unofficial mini-amnesty program," said the auditor's report in 2006. The backlog is now down by about 42,000. Fugitive operations teams have been increased to 75 around the country, from about 50 a year ago. And ICE has placed quotas on the fugitive operations teams to nab 1,000 persons a year, up from goals of 125 arrests in 2003, according to an updated 2007 report from the same auditors.

Nevertheless, with an estimated 11.5 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., the report said, "the fugitive alien population is growing at a rate that exceeds the teams' ability to apprehend."

Others are critical, as well. "What kind of rule of law do you have when you order them deported and then you just sort of let them go into the fabric of the country?" said Roy Beck, executive director of Numbers USA, a group that wants restrictions on legal immigration and an end to illegal immigration.

For immigration attorneys fighting for clients, ICE's toughened procedures cause new worries, especially in North Texas, where the sweep of illegal immigration has been significant. "Nearly everyone in that system believes their chance of promotion depends on racking up statistics that show they have deported a lot of people," said John Wheat Gibson, a Dallas immigration lawyer. "That is the ethos of the whole organization." And that includes Ms. Prendes, Mr. Gibson said. Ms. Prendes is herself an immigrant - albeit legal. She left her native Guantanamo, Cuba, as a 9-year-old when her banker-father was forced to cut sugar cane and her mother was forced to sort beans on an island-nation being reconstructed by a young guerrilla named Fidel Castro....

Tulsa County now participates in a federal program that certifies local officers to perform certain federal immigration enforcement duties, under a section of immigration law known as 287(g). Use of the program is on the rise. As Congress debated and then deadlocked on passage of a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws, 26 more states or municipalities certified some of their law enforcement officers for 287(g) training, which enables them to arrest people under federal immigration law. There are now 34 state or local law enforcement agencies, with nearly 600 local officers participating in the program. But no city or county in Texas has been certified, Ms. Prendes noted.

ICE also operates what it calls the Criminal Alien Program - taking referrals from local law enforcement agencies that believe an illegal immigrant is involved in a criminal misdemeanor or a criminal felony. ICE agents then place a hold on the person and potentially proceed with a deportation. That program has become so popular in North Texas that ICE officers say they're sometimes overextended. Last month, ICE announced it would still take referrals but may not be able to respond to the mounting requests if the detainee is involved in a Class C misdemeanor. Class C misdemeanor charges include speeding, assault, public intoxication and hot checks. The penalty for the misdemeanors is a fine of no more than $500. The move was a controversial one. ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said, "We are a victim of our own success. If we are getting huge amounts of referrals on any given day, we might say that we cannot take your Class C's right now." 'We do what we can'

As the public clamors for tougher enforcement, civil libertarians have hammered the agency with lawsuits, asserting Fourth and Fifth Amendment violations on the use of warrants and due process. Some efforts have been more diplomatic. A month ago, the American Bar Association complained in a letter to Homeland Security that detainees who are transferred to remote facilities won't have sufficient access to immigration legal assistance. Illegal immigrants arrested in the Dallas area, for example, are sent some 200 miles away to Haskell, a city of about 2,700 in Central Texas. Ms. Prendes emphasized that ICE has a contract with a jail there because the conditions meet corrections systems standards. "We would love to have a jail closer but it must meet our standards," Ms. Prendes said.

She adds that warrants are properly administered in her ICE district. The absence of warrants in home arrests has been the subject of litigation in New York and New Mexico. And workers do everything by the book, calling consulates when an arrest is made, and giving them access to detention facilities, as per a United Nations treaty on consular relations dating back to 1963. Updated agreements on deportation processes cover minors, women and others considered "vulnerable," such as injured deportees.

For several years, federal immigration authorities rented detention space just outside Dallas in Denton County, but that space is now filled by "their own criminals," Ms. Prendes said. To those who say frequently and loudly that ICE isn't doing enough to detain those in the U.S. illegally, Ms. Prendes responds: "Congress is the one who enacts the laws. All I do is enforce the laws. We do what we can."

Source



Illegals a problem for Greece and Cyprus too

The problem of illegal immigration is a European problem, said here Monday Greece's Minister for the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation, Prokopis Pavlopoulos noting that Europe should protect EU borders, especially countries of the south which face illegal immigration issues, such as Cyprus and Greece. Speaking after being received by President Tassos Papadopoulos, Pavlopoulos also said that Europe should not make concessions as far as Turkey's EU accession course is concerned. "There cannot be concessions because if Europe acts along these lines, then the whole thing will degenerate. The issue is not for Europe to shift in order to meet Turkey or other states, but for Turkey to go forward to meet Europe," Pavlopoulos said. Turkey, he added, should be seen as a candidate country which adopts fully the acquis communautaire, adding that if Turkey does not do this, it would be violating European law, something which would call for European sanctions.

The Greek Minister said Athens and Nicosia share the same views on illegal immigration, which he described as a European problem, pointing out that Greece and Cyprus will call on the EU to take seriously into consideration the fact that countries which want to maintain friendly relations with the EU or join the Union should sign up to the conditions of re-entry of illegal immigrants or at least observe them. Pavlopoulos thanked President Papadopoulos for visiting the southern Greek village of Artemida which Cyprus has undertaken to rebuild following the catastrophic fires this summer.

Source





3 December, 2007

Police move against illegal immigration

When Alabama state trooper Darryl Zuchelli stopped a van going 18 mph over the speed limit on a routine patrol two months ago, he quickly became part of the federal government's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. Two of the five people in the van were from India and had overstayed their allotted time in the United States. The trooper worked with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents in Birmingham, Ala., more than 700 miles from the nearest international border, to start deportation proceedings against the two that night.

Zuchelli is one of 56 Alabama troopers to receive special training and high-tech tools from the U.S. government to determine whether criminal suspects are in the country legally. Alabama was only the second state to partner with ICE when it signed up in 2003, following Florida. Now the partnership known as the 287(g) program is skyrocketing in popularity - 34 state and local law enforcement agencies in 15 states are on board and an additional 77 have applied. The program offers one of the few ways states and localities can help crack down on illegal immigration, a federal duty.

But deputizing local officers to help enforce federal immigration laws draws critics who question whether it could hamper police officers' ability to do their core duties, because it could scare off immigrants from reporting crime and could lead to racial profiling. Those concerns are a big reason the program has been a politically loaded issue in some areas.

In Alabama, the specially trained officers work both on the road and in driver's license facilities. Combating license fraud was one of the main reasons Alabama authorities were interested in the program, said Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Martha Earnhardt. The licensing division runs a criminal background check on every applicant, and the ICE training helps the office screen for more offenders, she said. The agency arrests 4,000 people a year who apply for licenses, for offenses ranging from fraud to child abuse to murder. Zuchelli, 32, who led Alabama state troopers with the most drunken-driving arrests last year (129), said the immigration training makes him a better police officer with the added incentive that "I may be able to take out a terrorist before he does something else to us."

But activists for immigrants are wary. "I don't see how states and localities can enforce immigration law without engaging in racial profiling. The people they ask to prove their immigration status or citizenship are the people who look or sound foreign," said Joan Friedland, immigration policy director for the National Immigration Law Center, a group that supports immigrant rights. Alabama state police say they've worked with immigrant communities and civil rights groups to try to allay fears about the program, particularly about racial profiling.

Still, after meeting with the state police, representatives from the Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union had just as many concerns as they did before the meeting, said Sam Brooke, a law fellow with ACLU.

Kevin Butler, a lawyer who represents poor defendants against the federal government, alleged in court papers that one state trooper was targeting out-of-state Hispanic drivers for traffic stops and searches and asked state police for detailed information on the stops made by him. Butler's preliminary review concluded that 58 percent of the vehicle searches the officer conducted were of Hispanic motorists, even though Hispanics make up 2 percent of Alabama's population. A judge ordered the state police to turn over the data, but the case was settled before they complied.

Other activists worry that the 287(g) program will discourage immigrants from talking to all police officers, even though in Alabama, for example, the state police are the only ones who, in effect, can work as immigration authorities. "I'm not sure there's a real clear understanding about the difference between the uniform of the state trooper, the sheriff's deputy and the local beat cop," said Isabel Rubio, executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama in Birmingham.

Some law enforcement groups echo that concern. "Immigration enforcement by local police would likely negatively affect and undermine the level of trust and cooperation between local police and immigrant communities," concluded the Major Cities Chiefs, a group of more than 50 big-city police chiefs, in a report issued last year.

But ICE spokesman Mike Gilhoody said the program is specifically designed to decrease crime - not scare immigrants. Local police don't participate in workplace raids, and they don't pursue immigration questions unless they have evidence that a crime has been committed. "The goal is criminal activity. The goal has never been and never will be [apprehending] victims," he said.

Across the country, more than 30,000 people have been charged with immigration-related offenses by local and state authorities over the past three years. Nearly 600 officers are now trained to handle immigration cases. Officers undergo a five-week training course that includes instruction on civil rights and immigration laws, federal prohibitions on racial profiling, cross-cultural issues and treaty obligations that require officers to notify foreign consulates about certain arrests.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Massachusetts Department of Corrections are using their immigration authority to screen inmates, while four police departments in northwestern Arkansas have set up an illegal immigration task force that has nabbed 79 suspected immigration offenders in its first month....

Lawmakers in Oklahoma also gave its state police the green light to participate in the program this spring.

Source



Immigrant-loving Canada

Canada's immigrants will take the spotlight Tuesday when new census information is released showing just how many foreign-born people call the country home, numbers that underscore the thorny debate over whether Canada accepts too many immigrants or not enough. Some 1.2 million immigrants settled in Canada in the five years between the 2001 and 2006 census dates, accounting for two-thirds of the country's population growth. [The present total population of Canada is estimated at 33 million]

Tuesday's release will put those numbers under the microscope for a sharper picture of the immigrant experience. While Ottawa actively woos skilled workers from around the globe to grow the economy, at least one expert says the country can no longer sustain current immigration levels and that the system needs to be dramatically overhauled.

Public opinion polls suggest anywhere between one-third and half of the population feels immigration levels are too high. "Many people think there's a very serious need for a review, but people are afraid to touch it because they'll be called racist," said Martin Collacott, a former Canadian ambassador who worked for the Department of External Affairs for 30 years. "While we could use some immigration, there's a lot of evidence that we're bringing in far more than we need and that we can effectively absorb, and this should be reviewed."

The country's demographic landscape suggests that as the baby boomers begin retiring en masse the workforce will be left clamouring for skilled people to fill the void. Statistics Canada projects that a declining birth rate coupled with an aging population will make immigration the sole source of population growth sometime after 2030. "The marketplace is definitely in need of individuals joining the workforce," said Ayman Al-Yassini, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. "We certainly are in favour of a policy that seeks to attract a greater numbers of immigrants."

Public opinion surveys suggest that when the economy is good Canadians are more willing to support such a policy, said pollster Bruce Anderson. But at other times, many, many Canadians want the tide of immigration to ebb. "Somewhere between one-third and half of Canadians, depending on the question, depending on the time, will say that there a too many immigrants coming into Canada," said Anderson, president of Harris-Decima Research. "That seems like a number that moves up and down with the health of the economy."

Despite those numbers, Anderson said there's a strong desire among Canadians to avoid the kind of "controversial social debate" that occurs in the United States around such issues. "I'm always struck by the fact that Canadians generally don't like to debate those issues, they're too sensitive," [Since you can get put in jail there for frankness about your opinions on the matter, that is not exactly surprising] said Anderson. "There's almost always a feeling of, if you talk about these things you're going to offend somebody."

A recent poll in Britain suggests half the population there wants the government to reduce immigration. In Australia, a survey that came on the heels of the 2004 election found 35 per cent of people polled wanted immigration reduced.

Collacott, whose wife is Vietnamese-Canadian, said it's not racism but an analysis of economic and systemic practices that fuels his argument for reducing immigration to roughly one-quarter of current levels. "My argument is, if we're talking about skill shortages we shouldn't look at immigration in isolation and say, 'let's bring in a quarter-of-a-million people," said Collacott, who is a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute, a right-wing think tank. "Let's look at first how we can make the best use of people already in the country, whether they're Canadian-born or they're immigrants already here.. and look at immigration only as a complement to that."

More here





2 December, 2007

Rudy Giuliani and Illegal Immigration

One of the biggest topics in the debate last night was how the candidates have handled the illegal alien issue in the past. Governor Romney put forth that Mayor Giuliani presided over a sanctuary city in New York, that he ignored the problem. The mayor then accused the governor of running a sanctuary mansion because some illegal aliens had worked at Romney's Massachusetts home.

So here's the truth. Like most Americans, Governor Romney doesn't personally check the papers of people working for him. So that's an unfair criticism by Giuliani. However, the mayor is correct in saying that he did what was best for the City of New York when it came to the illegal alien situation.

When Giuliani was first elected in 1994, violent crime was out of control here in the Big Apple. About 2,000 people a year were being murdered. So the NYPD had no time to track illegals and nowhere to put them, even if they made time.

In '94, the federal government detained very few illegal aliens. So what was Giuliani supposed to do? It is true that since many New Yorkers are either immigrants or the children of immigrants, tracking down illegals has never been a smart political move here. But again, in a city of eight million people, the cops have other things to do. Not an excuse, a reality. So I think it's fair to cut Giuliani some slack.

Governor Romney did recognize the severity of the alien problem and allowed Massachusetts state troopers to investigate immigration status. That's good. That policy has now been revoked under his successor Deval Patrick, a real open-border guy.

With the improving situation in Iraq and the economy still fairly strong, illegal immigration may emerge as the top issue in next year's election. Democrats are largely sympathetic to the plight of illegals, while Republicans are taking a harder line. All the GOP candidates know this is a core issue for conservative voters. So there's little doubt that border security and employer accountability will be a mainstay of the Republican platform. So is Rudy Giuliani soft on illegal immigration? Not anymore. And that's what counts.

Source



Most murders in London done by immigrants

Most murders in London this year were committed by foreigners, according to Scotland Yard figures obtained by The Times. Of 47 killings between April and September where the nationality of the accused is known, 26 of the suspects — 55 per cent — are not Britons. In 19 cases the killer is believed to be British. In a further 23 cases the nationality of the killer has not been determined. At least 23 of the victims were foreign, including Somali, Brazilian, Irish and Vietnamese citizens.

The killings over the six months are under investigation by Scotland Yard’s Homicide Command and are subject to change as more cases are solved. But the raw data represents a stark illustration of the problems facing forces nationwide as communities change rapidly because of large-scale immigration. The accused in the London sample hail from all corners of the world: Peru, China, Albania, Romania, Lithuania, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

All murder and manslaughter cases involving foreigners — as either victims or perpetrators — present detectives with difficulties in understanding motives and overcoming language barriers. Deep-rooted cultural differences also need to be resolved, involving, for example, “honour killings” and revenge murders stemming from Albanian village rivalries. Increasingly, police have to travel overseas to trace suspects, liaise with foreign forces and speak to the families of people killed in Britain. The result is that murder cases are becoming more complicated for investigators, more expensive for police forces and more time-consuming for the courts.

One of the country’s most senior homicide officers told The Times that the Scotland Yard data was not sufficient on its own to provide firm conclusions, but it pointed to an urgent need for detailed research to determine the nationwide police response to demographic change. “We have to stress that this is just a snapshot and much more work needs to be done to establish if it represents a wider pattern,” said Commander Dave Johnston, vice-chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers’ homicide working group. “But this does have resource implications for the police. Such cases require the use of interpreters and there can be difficulties understanding some of the cultural issues. Sometimes we have to pursue suspects across national boundaries. “It is hard to say if there is a national trend, but this is something that should be more closely monitored.”

The figures obtained by The Times relate only to Greater London. Other forces contacted said that they did not compile such data or would release figures only through the freedom of information process. But there is growing evidence that new immigrants to Britain are killing and being killed.

Hertfordshire police have had to investigate a murder linked to an Albanian clan feud, and in Cambridgeshire a Lithuanian man was burnt alive. The case was suspected to involve rivalries originating in his homeland. Polish citizens have been killed this year in Leeds, London, St Helens and Wrexham. An Albanian man was convicted over the shooting of a countryman in an Albanian social club in London, and two men were jailed in Tirana for a murder in North London. Four weeks ago Benjamin Marshall was jailed after pleading guilty to the murder of a Lithuanian citizen, Arturas Venckus, in Nottinghamshire.

There is evidence in police budgets of the increased workload of dealing with crimes committed by foreigners. Chief constables are having to pay more for the services of interpreters and translators. With spending at 9.7 million pounds, Scotland Yard is 1 million over budget for interpreters.

The figures from Scotland Yard cannot be presented with scientific certainty as proof of a definite trend. They exclude killings being investigated by the Metropolitan Police’s Child Abuse Investigation Command and by the Operation Trident team which handles gun crime in the black community. Nor do the figures suggest any migrant-fuelled wave of killings. Murders in the capital had fallen from 176 in 2003-04 to 127 in 2006-07. [Not counting blacks!]

Source





1 December, 2007

Legal, Illegal Immigrant Numbers at Record Highs in USA

New Report Looks at Poverty, Welfare, Health Insurance

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies examines the size, growth, and characteristics of the nation's immigrant, or foreign-born, population as of March 2007. The reported provides a detailed picture of overall immigrant population, and of the illegal immigrant population specifically. The report, "Immigrants in the United States, 2007: A Profile of America's Foreign-Born Population," is online here. Among the report's findings:

# The immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007.

# Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years.

# Overall, nearly one in three immigrants is an illegal alien. Half of Mexican and Central American immigrants and one-third of South American immigrants are illegal.

# Since 2000, 10.3 million immigrants have arrived - the highest seven-year period of immigration in U.S. history. More than half of post-2000 arrivals (5.6 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens.

# Of adult immigrants, 31 percent have not completed high school, compared to 8 percent of natives. The share of immigrants and natives with a college degree is about the same.

# 33 percent of immigrant-headed households use at least one welfare program, compared to 19 percent for native households. Among households headed by immigrants from Mexico, the largest single group, 51 percent use at least one welfare program.

# The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 17 percent, nearly 50 percent higher than the rate for natives and their children.

# 34 percent of immigrants lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 71 percent of the increase in the uninsured since 1989.

# The primary reason for the high rates of immigrant poverty, lack of health insurance, and welfare use is their low education levels, not their legal status or an unwillingness to work.

# Of immigrant households, 82 percent have at least one worker, compared to 73 percent of native households.

# Immigrants make significant progress over time. But even those who have been here for 20 years are more likely to be in poverty, lack insurance, or use welfare than are natives.

# There is a worker present in 78 percent of immigrant households using at least one welfare program.

# Immigration accounts for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment over the last two decades. In 2007, there were 10.8 million school-age children from immigrant families in the United States.

# Immigrants and natives have similar rates of entrepreneurship - 13 percent of natives and 11 percent of immigrants are self-employed.

# Recent immigration has had no significant impact on the nation's age structure. Without the 10.3 million post-2000 immigrants, the average age in America would be virtually unchanged at 36.5 years.

# Detailed information is provided for Texas, California, Arizona, Massachusetts, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Washington, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.

Data Source: The Current Population Survey provides the data for the study. It was collected by the Census Bureau in March 2007 and has not been fully analyzed until now. There is agreement among policy experts, including the Department of Homeland Security, that roughly 90 percent of illegal immigrants respond to Census Bureau surveys of this kind. This allows for separate estimates of the size and characteristics of the illegal immigrant population.

The above is a press release from the CIS



Community colleges ordered to let in illegal immigrants

Decision won't cost N.C., officials say, but critics say colleges shouldn't ignore broken laws

North Carolina's community college system has ordered the state's 58 campuses to admit illegal immigrants, overturning a policy of letting the heavily enrolled schools set their own rules for handling undocumented applicants. David Sullivan, the system's top lawyer, dispatched a memo this month telling the community colleges that state regulations require the schools to admit illegal immigrants who meet the schools' basic requirements of being either a high school graduate or an adult in need of skills training.

"That's just wrong," said state Sen. Richard Stevens, a Raleigh Republican and co-chair of the higher education committee. "The law ought to be changed." Rep. Winkie Wilkins, a Person County Democrat who chairs the House committee on community colleges, said he was "blindsided" by the news.

The state's community colleges focus on training and retraining the work force, usually through skills and trade education. Melinda Wiggins is executive director of Student Action With Farm Workers, which helps children of migrant farm workers get into high school and college. She said barring illegal immigrants from community colleges penalizes youths who were brought to the United States as children. "North Carolina is their home. It's where they've been raised and lived," Wiggins said. "By denying them an education, we're really creating an underclass of folks here in the state who cannot contribute to society."

N.C. public schools must accept children of illegal immigrants under federal regulations. The University of North Carolina system admits undocumented applicants, but a bill to provide in-state tuition to some was quickly shot down in 2005.

Decision won't cost N.C.

Community college executives said the admissions guidelines won't cost the state. Illegal immigrants must pay out-of-state tuition, $7,465 for a full class load, which is more than the actual cost of providing the education, $5,375, the officials said.They also emphasized that under the old policy, with most schools admitting undocumented applicants, 340 of the 270,000 students last year -- or about one-tenth of 1 percent -- were illegal immigrants. If that figure quadrupled, the system could handle it, Sullivan said. "Colleges should immediately begin admitting undocumented individuals," Sullivan wrote in the Nov. 7 memo.

It's unclear how many schools prohibited illegal immigrants from enrolling. A study this year by a Duke University graduate-level class listed 22 campuses as having a written or unwritten policy to bar undocumented applicants. The Observer contacted the three schools nearest to Charlotte, McDowell Technical, Cleveland and Stanly community colleges. All said they had no such policy and had been admitting illegal immigrants. Central Piedmont Community College has been admitting illegal immigrants. Wake Technical Community College, in Raleigh, was among the schools that had to change its policy after the recent memo. "We had just always required appropriate documentation," including legal residency, said Laurie Clowers, the school's public relations director.

After review, a policy change

The new policy memo came after an unverified complaint that an illegal immigrant was dismissed from one of the colleges and after the Duke class's study. The study was prompted by an unrelated research request from the community colleges. The community colleges are required to keep an open-door admissions policy, but were allowed in 2004 to set their own regulations on illegal immigrants.

Sullivan said administrators reviewed that practice this year. They discovered a 1997 advisory letter from the office of then-Attorney General and now Gov. Mike Easley that, while not addressing illegal immigrants specifically, said that the community colleges cannot impose nonacademic criteria for admission. "We thought through the policy again," Sullivan said, and concluded they were wrong to let schools reject undocumented applicants. Easley's current staff deflected any comment on whether the community colleges were correctly interpreting the 10-year-old letter. "You're going to have to ask the current attorney general that," said Sherri Johnson, Easley's communications director.

Questions of legality

Robert Luebke, an education policy analyst with the conservative Civitas Institute in Raleigh, said the new community college directive orders the schools to ignore the fact that the prospective students are breaking the law."These students cannot legally work in North Carolina," Luebke said in a prepared statement. "Subsidizing the education of students who can only work using a forged or stolen Social Security card is absurd."

N.C. Sen. Fred Smith and Salisbury lawyer Bill Graham, both Republican candidates for governor, both said they oppose admitting illegal immigrants. "People can't pick and choose which laws they're going to follow," Smith said, "and which laws they're not going to follow."

Mike Taylor, president of Stanly Community College, said the out-of-state tuition expense effectively serves as an exclusion for illegal immigrants, since many cannot afford the extra cost. That means members of that community can't get job training. "We're put between a rock and a hard place on this," Taylor said. "These same people we can't admit without paying out-of-state tuition can graduate as valedictorian from any high school in Stanly County."

Source