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28 February, 2009

Leftist haters see hate everywhere

To the far-Left SPLC, just about any group unsympathetic to illegal immigration is a "hate" group. But there seem to be no Muslim hate groups, funnily enough! They list the alleged hate groups as: KU KLUX KLAN, NEO-NAZI, WHITE NATIONALIST, RACIST SKINHEAD, CHRISTIAN IDENTITY, NEO-CONFEDERATE, BLACK SEPARATIST and GENERAL HATE but MUSLIM HATE is missing. Despite Muslims being far and away the world's leading source of antisemitism, Muslim organizations must not be listed, apparently, even though the SPLC itself has on occasions mentioned Muslim hate of Jews! That absurdity just shows how far-left they are. You would think that they would at least have a category for Muslim hate just to cover themselves but their bias is so extreme that they have not done so. They list instead totally insignificant groups.

The main achievement of the SPLC is the vast amount of money they raise from their scare-talk. Their latest report discusses only neo-Nazis and the like, of whom there are undoubtely a small but ineffective number, and thus gives the false impression that all the organizations they list are of that ilk.

Some background on the SPLC here and here and here and here. See here for some more useful links. And see here for a comment on where most of the "hate speech" in America comes from. One of the major claims of the SPLC is that they teach tolerance. I can't find anywhere on their site where they teach tolerance for Americans who like the law to be enforced, however. It's only some groups especially selected for us by our "betters" that deserve tolerance, apparently.

A record number of hate groups were active in the United States last year, their anger driven by fears of Latino immigration, a souring economy and the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, a report said Thursday. The report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) showed that 926 hate groups were active in the United States, a four percent rise from the 888 groups active the previous year and a 56 percent rise from the 602 groups documented in 2000.

"Tough economic times provide fertile ground for those who would foment hate against minorities by scapegoating them for our problems," said Mark Potok, editor of the quarterly Intelligence Report, which monitors the radical right, in an editorial posted on the SPLC website.

The election of Obama, the first African-American president of the United States, has further "inflamed racist extremists who see it as another sign that their country is under siege by non-whites," Potok said. The report said Obama had received "more threats than any other presidential candidate in memory, and several white supremacists were arrested for saying they would assassinate him or allegedly plotting to do so." Scores of racially charged incidents including effigy burnings and beatings were reported across the United States after Obama was elected in November.

The hate groups active in the United States include neo-Nazis, white nationalists, racist skinheads, Ku Klux Klan groups, black separatists who don't like Obama, anti-gay and immigrant groups, and negationists who deny the Holocaust.

SOURCE



Brits of both parties want immigration cut

Cutting immigration is now the number one issue for both Labour and Tory voters, a new poll reveals. A Daily Telegraph/YouGov survey shows that it is the top concern that people want an incoming Conservative government to deal with. Fifty-two per cent said they wanted a Tory administration to reduce immigration.

This week immigration figures revealed that one in nine people living in Britain was born overseas, highlighting a significant change in population make-up under Labour. There were 6.5 million people born abroad who were resident in the UK in June 2008. This represented a rise of 290,000 on the previous year and 1.2 million since 2004.

The issue of foreign workers sparked strike action across the country when a refinery in Lincolnshire employed Italian workers to complete a contract, instead of using UK workers. Unions accused Gordon Brown of going back on his commitment to ensure there were "British jobs for British workers." The issue caused consternation among many Labour MPs who watched their traditional supporters protesting so strongly against the Prime Minister. Labour ministers are aware that immigration is now a problem for them among their core voters. Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, recently said that the "white working class" feels ignored over the issue.

In today's poll it also comes top of the list of concerns among Labour voters with 42 per cent saying it should be cut compared to 62 per cent of Conservative backers. Reducing the powers of the European Union is second and providing more to help families is third.

The poll also shows a comfortable lead for the Tories over Labour. The Conservatives are on 41 per cent, down two on last month, and Labour on 31, down one point on January's survey. The Liberal Democrats polled 15 per cent, down one. That result would only, however, give Mr Cameron a Commons majority of 38. He and his party strategists are determined to land a sizable majority and capitalise on the Government's unpopularity.

When asked who would make the better Prime Minister, 25 per cent said Mr Brown, down two, and 33 per cent Mr Cameron, also down two.

There is more bad news for the Prime Minister with the finding that only 14 per cent believe the Government's measures to tackle the recession are working. Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, admitted this month that Labour needed to hold its nerve because the effect of its recession measures were not yet being felt.

The arrival of Ken Clarke as Lord Mandelson's opposite number has had an immediate impact. When asked who would make a better Business Secretary, 48 per cent said Mr Clarke and only 17 per cent favoured Lord Mandelson, who like Mr Clarke was brought back to bolster his party's front bench team. One recent poll put the Conservatives 20 points ahead.

Mr Brown's own popularity also continues to decline. Sixty-five per cent of voters are dissatisfied with him as Prime Minister, up two from last month, and only 25 per cent are satisfied, down two. When asked whether Mr Cameron was proving a good leader of the Conservative party 46 per cent said yes, the same as last month. The Tories have also emerged as the party more trusted to get the country out of the present crisis -- reversing the position of last autumn. Then Mr Brown's assured handling of the crisis saw an increase in his personal standing and an improvement in Labour's poll ratings. But now 35 per cent say the Tories are more trusted to deal with the crisis and only 28 per cent Labour.

SOURCE





27 February, 2009

ACLU adds to Washington State's Immigration Storm



An immigration showdown is brewing on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, where simmering tensions and borderline hostility have fueled a turf war between the local community and the Border Patrol agents assigned to protect it.

Now the American Civil Liberties Union has jumped into the ring and upped the ante, rolling out a campaign that will install signs inside buses informing riders of their rights - to ignore Border Patrol agents. The signs, entitled, "YOUR RIGHTS with border patrol agents on this bus," makes three points:

* If you're a U.S. citizen, you don't have to prove it.

* If you're not a U.S. citizen and are 18 or older, you must show your immigration papers to federal agents.

* Everyone has the right to remain silent.

The campaign, which could start as early as next week, is the latest in a series of expanding grassroots efforts aimed at curbing the expansion of Border Patrol forces and the powers of its agents. Last summer the Border Patrol beefed up its presence in the region, and in October it began conducting random roadside stops at checkpoints located at and within the international border to combat, what it says, is a real threat to national security. This move has put them at odds with human rights groups and even local law enforcement - some who have rejected federal immigration money to protest the Border Patrol's tactics.

The ACLU has joined forces with left-leaning groups around the state - lavender farmers, retirees, activists, grandparents, Socialists, Green Party members, politicians, Unitarians, Christians, vineyard owners, hippies and other assorted protesters - who say these measures have infringed on people's civil liberties. The ACLU says it is just informing frightened residents, U.S. citizens and immigrants - both legal and illegal - of their rights.

They say Border Patrol agents spend their time rounding up illegal immigrants well inland of the border and wasting their resources and manpower by conducting immigration status checks on local buses and at random checkpoints on roads well inside the border. "They set up random checkpoints, no suspicion of criminal activity or no suspicion they'd even near the border, continued to follow and stop random people and demand citizenship information from them," said Jennifer Shaw, Deputy Director of the ACLU Washington. "They go up to folks and say, 'Are you a citizen?"

But critics of the ACLU campaign say it is designed to give illegal immigrants - and possibly terrorists - a playbook for evading federal law enforcement agents working to secure one of the most dangerous and porous borders in the country at a time when the threat to national security is particularly high. "These are the places that terrorists or criminals would use to egress away from the border. There are only a few ways to get in," said Michael Bermudez, U.S. Border Patrol spokesman in Blaine, Wash., of the recent bus-sign campaign.

Bermudez said there's good reason for Border Patrol agents to be pursuing illegal immigrants. "We're concerned with securing the areas between ports of entry, concerned with preventing terrorists and their mass weapons of terrorism," he said.

ACLU's pamphlets and signs will be posted inside buses that will pick up and drop off passengers at the Port Angeles ferry terminal -- right across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria, B.C. That's where Algerian-born Ahmed Ressam docked on American soil in 1999 with explosives in the trunk of his car and a plan to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve. The "Millennium Bomber" was apprehended by Customs and Border agents and is currently serving a 22-year sentence.

Border Patrol agents also point out that the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held in Vancouver, not far from the crossing. "Heightened border security is not only appropriate, it is necessary," Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA), ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, told FOXNews.com. "We've got the Olympics coming up. Do you know what terrorists want? Terrorists want to make the biggest splash they can to impair different countries with a different world view than they have, and making that splash at the Olympics is got to be close to the top of their list, if not the top."

More here



The end of raids to round up illegals?

Napolitano orders review of Wash. immigration raid

Immigration agents this week conducted their first work-site raid since President Barack Obama took office, but it was news to their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who on Wednesday ordered a review of the action.

Workplace raids involving the arrests of hundreds of illegal immigrants at a time became almost routine in the last years of the Bush administration, but Napolitano's response to Tuesday's raid at a Bellingham, Wash., manufacturing plant highlighted the Obama administration's much different approach to a hot-button issue.

Napolitano told lawmakers during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that she did not know about the raid before it happened and was briefed on it early Wednesday morning. She has asked U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which arrested 28 illegal immigrants in the raid, for answers. "I want to get to the bottom of this as well," she said. She said work-site enforcement needs to be focused on the employers.

The raid at the Yamato Engine Specialists was the first work-site action ICE has taken since Obama took office, said Sean Smith, a spokesman at Homeland Security in Washington, D.C. In a statement, an ICE official said the agency conducted the raid after information from two "gang members" led agents to start an investigation at the company. "Follow-up investigation uncovered a potentially large number of illegally employed workers. ICE conducted the operation in order to identify and, if appropriate, apprehend any unauthorized workers and to further determine potential criminal activity," ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in an e-mail from Washington, D.C.

Obama, who appointed Napolitano, has signaled a shift in immigration policy that would rely less on work-site enforcement, focusing instead on employers who hire illegal immigrants and overall immigration reform.

ICE agents rounded up 25 men and three women at the engine shop, all Mexicans except for a Honduran, a Salvadoran and a Guatemalan. Except for three people freed on humanitarian grounds, those arrested are at a detention center in Tacoma, awaiting deportation proceedings. In a statement Tuesday, ICE officials said many of the people obtained the jobs using fake Social Security numbers and other counterfeit documents.

Shirin Dhanani Makalai, whose family owns the business, said the raid came after months of cooperating with ICE on an audit, which included providing employee rosters to federal authorities. She said the business does not advocate hiring illegal immigrants. "We try to stay within the guidelines, within the law," Makalai said Tuesday. Makalai added that the company did not knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and that employers have no clear way of checking an employee's legal status.

Marissa Graciosa of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, said it was deeply disappointing that ICE has executed a raid since Obama took office. She called the raids destructive and ineffective. "We urge President Obama to deliver on his promise of change by stopping the raids, and signing just and humane immigration reform into law," Graciosa said.

Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter enforcement of immigration laws, said Napolitano's call to review the raid goes along with an expectation that Obama will slash work-site raids. Camarota said such raids should be part of an overall immigration policy. "I think that the expectation is that (Obama) will do a whole lot less enforcement, period," Camarota said.

SOURCE





26 February, 2009

Should Judges Control US Immigration Policy?

New Report Examines Assault on Political Control over Immigration

In last week's decision in the case of 17 Chinese Uighur Muslims held at Guantanamo, a federal appeals court reiterated the exclusive control over immigration by the political branches of government. The court quoted late Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter that immigration matters are "wholly outside the concern and competence of the Judiciary."

While this concept, called the "plenary power doctrine," may seem obvious as a basic attribute of sovereignty, it is under attack by supporters of unrestricted immigration. There is a movement underway among law professors and other activists to erode political-branch control over immigration in favor of a judge-administered system based on the implicit idea that foreigners have a "right" to immigrate. This is despite the fact that the courts have affirmed the plenary power doctrine countless times since the 19th century.

In order to shed light on this effort to subvert the plenary power doctrine and hand the formulation of immigration policy to an unelected judiciary, the Center for Immigration Studies has published a new Backgrounder, "Plenary Power: Should Judges Control U.S. Immigration Policy?" by legal policy analyst Jon Feere. The report examines the long history of the doctrine, the challenges to it launched by supporters of unrestricted immigration, and some possible responses.

The relevance of the plenary power doctrine extends beyond Guantanamo detention cases and is unrelated to specific immigration policy preferences. If constitutional norms are somehow imported into civil immigration law - for instance through the use of a First Amendment analysis as a bar against deportation, race-based civil rights claims as an argument against exclusion, or protections against "cruel and unusual punishment" - the sovereignty and self-determination of the American people would be irreversibly compromised.

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. Contact: Jon Feere, (202) 466-8185, jdf@cis.org



One in nine people living in Britain now born overseas as 300,000 more foreigners settle in the UK

More than one in every eight people in England were born abroad, according to an official breakdown of the population. It showed that in the middle of last year there were 6,486,000 people in Britain who were born abroad, with just over six million of them in England. The figures suggest the impact of immigration on numbers in England, already the most crowded country in Europe, may have been underestimated until now.

Numbers of those born abroad have been rising at more than 300,000 a year - a rate of increase far in excess of the level of immigration noted by other surveys accepted by Government ministers. Over the past four years the population of people living in Britain who were born in Eastern Europe has gone up by between 400,000 and 500,000, while the ranks of those in Britain who were born outside-Europe have swelled by just under 700,000. According to the new statistics, published yesterday, foreign-born people make up one in nine of the population of the UK as a whole.

However although the figures from the Government's Office for National Statistics show an increase in numbers of foreign born people they still fail to record the true impact of immigration because they record their children as British rather than second or third generation immigrants. The Labour Force Survey, from which the information has been obtained, also fails to include people who live in hotels, boarding houses, hostels or caravan sites, as large numbers of migrants do. Nor does it include students in halls of residence.

The dramatic new population estimates come alongside fresh evidence that much higher numbers of foreign citizens have been allowed to settle permanently in Britain over the past decade. Around 400 foreign nationals a day are being given permission to settle in Britain - nearly three times the number given the right to stay when Labour took power in 1997.

The Migrationwatch think tank said the series of immigration and population figures published by Whitehall were 'cause for real concern' and heralded a ' population explosion'. The new figures showed that while the foreign-born population shot up between 2004 and 2008, the population of those born in Britain stayed steady, rising by just 62,000 people. The foreign-born population rose by 290,000 last year and has risen by an average of 313,000 each year since 2004.

This conflicts with official immigration figures, which are based on different methods of calculation, which say immigration pushed up the population by 237,000 in 2007. On the basis of official immigration figures, ministers say the total population will reach 70million by 2028. But if yesterday's new estimates are correct, the population may be closer to 75million by then.

Sir Andrew Green of Migrationwatch said: 'These figures are a cause for real concern. They are much higher than official immigration figures have indicated. They may mean that we face a population explosion.'

Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green called for new curbs. 'It is the rate of growth that disturbs people when immigration is badly controlled as it has been over the past ten years,' he said. 'The chaos of the immigration system over the last decade has meant too much change too quickly.'

A Home Office spokesman said: 'This is in line with the other figures published by ONS showing the number of foreign-born workers. 'But this includes British nationals born overseas and those who are here and have settled or gained citizenship. 'Migrants continue to make an important contribution but it is right that in these current times that we control the numbers coming to the UK to work.'

The Labour Force Survey questions 130,000 people every month - far more than the surveys at ports and airports used to count immigration. The population figures came as a Home Office analysis showed the number of foreigners being given the right to settle in the UK permanently has almost trebled under Labour. Last year, 145,965 foreign nationals were granted settlement rights, or 400 every day. This compares with only 58,725 in 1997.

SOURCE





25 February, 2009

New Studies Reveal How Illegal Aliens Strain Federal Resources

A recent study reveals that illegal aliens represent a growing burden on the federal courts and a growing segment of the U.S. federal prison population. At the same time, a separate study reveals that immigration enforcement officials are failing to enforce court orders that require the deportation of illegal, often criminal, aliens.

A Pew Hispanic Center study of U.S. Sentencing Commission data that was released last week concluded that "[s]harp growth in illegal immigration and increased enforcement of immigration laws have altered the ethnic composition of offenders sentenced in federal courts." (A Rising Share: Hispanics and Federal Crime, Pew Hispanic Center). According to the Pew study, the overall number of "immigration offenders" in federal courts has risen sharply in recent years, jumping from 10% in 1996 to 24% in 2007. While Latinos as a whole constitute about 13% of the U.S. adult population, in 2007 "Latinos without U.S. citizenship" accounted for 29% of all federal offenders and accounted for nearly "41% of the growth in the total number of offenders sentenced in federal courts" as measured from 1991 to 2007. The study, while detailed, does not provide any data on courtroom or prison related costs.

At the same time as the federal criminal caseload has increased, a recently leaked U.S. Justice Department study reveals that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the federal court system have failed to ensure the removal of illegal aliens from the United States after they have been ordered deported. (FOX News, February 18, 2009). The internal DOJ study found that more than 7,200 of the 8,000 illegal aliens who were arrested and ultimately ordered deported last year by federal appellate courts have yet to be removed from the country. While this number is small in comparison to the 554,000 illegal aliens who are in various stages of the removal process, it indicates that ICE still allows most immigration violators to remain free pending removal even though "a very high percentage of [illegal aliens who are ultimately ordered deported] fail to show up" when they lose their cases.

SOURCE



Immigration crackdown written into the new stimulus law will damage New York's financial sector

I am really weeping big tears over this one. I am inclined to think that a much smaller sector of these crooks and short-term thinkers might not be such a bad thing. And if the high incomes routinely earned in the financial sector are not enough incentive to draw in lots of talent, I don't think anything else will help much

An immigration crackdown written into the new stimulus law will damage New York's financial sector - and must be repealed immediately. Deep in the law is a provision that makes it all but impossible for banks to hire the best foreign workers after participating in the federal bailout. The stated purpose is to encourage the banks to hire American. That sounds good until you realize that global financial houses need flexibility to hire globally in order to remain competitive. And, the banks need top talent to get through one of the worst money crises in history.

The immigration rules let U.S. companies hire highly skilled foreigners under so-called H1-B visas. The demand from Wall Street to Silicon Valley far outstrips supply every year. In the stimulus debate, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Grassley moved to ban use of H1-B visas by any bank getting rescue money. That would have been disastrous - 13,000 workers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are here on H1-B visas, and banks likely to need federal money are their biggest employers.

The amendment failed and was replaced by a mandate that banks hire first from a pool of laid-off Americans. The red tape is so thick that the law essentially functions as an H1-B ban. The bottom line: Congress grafted destructive social policy onto legislation whose only goal should have been reviving the economy. The same was true of the onerous executive compensation limits sponsored by Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd.

Love or hate them - and they are easy to hate - the banks must have the latitude to operate like, well, banks. Congress must learn that lesson. Repeal the compensation caps. Repeal the visa restrictions.

SOURCE



24 February, 2009

Despite High Unemployment, Obama Puts Amnesty on the Agenda

This week, as a guest on a Spanish language radio show, President Obama stated his continued support for giving amnesty to 12 million illegal immigrants, which would force Americans looking for a job to compete with amnestied aliens for work. (El Piolin Interview, February 18, 2009 and CBS4 - South Florida).

During the radio interview, President Obama said: "We're going to start by really trying to work on how to improve the current [immigration] system so that people who want to be naturalized, who want to become citizens ... are able to do it; that it's cheaper, that it's faster, that they have an easier time in terms of sponsoring family members." Following that, President Obama acknowledged what legal American workers already know intuitively - that amnesty is not in their best interest - but then endorsed amnesty anyway. President Obama said: "And then we've got to have comprehensive immigration reform. ... Politically it's going to be tough. It's probably tougher now than it was, partly because of the fact that the economy has gotten worse." (El Piolin).

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, over 11.6 million Americans are currently unemployed and the number of unemployed Americans has increased by 4.1 million over the past year. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2009). Millions more have simply stopped looking for work. Just last month, 598,000 Americans lost their jobs. Particularly troubling among the unemployment data is the fact that certain minorities such as African-Americans are experiencing greater unemployment (12.6 percent) than the nation as a whole.

President Obama also said his staff was working on amnesty already, stating: "we've got some wonderful people on my White House staff who are working on this issue on an ongoing basis." Earlier this week, open-borders advocates suggested that they expect that Congress will debate amnesty legislation in the fall of 2009. (NDN, February 20, 2009). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's director of Hispanic media has confirmed the likely timing for debate as well. (O Jornal, January 30, 2009).

SOURCE



Australia likely to cut immigration

Australia will likely cut the number of skilled immigrants allowed into the country next year, following the global economic downturn, the government said Monday. "I expect the numbers of our programme to drop next year as a reaction to the economic circumstances," Immigration Minister Chris Evans told reporters. He gave no indication of the size of the cut, but said the government would also reconsider which occupations should be on the critical skills list. "We will probably have a formal look at that in the next couple of weeks," Evans said.

Around 190,300 migrants were projected to arrive over 2008/09, with skilled workers accounting for most places in a programme designed when the forecast was for rapid economic growth and a skills crisis. But projections for growth have been slashed as the global economy slows, and some industries have already started cutting jobs.

Asian immigration has grown rapidly in recent years while the number of new arrivals from traditional source countries such as Britain and Italy has fallen, the latest census showed last month. "Country-of-birth groups which increased the most between 1996 and 2006 were New Zealand (by around 98,000 people), China (96,000) and India (70,000)," according to the census. "In contrast, European country-of-birth groups declined sharply over the same period -- Italy by 39,000 people, the United Kingdom by 35,000 and Greece by 17,000."

However, while the ratio of Asian immigration to European arrivals changed -- with six of the 10 most common birthplaces of migrants being Asian countries -- 92,000 Britons still accounted for most new residents. Apart from China and India, countries providing increasing numbers of immigrants included Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and South Africa.

SOURCE





23 February, 2009

Foreign workers could be barred from entering UK

More tokenism. The British authorities are attacking a small number of unfortunate Indians because their treaty obligations mean that the large number of immigrants arriving from Europe (many of whom are not of European origin) must be ignored. Typical British bureaucratic logic: The unrest among the native British workforce has been about Portuguese and Italian workers -- so crack down on Indians!

New measures to bar tens of thousands of foreign workers from outside Europe coming to work in Britain as the recession bites deeper were outlined by the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, today. The package includes possible moves to prevent the families of skilled migrants working in Britain and restricting skilled migrants to taking jobs only in occupations with shortages. It represents a significant tightening of the new Australian-style points-based immigration system only four months after its introduction last November in the face of mounting "British jobs for British workers" protests and fears that the far-right British National Party, will win seats for the first time in June's European elections.

The government has already banned the legal movement of unskilled economic migrants from outside Europe to Britain and the package outlined by the home secretary represents the first move to cut the number skilled migrants coming to work. Smith signalled that raising the qualification levels for tier 1 - the most highly skilled migrant route - could cut the numbers from 26,000 to only 14,000 a year. The new criteria will require a master's rather than a bachelor's degree and a job offer with a minimum salary of 20,000 pounds rather than 17,000. Smith has also asked the government's migration advisory committee to assess the economic case to restrict skilled workers under tier 2 to shortage occupations only. This could cut the numbers from an estimated 80,000 to only 20,000 to 40,000 a year.

The migration advisory committee, chaired by LSE professor David Metcalf, has also been asked to assess the economic impact of banning the spouses and other dependants of foreign workers from taking jobs in Britain. This move could also affect tens of thousands of people who come to work each year mainly from India, Pakistan and parts of Africa. "These measures are not about narrow protectionism," Smith said. "Just as in a growth period we needed migrants to support growth, it is right in a downturn to be more selective about the skill levels of those migrants, and to do more to put British workers first."

The home secretary said the action she was taking "to be more selective" combined with the economic circumstances. As migration levels tend to fall during periods of recession she expected the number of migrants outside of Europe to fall during the next financial year.

The points-based immigration system does not cover the movement of workers from within the European Union to Britain but official immigration figures to be published on Tuesday are expected to confirm that the number of Poles and other eastern Europeans coming to work continues to fall, especially since the decline of the pound against the Euro. Other measures outlined today/yesterday include:

* Employers must advertise tier 2 skilled jobs in JobCentres before they can bring in a worker from outside Europe.

* Migration advisory committee to assess economic contribution made by dependants of those who come under the points-based immigration system and their role in the labour market.

* Each shortage occupation declared by the committee to trigger a skills review of the British labour force and how they can be developed to meet the shortage.

Damian Green, the Conservatives' immigration spokesman, said Smith was just "tinkering around the edges" of the system and said if she wanted to control migrant numbers she should introduce an annual limit.

SOURCE



Italy Cracks Down on Sexual Violence and Illegal Immigration

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government on Friday approved tougher measures to crack down on sexual violence and illegal immigration. The Prime Minister issued an emergency decree at a cabinet meeting Friday in response to a series of rapes blamed mostly on foreigners. The rapes in the last weeks have shocked Italy. Two Romanians were arrested for the rape of a 14-year-old girl on Valentine's Day.

The newly approved government package, which must be approved by parliament, increases jail sentences for rape, gives free legal counsel to victims of sexual violence and makes stalking a crime. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said mayors have also been allowed to organize patrols of unarmed citizens so that they can point out to police forces where there are risks for urban security or situations of social degradation. The government says the aim of such patrols, which have drawn criticism from the center-left opposition, is to boost security on city streets.

The opposition says the government is promoting vigilante justice but Maroni Friday defended the measure, saying that setting up organized groups of volunteers would avoid the creation of "do-it-yourself" patrols seeking to take matters into their own hands.

The decree also allows authorities to detain immigrants for six months, up from two months, while they work to identify them, process asylum requests and expel those not entitled to stay.

Romania's foreign minister Cristian Diaconescu said, meanwhile, that his country does not want citizens suspected of committing crimes in Italy to be repatriated. The minister said Romania would like to overcome this abnormal situation through dialogue and cooperation with its Italian partners in the near future. Diaconescu is expected to travel to Italy on Monday, where he plans to discuss the issue with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. Some one million Romanians are estimated to live and work in Italy.

SOURCE





22 February, 2009

California judge sets unreasonably high standards for valid arrests of illegals

One wonders how any illegals could ever be arrested under such standards

A judge has dismissed a deportation case against one of 130 suspected illegal immigrants arrested in a factory raid in Van Nuys, saying federal agents had no right to detain him. Immigration Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor ruled last week that federal agents illegally detained Gregorio Perez in last year's raid on Micro Solutions Enterprises because they did not have a warrant for his arrest or "reasonable suspicion" he was in the country illegally.

Tabaddor said Immigration and Customs Enforcement only learned Perez's background when more than 100 armed agents entered the printer cartridge manufacturing plant, blocked the exits and ordered workers to line up based on their immigration status. Perez "was subjected to an intimidating and coercive environment in which a reasonable person would feel more compelled to provide answers or information that one might not otherwise provide under different circumstances," Tabaddor wrote.

Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Perez, said about 40 to 50 immigrants arrested in the raid have made similar arguments. Immigration experts say illegal immigrants arrested in raids elsewhere in the country have brought similar challenges, but these are rare - in part because many do not have attorneys to represent them in court. "I am not aware of massive challenges to deportation based on unlawful detention," said David Leopold, a vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will appeal the judge's decision, Virginia Kice, an agency spokeswoman, said in a statement. Kice said that the agency complied with the terms of a federal search warrant during the operation last February.

According to a copy of the judge's ruling, ICE said Perez admitted he was from Mexico and brought illegally into the country when he was about 9 years old. On Friday, Perez would not say where he was from. During the Feb. 7, 2008 raid, agents executed the search warrant on Micro Solutions Enterprises and arrested eight workers and charged them with providing fraudulent information to get their jobs. Agents arrested another 130 workers on suspicion of being in the country illegally. Since then, more than 100 workers who are U.S. citizens and legal residents have filed claims for damages with the federal government alleging they were illegally detained in the raid. Civil rights lawyers have also sued the government, alleging officials have refused to release information about the operation.

Perez said he was arrested at the plant and detained in downtown Los Angeles with other workers. He said he slept the night on the cell's concrete floor, wasn't fed for more than 18 hours, and was called out in the middle of the night for an interview. The 23-year old said agents never advised him of his right to seek a lawyer. That was another reason Tabaddor threw out the deportation case, noting that the federal government gleaned Perez's birthplace and immigration status under these conditions. "It's good to know my rights," Perez said on Friday. "Now, I won't let myself be intimidated."

Leopold said immigration attorneys held a seminar last year to discuss challenging the legality of such arrests and hopes immigrants will raise similar cases elsewhere in the country. "ICE has to operate under the same rules as everybody else. Just because they're dealing with immigrants doesn't mean they can leave the Constitution at the door of the workplace," Leopold said.

SOURCE



Jury delivers setback for illegal immigration advocacy group

A pity juries cannot rule on all immigration questions. They make a lot more sense than judges

An Arizona jury has rejected the claims brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund against an Arizona rancher who detained 20 illegal aliens on his property in 2004. The plaintiffs alleged that Roger Barnett and his wife Barbara, who operate the Cross Rail Ranch near the Mexican border, violated their civil rights by detaining them, but the jury disagreed.

"For years, MALDEF and other illegal alien advocacy groups have threatened local governments and individual citizens with lawsuits to intimidate them from protecting their communities and property," says Michael Hethmon, a co-counsel for the Barnetts. He adds that "the Barnett family are Americans who refused to be intimidated," and that the Immigration Reform Law Institute is proud to have represented them as they sought to "defend their right to protect their homes and safety."

IRLI is the legal defense and education arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

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21 February, 2009

Immigration and the GOP

By W. James Antle, III

Over at NRO, Richard Nadler has gotten into an exchange with a whole bunch of people on the subject of whether Republicans are hurting themselves with their immigration stance. Nadler says yes, his interlocutors say no. For the purposes of this post, I'll confine myself to Ramesh Ponnuru's response since he comes closest to my own views: he basically agrees with Nadler that the GOP's immigration position has to some extent hurt the party among Hispanic voters but is closer to Nadler's critics as to what constitutes sound immigration policy.

We're in particular agreement on two points. On policy, Ponnuru writes: "My principal concern about immigration is the extent to which immigrants assimilate culturally and economically. Toward that end I favor a reduced level and more varied sources of immigration." From a political and moral perspective, he writes: "Republicans also should be careful not to let hostility to illegal immigration come across as hostility to illegal immigrants as people, let alone to Hispanics generally." Unforuntately, crafting a political message that takes both points seriously is a lot easier said than done.

Ponnuru criticizes restrictionists for pointing out that most of the victorious Democrats in 2006 and 2008 claimed to support enforcement and oppose amnesty: "But most advocates of 'comprehensive reform' say exactly the same things. President Bush said that he favored enforcement and opposed amnesty, and so did Senator McCain. Opponents of that reform never take those statements at face value - except when they are trying to spin away political defeats."

But the fact that virtually nobody outside of safe liberal districts openly campaigns in favor of amnesty or against immigration enforcement is not politically meaningless. It suggests that the pro-amnesty, or if you prefer "comprehensive reform," position carries its own political costs. Activist restrictionists don't take the pro-enforcement rhetoric of pro-amnesty politicians at face value, but a lot of voters do. Restrictionist sentiment has proven fairly easy to co-opt; harder-core restrictionists have found themselves vulnerable to triangulation by politicians whose rhetoric better represents the nuances of public opinion on immigration.

Almost nobody of consequence advocates mass deportation. Perhaps restrictionists would benefit from using rhetoric that makes that clearer. But immigration enforcement isn't painless: to the employers, friends, and families of any illegal immigrant denied entry or asked to leave the United States, the act of enforcing the law is going to look a lot like a mass deportation. Ponnuru suggests we should worry less about the illegal immigrants who are already here than those who would join them. But the illegal population may be as large as 20 million people. If we do nothing to reduce that number, it will take some time for a reduction in illegal entries to catch up. Second, up to 40 percent of that illegal population came in legally and overstayed their visas. So any serious effort to reduce illegal immigration is going to require some level of interior enforcement. Interior enforcement is not painless or politically cost-free.

Conservatives are thus caught between a rock and a hard place. If Nadler is right, and I think he is, immigration enforcement has the potential to alienate the country's fastest-growing demographic group and push it to the left. But if the restrictionists are right, and I think they are, failure to enact sound immigration policies that better integrate newcomers will also have the effect of pushing the country to the left. It's not an easy dilemma to resolve.

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Australia: "Temporary" visas 'may cost local-born their jobs'

Australia's record intake of temporary skilled migrants during the economic downturn could boost the number of Australian-born unemployed, as research suggests it is being used as a "back door" to permanent entry by low-wage workers. The claim comes from Monash University population expert Bob Birrell, who said more of Australia's permanent skilled migrants were being sourced from the 457 visa program, which was drawing on workers from low-wage countries in increasing numbers.

"People at the lower end of the spectrum are becoming permanent residents," Professor Birrell said. "They're vulnerable to exploitation because the employer knows they're not going to quibble with what he's offering them because they're desperate to get the permanent resident nomination."

As the global recession worsens, Professor Birrell said it was time for the Rudd Government to rethink its record high migration intake. He said the tough economic climate would give employers added incentives to employ or retain cheap overseas labour in the place of local workers. Professor Birrell, a long-time critic of a high migration quota, said the research, which was co-authored by Ernest Healy and 457 visa expert Bob Kinnaird, was in response to Immigration Minister Chris Evans's decision in December to give priority to migrants with a job or with critically needed skills. That decision was seen as an alternative to cutting the migrant quota, an option flagged by Kevin Rudd last year in response to the worsening economic conditions.

Last May, Senator Evans announced an increase in the permanent migration program of 37,500. The increase brought the total number of skilled migrants to 133,500, plus 56,500 family reunion places and 13,500 humanitarian visas. Overall, Australia is taking more than 200,000 new migrants a year. In 2007-08, about 58,050 migrants came in under the 457 program, a figure that excludes their family members.

Professor Birrell said, in that year, about 90 per cent of the 17,760 permanent migrants who were sponsored by an employer onshore were former 457 visa holders. Holders of 457 visas are subject to less stringent language requirements and there is no labour market testing, meaning employers do not have to demonstrate that the position cannot be filled locally. A minimum salary level of $43,440 applies for most 457 visa workers.

In a trend that has alarmed unions, who fear the 457 program is being exploited by business to undercut wages, the program is increasingly sourcing workers from the developing world. In 2007-08, 8250 Indian workers came in under the program, compared with 2880 in 2004-05. Over the same period, the number of Filipino workers jumped from 600 to 5120, and the number of Chinese workers rose from 930 to 3360.

A spokesman for Senator Evans said yesterday the 457 program had sharply declined amid worsening financial conditions. "Figures show that application rates for subclass 457 visas in January 2009 are now 30per cent lower than in September 2008, when the economic downturn struck," the spokesman said. Furthermore, plans to introduce market rates for 457 workers would effectively make them a more expensive option, the spokesman said. A cut in next year's migration program was also likely, he added.

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20 February, 2009

Georgia Rep. makes effort to limit chain migration

U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta) has introduced HR 878, named the Nuclear Family Priority Act. It is meant to limit so-called "chain migration," where extended families of legal immigrants are given priority for receiving visas. Gingrey made the following comments:

"Chain migration is a ticking time bomb. Under current law, one legal immigrant could potentially yield visas for up to 273 other legal immigrants in a 15 year period. You can imagine what would happen if Congress granted amnesty to the 12 million illegal immigrants currently in our nation - each one of them could start the chain migration process. I don't understand why we are giving the second-cousin of a legal immigrant visa priority over someone with good job skills and an education. My bill would limit family migration to the nuclear family: spouses, dependent children and parents. This would reduce the 'chain' to a maximum of about 30 visas.

"As a father, I absolutely understand the importance of uniting nuclear families so spouses and young children can stay together. But chain migration isn't a nuclear family program - it's an intergenerational relocation program. America was founded on the idea that anyone can succeed through skill and hard work. Our immigration system shouldn't be sending the message that family lineage is more important that work ethic and education."

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Foreign workers in Britain double to 3.8m under Labour - and majority are from OUTSIDE the EU

Foreign workers are taking a greater share of British jobs than ever, it emerged last night. They now hold more than 3.8million jobs - 13 per cent of the total. In 1997, when Labour came to power, people born outside the UK held only two million jobs, 7.5 per cent of the workforce. The figures are an acute embarrassment for Gordon Brown, who was under renewed attack last night over his promise to deliver 'British jobs for British workers'. Tories said there 'cannot be anyone left in Britain' who believes the 2007 pledge.

Most damagingly, two-thirds of the foreign workers were born outside the EU - in countries whose citizens need permits to work here.

The figures were compiled in the wake of angry wildcat strikes across the UK over the number of jobs going to people from overseas. They were sparked by protests at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, where Italian and Portuguese workers took all the jobs on a lucrative new contract.

The figures came as a second study, by Migrationwatch, revealed that British workers are also losing out under EU free movement rules. Europeans taking advantage of the rules to work here outnumber Britons working elsewhere in the EU by more than four to one.

The figures revealing the proportion of foreign workers in the UK are the result of research by the independent House of Commons Library. The analysis is based on figures from the Office for National Statistics, which was criticised by ministers last week for releasing them. The statistics were obtained from the Library by Shadow Work and Pensions Minister James Clappison, who said last night: 'This is yet more evidence that Labour have failed to bring migration from outside the EU under control despite repeated promises to do so. 'It is no wonder the Government has tried to bully the ONS into covering up yet more bad news.'

Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: 'There cannot be anyone left in this country who believes Gordon Brown's pledge of British jobs for British workers. 'This shows the continuing failure of the Government's immigration policy. A Conservative Government would introduce an annual limit on work permits for people from outside the EU. 'That's the only way you can get some control into the system.'

Mr Clappison's figures are particularly bad news for Labour because they indicate that, even as the economy was plunging into recession, little or nothing was done to protect the jobs of British workers.

Between October and December 2007, before the crisis took hold, there were 25,860,000 UK-born people in employment. A year later, with the UK officially in recession, the figure had shrunk to 25,582,000. Over the same period the number of non-UK born workers leapt from 3,605,000 to 3,819,000. Some 9 per cent of the workforce are now from outside the EU - up from 5.3 per cent in 1997.

The Commons Library figures conflict with ones issued by the Government because the methods of measurement are different. Statisticians, including the ONS, prefer to count UK-born workers versus foreign-born workers because a person's country of birth, unlike nationality, is not subject to change. The Home Office prefers to focus on the number of British nationals. This will include people who arrived from overseas but have since been given citizenship.

A Government spokesman said last night: 'Over 90 per cent of people working in this country are UK citizens and we are stepping up the help we give people to get training and support to get back to work. 'Many migrants stay for only a short period of time. We have always said we would run our immigration system for the benefit of the UK. 'We have brought in the points-based system to control numbers and we have put restrictions on workers from Romania and Bulgaria. 'We are using the flexibility of the system to make employers offer British jobs through Jobcentre Plus before recruiting foreign workers. 'But if we close our borders we all become poorer.'

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19 February, 2009

Unemployment for Immigrants and the US-Born

Picture Bleak for Less-Educated Black & Hispanic Americans

The Center for Immigration Studies has prepared a detailed employment breakdown for immigrants and native-born Americans based on December 2008 data, the latest publicly available. (The Department of Labor generally does not separate out unemployment statistics for immigrants and the native-born.) Among US-born blacks and Hispanics without a high school degree, unemployment is 24.7 percent and 16.2 percent respectively - two to three times the national rate.

Those native-born Americans most in competition with immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants, are teenagers (16-17), all adults (18+) without a high school diploma, and young workers (18 to 29) with only a high diploma.

Unemployment rates for less-educated native-born Americans (all races).
Less than high school: 17 percent.
Young with high school diploma only: 15 percent.
Teenagers: 21.9 percent.

Unemployment for less-educated native-born blacks.
Less than high school: 24.7 percent.
Young with high school diploma only: 20.2 percent.
Teenagers: 31.6 percent.

Unemployment for less-educated native-born Hispanics.
Less than high school 16.2 percent.
Young with high school diploma only: 13.6 percent.
Teenagers: 40.3 percent.

An estimated 6 to 7 million illegal immigrants are currently holding jobs. Prior research indicates they are overwhelmingly employed in lower-skilled and lower-paying jobs.

It is difficult to find any evidence of a shortage of less-educated workers. There are currently 12.8 million native-born high school dropouts and young high school graduates either unemployed or not in the labor force. (Persons not in the labor force are neither working nor looking for work and are ages 18 to 65.)

If we count all adults with a high school diploma or less, there are a total of 24.3 million less-educated native-born Americans unemployed or not in the labor force, along with 6.9 million native-born Americans 16 and 17.

Less-educated immigrants (legal and illegal) are faring better, though their unemployment rates are also very high. Among immigrants without a high diploma, unemployment is 10.6 percent, for young immigrants with only a high school education it is 11 percent, and for immigrant teenagers, 10.8 percent.

Policy Discussion

The above figure paints a very grim picture for young and less-educated native-born Americans. In some ways the situation is actually worse than these numbers suggest: First, these bleak numbers are from December 2008, and employment is expected to rise for most of 2009. What's more, young and less-educated workers have had a very difficult time in the labor market even before the current recession. In October 2007, before the start of the current downturn, unemployment among US-born high school dropouts was 11.7 and for those with only a high school degree ages 18-29 it was 10.5 percent. Moreover, in general, the share of such workers holding a job has been declining for about three decades. Both in the short term and the long term things have been very difficult to less-educated Americans.

The difficulty that young workers are experiencing is particularly worrisome because it is as young person that people learn the skills necessary to function in the workplace, such as showing up on time, following supervisors' instructions, and interacting with customers. There is evidence that people who are poorly attached to the labor force in their youth tend to stay that way throughout their lives.

Illegal Immigration. The latest data shows 22.1 million immigrants holding jobs in the United States. (And immigrant is anyone, legal or illegal, now living in the United States who was not a US citizen at birth.) Of the 22.1 immigrants holding a job, prior research indicates that about 7 million in the survey are in the country illegally, though this may have declined since hitting a peak in 2007. Some number of illegal workers, perhaps one million, are thought to be missed by the survey. The overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants have a high school degree or less. As a result, illegals are primarily employed in construction, building cleaning and maintenance, food preparation, service and processing, transportation and moving occupations, and agriculture. With the exception of agriculture (which accounts for only a small share of illegal workers - less than one in five), the majority of workers in these occupational categories are still native-born Americans. Most have a high school degree or less.1 If the United States chose to more vigorously enforce immigration laws over the next year, and this resulted in 1 or 2 million illegal workers deciding to leave, it could significantly improve the employment prospects for less-educated natives. An economic downturn would seem to be the ideal time to step up enforcement because such efforts would be buttressed by the economic situation, and a recession is the time when Americans, especially the poorest and least educated, are most in need of jobs.

Legal Immigration. At present, the United States has not adjusted its immigration policy in any way in response to the recession. One analysis found that in 2008, an average of 138,000 new foreign workers were authorized each month. This includes new permanent residents (green cards) and long-term temporary visas for guest workers and others who are authorized to take a job. Although workers in the high-tech sector (using H-1B visas) get a good deal of attention, a very large share of temporary workers and green card holders have relatively little education. The "New Immigrant Survey," for example, showed that one-third of adult immigrants (new green card holders) had not completed high school. Given the deterioration of the economy in the main immigrant-sending countries, the desire of foreign workers to come to the United States is likely to be strong, despite the US recession. Assuming no change in immigration policy, it is likely that the number of work authorizations in 2009 will be similar to 2008. This raises the serious question of whether such a high level of immigration makes sense, given the current concern about joblessness.

Methodology

This report is based on the December 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS). This is the latest public-use data available to researchers outside the government. The survey is collected by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is the primary source of the nation's unemployment rate, and other labor force-related statistics. It includes about 131,000 individuals, roughly 67,000 of whom are in the labor force, and excludes those in institutions such as prisons. Like all government surveys, the data is weighted to reflect the actual size and demographic makeup of the US population. The government publishes employment statistics that are both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted from the survey. The figures in this analysis are all seasonally unadjusted; unadjusted figures are computationally simpler and easy for other researchers to replicate. In general, seasonal adjustment makes only a small difference. For example, in December 2008, the national unemployment rate was 6.8 percent when seasonally adjusted, and 7.1 percent seasonally unadjusted. For sub-populations the difference between seasonally adjusted and unadjusted can be larger.

1 The Department of Homeland Security estimates a 10 percent undercount in Census Bureau data. See Table 2 in Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2007. For the number of illegal workers in the Current Population Survey, see Table 21 in "Immigrants in the United States 2007: A Profile of America's Foreign-born Population.' The report also estimates the education level of illegal immigrants (p. 31), with 81 percent having a high school education or less. For a distribution of illegal immigrants across occupations, see Table 10 in "Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit from the Labor Market." The Pew Hispanic Center has also estimated the educational level and occupational distribution of illegals, with similar results; see The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S. and Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics.

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. Contact: Steven Camarota, sac@cis.org, (202) 466-8185



Ex-Border Patrol agents released early from prison

Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents -- whose cases became flashpoints in the controversy over border security -- were released early from prison Tuesday, one of their attorneys and a congressman said. The agents were convicted in 2006 of shooting and wounding an unarmed illegal immigrant and then covering it up. President George W. Bush issued commutations for both men during his final days in office last month. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean had received 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively. After the commutation, their prison sentences were set to end March 20.

Ramos was released on furlough to travel from prison in Phoenix, Arizona, to his home in El Paso, Texas, where he will serve the remaining portion of his sentence under house arrest, said his attorney, David L. Botsford of Austin, Texas. After March 20, Ramos will be on "supervised release" -- similar to probation -- for up to three years, Botsford said.

Compean had been incarcerated in Elkton, Ohio, said U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California. "At last, Ramos and Compean have been rightfully reunited with their families," Rohrabacher said in a statement. "This day is long overdue. I wish the Ramos and Compean families the best as they now try to pick up the pieces and begin to heal from this terrible ordeal."

Both men had requested presidential clemency, and the U.S. Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney was reviewing their requests when Bush made his decision, office spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said. "The president has reviewed the circumstances of this case as a whole and the conditions of confinement and believes the sentences they received are too harsh and that they, and their families, have suffered enough for their crimes," a senior administration official said.

The official noted that both Democratic and Republican members of Congress had supported a commutation, including President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Texas GOP Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn.

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Richard L. Skinner, in a statement posted on the agency's Web site, confirmed that his staff wrongly told members of Congress last September that Compean had stated he "wanted to shoot a Mexican." "At the time my staff made that statement, they believed it to be true, although we later learned it was inaccurate," Skinner said. "In fact, Mr. Compean had stated in a sworn statement that 'my intent was to kill the alien ... and I think Nacho [Ramos] was also trying to kill the alien.' "

Critics of U.S. immigration policy have been campaigning for a pardon for the two agents, arguing they were just doing their jobs. The shooting happened February 17, 2005, on the U.S.-Mexico border southeast of El Paso, Texas. During their trial, Ramos and Compean said that the illegal immigrant, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, had brandished a gun while actively resisting arrest. Aldrete-Davila said, however, that he was unarmed and trying to surrender when Compean attempted to beat him with a shotgun.

Aldrete-Davila was shot while fleeing toward the Rio Grande. Ramos and Compean were convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon, lying about the incident and violating Aldrete-Davila's Fourth Amendment right against illegal search and seizure. After receiving immunity to testify in the case against the two agents, Aldrete-Davila was arrested in 2007 on charges of bringing more than 750 pounds of marijuana into the United States.

The case became a political flashpoint, with advocates of tighter border controls defending the agents and civil liberties groups saying that the agents had used illegal and excessive force against Aldrete-Davila.

Bush granted 189 pardons and 11 commutations during his eight years in office, far fewer than Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan in their two-term administrations. A commutation reduces a convict's prison term, but the conviction remains on the person's record. A pardon wipes the slate clean by erasing the record of the conviction. A president has the sole authority to grant clemency to whomever he chooses, although a Justice Department office usually reviews applications and makes recommendations after considering such standards as a person's degree of remorse and ability to lead a responsible and productive life after release.

Those applying for a pardon through the Justice Department are required to wait at least five years after their conviction or release from confinement.

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18 February, 2009

British government claims on asylum seeker removals branded a 'mockery'

Six in ten people the Home Office claims to have removed never entered the country or left of their own accord, the Daily Telegraph can disclose. Ministers boast that the UK Border Agency removes a failed asylum seeker, illegal immigrant or foreign criminal every eight minutes. That is based on more than 63,000 people who had no right to stay in the UK and were removed or left in 2007, the most recent figures. But almost half of those were turned back at a port of entry and one in ten left voluntary.

The Daily Telegraph can also disclose that up to a quarter of a million failed asylum seekers who should have been removed under Labour are still here. Figures slipped out to MPs in a parliamentary written answer show in 2007 some 63,365 people were removed, left voluntarily or took advantage of the assisted returns packages. As a result ministers continually defend the work of the UK Border Agency by claiming it removes someone every eight minutes. But 31,145 - or 49 per cent - of those were refused at a port of entry, either here or at points abroad, and never officially entered the UK. A further 6,885 - 11 per cent - were in the UK but left of their own accord without informing the immigration authorities.

A separate investigation by this newspaper shows at least 227,000 failed asylum seekers who should have been removed since 1997 may still be here. The vast number does not even include those involved in the 450,000 backlog cases the Home Office is desperately trying to clear, which is likely to throw up tens of thousands more. It follows a scathing report by Government auditors last month which widely criticised performance in the asylum system.

There were just over 750,000 claims for asylum, including dependants, between 1997 and 2007, based on the Home Office's own statistics. Of those, just over 541,000 were refused. The National Audit Office estimates seven in ten refusals go to appeal, of which between 20 and 25 per cent are overturned. Based on that estimate just over 87,000 more would have been allowed to stay during the period, plus around 92,000 who were granted stay under effective short term amnesties to clear backlogs. That leaves just over 362,000 but the research shows only around 136,000 were removed during the ten year period. Some will also have left of their own accord but the Home Office has no way of knowing and it means up to at least 227,000 may still be here.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: "These figures make a mockery of Labour's claim to be getting a grip on the asylum system. "Far from making inroads into the numbers of failed asylum seekers who are in this country, the number looks set to get bigger."

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, added: "Asylum applications are now only ten per cent of net foreign immigration but that is no excuse for such a dismal performance."

The Home Office insisted the latest research does not represent a "full picture" because it does not account for who leave the country voluntarily or have outstanding appeals and figures for the number of dependants removed were unavailable for 1997 to 2000. On the one in eight removal claim, a spokesman added: "Britain now has one of the toughest borders in the world and these figures are proof that our juxtaposed controls are working - in 2007 we stopped 18,000 people getting into the UK, and last year we barred even more. "We will not tolerate anyone who seeks to abuse the system, which is why we moved our border controls to France. This means we can turn people away before they even step foot on British soil."

SOURCE



Italians up in arms over immigrant rapes

An Italian Cabinet minister called today for rapists to be chemically castrated, amid a growing row over vigilante attacks on immigrants that have followed a series of rapes blamed on foreigners. Roberto Maroni, the Interior Minister, urged Italians not to take the law into their own hands after masked youths armed with wooden clubs smashed up a kebab bar near the scene of a rape at Caffarella Park on the Appian Way in Rome at the weekend. Five Romanians were beaten savagely in the raid, and two are in a serious condition. The attack followed an incident on St Valentine's Day in which a 14-year-old girl was raped and her 16-year-old boyfriend beaten up in the park, which is used by courting couples.

Also at the weekend a 21-year-old Bolivian girl was raped in Milan by a man described as North African, while in Bologna a Tunisian who had just been released from prison after being held on drugs offences was re-arrested for allegedly raping a 15-year-old local girl.

Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League, who is Minister for Simplification of Laws in the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, said that chemical castration was "the only answer" when teenage girls were being attacked. "Talk of rehabilitation is not enough," he told La Stampa. "Society must defend itself".

Mr Maroni said that the Government would push through an emergency decree this week speeding up legislation aimed at creating "groups of unnamed citizens" to "assist the police by bringing to their attention events which might be damaging to urban security". The decree will also ban magistrates from releasing into house arrest those accused of crimes involving sexual violence. Mr Maroni said that creating groups of "concerned citizens" was not the same as condoning vigilante patrols, known as ronde. However Pierferdinando Casini, of the Christian Democratic UDC, said that the Government was "flailing around" after coming to power on a promise to resolve the crime and immigration problem nearly a year ago. "What we need are more police," he said.

Marco Minniti, the shadow interior minister, said that there was "a very fine line" between vigilantes and neighbourhood watch groups. Enzo Letizia, head of the police trades union, said that because of public spending cuts by the Berlusconi government the police were so badly underfunded that there was no money to maintain the country's 25,000 police patrol cars, 500 of which were currently out of commission.

Gianni Alemanno, the rightwing mayor of Rome, who visited the Cafferella Park area at the weekend to meet angry residents, said that police patrols should be stepped up in isolated areas where the suburbs merged into the countryside. Rapists must know they face "a definitive sentence", the mayor said, and all illegal gypsy camps in Rome would be dismantled. There was no justification, however, for "intolerance and do-it-yourself justice".

The number of Romanians arrested for rape annually has risen from 170 five years ago to nearly 500, followed by Moroccans (300), Albanians (150) and Tunisians (120), according to official crime figures. The proportion of immigrants accused of crimes of sexual violence has risen from 9 per cent of the total ten years to 40 per cent today. A taskforce of 25 Romanian police officers arrived in Rome today to help the Italian authorities investigate the recent spate of rapes.

Earlier this month a homeless Indian labourer was savagely attacked and set on fire by local youths as he slept on a bench in the coastal town of Nettuno, 70km south of Rome. Last month four Romanian immigrants were arrested at Guidonia, near Rome, for allegedly gang-raping an Italian woman. The day after the attack, Albanians and Romanians were beaten up by a mob and Romanian-owned shops were fire-bombed.

A Bill currently going through Parliament includes a provision calling for a census of homeless people to be entered into a database held by the Interior Ministry. Doctors would be allowed to report illegal immigrants to the authorities, something which has been banned on privacy grounds since 1998.

Last month Mr Berlusconi vowed to increase tenfold the number of soldiers helping police to patrol city streets, taking the total to 30,000. But in a characteristic gaffe he said that to guarantee public safety, "we would have to have as many soldiers as beautiful women, and I don't think that would be possible".

The recent attacks echo the rape and murder of a woman in Rome in October 2007 for which a Romanian man has been convicted. That attack helped to make crime and immigration one of the main campaign issues in last year's elections. Thousands of illegal immigrants continue to arrive at the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, off the North African coast, where there have been riots at the overcrowded detention centre.

Last November, four youths beat up and set alight a homeless Italian man sleeping on a park bench in Padova. Also last year, a 63-year-old Ghanaian immigrant sitting on a park bench in Milan was severely beaten by youths with baseball bats.

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16 February, 2009

Finding foreign fugitives on the streets of L.A.

Suspected foreign criminals often hide in plain sight, starting new lives in diverse Southern California. Immigration officers, police and U.S. marshals join forces to catch them.

Before sunrise at an underground parking garage in Los Angeles, Rafael Lugo briefed more than a dozen officers about the day's target: Guatemalan. Skinny. Five feet 10 at most. Likely wearing a blue sweat shirt and a black ball cap. The man, Oliverio Grijalva Carrillo, was suspected of fatally shooting a man in a Guatemalan bar in September before fleeing to the U.S.

"He loves to fight," Lugo said in a brusque New York accent. "That's the word out on the street." "Does he speak English?" someone asked. Lugo, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, answered with a smile, "I haven't talked to him yet." If all went as planned that Friday morning, Grijalva would be arrested at the doughnut shop where he waited for a ride to work and soon would be sent back to Guatemala. There, law enforcement officials would be waiting to welcome him home.

Lugo works alongside other immigration officers, Los Angeles police and U.S. marshals to track down foreign fugitives hiding in the U.S. Theirs is not an easy job, because fugitives can easily access high-quality fake documents in Los Angeles and blend in among the diverse communities of Southern California. Hiding in plain sight, the suspected criminals often change their names and appearances and get jobs, buy homes and even start families.

One of the most publicized arrests was that of Alfredo Rios Galeana, Mexico's "Public Enemy No. 1," who had escaped from prison 20 years earlier and was wanted in a string of killings, kidnappings and bank robberies. When authorities found him in South Gate in 2005, he was running an office-cleaning business, had become involved in his neighborhood church and apparently had made himself less recognizable with plastic surgery. "These people may have nothing but fake documents," said Thomas Hession, chief inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service regional fugitive task force. "They may be able to slip and slide through the system."

Over the last three years, immigration officers, working with other law enforcement agencies, have captured 87 foreign nationals in the Los Angeles area wanted in their native countries on suspicion of murder, rape and other crimes. A much larger task force headed by the marshals in Southern California has captured thousands more foreign fugitives, including 142 in the last year who were wanted in connection with homicides. Last year, authorities arrested a Mexican national in Inglewood wanted in the 2004 shooting of a policeman in Jalisco while he sat in his patrol car. They also tracked down a man in East Los Angeles a decade after he and other gunmen allegedly stormed a ranch near Ensenada and killed 19 men, women and children as part of a drug massacre in 1998. Some of the suspects in recent arrests are believed to be involved in the ongoing drug wars in Mexico, Hession said. Others have also been convicted of crimes in the U.S.

Last week, agents arrested a man in Northern California who is suspected of shooting his aunt and cousin in a church in Guanajuato, Mexico, in 2002. The man had served time in the U.S. for a sex crime and been deported. Most of the arrests are of Mexicans, but officers have found suspected criminals from around the world, including Korea, China and Hungary.

More here



Stricter U.S. passport rules kick in June 1

If you're traveling outside the United States in 2009, here are two pieces of advice: Get or renew your passport now, and think twice before planning a car trip to Mexico or Canada in June. That's when we may see the biggest change ever for Western Hemisphere travel. Starting June 1 (unless Congress changes the deadline), Americans will need to show a passport, a passport card or other special document to return to the United States by land or sea from Mexico and Canada.

Despite assurances from agencies involved, there may be glitches and delays. Two years ago, the last big change in entry rules -- requiring a passport for air passengers returning from Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda -- inspired a stampede of passport applications and created confusion at airports. Some travelers waited months for their passports. Although passport demand has recently fallen along with wait times, the upcoming change will affect far more Americans than the 2007 rules change, which saw wait times for passports doubled to 12 weeks or more.

* What you need now. Generally, you need a passport to enter the United States by air from any foreign country. If you enter by land or sea from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean or Bermuda, you may not need a passport, but you do need at least a birth certificate or other proof of citizenship, plus a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver's license. Children 18 or younger need only a birth certificate for land and sea entry from these areas.

* What you need starting June 1. The same rules apply for air travel -- passport required.

If you're arriving from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean or Bermuda by land or sea, you'll generally have several choices: a passport; a passport card, a new type of ID that the U.S. government began issuing in 2008; an enhanced driver's license, a new high-tech version offered by a few states; or a "Trusted Traveler" card such as SENTRI or NEXUS for frequent border crossers.

There will be various exceptions for land and sea crossings from these destinations. U.S. and Canadian children younger than 16, for example, will need only proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate; in organized groups, the cutoff will be age 18. Passengers on cruise ships that sail round-trip from a U.S. port may need only a birth certificate and a government-issued photo ID. You'll find a summary of the current and new rules at a Web site maintained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, www.getyouhome.gov.

* How to get the right stuff: The State Department's travel Web site, www.travel.state.gov (click on "Passports for U.S. Citizens"), is one-stop shopping for information on passports and passport cards. It has instructions and forms. If you're renewing a passport, you can download the form from the State Department Web site and mail it in. If it's your first time, you can visit any one of thousands of "passport acceptance facilities," such as post offices, to get what you need.

Go to a passport agency only if you need your passport in less than two weeks for travel or less than four weeks in order to obtain a foreign visa. You'll need to make an appointment. A passport costs $100 for adults and $85 for children younger than 16 (renewals are less); a passport card costs $45 for adults and $35 for children younger than 16.

It's recently been taking about three weeks to process applications, the State Department says, but allow more time to make sure you get your passport.

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15 February, 2009

Congressional Democrats gunning for Arpaio

The donks will have to be careful not to hurt themselves by going after the most popular sheriff in America. Every Arizona congresscritter who wants to be re-elected would be wise to line up on Sheriff Joe's side. But Sheriff Joe has been under such sustained attack from Leftists for so long now that I am sure he has all the answers that he needs figured out

Members of Congress asked the Justice and Homeland Security Departments on Friday to investigate accusations that the sheriff who presides over the Phoenix metropolitan area has engaged in a pattern of racial profiling and other abuses against Latino residents. Four members of the House Judiciary Committee, including the chairman, John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, raised of concerns about the sheriff, Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County.

Sheriff Arpaio, a publicity magnet who is a hero to those who campaign against illegal immigration and a pariah to immigration advocates, brushed off the requests as political high jinks. “If they have concerns, they can call the F.B.I.,” Sheriff Arpaio said in an interview, promising to continue enforcing immigration laws.

The lawmakers asked the Justice Department to conduct a civil rights investigation of the sheriff’s practices, which in the past year have drawn complaints from civil libertarians and Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix. They accused sheriff’s deputies of unlawfully singling out Latinos for immigration checks during several crime sweeps.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the letter would be reviewed and had no further comment. But there were indications that the department, at least at some point in the past year, might have been interested in the case. A spokesman for Mr. Gordon, Scott Phelps, said the mayor had been advised by the department “some months ago” to not comment on the subject “because of potential federal investigations.” “He is a potential witness in some of the matters,” Mr. Phelps said, declining to elaborate.

The members of Congress also asked the Homeland Security Department, now headed by Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor, to reassess its agreement with the sheriff that allows deputies trained by the department to check the immigration status of detainees. Sean Smith, a spokesman for Ms. Napolitano, who has been friendly with the sheriff but as governor had also expressed concerns about some of his tactics, said she had already ordered a review of the program, known as 287(g), which allows immigration officials to train and work with dozens of local law enforcement agencies. “Because of the questions about how 287(g) agreements are administered, and if uniform standards are being applied, Secretary Napolitano has asked for a review of the entire program,” Mr. Smith said in a statement. He would not to respond to the lawmakers’ other concerns. The review, ordered Jan. 30, is due Feb. 20. In addition, the Government Accountability Office is investigating the program and plans to release a report in early March, a spokesman said.

The letters came more than a week after Sheriff Arpaio, who has attracted widespread publicity for requiring inmates to wear pink underwear and by starring in a new reality television show, provoked an outcry when he marched 200 illegal immigrant inmates in the streets from one jail to another “tent city” facility. There, they are held separately, the sheriff said, to facilitate communication with consular officials. Civil libertarians denounced the march and holding area as unlawful segregation. “Racial profiling and segregation are simply not acceptable,” Mr. Conyers said in a statement. “Media stunts and braggadocio are no substitute for fair and effective law enforcement.”

Sheriff Arpaio said the members of Congress were misinformed or misunderstood his actions. He said that his deputies had not improperly singled out Latinos and that even if the agreement with federal immigration authorities was revoked, he would continue to enforce state laws aimed at human smugglers.

SOURCE



More Mexicans Look Homeward

During a decade in the U.S., Mexican immigrant Linex Rivera gave birth to three daughters, whose American citizenship offered her hope of staying in the land of opportunity. But with job prospects drying up for her husband, Ms. Rivera last week joined a phalanx of compatriots at the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles inquiring about obtaining Mexican citizenship for their children. "We are thinking of returning to Mexico and want our daughters to have all the rights of Mexican nationals," says Ms. Rivera, whose children are nine, five and three.

After a historic immigration wave, many Mexicans and other Latin Americans are preparing to return to their homelands amid the deepening recession here. Mexicans who reside in the U.S. sought Mexican citizenship for their U.S.-born children in record numbers last year. The recession is hitting Hispanic immigrants especially hard, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization. The unemployment rate for foreign-born Hispanics hit 8% in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with 5.1% in the same quarter a year earlier. During the same period, the unemployment rate for all U.S. workers climbed to 6.5% from 4.6%. "There is strong evidence that inflows to the U.S. from Mexico have diminished, and the economic distress is likely giving immigrants already here greater incentive to return home," says Rakesh Kochhar, the Pew economist who prepared the report.

The number of people caught trying to sneak into the U.S. along the border with Mexico is at its lowest level since the mid-1970s. While some of the drop-off is the result of stricter border enforcement, the weaker U.S. economy is likely the main deterrent. Border Patrol agents apprehended 705,000 people attempting to enter the U.S. illegally in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30. That is down from 858,638 a year before and from 1.1 million two years earlier.

To be sure, it is difficult to track short-term changes in the population of the estimated 12 million immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and toil in the off-the-books economy. Some dispute the notion that Mexicans, who flocked here in the 1990s when they could find jobs paying five times as much as they earned back home, are now returning in large numbers. "We believe it is a myth that a lot of Mexicans are going back," said a Mexican diplomat in Washington, who asked to remain anonymous. "But given the economic situation, some of them might be considering it." A host of metrics suggest they are considering it seriously. Between January and September last year, 32,517 Mexicans registered their U.S.-born children for Mexican citizenship at a Mexican consulate, compared with 28,687 for all 2007 and 20,791 in 2006. The 2008 total is likely to be more than 35,000, according to Mexican consular officials.

U.S. nationality has long been regarded as a prized commodity for immigrants from developing countries. Anti-illegal immigrant activists accuse Latin American migrants of giving birth to "anchor babies" in the U.S. in order to secure welfare and other benefits. But Mexican citizenship has its own benefits. Having Mexican nationality entitles U.S.-born children of immigrants to obtain health care, education and other benefits, as well as the right to vote, in Mexico. Mexican nationals also don't face restrictions on land and business ownership that apply to foreigners.

Mexican consulates also report they have experienced a spike in applications for a "personal-effects permit" that entitles its nationals to transfer their household goods to Mexico without paying import duties.

Meanwhile, applications for the "matricula consular," an identity card that Mexicans in the U.S. need to open bank accounts and conduct other business, such as rent an apartment, appear to be declining. Through the first nine months of 2008, 689,150 Mexican adults had applied for the identity card nationwide. That compares with 947,000 for all of 2006.

"They tell me they are registering their children because they are returning to Mexico or making plans to return," said Mexican Vice Consul Federico Bass in San Bernardino, Calif., a consulate that oversees an area home to more than one million Mexicans.

At a Los Angeles-area strip mall, 40 Hispanic immigrant day laborers gathered early in the morning hoping to snare work landscaping, moving furniture or painting houses. By noon, only one had been hired. "In the old days, you wouldn't find a soul here at this time," said Braulio Gonzalez, a veteran day laborer who still lingered at midday Wednesday. "There are so many more people and so much less work." At many corners, day laborers who had agreed never to work for less than $15 an hour are underbidding each other when an employer shows up. Mr. Gonzalez says he lost a drywall job to a fellow immigrant willing to work for half that amount earlier this week. "Competition is fierce," says Mr. Gonzalez.

Ms. Rivera and her husband, Felipe Perez, say many of their friends are ensuring their American kids get Mexican citizenship. "Some of them have already left. Others, like us, want to make sure they're ready if we decide to leave," says Mr. Perez. Mr. Perez, who works as a waiter for a Los Angeles company that caters events for corporations and universities, says he once worked six days a week. Since November, "I've only been working twice or three times a week," he says. "Our savings are shrinking fast."

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14 February, 2009

Migrant children are wandering 'destitute' and 'spreading disease', says British report

Citizens of many EU countries -- such as Slovakia -- are legally permitted to migrate to Britain

Eastern European immigrants living in shocking poverty have put a major strain on a city's health services, an official report said yesterday. Families living in desperately overcrowded conditions have led to the spread of diseases including Hepatitis A and thread worm among children causing 'enormous' problems for health workers in Sheffield. The report by city's council and Primary Care Trust painted an image of Dickensian life among the136 Slovakian families who have settled in the Yorkshire city since 2007, in search of work and building a better life for their families.

Many of the migrants barely earn enough to buy food and their children are so poorly nourished that they are losing their hair. Destitute youngsters wander the streets 'inadequately-clothed and dishevelled' with their poverty 'apparent for all to see', the report said. Several families are often forced to live together in one house with children sharing beds to try to make ends meet. 'Overcrowding and poverty increases risk of accidents,' the report warned. 'There have been incidents where children have been scalded or fallen down stairs. 'It also significantly increases risk of infectious disease. There have been outbreaks of impetigo, head lice, Hepatitis A, severe gastrointestinal infections and thread worm infestations amongst children. 'Limited finances impacts on ability to provide nutritious diets. Childhood anaemia is common as is chronic vitamin deficiency, resulting in hair loss.'

Health visitors were 'currently struggling' with resources and 'unable to take on additional work generated by the families', the report said. But it found the full extent of health problems was difficult to assess because many families had not registered with GP practices while others are 'defensive and suspicious of visitors'. The report also reveals problems with 'noise and mess' from the new arrivals and young children not being sent to school because families believed the starting age was six or seven, as in their home country.

There is also 'ongoing conflict' between Eastern European and Pakistani residents which it said led to 'severe violence, with cars burnt out, bricks thrown and verbal and physical abuse. The report concluded: 'Needs of Eastern European migrants are not being adequately met by local services. 'This is primarily due to the lack of resources in areas where they are living - parts of the city that have high deprivation, poverty and population with increased health needs. 'New migrants have increased demand on services in terms of numbers and complexity of problems.'

SOURCE



E-Verify dropped from stimulus bill

The updated $789 billion economic stimulus package going to the House and Senate for votes today does not require E-Verify employment verification for contracts created with stimulus funding. House and Senate conference negotiators dropped the E-Verify provisions in the 1,073-page final version of the legislation circulating today. Previously, the House had included in its stimulus bill a stipulation that all contracts paid for with stimulus funding must use E-Verify, but the Senate version had no E-Verify language.

E-Verify is an Internet-based program promoted by the Bush administration to allow employers to submit Social Security numbers for new hires and existing employees. If there is a match, the employee is eligible to work. If not, there are procedures for further assessments. Currently, about 100,000 employers voluntarily use E-Verify, formerly known as Basic Pilot. Under an executive order issued by President George W. Bush, federal contractors are supposed to start using E-Verify in May, though business groups are challenging the order in court.

Critics point to relatively high error rates in the government databases used to determine initial eligibility. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which jointly runs the program with the Social Security Administration, estimates that about 4,000 U.S. workers in every 1 million would be initially denied eligibility because of the database errors.

Groups such as the Immigration Policy Center refer to E-Verify as "deeply flawed" because of the error rates and have warned of the danger of American workers losing or risking their jobs because of the shortcomings in E-Verify. They also said E-Verify would slow the impact of the stimulus spending.

On the other side, E-Verify supporters including the Federation for American Immigration Reform consider it to be a useful tool to protect jobs in the United States from going to illegal immigrants.

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13 February, 2009

Financial crisis: Canada may reduce immigration

Canada may reduce the number of immigrants to be admitted this year in light of the prevailing economic crisis. Immigration and citizenship minister Jason Kenney hinted at this possibility at a meeting of an all-party parliamentary committee on citizenship and immigration in the capital Ottawa.

The current Conservative government, which is perceived by immigrants to be unfavourable to them, last year raised the number of newcomers to be admitted each year from 247,000 to 265,000. But with the national unemployment rate reaching 7.2%, the immigration minister said his government would look at reducing the number of immigrants so that newcomers don't face hardships after landing in Canada.

The minister told the committee that the government was keeping a watch on the situation. "We don't want people coming to Canada and facing unemployment. We need to be sensitive to the changing labour market, and if we need to make modifications, we will," he said. But he was quick to add that the government will be "flexible, prudent and ensure that our response to short-term conditions does not counter our long-term goals, in which immigration will play a significant role".

As per the annual target of 265,000 immigrants, 156,600 were to come in the economic category, 71,000 in the family category and 37,400 on humanitarian grounds. The opposition parties criticised the move as a ploy by the Tory government to reduce the number of immigrants.

SOURCE



British statistics chief inflames row over foreign workers

ONS highlights figures on jobs for immigrants for the first time

The UK's official statistician weighed into the debate about foreign workers yesterday by highlighting the growing numbers of immigrants getting jobs while the British workforce declines. On the day that figures showed the number of people unemployed at a 12-year high, the Office for National Statistics chose to reveal that the number of foreign workers increased by 175,000 to 2.4 million last year while the number of British workers fell by 234,000 to 27 million.

Karen Dunnell, the National Statistician, sought to focus public attention on the contrasting fortunes of foreign and British workers as the country slipped into recession. Her intervention came as construction workers took part in wildcat strikes at power stations in Nottinghamshire and Kent, angry about jobs going to foreigners. The ONS, which is charged with collecting data and providing impartial analysis, said that it made the unprecedented release because of the "topicality of the issue".

Whitehall sources told The Times that ministers were "fizzing" with anger, accusing the ONS of a political act designed to embarrass Gordon Brown over his "British jobs for British workers" soundbite. MPs warned that the statistics were open to misinterpretation and risked inflaming tensions in many British workplaces.

In January, 73,800 people signed on for jobless benefits, bringing the claimant total to 1.23 million. The number of people out of work reached 1.97 million between October and December, the highest level since August 1997. Jobs were also lost at a record rate. Yesterday the cash-and-carry chain Makro said that 400 workers faced redundancy. The ONS has for years collected details on the origin of those working in Britain. The figures are usually included in the pages of data making up the monthly jobless totals, which yesterday ran to 24 tables. They are also included in quarterly population and migration figures, due out at the end of this month.

Yesterday was the first time that the ONS had highlighted the employment fortunes of foreigners in a separate press release, and the first time it had issued more than one release on unemployment. MPs said that the release, headed "UK-born and non-UK-born employment", was misleading because many of those born outside the country had since become UK citizens.

The row is the latest dispute between the ONS and the Government over the release of official data. The ONS won independence from the Government last year after claims that ministers were manipulating figures for political advantage.

The figures showed that since the beginning of 1997, the year Labour came to power, the number of foreign-born workers has almost doubled. Over the same period, the number of British-born workers has risen by just 5 per cent to 25.58 million. However, ministers believe that the figures are meaningless because they fail to distinguish between temporary workers, Europeans and those on indefinite leave to remain. A senior government source said: "The fact that they highlighted this in this way, in a press release, looks like they are trying to embarrass the Government over the slogan `British Jobs for British workers'."

Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said that he would raise concerns about the release of the figures with the Prime Minister today. "The danger is that such information could be misconstrued or misused by those who do not support the view that Britain should be a diverse and multicultural society," he said.

Unions warned that the presentation of the figures could be used to stoke resentment amid rising unemployment. They also warned that the classifications were misleading.

Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said that there was likely to be a "time lag" in non-UK workers losing their jobs during a downturn. "If you've come in to work, you're on a temporary visa; you're not going to be made redundant during that period but your contract for the job isn't necessarily going to be renewed," he said.

Gordon Brown told the Commons: "Despite all the figures that are bandied about today and on other days, the percentage of non-UK nationals employed in the United Kingdom is 8 per cent and it is lower than many other countries that people compare us with."

The ONS told The Times that Ms Dunnell was abroad and unable to comment. It said that she had taken the decision to release the figures separately alongside the unemployment data for the first time. "There was absolutely no outside influence on this decision to publish this data yesterday," a spokesman said. "The aim is to help public information and avoid potential confusion if alternative statistics were published."

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12 February, 2009

Democrats undercut aid for U.S. workers

With all the hoopla over greasy pork being stuffed into President Barack Obama's near trillion-dollar spending bill, it's what is being cut out that's receiving too little attention. And once Americans realize it, they won't be happy. What's been quietly stripped is a provision that would have required any businesses receiving federal stimulus cash to use an easy computer program called E-Verify to make sure that the jobs they generate go to American citizens or documented foreign workers, not illegal immigrants. Democrats in the House voted for the E-Verify component. But when the great porkulus package reached the Senate, Democrats there dropped it.

Of all the garbage in the bill, there's been little if any discussion about E-Verify. It's so simple that the clarity of it all must insult those nuanced Beltway sensibilities. So what am I supposed to do with that half a loaf of uneaten Hopium in my desk drawer? "It's another example of why people distrust Congress," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who had pushed for an amendment to the stimulus package mandating that E-Verify be used to certify job applicants.

We spoke over the phone Tuesday minutes after the Senate narrowly passed its version of the stimulus package, 61-37. I asked Sessions how Americans will react, once they figure it out. "I think the American people will be furious when they find out about this. The Congress tells them one thing, and then in the dead of night, the Senate maneuvers around and does another," Sessions said. "Those who know are already not happy about it. They see this as one more duplicitous act."

E-Verify, offered free to all employers since 2004 as a way to combat illegal Immigration, allows employers to determine the legal work status of potential employees by searching their names and Social Security numbers along with other databases. It's cheap to operate, and more than 96 percent of job applicants are cleared by the program within minutes. This makes it almost impossible for employers to skirt the system and hire cheap, illegal labor.

But the House Democrats approved it and Senate Democrats peeled it away, a version of the old political con game played out in Washington to trick the suckers back home. "They get to tell their constituents, 'See, I voted for it.' But they never really wanted it in the first place," Sessions said....

Americans understand their politicians. They know that one politician's porkulus is another politician's critically important condom distribution program. Being politicians, they can't help but accuse the other side of not caring about the American worker. But that's who the E-Verify provision was supposed to protect. Not the construction boss or the slaughterhouse manager who wants to pay as little as possible for labor. "The chicken processors and some of the chambers of commerce are terrified of E-Verify," Sessions said. "They don't want it made the law of the land. It should become standard operating procedure for every business." It should be the law of the land. The reason it's not tells you more about American politics-and the Democrats' courtship of Latino voters-than any speech about hope.

This isn't about denying legal immigrants work, whether they hail from Iceland or Mexico. It's about ensuring that the federal system is legit, not full of holes ripe for corruption and big-city political patronage.

Sessions said he'll keep squawking to include the E-Verify provision in the final bill that is sent to the president. And other politicians will no doubt fight for what they deem important in the bill, whether it's that $400 million to prevent sexually transmitted diseases or that $246 million tax break for Hollywood producers. Whether safe sex and Hollywood help stimulate the economy is something I'll leave to politicians. But what about American workers and American taxpayers?

SOURCE



Most Of Oklahoma Immigration Bill Ruled Valid

A district court judge in Tulsa - with one exception - has upheld the constitutionality a 2007 law enacted to combat illegal immigration. Senior Assistant Attorney General Sandy Rinehart says Judge Jefferson Sellers ruled Wednesday that the section dealing with tuition was not germane to the act and violated the single-subject rule of the Oklahoma Constitution.

Rinehart says state attorneys successfully defended the rest of the law. She says the judge objected to the provision that changed a law that allowed children of illegal immigrants to get resident tuition. Under the change, students that get GED degrees cannot qualify.

Rinehart says Jefferson ruled that provision had nothing to do with the purpose of the bill, which is to discourage immigration.

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11 February, 2009

The Untold Story Of American Workers Vs. Illegal Immigration

Across America a terrible story unfolds trapping honest and hard working Americans between the proverbial rock and a hard place. It is a story that I have gleaned from conversations with those directly impacted. It is a story I have learned from reading between the lines in the print media.

Many of America's print media publications are now facing well deserved financial extinction due to their penchant for bias, censorship, and promotions of unpopular political positions, rather than reporting facts. No issue illustrates their heavy bias more than illegal immigration. American readers are bombarded on a daily basis with the latest illegal alien sob stories about how illegal aliens are getting laid off, being profiled, discriminated against, or finding it harder to get licenses and government benefits from mean and hateful Americans, while the most important part of the story is conspicuously absent! The Americans who are falling down in historic numbers are not in these articles or publications!

The propagandists at the newspapers should take heed, when I remind them of two important things. One, people read the news to learn the facts and not the asserted political positions of the paper. Two, readers look for characters in articles, as well as in movies and books, who they can identify with.

Americans are losing their wages, jobs, homes, health, and sanity in numbers unprecedented since the Great Depression, yet you will not hear their trials and troubles in your elitist newspapers. And if you do get a glimpse of the horror of your neighbors and fellow countrymen, you will most certainly never hear of what I will speak of next. You will not hear about how illegal immigration is trapping Americans in a vise which is leading to the destruction of their lives.

I hope no one in America needs a lecture on how horrible losing your job can be when there are no other jobs available and that not being able to provide health insurance or even food for your children is a life threatening situation. Marching your belongings and loved ones out of your house in front of a Sheriff's deputy is a story Americans are living out in larger numbers daily.

Many studies tell us that American workers work harder, longer, and more productively than many others on the planet. We are known for getting the job done and done well. Before the recent political invention of "jobs Americans won't do" we got the houses built, the landscapes tended, the chickens plucked, and the bathrooms cleaned without 15 million illegal aliens in the country.

Here is the scenario and perspective you will not find in your newspaper that must be told to the nation. It has long been a tradition in America for wage earners to take a menial job or an extra job, when times got tough for their individual families, a region, or during a national economic downturn. If your husband was injured, the wife would take on an extra job waiting tables or as a cashier. If you lost your job, you would seek another one no matter what it was, as long as it would help you keep food on the table and a roof over you and your family's head.

In 2009, when you go to look for a new job of any kind you will find that many jobs are not even listed in the Want Ads because those jobs are filled with illegal aliens and a surplus of legal immigrants. The employers have no desire to spend money on newspaper ads, if they have an opening they just tell the foreman, ask their existing workers, or in some cases call up the drug and human importing cartels in Mexico to order a new shipment of illegal aliens workers, as was the case with Tyson Foods here in North Carolina. So American workers are not even finding notices for many jobs in construction, landscaping, hospitality and food industries, agriculture, meat processing, textiles, raw materials production, etc...

And even if you do approach one of these employers, you may find yourself in the position that many ALIPAC supporters have reported. The employers of illegal aliens and H2B visa immigrants do not want Americans in the mix. There is rampant discrimination against America workers because they do not speak Spanish, are more concerned about worker health and safety laws, and might contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement to report illegal workers and visa fraud.

Even if you did go out on your own to find the non-advertised menial jobs, and you made it past the discrimination factors, you still have two major hurdles. One, multiple studies have documented the common sense knowledge that illegal immigration greatly depreciates wages for American workers and legal immigrants. As far back as 1968, the renowned labor leader Cesar Chavez patrolled the border and ordered his union to call Federal authorities to try and stop illegal immigration. Wages have been significantly depressed due to the intentional hyper inflation of the labor markets. If you are a full tax paying and debt carrying American, many of these jobs now offer wages that are insufficient for you to even make ends meet!

But illegal aliens are not just in the menial jobs or unskilled labor sector of our economy. We have seen countless news reports over the last few years documenting illegal aliens working on commercial jet engines, or in nuclear power plants, or the technical fields? With the almost minimal enforcement levels of our existing immigration laws, illegal aliens are working in jobs across the spectrum!

Anyone seeking a job in a call center or the Information Technology fields will find many of those jobs have been sent offshore to India. As for the jobs which remain here at home with Google, IBM, Microsoft, and many others, the positions are taken and being filled with H1B visa holders from India and China. Our immigration laws should state that an H1B visa worker can only be used, if an American worker cannot be found for the position and if the immigrant will be paid the same as an American worker would. Unfortunately, these considerations are not required many Global companies are intentionally throwing out their American workers and replacing them with foreign labor that will work for much less!

And if you go out in search of an American small business that plays by the rules and respects our laws, you will find fewer and fewer of them. Honest employers who hire Americans and legal immigrants have found themselves unable to compete with the low bids of less scrupulous competitors who hire illegal aliens. You won't hear their voices in this barrage of biased articles either!

Only through the valiant efforts of talk radio show hosts and brave men and women like Glen Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Michelle Malkin will you hear these voices represented in the media. And each of them faces the same threat of smears and lies from the ideology fascists for speaking out for the innocent American workers and millions of victims of illegal immigration, corporate greed, and political corruption in our nation.

So American workers are facing what I call "The Great American Replacement Act" where Americans are being replaced in jobs, homes, schools, colleges, and at the ballot box through rampant illegal immigration combined with historically high levels of new worker visas being issued.

To add further insult to injury, the illegal alien Amnesty supporting groups and politicians are now trying to claim that even though 11 Million Americans are out of work, we need Comprehensive Immigration Reform Amnesty right away for the approximately 7 million illegal aliens, which are currently holding jobs that our existing laws mandate are illegal for them to have in the first place!

How can so many politicians and people in the media ignore and neglect innocent Americans who are suffering and having their lives ruined? The dire consequences for Americans due to the bad economy combined with rampant illegal immigration are horrific. The fact that their stories are not told and their voices are censored by the print media is even more horrifying.

For things to improve for Americans, we need our existing immigration laws, and all workplace and financial regulatory laws fully enforced. Those left in the media with a soul need to illuminate these problems and side with the American public before it is too late. We need to know how much the influence the billions of dollars in perks, contributions, and payoffs coming into Washington, DC (See Bill and Hillary Clinton) from Global corporations and countries hostile to the United States like Saudi Arabia and China are responsible for these dastardly, illegal, and unconstitutional policies.

The American public is no longer in control of our national destiny. We are no longer self governed or secure. We are not being asked for our support, we are being told we will suffer in silence or face aggressive ridicule. We are being dictated to by politicians who's pockets are lined with the gold of powerful bankers and foreign nations. We are now entering an even more dangerous phase where many Americans are losing all faith in the political process. There is dangerous talk in private conversations, and many are saying "America has already been conquered without a shot fired."

Perhaps America's most powerful enemies have discovered how to take us with a Trojan horse? No adversary would want to take us on militarily or do anything to awaken the ire of the American populace. Our own politicians, bureaucrats, and Wall Street leaders have already deeply wounded this nation more than Osama Bin Laden's attacks on 9/11.

Perhaps they have moved on America's Achilles heal of greed and corruption to incrementally reduce the American populace to such a desperate level surrounded by financially empowered subservient foreign workers that we cannot defend ourselves. If this is the case and if these atrocities are not corrected soon by political means, may God help us endure, survive, or prevail against whatever evil our conquerors have planned for us next.

SOURCE



New fiasco for British government as just 35 of the 7,000 illegal immigrants involved in security vetting scandal are deported

Only 35 of the 7,000 illegal migrants caught up in the Home Office security guard vetting scandal have been deported, it emerged last night. The revelation is a blow to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith who promised to take tough action against those wrongly cleared to guard some of the country's most important government buildings. She announced 15 months ago that up to 10,000 illegals had been cleared to work as security guards. Some 3,000 later established their right to work here, reducing the total to 7,075. But yesterday it emerged that only 13 have been prosecuted for criminal offences, despite 3,275 of those cleared to work by the Security Industry Authority using a false name, or giving other false details, according to figures obtained by Tory MP James Clappison.

Ministers did not want to make public the fact that so many illegals were working in the security industry - including one person guarding the Prime Minister's car. But it emerged after a series of leaks from the Home Office.

Yesterday, shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This sends a terrible message around the world about the willingness - or lack of it - of this Government to police our borders and control the flow of migrant workers into the country. 'They know who these people are, where they were working, and that they are here illegally. A year later virtually nothing has been done about it. It's an absolute disgrace, and a clear indicator of just how ineffective the Home Secretary is.'

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne added: 'This is just another instance of the Government's abject failure to get a grip of illegal immigration. Ministers have not grasped that policy must be about delivery rather than mere words.'

In a written reply to Mr Clappison, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas claimed publicity about checks within the security industry would forewarn targets and compromise deportations.

It is the second Home Office scandal which Ministers have failed to clean up. After the mistaken release of 1,000 foreign prisoners without them being even considered for removal, Ministers promised they would be tracked down and - where possible - removed. But figures released to MPs in November showed that only 333 of the criminals have been booted out. To add to the farce, 90 of them had still not been traced - 30 months after the scandal cost then Home Secretary Charles Clarke his job. Officials said it had either been ruled that their crimes were not serious enough to warrant their removal, or the courts had ordered that they could not be deported.

Mr Woolas said the UK Border Agency had carried out an extensive programme of visits to workplaces during the course of its investigation into the illegal immigrant security guard fiasco. He added: 'In February this year, we introduced a tough new system of heavy financial penalties for employers found to be employing illegal migrant workers, making it progressively more difficult for illegal immigrants to remain in the United Kingdom.' In December, it emerged almost 2,200 foreign prisoners had been released from jail early with up to 168 pounds each of taxpayers' cash to compensate them for the loss of bed and board.

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10 February, 2009

Immigration agency's airline flies tens of thousands of deportees out of US

The nondescript 737 jet taxied to the front of the runway line at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Aboard the flight, 53 passengers stared out windows as their rising plane banked toward Mexico and their handcuffs glinted in the morning sun. This is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Flight Repatriate, a booming airline ferrying illegal immigrants out of the country.

Flying worldwide from O'Hare and 22 other airports, the so-called ICE Air planes transported more than 367,000 illegal immigrants, including 11,500 from the Chicago area, out of the U.S. from October 2007 to October 2008-a 26 percent increase over the previous fiscal year and 77 percent more than in 2006.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently called for ways to "expedite removal" of thousands more illegal immigrants. The directive surprised advocates who have been lobbying for fewer deportations while they build momentum to reintroduce Immigration reform legislation in Congress by July. "That was a signal to me that we need to work quicker and speak more effectively to the Obama camp," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who is organizing Immigration rallies in 14 cities. "The vast majority of undocumented immigrants don't violate any law, other than their Immigration status," Gutierrez argued.

On board Flight Repatriate during a recent trip to the border near El Paso, Texas, the passengers embodied the dashed dreams of deported immigrants everywhere. Some fretted over U.S.-born children. Others stewed over U.S. residency applications filed years ago. On a flight where many passengers were convicted of other U.S. crimes, still more grappled with alcoholism and other demons that make them poster targets for arrest. "I shouted to the police: 'Then, kill me! Kill me!' " Moises Rivera, 35, boasted about the January night he guzzled eight shots of whiskey and fell asleep in his car at a Little Village traffic light. In jail, he sobered up to realize he was heading back to Mexico.

Near him sat Felipe Rodriguez, who was pulled over for speeding. The sunken-eyed restaurant busboy was arrested after showing an Illinois state trooper a fake driver's license. "I don't smoke; I don't drink," said Rodriguez, 55, describing himself as a bookworm. "My whole family is in Chicago and Indiana, where we were happy."

Following years of secrecy, Immigration officials are more willing to show how deportations work after several highly publicized allegations last year of mistreatment. Among those are an ongoing lawsuit on behalf of deportees who say they were injected with dangerous sedatives such as Haldol, normally used for schizophrenia patients. Federal authorities said the practice is reserved for extremely unruly passengers and requires a federal court order and a doctor's consent. "It's our goal to be transparent," said Gail Montenegro, Chicago spokeswoman for ICE. "We are mandated to enforce the Immigration laws as they are written and we pursue that mandate fairly and humanely."

The flights from O'Hare leave twice a week. The process begins before dawn inside a squat, brick federal detention center in suburban Broadview. There, inmates arrived from several county jails in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin that house immigrants arrested in raids or at home. Bleary-eyed, the inmates reclaimed items they had when caught-fanny packs, jackets, wallets.

After a short bus ride to the O'Hare tarmac, some shivered against the stabbing winter wind in T-shirts and jeans as guards frisked them and checked their mouths for weapons or drugs. "People tell you about all the opportunities in the United States, but they don't reveal the bad things like this, where they treat us like animals," muttered Ismael Martinez, 34, who spent five years in Chicago supporting three daughters and a wife before he was arrested in December for domestic battery. Several noted the novelty of a plane ride after risking their lives in the desert to enter the U.S.

More here



Australian graduates face ban on work in Britain

On past form (i.e. the actions of the Whitlam Labor government), this may lead to retaliatory bans on Brits coming to Australia. And there are a lot more Brits coming to Australia than Australians going the other way. Phil Woolas had better discover some "historic ties" rather soon

AUSSIE university graduates may be barred from working in Britain with the recession forcing the British Government to toughen its immigration laws. Australian workers in Britain are already hamstrung by law changes late last year that made it tougher to extend or reapply for working visas. But British immigration minister Phil Woolas now plans to toughen the points-based immigration system for people from outside the EU, to protect 400,000 British university graduates entering the work force, particularly in the legal and financial sector.

The move comes just days after a backlash over recruitment advertisements targeting Australians for work on the London 2012 Olympics project and a series of wildcat strikes last week that saw thousands walk off the job demanding "British jobs for British workers".

According to British figures, between 10,000 and 18,000 qualified foreigners are expected to go to Britain to work this year without any job lined up. "The points-based system that has been introduced allows us to toughen the criteria and clearly in the economic situation that is something it is beholden on us to do," Mr Woolas said. "We want to maintain the highest possible levels of British graduate employment." Ironically, the British Government praised Australia when it adopted its points-based system last year.

After four quarters of negative growth, Britain was officially declared in recession last month fuelling fears of unemployment hitting three million people. Jobs fears have brought in a protectionist attitude across Europe with workers taking to the streets demanding jobs be given only to nationals. London Olympic chiefs were forced to dismiss fears construction jobs for the $20 billion 2012 Olympics project were being offered to Australians before Britons after a Sydney-based firm began offering positions.

Ironically, the Olympic Delivery Authority's chief executive is Australian-born David Higgins and a number of Australian companies are involved in the project. Britain's business minister Lord Mandelson said xenophobia and the recession was fuelling jobs fears.

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9 February, 2009

Tough detention centres are one of the few deterrents to illegal immigration

The writer below seems to think that the centres should be made less tough but, like all prisons: "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime". Improper detention is however unforgivable. But when the problem is so great that a huge bureaucracy is needed to deal with it, you are going to get the usual vast bureaucratic inefficiency. In Australia, John Howard ended illegal immigration when the media gave a lot of publicity to the great unhappiness of illegals held in Australian detention centres. What they saw on TV discouraged potential illegals from even starting out towards Australia. So rather than reform the centres described below, I think they should be given maximum publicity. Prevention is better than cure.

One of the worst messes facing the Obama administration is the disgraceful state of the federal government's immigration detention centers. There are 350 of these centers around the country, housing almost 30,000 men, women and even children waiting for the Department of Homeland Security to decide whether or not they will be deported. Some have been in custody for years. The centers are overcrowded. Newspapers and academic and civil liberties studies tell of physically and mentally ill inmates being denied help.

Given that they are in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, you'd think these people would be suspected terrorists, threats to national security. Many, however, are guilty of nothing except seeking asylum from their native lands. Plenty have been swept up in the increasing number of raids by immigration officers. Some of these are actually here legally but are detained until they can prove it. Others have committed crimes, although some of the violations are so small they would have rated only a light fine or jail sentence in the criminal justice system.

As Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein wrote in The Washington Post last year, "Most are working-class men and women or indigent laborers who made mistakes that seem to pose no threat to national security. ..." The reporters counted 83 deaths in the last five years among those in detention centers and those who had just left them.

The American Civil Liberties Union, on a Web site devoted to the issue, said: "Within hours of their arrest, many immigrants caught up in raids are transferred to remote out-of-state detention centers and pressured into signing removal orders, often without being able to tell anyone where they are; as a result, family and lawyers have no time or ability to provide support and a legal defense. Inhumane and cruel conditions of confinement in the immigration detention centers are pervasive."

University of Arizona researchers investigated three detention centers in that state, and in a report, "Unseen Children," said mothers are separated from children in the immigration raids. The report also said the facilities did not provide enough care for the physically and mentally ill. It said inmates were denied chances to meet with lawyers or talk to relatives. And the researchers said noncriminal immigration women detainees were mixed with convicted criminals in some facilities.

Vincent Picard, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told me such mixing "is completely against our policy." Inmates, he said, were permitted to make free phone calls to their countries' consulates "and collect calls to anyone else." Medical care is "excellent," he said, provided by "an array of doctors, mental health professionals and staff."

Recently, however, I met with Ahila Arulanantham and Marisol Orihueta, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. They told me a different story. One of their clients, for example, is Diana Santander (full name: Oscar "Diana" Santander Leyva), a transgender person. The ACLU lawyers gave me copies of the court documents they'd filed on her behalf. Her story illustrates how immigrants can be unjustly locked up for long periods.

In her native Mexico, law enforcement officers treated her brutally because of her sexual status. On one occasion, they forced her to perform oral sex on officers, then burned her thighs with cigars. Another time, police officers attacked her with a knife, beat her with a gun butt and called her a "fucking faggot."

Trying to escape the torture, Santander fled to the United States in 2004, entering illegally. In 2007, she was arrested and convicted of prostitution and trespassing and turned over to federal immigration authorities for deportation. Later, she learned that the brutality inflicted on her by the Mexican cops amounted to torture as defined in the United Nations Convention Against Torture. She applied for asylum.

Government attorneys objected, saying she had been jailed in Mexico more than eight years before on a robbery charge. The immigration judge sided with Santander, citing a lack of evidence that there had actually been a robbery. The judge granted her request for asylum. But that didn't set her free. The government has appealed, and Santander remains in custody, where she has been for 21 months. [Amusing that the only sob-story the writer here could come up with is clearly a person with much involvement in crime. He/she was clearly not sitting at home knitting]

Whether the detention centers will be reformed is up to President Obama's chief of the Department of Homeland Security, former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. Her record makes you wonder just how far she'll go.

As the popular Democratic governor of a conservative Republican state, Napolitano had to walk the line between anti-immigrant conservatives and Democrats (including Latinos) who opposed harsh measures. She signed a law imposing tough penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. She has also been allied with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the anti-immigrant sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, the state's largest city. He became well known for making inmates wear pink underwear, housing them in tents and feeding them green-colored food. She got along well enough with the sheriff for him to endorse her for governor in her first race. This helped her win a narrow victory.

Once in her new Cabinet job, she said she intends to get "criminal aliens" off the streets. Presumably this means off the streets and into mandatory detention facilities, where they will await deportation hearings in the overcrowded centers.

To put them into detention, Napolitano can use laws that have greatly expanded the number of offenses for which mandatory detention is required. Previously, many immigrants were allowed to be free while awaiting their deportation hearings. Now they are just jailed. Diana Santander's prostitution arrest would have earned her a night in county jail in the criminal justice system, not the months she has spent in jail under immigration jurisdiction.

Those who blame the recent Republican administration for the mess in the detention centers should be reminded that these laws were passed in 1996 and signed into law by President Clinton, who was desperately trying to court conservative voters after the Democratic congressional losses in 1994. The law doubled the number of immigrants in detention; the number grew swiftly after the Bush administration moved against immigrants after Sept. 11, 2001.

Don't expect this mess to be cleaned up soon, especially with Secretary Napolitano sounding like a hard-liner. There is too much anti-immigrant sentiment. The detention centers were built with a bipartisan stamp of approval, with Democrats as well as Republicans supporting their expansion. Finally, given the poverty and low societal status of the inmates, few people will crusade on their behalf.

SOURCE



Rise in illegal immigrants entering Britain

The number of illegal immigrants discovered hiding in lorries after entering Britain has more than doubled in two years. More than 3,300 were picked up in just an eight month period in 2008, compared with only 1,400 in an entire 12-month period in 2006/07.

Critics said the sharp rise pointed to a major weakness with Britain's border controls and warned that hi-tech lorry searches introduced at French ports seven years ago may have been undermined by bureaucracy and money-saving initiatives. Any illegal immigrant who makes it on to British soil can claim asylum, but those detected before they enter the country -- for example, at the French ports -- can be refused entry.

Between April and November last year, the UK Border Agency's office in Dover alone handled nearly 1,200 illegal immigrants who had been discovered in the UK hiding in lorries [heavy trucks]. A further 2,100 were received by other branches of the agency across England, Wales and Scotland.

The rise is believed to coincide with the privatisation of lorry searches carried out in French ports, which used to be conducted by British immigration officials using X-ray machines, heartbeat sensors and carbon dioxide monitors as part of a "juxtaposed controls" deal between the UK, French and Belgian governments. Some searches are now carried out by a private company. British search teams have also been banned from using X-ray machines in France on health and safety grounds, when French authorities made the bizarre demand that British officials should obtain written permission from stowaways before using the machines to detect them.

Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, who uncovered the figures, said: "For years our border controls have been shambolic, and the increase in lorry stowaways is just another example of the problem. "We need a joined-up national border force with police powers to ensure that only legal migrants enter the country." Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch pressure group, said of the figures: "This looks like a very rapid increase and, of course, there will be many more who are not detected. "The Government's failure to remove illegal immigrants is clearly encouraging still more to try their luck. We need a virtuous circle of rapid and effective removal, not a vicious circle of declining effectiveness."

Adam Holloway, Conservative MP for Gravesham in Kent, who once spent a week living as a "refugee" at the now-closed Sangatte camp in France, said: "I think these figures are probably just the tip of the iceberg. "I would like the Home Office to explain in proper terms exactly what is happening, and talk us through the dramatic rise of people getting into this country illegally in the last 10 years."

Every night, hundreds of illegal immigrants sleep rough on waste ground on the outskirts of Calais, as they have done since the closure of the Red Cross hostel at Sangatte in 2002. The migrants, mostly young men including Iraqis, Iranians and Afghans, live on charity food handouts and making regular attempts to stow away on lorries heading to Britain. In 2007, searches and other measures such as passport checks before boarding ferries or trains led to 17,000 people being stopped, 12,000 of whom were caught hiding. Illegal immigrants who are discovered hidden in lorries, as well as those using other stowaway routes, are more likely to be placed in immigration detention at the Oakington centre near Cambridge, where their claims will be fast-tracked.

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: "We are committed to responding to every police request where they arrest people who have been smuggled into the UK in lorries. "We work closely with the police, through new Immigration Crime Partnerships, to target together the harm caused to Britain by illegal immigration. "We have one of the toughest border crossings in the world at Calais. Over the past five years we've stopped 88,500 attempts by illegal migrants to cross the channel, and searched nearly three million lorries."

Hauliers can face fines of up to 2,000 pounds for each illegal immigrant found in their vehicles. In 2006, the ringleader of one of Europe's biggest people-smuggling rackets was jailed for eight-and-a-half years after making millions of pounds smuggling an estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants into Britain over a decade. Ramazan Zorlu, 43, and his north London gang, packed six people at a time into a metal "coffin" measuring 6ft wide by 1ft deep which was strapped to the underside of lorries in a bid to evade the detection machines.

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8 February, 2009

598,000 U.S. Jobs Lost in JAN -- So will "Stimulus" Jobs go to Illegal Aliens?

Now that three RINOs have crossed the Senate floor to allow cloture on the stimulus bill, its future lies with a House/Senate conference -- but I have seen no sign that the wishes expressed below will be implemented

The feds' monthly report was even worse than expected: 598,000 jobs cut in January. And, yet, Senate leaders have still not given permission for a vote on a Stimulus Bill amendment that would keep illegal foreign workers from getting jobs created by the massive taxpayer effort. How many Americans have to lose their jobs before they are given priority over illegal aliens and the outlaw companies that hire them?

"The government says employers slashed payrolls by 598,000 in January, the most since the end of 1974, catapulting the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent. The Labor Department's report is grim proof the nation's job climate is deteriorating at an alarming clip with no end in sight. Job losses were far worse than the 525,000 economists expected. So was the rise in the unemployment rate, now at the highest since September 1992". -- Associated Press, 6FEB09

America's newspapers, for the most part, continue to do the work of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in protecting the hiring of illegal aliens instead of the rising armies of unemployed Americans. USAToday ran an article primarily devoted to stating the Chamber of Commerce's distorted criticisms of the E-Verify program. It carried the typical lie that E-Verify threatens to mis-identify legal residents as illegal aliens and erroneously ordering them fired.

As I have noted previously, NumbersUSA has issued the challenge to find even ONE case of such a thing happening after milions upon millions of transactions over the last 12 years. To date, not one has been produced. E-Verify is one of the most accurate programs ever run by the government. (Click here to read a NumbersUSA factsheet on E-Verify.)

One of our staff phoned a pro-illegal-alien Senator this week to note the recent Heritage Foundation study that predicted the Stimulus Bill as written in the Senate would give about 300,000 new construction jobs to illegal aliens. The Senate staffer replied that, oh, no, that was not possible because it is illegal to hire illegal foreign workers. Oh, my, I need a lot of those uproarously laughing smiley faces on this line!

Well, yes, it has been illegal to hire illegal aliens since 1986 when an amnesty brought our illegal population close to zero. But we now have an estimated 7.7 million illegal foreign workers in jobs. Obviously, simply saying something is illegal doesn't stop it.

Requiring every government and business to run new hires through E-Verify is absolutely necessary if Americans and authorized immigrants already here are to get the new jobs being created as rather minor relief to monthly collapse of U.S. jobs. (Click here to read a press release by Rep. Lamar Smith, urging that the stimulus protect American workers). If the Senators decide to pass the Stimulus Bill, they have 598,000 more reasons today to include an E-Verify requirement.

SOURCE



Italy fed up with illegals

They arrive in their thousands, a seemingly never-ending wave from Africa, fleeing violence and hunger, driven by a sheer will to survive. Filthy, terrified and mad with thirst, they are often found close to death, crowded in their hundreds onto tiny, wooden fishing boats bobbing aimlessly in the endless sea. Last year, according to the United Nations refugee agency, a record 36,952 refugees landed on Italian shores, a 75 per cent increase on 2007. More than 31,000 of them were rescued by the Italian coastguard and disgorged onto Lampedusa, the tiny, rocky outcrop that has become the bridge between Africa, Italy, Europe and beyond.

For decades, Italy has provided a first point of humanitarian aid for the new arrivals: after sea rescues they are checked by medical volunteers from the Order of Malta and 24-hour teams from Medecins Sans Frontieres are on hand to greet them at the dock on arrival. A purpose-built "Centro di Accoglio", or welcome centre, on the island allows them a few days to rest until finally, reclothed and fed, they are transferred to Sicily or the mainland to await processing in refugee centres.

Now, Italy has hardened its heart. MSF has been ordered off the docks in Lampedusa and the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has decided that the island - just 130 kilometres from Tunisia - is no longer to be a transit point. Instead, the little island - much loved by holidaying Italians for its bright blue swimming bays - is to become a permanent holding camp. Lampedusa is to be transformed from a stepping stone of hope to a prison. Already a former NATO military base has been converted into a second refugee camp, but this one - known as an "identification and deportation centre" - is patrolled by Italian military police and the carabinieri.

"We don't want to become the Alcatraz of the Mediterranean," says the island's mayor, Bernardino de Rubeis. "We are not angry with the immigrants but don't know why we should be seen as the solution for a problem that the whole of Europe cannot resolve."

And as the financial crisis engulfs the world, the nationalist song in Italy is becoming even louder. Mr Berlusconi and his centre-right coalition were helped back into power last year by a pledge to oust illegal immigrants as quickly as possible. They have since said that all efforts have been made to strike repatriation deals with both Tunisia and Libya, demanding that both nations patrol their own waters to intercept them before they enter Italian waters.

But the hypocrisy of this rhetoric could not be more glaring. Italy has long benefited from the floods of immigrants ordered to leave the country, closing its eyes as they are allowed to disappear into the south to become the cheap labour that keeps the region's agricultural sector moving. The African illegal immigrants, known to locals as "i clandestini", pick the fruit and vegetables that feed Italy's rich, industrial north.

When the Herald spent a week on Lampedusa with the Italian coastguards last year, the level of refugee fatigue was palpable. The officers did their job, day after day, with patience and humanity - but talking informally, they would wonder "where it would all end". Coastguard Commander Gildo Damanti remains proud of his ship and his crewmen's rescue work but is fearful that the life that awaits so many of the new arrivals may be worse than what they fled. "So many young women arrive and I wonder what choices they have . and the little children. It is a cycle, a horrible cycle, and nobody can know what awaits them."

The Herald, with special permission, was allowed to visit the arrival centre and we roamed relatively freely, taking photographs and talking to military security men, volunteers and refugees. We have kept in contact with one young Nigerian woman, Sonya, who came ashore during a mid-sea rescue we reported in September. Aged just 19, she fled violence and went to look for a new life in a bid to feed siblings left behind after they were orphaned. She spent close to two months in a refugee camp in Sicily, then was given papers that said she could not claim refugee status but was allowed to go, with one month to leave: with no money, contacts or potential for work, let alone travel. She found her way upwards through Italy and is now in Verona, housed in a one-bedroom flat with many others. "I don't know what to do. They say I can give my paper to a lawyer but I don't know the lawyer. I have nobody, nothing, please can you help me," she cries in desperate daily phone calls.

The Lampedusa operation costs Italian taxpayers 50 million euros ($99 million) a year, a cost that increasingly infuriates island residents. They say their town centre has become reminiscent of a Third World shantytown - decrepit buildings, potholed roads, crumbling school, ancient desalinator and no hospital - because all state money goes to the refugee centre. Now that the Government is planning to enlarge one centre and make it a permanent detention facility, they fear that tourism, their main source of income, will die completely.

The awful irony is that while residents complain and stage strikes - last month, they closed the town in protest - the African exodus has already created a state-funded service industry in which local contractors vie for multimillion-dollar tenders to provide the centre with clothes, food, security and transport. This industry, of course, will only boom if a permanent detention centre is finally built.

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7 February, 2009

The Italian crackdown continues

Doctors should report illegal immigrant patients to police, says Italian government

A proposal by the Italian government for doctors to alert police if they suspect they are treating illegal immigrants has sparked huge controversy. Under the measures, confidentiality agreements between doctors and patients would be breached and if doctors failed to alert the authorities they could face criminal charges. Doctors associations immediately reacted with anger saying the move would turn them into spies while the Catholic Church urged medics not to follow the proposals. Many doctors also pointed out that such a measure would also increase the risk of spreading infectious diseases such as TB and malaria because people would be scared to come in for treatment.

The proposal came from the xenophobic and anti immigration Northern League party, who hold a sizeable minority of seats in PM Silvio Berlusconi's centre right coalition ruling government. The government insists the measure is needed to help crack down on illegal immigration, which has risen steadily in recent years and has been linked to high-profile crimes. The proposal has already been passed by the Senate. the Italian Upper House and must now go in front of the Lower House which has a sizeable majority and will pass it easily.

The Northern League hailed the vote as 'a victory for our militants,' with Northern League senate whip Federico Briolo dismissing shouts of 'xenophobia' from the opposition benches. He told them: 'You can call us xenophobic all you like, it only wins us more votes.'

Amadeo Bianco, president of the Italian Order of Doctors, said: 'This proposal goes completely against our ethics and it also goes against the basic principle of health care for all. ''Illegal immigrants will not go to official health centres for treatment, perhaps preferring illegal medical treatment creating an underground system which is very dangerous. 'This measure runs the real risk of promoting the spread of diseases such as TB and malaria because illegal immigrants who are affected will not come forward and be treated because they are scared.'

Domenico Segalini, a secretary for migration with the Italian Catholic Bishops Conference, said: 'The Church's view is that help should always be offered to people in danger and we would urge doctors not to report anyone who comes to them. 'We would urge Catholic doctors to declare themselves conscientious objectors.'

The largest opposition party, the Democratic Party (PD), led the criticism in parliament, with Senate whip Anna Finocchiaro who said the measure would 'spread fear among people who will no longer go to hospital to give birth or seek treatment for their children, or will hide diseases even if they are contagious. 'You have crossed the line from law-making to persecution.

'Italy's only black MP, Congo-born Jean-Leonard Touadi, also in the PD, called the measure 'a return to fascist-era snooping'' and said many illegals would choose death over expulsion. He added:'I therefore ask my colleagues in the majority - where are the Christian values whose flag they have wrapped themselves in? 'Where is the right to life, bandied around so much at the moment,' he said, referring to a landmark right-to-die ruling the government and the Catholic Church is fighting against.

SOURCE



U.S. no longer rounding up just refugees from justice

A federal program shifted its focus to boost arrests, a report says, and is going after any undocumented workers. For more than five years, U.S. immigration authorities have touted the success of a national program aimed at arresting and deporting dangerous criminals and fugitives. In frequent early morning raids at homes in Los Angeles and around the country, federal fugitive teams have sought out immigrants with criminal records or outstanding deportation orders. And year after year, the Department of Homeland Security has received congressional support and funds to expand the program.

But new data released Wednesday showed that 73% of the nearly 97,000 people arrested by the fugitive operations teams between 2003 and early 2008 did not have criminal records, according to a report by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

The data, along with newly released internal memos, show that the agency abandoned its stated mission to go after dangerous fugitives and instead targeted noncriminal undocumented workers -- the "low-hanging fruit," said Peter L. Markowitz, director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in New York, who sued the government to get the documents. The memos show that in 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement changed its focus from criminals and fugitives to increasing the number of arrests.

Each seven-member fugitive operations team was expected to increase its annual arrests from 125 to 1,000. At the same time, the agency stopped requiring that 75% of those arrested be criminals and allowed the teams to include non-fugitives in their tally, the memos show. That, the report said, meant teams were arresting any illegal immigrant they encountered during their operations, regardless of whether the person had an outstanding deportation order or a criminal conviction.

Those early morning home raids drew criticism for splitting families and instilling fear in immigrant communities. "Maids and landscapers are precisely the people being rounded up by this program," said Margot Mendelson, coauthor of the report. Fugitives with criminal histories made up 9% of arrests in fiscal year 2007, compared with 32% in 2003, according to the report, which relied on Department of Homeland Security numbers. Unauthorized workers with no criminal records or outstanding deportation orders made up 40% of arrests in fiscal year 2007, compared with 18% in 2003.

The policy change coincided with increased demands by the Bush administration to step up enforcement, Markowitz said. "At the time they were inflating these arrest quotas . . . they were under tremendous pressure from the right of the Republican Party to look tough on immigration enforcement," he said. "The law enforcement strategy was hijacked by the politics of the day."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the agency had always focused on fugitives who posed a threat to national security or public safety but that agents enforced federal law if they came across other illegal immigrants. "The reality is that when we go to locations looking for individuals with prior deportation orders, it is not uncommon for us to encounter other immigration violators," she said. "When that occurs, we are going to take proper enforcement action."

The program continues to be a success, with the fugitive population declining by 12% in the last 18 months, she said. The teams carefully plan their arrests and go to addresses based on intelligence information about immigrants' whereabouts, officials said. But the report said the addresses were part of an inaccurate database and often resulted in searches at outdated addresses.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has not made any changes to the fugitive operations program, but she issued a directive calling for a review. There are 104 teams, up from eight when the program started in 2003. During that time, the budget has grown from $9 million to $218 million.

If the Department of Homeland Security decides to maintain the program, it should be used "strategically to target the worst of the worst," Markowitz said. "That way, they can get the most bang for their buck on this program," he said.

SOURCE





6 February, 2009

The appalling British ID card system

Typical British bureaucratic bungling makes it a nightmare

All the waste and incompetence of the ID card scheme becomes plain when you hear people's stories about their contact with the new UK Borders Agency. This one comes from an acquaintance, who would prefer to remain anonymous, chiefly because he fears retribution if his name is known.

It started when his wife, a foreign national, applied under the new laws for her card, which was then issued with a mistake. He writes:

In early January, my wife and I visited a UK Border Agency office and paid 595 pounds for their 'premium' service to take her biometric data and process her foreign national ID card. We waited for hours as they had lots of computer problems, until finally a staff member admitted to us that the 'ID system was down' and had been the previous day also. We were eventually told that the details had been taken and we should just wait for her ID card to arrive by post.

When the card finally arrived we soon discovered that they had got her nationality wrong. She is a US citizen and on the back of her ID card it said 'American Samoa'! We reported the problem and were told to post the ID card back to them in a Freepost envelope. Weeks later the UK Border Agency sent my wife a letter saying that she needed to send her passport, as they could not correct their mistake without her passport.

My correspondent makes the following points. The agency had already recorded the passport details and scanned it. His wife has paid for a 'premium' service (595 pounds) appointment at UK Border Agency where she was fingerprinted, photographed and filled in forms so that she would not have to send her passport by post. When she phoned UKBA twice to report that "American Samoan" was a mistake, she spoke to two people, who told her to send the incorrect ID card only and did not mention sending a passport. She explained that she would need the ID card back soon in case she had to travel abroad.

He says that the letter received from UKBA instructed - "Please send your passport to the Freepost address as above". There was no Freepost address shown anywhere on the letter, or on the envelope. He continues:

After a very long phone queue, I spoke to a nice lady on the UKBA helpline (0300 123 2412) who was highly amused at the 'American Samoa' mistake, but said that unfortunately, yes, we would need to send her passport by post, but that we should also phone another UKBA number regarding a possible refund of part of our 'premium' fee.

Another long phone queue ensued and he spoke to what he describes as an unpleasant man at the UKBA immigration enquiry bureau (0870 606 7766) regarding a possible refund: He was very irritable, dismissive and patronising, but then he admitted it was not his decision to make and gave him an address for UK Border Agency complaints at Lunar House in Croydon. When I heard the name Croydon I said to him: 'Oh, we heard about the Croydon office when we were waiting at the UK Border Agency Offices for hours during your system crash in early January, we heard the Border Agency staff talking about it.' The man conceded that there was systems crash and hurriedly hung up.

As of writing this, my wife is still without an ID card and now doesn't have her passport either.

I am passing this story on because I have had my first taste of what a state with ID cards would be like, and I have found it very depressing and actually much more scary than I thought I would. The reality of this apparently secure and efficient ID card system is that it is wide open to human error, technical failures and abuse. A mistake on an ID card will take a very long time to correct, and their mistake becomes your problem, your responsibility. It is a very disempowering and depressing process where a citizen becomes a cog in a vast machine.

This is not just your video club membership, or your supermarket loyalty card ... this is your citizenship and identity, allowing you access to services and allowing you to leave and enter the country. My wife has been unable to travel since early January because of this mistake by UKBA. We are hoping no family emergencies occur before UKBA get around to returning her passport and ID card.

I still have a slight worry that if we complain publicly then someone within UKBA may have the power to vindictively sabotage my wife's future leave to remain in the UK ... not something I have ever feared before in this country. I also don't want my wife to end up being deported to Samoa by mistake!

I reproduce this story at length because it captures the anger and helplessness experienced when you become ensnared in a system that is flawed, contemptuous of individual needs and entirely pointless.

SOURCE



Drug smugglers building ramps to jump border fence

The planned 670-mile fence along the US border with Mexico has proven remarkably ineffective at deterring or stopping illegal crossers to the United States, advocates and critics of the fence admit. Moreover, the fence's construction remains in limbo in numerous areas, where legal, political and engineering obstacles have brought its implementation to a halt.

And, where the 600 miles of fencing are already up, along the borders of California, Arizona and New Mexico, "smugglers and illegal immigrants continue to breach the fencing that is up, forcing Border Patrol agents and contractors to return again and again for repairs," the Wall Street Journal noted Wednesday. "The smugglers build ramps to drive over fencing, dig tunnels under it, or use blow torches to slice through. They cut down metal posts used as vehicle barriers and replace them with dummy posts, made from cardboard."

The "rough" measure by which the Border Patrol keeps track of illegal crossings was down 18% for 2008. Crossings appear down in parts of Arizona. But a May report by Congress' research service found a "strong indication" that crossers had simply found new routes. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano once famously quipped that a 50-foot barrier would simply spur the invention of a 51-foot ladder.

Staunch advocates of the fence admit that it doesn't stop illegal crossings. "It's not the whole fix, not even most of the fix," Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Journal.

Opponents say the fence prevents animals from reaching their original habitats and is a taxpayer "boondoggle," a gross expenditure of taxpayer dollars with little tangible results.

The fence remains incomplete along about 70 miles along the Rio Grande, in Texas. It's encountered myriad problems: environmentalists want a review to protect endangered or rare species; property owners have raised their hackles over eminent domain seizure of their land; and engineers have had trouble keeping floods from compromising the soundness of the barrier. "It does become frustrating," a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol was quoted as saying.

President Obama's position on the fence and whether it should be completed remains unclear. He voted for it in the Senate but expressed concern about whether it "makes sense" to have a barrier everywhere along the planned route. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is also said to be a skeptic. But a White House spokesman says construction will continue. "Mr. Obama supports the fence as long as it is one part of a larger strategy on border security that includes more boots on the ground and increased use of technology," a White House spokesman told the Journal.

SOURCE





5 February, 2009

Now it's British jobs for British graduates

Supposedly. Ministers plan tightening of immigration controls to help university leavers find work

The Government may restrict the number of highly skilled migrants allowed into Britain because ministers fear many of the record 400,000 graduates leaving university this summer will fail to find work in the recession. Phil Woolas, the Immigration minister, wants to tighten the points-based system for people from outside the EU so they do not take jobs that might otherwise go to British graduates. Between 10,000 and 18,000 well-qualified foreigners are expected to come to the UK this year to look for work without having a job lined up. Mr Woolas told The Independent: "The points-based system that has been introduced allows us to toughen the criteria, and clearly in the economic situation that is something it is beholden on us to do. We want to maintain the highest possible levels of British graduate employment."

The proposal has been under consideration for some weeks and ministers insist it is not a reaction to the row over the recruitment of foreign workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire. However, it is bound to be seen as an attempt to ensure "British jobs for British graduates". Under the recently introduced points system (which Mr Woolas proposes tightening), highly skilled people from outside the EU, such as scientists, IT specialists, lawyers, financial service workers and entrepreneurs can enter Britain to search for work. Normally graduates, they can stay initially for two years.The Home Office estimates they could boost the economy by up to 84m pounds a year.

Government sources said Mr Woolas's plan was "one option" under consideration but that no final decision has been taken. It could face opposition from John Denham, the Skills Secretary, who is believed to think there is no need to change the points system since it already takes account of possible skills shortages. However, the Government is under pressure from MPs to tighten the rules because of the downturn. Labour's Frank Field and the Conservatives' Nicholas Soames, who have set up a cross-party group on balanced migration, have written to Gordon Brown, asking him to act. They said the new points system would allow tens of thousands of highly skilled people to come to Britain looking for work. "We believe that, in a recession, this cannot be allowed to continue," the two MPs said. "We should not be allowing non-EU economic migrants to look for work."

The Woolas plan will be discussed by cabinet ministers as they draw up a package of measures on immigration over the next few weeks. Other ideas include forcing employers who hire skilled workers to advertise the posts at Jobcentres before they look abroad. This could affect between 60,000 and 80,000 jobs in construction, hotel management, teaching and nursing.

Last night, experts said there could be short-term political and economic attractions in curbing the number of foreign graduates, but warned that it could be counterproductive in the long run. Tim Field, head of migration, equalities and citizenship at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said the points system might prove an "inflexible" tool. "These are people every country wants," he said. "This would send a signal to others. Putting others off from applying might not be a good idea."

Other government proposals include a crackdown on "bogus" colleges which allow non-EU students to come to Britain as a backdoor means of immigration, and tighter checks on foreign students so they do not overstay.

Mr Denham has outlined plans to persuade British firms to take on graduates as "interns" in the hope that they will keep on the best and brightest so their companies are in a stronger position after the recession.

As the Government sought to raise the proportion of young people going into higher education to 50 per cent, the number of graduates rose from 206,000 in 1997 to 358,000 in 2007. The proportion of graduates in "non-degree level" jobs five years after leaving university has risen too.

John Cridland, deputy director general of the CBI, said companies were already cutting the number of migrant workers they recruit because of the recession. He believed the Government's Migration Advisory Committee would suggest that fewer migrants from outside the EU would be needed when it next reports. He expected "they will not see the same need for non-EU labour in the same numbers because of the need to provide as many employment opportunities as possible for the unemployed". He added: "All I'm suggesting is that the market will correct itself but what we cannot avoid is a significant increase in unemployment which is a sad but inevitable consequence of recessions."

SOURCE



Senate Stimulus: 300,000 Jobs for Illegals?

1 in 7 New Construction Jobs Could Go to Illegal Immigrants

The Senate Stimulus bill currently being considered contains about $104 billion in new government funding for construction projects with the goal of creating jobs for millions of unemployed Americans. Unlike the House version, there is no provision in the bill to bar illegal immigrants from getting these taxpayer-funded jobs. This could result in several hundred thousand illegal immigrants receiving jobs.

* The current version of the Senate Stimulus bill (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) contains $104 billion in construction spending, including highways, schools, and public housing.

* Government estimates suggest this spending should create about 2 million new construction jobs.

* Consistent with other research, the Center Immigration Studies has previously estimated that 15 percent of construction workers are illegal immigrants.

* This means that about 300,000 of the construction jobs created by the Senate stimulus could go to illegal aliens (15 percent of 2 million).

Discussion: The $104 billion figure for new construction is based on the current version of the Senate Stimulus bill. Government estimates indicate that each $1 billion spent on construction should create roughly 19,600 construction jobs, each lasting a year [1]. Thus $104 billion for construction projects should create construction-related jobs for about 2.04 million workers over several years. The Center for Immigration Studies has estimated that about one out of seven (or 15 percent) of workers employed in construction in the United States are illegal immigrants [2]. Thus, if no effort is made to bar illegal immigrants from these jobs, it is extremely likely that about 300,000 will go to illegal immigrants. The House of Representatives version of the stimulus package has a provision requiring contractors to use the E-Verify system, which enables employers to quickly determine if new hires are authorized to work in the United States. At present, the Senate has no such provision.

[1] The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) estimates indicate that each $1 billion in construction spending directly creates 19,584 construction related jobs. This number comes from Employment Impacts of Highway Infrastructure Investment, April 2008, FHWA. This figure does not include jobs indirectly created by construction spending.

[2] Steven A. Camarota, "Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit From the Labor Market, 2000-2005," Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, March 2006, p. 19. A 2006 Pew Hispanic Center study, "The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.," estimated that 14 percent of construction workers were illegal immigrants; see page 3 of that report. Both the CIS and Pew studies were based on the March 2005 Current Population Survey (CPS). The March 2007 CPS shows that the illegal share of construction workers may have grown to 18 percent, but we use 15 percent in the above discussion to be conservative.

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. Contact: Steven Camarota, sac@cis.org, (202) 466-8185





4 February, 2009

O'REILLY FIRES BACK AT NEW YORK TIMES FOR CALLING HIM RACIST

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Impact" segment tonight: more lies from The New York Times over illegal immigration.

As you may know, The Times and other far-left entities favor amnesty for illegal aliens, primarily as a way to gain political power. As you may also know, most Americans reject blanket amnesty, as was demonstrated when the immigration bill of 2007 crashed and burned in Congress. So Sunday, this man, Times editorial page director Andrew Rosenthal, printed a vicious piece of propaganda called "The Nativists are Restless." In this smear, The Times implies that I and others are racist because we oppose amnesty. The editorial says:

"It is easy to mock white supremacist views as pathetic, but racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we may want it to. And thus, the perpetual need for vigilance. It is all around us. Google the words 'Bill O'Reilly' and 'white Christian male power structure' for another YouTube taste of the FOX News host assailing the immigration views of 'the far left' (including The Times) as racially traitorous."

Of course, you can post anything on YouTube. Any lie you want, any distortion, and Google can highlight the smear in the blink of an eye. There are no rules. For example, I could post that Andrew Rosenthal completely distorted Bill O'Reilly's view on illegal immigration because Rosenthal is a dishonest far-left zealot who uses hateful tactics like implying people with whom he disagrees are racist. I could post that, and then you could Google "Rosenthal" and "illegal immigration" and it would be there uncensored. Now if Rosenthal doesn't know that, he's stupid. If he does know it, he's dishonest and is intentionally misleading Times readers.

So here's the truth. I have always been consistent in calling for a fair and responsible immigration plan which protects both American citizens and illegal aliens, who are often exploited, sometimes brutalized. My words have been very clear:

O'REILLY: I've always said if I were a poor Mexican, I would try to cross the border and earn money here and send it back to my family. I don't blame the illegal aliens. I blame the federal governments of both Mexico and the United States of America. I'm pro-immigration. I believe America should offer opportunity to foreigners who obey the rules and want to work hard. I want to continue our tradition of welcoming people who believe America is the land of opportunity.

Yeah, that sounds like white supremacy, doesn't it? Only to a dishonest loon like that guy at The New York Times. Now the reason The Times is demonizing me and others who oppose blanket amnesty is to intimidate and harm. For those radicals, it's all about the votes, as I told Senator McCain, himself the victim of a Times smear.

O'REILLY: The New York Times wants open borders. They want all the 12 million illegal people who will be legalized to bring in their extended families, not just wives and children, but moms and dads, brothers and sisters. This would lead to, by my calculation, 40 and 50 foreign nationals being absorbed into the United States in the next 12, 13 years. That would sink the Republican Party, I believe, because we'd have a one-party system and change, pardon the pun, the whole complexion of America. Am I wrong?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.: No, you're right.

O'REILLY: And I am. Now, that simple explanation drives The Times nuts because it exposes their true agenda. They want a one-party system in America. A liberal fiat. Now I believe voters, not illegal immigration, should have the power to change the equation in this country. But The Times doesn't trust the voters and wants to gin the system. And they hate being outed on it. So they use hate accusations to distract folks from their true agenda. As Steven Camarota said Monday on "The Radio Factor," for the good of the country we have to go after these people.

STEVEN CAMAROTA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: Well, you are going to have to stand up.

O'REILLY: Yeah, absolutely.

CAMAROTA: ...because, otherwise, there's just going to be a lot more thoughtful people who are going to be intimidated by this kind of racial McCarthyism. And it is effective, I have to say. So, in that sense you have got to give them credit. They know what works. In America, there is no greater sin than to be considered a racist. And so therefore, if you - no matter how bogus, no matter how ridiculous the claim - you still, if you charge people with that, it does tend to silence people.

O'REILLY: Now intelligent honest debate on illegal immigration is badly needed in this country, and we will continue to support sane, fair policies. We're also going to continue to hold The New York Times and others responsible for the vile dishonesty they are pedaling. It is simply disgraceful. There is no other word to describe it, ladies and gentlemen.

SOURCE



Brits flocking to Australia

Not mentioned below is Britain's problems with violent crime. Why? Because the problem is largely traceable to blacks. Australia has many fewer blacks

A RECORD number of Britons are moving to Australia, with Queensland their destination of choice, the latest survey has revealed. Britain's ailing economy and gloomy weather are believed to be the main reasons many people are packing up and moving Down Under, according to the Move Monitor survey carried out for removalist firm Pickfords. The study found a 31 per cent leap in the number of Britons who moved to Australia in 2008 compared to the previous year.

Queensland was the most popular state to set up home in for Britons wanting a new life in Australia for the second consecutive year. However, there was a 44 per cent rise in the number of people wanting to move to Adelaide and a 42 per cent increase in Melbourne's popularity.

"The Move Monitor has revealed that Queensland is our most popular destination in Australia I am sure the quality of life, sunnier climate and diverse job opportunities play a part in the relocation decision," spokesman Graham Hardwick said.

About 40,000 Britons moved to Australia in 2007, with about 23,000 intending to stay permanently. The Move Monitor tracks the relocation trends of Pickford's 7000 customers who move overseas each year.

SOURCE





3 February, 2009

Criminal immigrants have found entry easy: That has to change

New Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has issued what amounts to a "get out" order for undocumented criminal immigrants . But scrubbed of its Wild West tone, Napolitano's new push to rid American streets of criminal immigrants comes down to finessing existing efforts through better use of information technology. She wants federal immigration officials to know whether an inmate is in the country illegally immediately after being processed into a detention facility. After the serving his or her sentence, immigration officials can be ready to deport that person right away.

But at the local level -- ground zero of immigration enforcement -- police departments are constantly tripped up in the tracking process by the highly complicated network of identity fraud. Take for example, Georgetown, where some 4,000 illegal immigrants call home. On an annual basis, that small town police force sees hundreds of forms of identification being presented to them at traffic stops, during criminal arrests and in settling domestic disputes.

Up to 75 percent of police resources are spent dealing with the town's immigrant population. "We got people in the system now that were arrested as someone else," says Chief William Topping. "And once you get arrested the first time around that is the name that is used. It follows you through the system, it's linked to all your paperwork and your fingerprints."

By the time the real name has been discovered, the criminal has been released under the assumed identification and is using yet another borrowed or stolen identity, often from another otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrant. In places like Georgetown, improved data sharing has to lead to eliminating the acceptable forms of identification that criminals can use to distort their real identity.

SOURCE



Jewish Emigration from Turkey to Double

Experts expect Jewish emigration from Turkey to Israel to double this year. The reason for the surge is that anti-Semitism has increased tremendously in the majority-Muslim country after Israel attacked Gaza late last year. Followers of the ruling AK Parti especially have turned on their Jewish countrymen out of anger with Israel's conduct in the war.

Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been asked to speak out against the rising anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic attacks by Jewish individuals and organizations but has neglected to do so. Many believe the Prime minister quietly supports such attacks, others believe he's simply too angry with Israel to realize the difference between an Israeli and a Jew.

Islamists in Turkey have also blurred the difference between the two kinds of people. They have made distinctly anti-Jewish comments during protests ('Jews get out!'), and violence against Jews has increased significantly.

Nonetheless, the far majority of Turkish Jews wants to stay where they are rather than migrate to Israel. They generally love the country they live in; the ancestors of many came to the majority Muslim country five centuries ago when Jews were persecuted in Christian Europe. They were welcomed and protected in the Ottoman Empire; today's Jews remember the way their parents, grandparents, etc. were treated by Turkish Muslims, and they consider Turkey rather than Israel their home.

Erdogan has the responsibility to speak out against anti-Semitism. He has been critical of Israel, even passionately anti-Israel which is his right. It's not his right to let Jewish citizens of Turkey be attacked and their places of worship vandalized, however. He's prime minister of all Turks; Christians, Muslims and Jews.

It's much worse in Venezuela; the Jewish community there believes it has no future in the South American country. Synagogues have been attacked, Jews have been beaten up. Experts say Hugo Chavez condones the attacks; he's not merely anti-capitalism, but also anti-Semitic.

Jews are once again persecuted for who they are; Jew. The Palestine-Israel conflict is not the reason for anti-Semitism, it's merely a convenient excuse. Attacking random Jews is just as useless as attacking Christian citizens when America does something wrong; we can only hope that Westerners won't adopt the same attitude towards Muslims. If they do, we'll all suffer whenever a Muslim country does something wrong (which happens frequently).

Anti-Semitism is a horrific evil, plaguing the world for centuries now. It won't go away; we can, however, isolate and humiliate those who hate Jews for their religion (and ethnicity) and turn them into social outcasts.

SOURCE





2 February, 2009

Napolitano wants to know what is going on

Reasonable enough but calling it an "action directive" is hype, as far as I can see. Since when is "Write a report" action? I suppose it is to a bureaucratic mind

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced today a wide-ranging action directive on immigration and border security. The directive requires specific department offices and components to work together and with state and local partners to review and assess the plans and policies to address: criminal and fugitive aliens; legal immigration benefit backlogs; southbound gun smuggling; cooperation with the National Guard; widows and widowers of U.S. citizens; immigration detention centers; and electronic employee verification.

Secretary Napolitano has already issued 11 action directives: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) state and local integration; national planning, cybersecurity; northern border strategy; critical infrastructure protection; risk analysis; state and local intelligence sharing; transportation security; state, local and tribal integration; first responder health surge capacity and Hurricane Katrina.

Today's directive is the last in an initial series on a wide variety of issues impacting the department's critical missions: Protection, Preparedness, Response, Recovery and Immigration. The full action directive is below:

Immigration and border security. America is a nation of immigrants - and it is the Department of Homeland Security's role to manage America's borders in a way that furthers this heritage, promoting legal immigration and cross-border commerce, while upholding the rule of law. The department must also enforce the law, targeting border criminals who use violence and fraud to smuggle people and drugs into the United States. But, the department must facilitate international travel and the naturalization of immigrants into our society. Smart, resolute enforcement by the department can keep Americans safe, foster legal immigration to America, protect legitimate commerce, and lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive reform.

To this end, the relevant components and offices of the department are asked to provide the following assessments about current programs, including metrics of success, gaps in service/ resources, partnerships with state and local governments and other federal agencies as well as offer suggestions for reforms, restructuring, and consolidation where needed. For each assessment, a final report is due Feb. 20.

Criminal and Fugitive Aliens

The Secure Communities Program works with state, local, and tribal law enforcement to identify and remove aliens unlawfully present who are involved in criminal activity. How can we best accelerate its development and expansion?

The Institutional Removal Program facilitates the entry of final removal orders before aliens convicted of crimes are released from criminal custody. What measures are needed, and with what priority, to secure expansion of this resource-saving program? Which state or federal facilities are the main targets of opportunity for efficient expansion? What specific cooperation is needed from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to facilitate expansion?

Fugitive Operation Teams. Please provide the current metrics of fugitive apprehension and removal (clearly differentiate the number of fugitives that are actually removed versus those aliens unlawfully present who are simply encountered by the teams while on assignment). How can fugitives be more effectively prioritized for these purposes and what steps can be taken to expedite removal?

The Electronic Travel Document Program facilitates the travel of persons subject to removal orders. How can the department best secure an expansion of this program to include the consulates of additional countries?

The 287(g) program provides for agreements whereby federally trained and supervised state and local law enforcement officials can participate in the investigation, apprehension, and transport of unauthorized aliens. How many officers have been trained to date? How many agreements have been signed with state and locals to date and how many are ready to be signed? What is the current turnaround time to sign an agreement and what can be done to expedite more agreements? How does this model compare in cost, effectiveness, and administration, to other forms of cooperation with these officials or entities? What are the strengths and challenges with jail model agreements versus task force model agreements?

Legal Immigration Benefit Backlogs. What progress has been made in reducing the significant backlogs that had developed in the adjudication of naturalization petitions and adjustment of status (green card) applications? Which regional offices still lag behind in making progress toward target processing times, and what specific steps are recommended for providing priority resources to those offices?

Please provide an assessment of information-sharing with the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs on projected adjustment caseloads, to be used by that Bureau in setting each month's cutoff dates on waiting lists for immigration categories that are limited by a yearly quota. What steps have been taken and what further steps are recommended to make sure that the full quota of permanent immigration spaces is used each fiscal year? What regulatory or legislative changes (including a possible pre-application filing procedure for adjustment cases) are recommended to facilitate caseload planning and make optimum use of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services adjudication capacity?

Southbound Gun Smuggling. A growing wave of criminal violence in Mexico's border communities and in the interior of the country, fueled by the availability of guns and currency smuggled south from the U.S. poses a serious threat to Mexico's security and portends deepening problems for our nation's border regions. How are U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection currently addressing southbound smuggling and how can these efforts be improved? Include an assessment of potential infrastructure needs, investigative and interdiction capabilities, and cooperation with other agencies or offices such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), or the Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, and with intelligence centers (the DEA El Paso Intelligence Center and DOJ National Drug Intelligence Center). Also assess the prospects for enhanced use of investigations and prosecutions for money laundering or other financial offenses to disrupt the illicit firearms trade. Please explain how these efforts will be enhanced with funding from the Merida Initiative and how this is being coordinated with the states and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

National Guard. Describe and assess the current deployment of the National Guard at or near the border. What overarching plans exist for coordinating with the Guard at the border? How could the arrangements for the Guard's presence be made more effective for support of DHS missions?

Widows and Widowers of U.S. Citizens. Recent media accounts have highlighted the cases of widows and widowers of U.S. citizens who had petitioned for the alien spouse's immigration, but whose petitions were not adjudicated before the citizen spouse's death. Because of the death of the petitioning spouse, the petitions were denied. What are the regulatory, legislative, and litigation options that could be considered to immediately address the situation of these widows and widowers?

Immigration Detention Facilities. What is the current status of the Performance Based National Detention Standards (Standards), and in what ways do they improve upon previous detention standards? To which facilities do they apply at present, and what are the plans for full application of the standards to all facilities housing ICE detainees? How do the Standards address concerns associated with the treatment of families and unaccompanied children? What are the arrangements for monitoring compliance with the Standards, and what corrective actions or sanctions are applied in the case of violation or shortfall? What steps are taken to segregate ordinary detainees from those with a serious criminal record (either immigration detainees or other inmates of a facility that may also house prisoners in the criminal justice system)? What are the prospects, advantages, and disadvantages of expanding the use of community-based alternatives to detention or of less-restrictive models of detention as have been used in Broward County, Fla.?

Electronic Employment Verification. Reducing unauthorized employment is crucial for controlling the problem of illicit migration. E-Verify has been a key component in proposals for comprehensive immigration reform and holds real promise as a central element in effective immigration enforcement that combines border efforts with interior measures. But E-Verify has encountered criticism both for false negatives (persons who are authorized to work but who nonetheless receive a tentative non-confirmation from the system) and for false positives (unauthorized aliens who receive a confirmation because they have borrowed or stolen the identity of an authorized worker).

What is the status of the employer monitoring and compliance efforts of the E-Verify system? How can DHS expand such monitoring, including alternative strategies such as electronic detection of suspicious patterns, with an indication of resource requirements?

What strategies are available to minimize false negatives? What steps and resources are needed to secure a systematic and detailed study of the origin, prevalence, and types of erroneous non-confirmations, including measuring the rate of correct non-confirmations, and how much time would be required for such a study?

What is the status of measures (such as photo tools) designed to minimize false positives? Currently, photo tools are useful for only certain types of documents presented by the worker. What would be needed to make the photo tool applicable to all identity documents presented by covered employees? What is the prospect for using biometrics as part of the screening (done either by the employer or at an offsite location by specialized offices)? What role could data-mining or other innovative strategies play in helping to identify false positives and false negatives? What steps would be most effective both in the short and long term to deter and detect identity fraud? Please also provide an assessment of the laws and regulations on administrative fines for employers.

Office of the Press Secretary

SOURCE



New NY senator meets with Hispanics on immigration

But she's not backing down, apparently

New York's new senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, who has drawn fire from Hispanics over her views on immigration and gun control, says she's willing to listen and perhaps even change her positions on some subjects _ but isn't ready to make any commitments.

"We need to recognize the heritage that the immigrant community has provided to this country and put policies in place that will reflect that core value," Gillibrand, who recently assumed Hillary Clinton's old Senate seat, said after a two-hour meeting on Sunday with a dozen or so Hispanic members of the state Assembly and the City Council.

Gillibrand, an upstate Democrat and longtime supporter of the National Rifle Association, was chosen late last month by Gov. David Paterson to replace Clinton after she became U.S. secretary of state. Her appointment came shortly after front-runner Caroline Kennedy abruptly withdrew from consideration for the position.

The Hispanics at Sunday's meeting asked Gillibrand to support their concerns about federal laws and policies, including the deputizing of local law enforcement officers for deportation raids; the so-called Dream Act, which would allow children of illegal immigrant to qualify for college aid; the defining of English as an official language, and the facilitating of paths to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants.

Gillibrand, twice elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the district that includes Albany, told reporters afterward she welcomed the meeting and predicted it would start a "fruitful relationship" on issues of immigration, health care, education and gun violence.

Asked whether she had changed any views as a result of the meeting, Gillibrand said, "I think that on some issues my position will change _ and on others they will become broader." She did not specify what those issues might be but signaled she was reluctant to modify her views on at least two _ referring to English as "a unifying language that offers extraordinary opportunity to advance in this country" and drawing a sharp distinction between a need to curb gun violence in urban areas and "hunters' rights" to own guns.

"That is a different issue that will stand as it is," Gillibrand said of the gun debate.

While some of the Hispanic officials said they were prepared to give Gillibrand the "benefit of the doubt" and others called the meeting "a first step in the right direction," her statement didn't satisfy any of those present.

Joel Rivera, the Bronx-based majority leader of the heavily Democratic City Council, said Gillibrand "did not commit to stand with us." "We've been given a lot of rhetoric," he said. "We are sick and tired of having to wait." Rivera, a principal organizer of the meeting, said the Hispanic group asked Gillibrand to press President Barack Obama for an executive order ending federal policies that lead to "the separation of families."

A key element of that issue is the law allowing the deputizing of local law enforcers as immigration officers in raids that lead to deportation of illegal residents.

Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, a Manhattan Democrat, said the Hispanics were calling on Gillibrand to be "a champion on the issue of immigration." "Her (House) voting record really is of great dismay to many of us who consider that immigration reform is and needs to be at the top of the agenda with regards to the federal government," she said.

SOURCE





1 February, 2009

"Stimulus" to aid illegal immigrants

The $800 billion-plus economic stimulus measure making its way through Congress could steer government checks to illegal immigrants, a top Republican congressional official asserted Thursday. The legislation, which would send tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple, expressly disqualifies nonresident aliens, but it would allow people who don't have Social Security numbers to be eligible for the checks.

Undocumented immigrants who are not eligible for a Social Security number can file tax returns with an alternative number. A House-passed version of the economic recovery bill and one making its way through the Senate would allow anyone with such a number, called an individual taxpayer identification number, to qualify for the tax credits.

A revolt among GOP conservatives to similar provisions of a 2008 economic stimulus bill, which sent rebate checks to most wage earners, forced Democratic congressional leaders to add stricter eligibility requirements. That legislation, enacted in February 2008, required that people have valid Social Security numbers in order to get checks.

The GOP official voiced concerns about the latest economic aid measure on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly. Republicans have already blasted the package for including what they argue is wasteful spending and omitting tax cuts for wealthier people and businesses they say are needed to jump-start the anemic economy.

Not a single Republican voted for an $819 billion version of the plan when it passed the House on Wednesday. GOP senators arranged a midday news conference to voice their concerns

SOURCE



British workers protest over immigrant labour

Given the way workers in Scotland and the North of England destroyed their old jobs through constantly going on strike and other union bloodymindedness, I wouldn't hire the b*stards either. It's a common Australian view that "Poms" want everything handed to them on a plate and that they wouldn't know the meaning of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. Obviously, they are not all like that but get enough of them together and those who are like that will poison the whole workforce with their whining

WILDCAT strikes against foreign workers have spread through oil refineries and other energy facilities in Britain, fuelled by fears of rising job cuts due to the global slowdown.

The protest started at Britain's third-largest oil refinery, Lindsey in Lincolnshire, eastern England, where workers first walked out on Wednesday over the use of Italian and Portuguese contractors on a STG200-million ($440 million) building project. But it had spread by Friday to a handful of other refineries and plants across Britain, where unemployment is at its highest rate for 10 years as the credit crunch hits hard.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has in the past pledged "British jobs for British workers'', while recently warning against trade protectionism as a response to the worldwide downturn.

Local lawmaker Shona McIsaac, of Brown's ruling Labour Party, said the decision to hire foreign contractors was "like a red rag to a bull for people in our community who are out of work''.

Up to 1000 workers demonstrated peacefully for several hours at Lindsey, run by French oil company Total, holding up placards saying "Right To Work UK Workers'' amid a heavy presence of police with dogs and on horses. Bernard McAuley of the Unite trade union told protestors: "There is sufficient unemployed skilled labour wanting the right to work on that site and they are demanding the right to work on that site. We want fairness.'' That protest has ended but those involved vowed to be back on Monday.

The BBC reported that 1000 workers at the Milford Haven gas terminal in west Wales had gone on strike in sympathy on Friday. Hundreds also protested at six other sites, including Scotland's only oil refinery, at Grangemouth; a refinery in Wilton, northeast England; and Aberthaw power station in south Wales.

Contractors at the Sellafield nuclear plant in northwest England are also considering a walk-out, according to a spokesman for British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL).

The dispute stems from Total awarding the contract to build a new desulphurisation unit at the Lindsey site to Italian company IREM. Around 100 Italian and Portuguese workers, who live on barges in a nearby docks, work there currently and are set to be joined by 300 more next month.

Mr Brown's official spokesman said the contract at Lindsey had been agreed some time ago when there was a shortage of skilled construction labour in Britain.

SOURCE