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31 January, 2012

Two-Thirds Say Illegal Immigration Hurts CT

A new poll commissioned by the Federation for American Immigration Reform reveals that most Connecticut residents believe overall immigration to the U.S. should be reduced

Two-thirds, or 66 percent, of Connecticut residents that participated in a recent nationwide poll believe illegal immigration is hurting the Nutmeg State, according to a statement released by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

The poll, which was commissioned by FAIR and conducted by Pulse Opinion Research last month, also reveals that 67 percent of Connecticut voters oppose in-state tuition aid for illegal aliens looking to attend public universities. There is a bill currently being considered by the state that would allow children of undocumented immigrant aliens to qualify for in-state tuition.

State Sen. Toni Boucher, a Republican who represents Bethel, New Canaan, Redding, Ridgefield, Weston, Westport and Wilton in the 26th Senate District, told Patch last year that passing the bill would take away spots from citizens and legal aliens.

The poll also revealed that:

68 percent believe the state should be involved in immigration enforcement

39 percent believe illegal immigrants take jobs from American citizens, while 35 percent believe they fill jobs American workers will not do.

51 percent support reducing overall immigration to the U.S.

"It is clear that elected officials in Connecticut and most of the state's congressional delegation in Washington are out of step with the views of the people who put them in office," Dan Stein, president of FAIR, said in the statement.

According to FAIR, there are 120,000 illegal aliens currently living in Connecticut with 85,680 of them in the workforce.

SOURCE





Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. The Immigrant Investor (EB-5) Visa: A Program that Is, and Deserves to Be, Failing (Backgrounder)

2. Jessica Vaughan Discusses Marriage Fraud on FOX News Boston (Video)

3. Pollsters, Immigration, and the Republican Primary (Blog)

4. DREAM Act Advocate Confronts Mitt Romney (Blog)

5. The Core of the Argument over Self-Deportation (Blog)

6. Gingrich: Legalize All Illegal Aliens (Blog)

7. Gingrich Adopts the Rhetoric of the Left Again, This Time on Immigration (Blog)

8. Is the GOP 'Anti-Immigrant?' No (Blog)

9. Public Safety Takes a Back Seat to Illegal Alien Advocacy (Blog)

10. President Obama's State of the Amnesty Remarks (Blog)

11. Case Histories: BIA Opens a Loophole in Immigration Enforcement (Blog)

12. 3 More Victims of Weak Immigration Enforcement (Blog)

13. Self-Imposed Latino Limitation? (Blog)

14. 'Border Wars': Good Reading for Those Looking to Widen Their Lens on the Borderlands (Blog)

15. Got Visas? (Blog)

16. President Obama Rolls Out Mickey Mouse Visa Policy (Blog)

17. Alabama Punished for not Playing Amnesty Game (Blog)

18. Uncle Omar, Visa Lottery Fees, and Other Tidbits (Blog)

19. Big Majority of Foreign PhDs Stay in the U.S. Many Years After Degree (Blog)

20. Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, It's Off to America We Go (Blog)

21. Haitian Nonimmigrant Farmworkers? But Only if Growers Ask for Them (Blog)

22. Santorum Gets Better on Immigration (Blog)



30 January, 2012

Mitt Romney on Immigration: Four New Takeaways and Gutierrez’ Reaction

Based on media coverage, it would be easy to conclude that “self-deportation” is the centerpiece of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s position on immigration. It turns out there is a lot more to it than that.

On Friday, Romney spoke about immigration to an audience of over 600 Hispanic leaders at the Hispanic Leadership Network, a center-right advocacy group, conference in Miami. The conference was co-chaired by former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Here are four takeaways from Governor Romney’s remarks followed by Secretary Gutierrez’ reaction.

Takeaway #1: Legal immigration is good, it’s important, it’s an advantage, and America needs it.

Takeaway #2: To protect legal immigration, stop illegal immigration.

* Build a better fence.

* Have enough personnel to protect the border.

* Put a card and verification system in place that works, allowing employers to know immediately whether or not a job applicant is authorized to work.

* Crack down aggressively on employers that hire people who are not authorized to work.

Takeaway #3: Implement constructive solutions for people waiting to immigrate legally and for people who immigrated illegally and live in the U.S.

* For the 4.5 million people waiting to immigrate legally, make legal immigration easier and more transparent.

* For the 11+ million people who immigrated illegally and live in the U.S., they’d need to get a temporary work permit, return to their home country to apply for residency (“self-deportation”), and get in line with those waiting to immigrate legally.

Takeaway #4: Substantially expand legal immigration, including implementation of a program that matches visas to employers’ needs in all sectors.

Governor Romney concluded his remarks by saying, “We are not anti-immigrant. We are not anti-immigration. We are the pro-immigration, pro-legality, pro-citizenship nation and party.”

Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez is Vice Chairman of the Institutional Clients Group for Citigroup and is Honorary Co-Chair of Mitt Romney’s National Hispanic Steering Committee. Secretary Gutierrez served in the Bush Administration from 2005 to 2009 and was in office during the last major attempt to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Prior to serving in the Bush Administration, he was Chairman and CEO of the Kellogg Company. His cabinet-level experience in government and C-level experience in corporate America give him a unique perspective on immigration, both in terms of politics and in terms of business.

When asked about Governor Romney’s remarks on immigration, Secretary Gutierrez said, “What I heard the Governor say this morning made a lot of sense. He’s talking about a national immigration strategy to put all of the pieces together because he recognizes what I haven’t heard anyone else recognize, which is that immigration is a strategic advantage. If you do it [immigration reform] in a piecemeal way, every piece becomes a political football. It becomes a tactical game in which Hispanics are being used. The important thing that I heard the Governor say, and it just shows that he’s a strategic thinker, that he has been working in business, that he knows how to think about problems in a strategic way before going down to the tactics, is to have a national immigration policy."

President Obama made a campaign promise to take up comprehensive immigration reform during his first year in office. That didn’t happen, but what has happened since he took office is that a record 1.2 million illegal immigrants have been deported. When asked about President Obama’s record on immigration, Secretary Gutierrez commented, "I've talked to a lot of Hispanics who are very frustrated, they feel like they’ve been taken for a ride. They were promised everything. He had the presidency, he had both houses, and he had popularity. It’s a matter of how important it [comprehensive immigration reform] was to him and it wasn’t that important to him because there are no results."

SOURCE




U.K. plans to “cherry-pick” immigrants

The aim is to keep the numbers down, attract the very best

Wealthy immigrants and “world class” artists, musicians and intellectuals are to be given preference under plans designed to attract “the brightest and best” to Britain while keeping out those likely to be a burden on the state.

Immigration Minister Damian Green on Sunday said he would soon announce new rules as part of what he described as the “transformation of British immigration policy,” under which “fewer but better” migrants would be allowed to live here.

The move sparked accusations of “cherry picking,” with critics arguing that it would discriminate against people from poorer countries.

Under the proposed “selectivity” policy, the latest in a series of changes introduced by the Conservative-led coalition government since it came to power less than two years ago, those lacking the kind of skills that Britain needs to boost its economy and spouses of immigrants already settled in Britain would face tougher controls.

“What we need is a system that… goes out to seek those people who are either going to create jobs or wealth or add to the high-level artistic and cultural aspirations we have,” Mr. Green told The Sunday Times.

He said the new policy was aimed as much at bringing down the immigration levels as promised by the Conservatives in their election manifesto as at attracting only the very best.

FEWER AND BETTER

“Getting the numbers down is the absolute key but what I am aiming at is fewer and better,” Mr. Green said.

Tougher controls will mean that foreign spouses of British citizens would have to prove that they would be able to support themselves and not end up relying on state benefits.

The family would be expected to show a household annual income of £26,000.

“The idea of coming here from day one and living on benefits: people will think that's unfair… The family will need to show it can support them,” said the Minister.

New rules would also make it more difficult for those on work visas to qualify for British residency.

“You have to show genuine serious usefulness to British society. What we are saying is: if you are a particularly exceptional person we will make it easy for you to come here in the first place and we will allow you to stay for a certain amount of time and in some categories we will make it easier for you to stay here,” Mr. Green said, arguing that the era of mass immigration was “over.”

SOURCE



29 January, 2012

Migrant workers needed to do humble jobs in Australia?

I think a fairer solution would be compulsory assignment to jobs for long-term welfare claimants. Anybody can pick fruit or do cleaning

THEY clean toilets, drive taxis and wait tables - jobs that are so far "beneath" many Australians the federal government is considering importing thousands of migrant workers to fill critically short-staffed local industries.

A growing underclass is developing in Australia - a country once respected for its work ethic - where entire service professions are being left to foreigners, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Experts say high-paying mining jobs are luring young Australian workers from traditional fields such as retail and hospitality, while others would rather go on the dole than muck in and do certain jobs themselves.

"I hate to say it but there seems to be a sense of entitlement among younger Australians," Tourism Accommodation Australia boss Rodger Powell said.

"They believe jobs in the service industry are too menial or too low paid and they have been brought up to believe they are destined for something better instead of starting from the bottom and working their way up as generations did before them."

The hospitality and tourism industry is so short staffed the government is in discussions to import 36,000 cooks, waiters and bartenders to fill vacancies with another 56,000 needed by 2015, according to federal Immigration Minister Chris Bowen. Under the plan, tourism and hospitality employers would be able to bring in workers on a two to three year visa similar to the 457 visa program widely used in the mining sector. "Employers would need to show they are doing their best to employ and train domestic workers and paying market rates," Mr Bowen said.

While hospitality is struggling to fill vacancies, some sectors are being shunned altogether. "It's rare to have an Australian work as a commercial cleaner," Australian Cleaning Contractor's Alliance director John Laws said. "It is is not an attractive position - cleaning has traditionally been done by people who have English as a second language."

A spokeswoman for the cleaning union United Voice said cleaners were among the worst-treated workers in the country, with one of the highest turnovers of staff at 40 per cent. She said competition for contracts was so fierce some companies were bidding at a loss and using illegal practices such as cash-in-hand payments.

A black market of illegal workers is said to extend across other businesses including restaurants and general labouring.

In the carwashing sector, the majority of workers are from overseas. Indian accounting student Sanjay Kumar, who works part time at the Baywash Carwash in Summer Hill, said the high cost of living in Australia meant he had to work hard to make ends meet. "It's expensive here and I need the money so I wash cars to help but I love doing my job. Everyone is nice," he said.

YOUNG and Districts Chamber of Commerce secretary Thomas O'Brien said most fruit pickers were overseas backpackers and, while some locals did it, others were too lazy and had a "welfare state" mentality.

Orchard owner Alan Copeland said growers relied on travellers such as Chung-Jen Wang, 29, of Taiwan, and Yoshimi Ohta, 26, of Japan, "to get the fruit off" or risk financial ruin.

"People say they're taking Australian jobs," he said. "They're not taking Australian jobs, they're doing jobs Australians won't do."

University of Shizuoka graduate Ms Ohta said she enjoyed fruit picking "more than I was expecting". "It's an experience and the money is OK," she said.

NSW Taxi Council boss Peter Ramshaw said, while the industry was always looking for drivers, its problem was more of a lack of taxi licences.

And, with Australia's generous welfare system, those who can't land a high-paying job are in some cases better off on the dole.

Analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data reveals the average cab driver takes home $527 a week after tax -- just 40c more than the $526.60 a single parent gets looking for a job.

If the same parent gives up looking and goes on parenting payments they jump to $641.50 a week -- just $7.50 less than a cleaner gets scrubbing floors 38 hours a week but still more than car detailers ($569.80) and dishwashers ($631.54).

Tertiary students, the backbone of retail and hospitality, who are eligible for rent allowance can get up to $522.10 a week, almost as much as waiting tables ($569.80) full-time.

Transport and Tourism Forum chief executive John Lee said it was a global phenomenon, with migrants and working travellers the only people "willing to get their hands dirty".

"Getting Australians to do these jobs - cleaning toilets, portering, any hard work - is impossible," he said.

SOURCE





Refugee appeals involving false claims cost Australian taxpayers millions

DODGY claims involving fake religious beliefs, sham marriages and lies about sexuality are adding to a logjam of cases in immigration and refugee tribunals, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

Desperate foreign citizens who arrive by plane are launching a barrage of appeals after Immigration officials reject their claims and seek to send them home.

The Refugee Review Tribunal - which handles only plane arrivals - had a 31 per cent jump in appeals last year while the Migration Review Tribunal, which deals with student and partner visas, had a 24 per cent increase. More than 13,000 appeals to the two tribunals in the one year overwhelmed resources.

While much of the national attention has focused on boat arrivals, many thousands more arrive by plane and are fighting to stay. Thousands of extra appeals are being lodged by plane arrivals each year, leading to a cost blow-out for taxpayers and long delays for applicants.

Frustrated tribunal members are finding some claims are blatantly faked, including a Chinese asylum seeker who said he was Catholic but didn't know who the Pope was.

Other men lied about being gay or invented elaborate stories about being pursued by criminal gangs, ex-partners or corrupt officials in an attempt to gain asylum. One Nigerian man sought protection for being part of a militant group involved in armed robbery, kidnapping and other non-political crimes.

Visa overstayers, including students, are also faking it or taking advantage of appeal delays to buy time in Australia at the expense of a clogged system. The Refugee Review Tribunal, which handles only plane arrivals, had 2966 appeals lodged last year - a 31 per cent jump.

The separate Migration Review Tribunal, which handles student, spouse, business and bridging visas, had 10,315 appeals last year - up 24 per cent.

The Federal Government was forced to provide an extra $14 million to the two tribunals for the next four years at the last Budget as appeals skyrocketed.

It can be difficult for asylum seekers to prove persecution, but some claims unravelled under questioning from tribunal members.

Monash University associate researcher Adrienne Millbank said the asylum seeker appeals system was vulnerable to false claims. "You hear about people who are full of hope and integrity and go on these review panels or decision-making (bodies) and get totally cynical," Ms Millbank said. "The whole system is totally farcical. It relies on the credibility of the story ... If you were putting someone in prison on that sort of evidence everyone would be horrified."

Combined appeals to the two tribunals have tripled in the past five years, prompting principal member Denis O'Brien to warn of delays in settling cases this year. A Canberra crackdown on student visas is contributing to the surge.

Immigration lawyers blame incorrect Immigration Department decisions, citing the high rate of successful appeal cases. Last year 41 per cent of appeals to the Migration Review Tribunal and 24 per cent to the Refugee Review Tribunal were successful.

Former attorney-general Michael Lavarch is conducting an independent review of the tribunals as the backlog mounts.

An Immigration Department memo reportedly warned at the time of his appointment last month: "The increasing delays result in uncertainty for applicants and provide an incentive for others to misuse the review process to extend their stay in Australia."

The Refugee Review Tribunal is also set to take on thousands more cases in the coming months when it resumes responsibility for assessing appeals from boat arrivals, who now use a separate system.

Separate appeals can be lodged through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Federal Magistrates Court, Federal Court, High Court and the boat arrivals system.

SOURCE



28 January, 2012

MD: Hysterical Frederick county commissioner compares immigration proposals to Nazi Germany

Thus admitting that he is losing the argument and thus tarnishing the reputation of his county

One longtime Frederick County commissioner is comparing another commissioner’s decision to crack down on illegal immigrants to 1940s Nazi Germany and the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.

Commissioner David P. Gray (R) made the comparison during a discussion at a Board of County Commissioners meeting Thursday about a package of legislation targeting illegal immigrants in the county.

“I find it chilling with all these proposals,” Gray said. “It conjures up images of when people sanctioned Jews in Germany. For God’s sake what kind of images are we trying to put forth for Frederick County. I think it’s absolutely terrible.”

Commissioners President Blaine R. Young (R) in November announced his intention to crack down on illegal immigrants after the 2009 murder of Jacinta “Patty” Ayala by her co-worker at a Burger King in Frederick — Jose Reyes Mejia-Varela, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador.

In one of Young’s proposals, local businesses would be forced to use a federal database to check the immigration status of their employees. Another could prohibit apartment rental agencies from allowing illegal immigrants to live in their properties. Commissioners also are considering eliminating day labor sites in the county and creating an ordinance making English the official language of Frederick County.

Commissioners voted 4-1 to take to public hearing next month only the proposal to create an ordinance making English the official language. Gray was the lone vote against the public hearing, which has not been scheduled.

The proposed ordinance would replace a resolution already adopted by the county that declares English the official language. The resolution is more ceremonial and did not require a public hearing, County Attorney John Mathias said. The ordinance specifies that all actions by the county government be in English, he said, with some exceptions.

For example, a language other than English could be used to teach English, protect public health or collect money owed to the county. Since the ordinance only applies to county government actions, commissioners will have to determine how to enforce it, Mathias said.

Commissioners decided to get more information from Mathias on the ramifications of the other three proposals before taking them to public hearing. Frederick County Sheriff’ Chuck Jenkins (R) told commissioners Thursday his officers do not have the authority to punish businesses that do not track the legal status of their employees or apartment complexes that rent to illegal immigrants.The proposals are not specific enough because commissioners are not sure how they can enforce them.

Most of the apartment complexes in Frederick County are in the city of Frederick, where a law adopted by the County Commissioners would not apply.

“There are ought to be a specific proposal we can evaluate,” Commissioner C. Paul Smith (R) said, in reference to the proposal requiring business owners to use a federal database to check the immigration status. “I think the last thing we want is to go forward in a general area and not know what we are doing. I’m not dismissing the idea of doing it, but I don’t see what I would want to get behind.”

Commissioner Kirby Delauter (R) agreed. “I’d rather see some more information on it,” he said. “I’m not against it. I think its a good idea. I just don’t know how you’re going to measure it right now.”

Gray, however, criticized the proposal to prohibit apartment agencies from renting to illegals. “I think the whole idea is wrong,” he said. “This is chilling. This is not what this country is made of. How sick are we. This is just absolutely repugnant. I think this should be dismissed out of hand and forgotten.” [He's good at emoting]

Young responded by saying, “Why don’t you dismiss the constitution while you’re at it?” “You’re talking about how many people you can have in your home,” Gray countered. “Your home is your castle for God sakes.”

The county already has some illegal immigration enforcement in place.

Jenkins spearheaded the implementation of the 287g program, which allows deputies to check the immigration status of every person arrested in Frederick County. The policy began in April 2008, and the county is the only one in Maryland currently operating the program. More than 1,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested in the county through the program, Jenkins said.

SOURCE





Romney assures Florida’s Hispanic voters the GOP isn’t ‘anti-immigrant’ as primary day nears

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney urged conservatives to back off aggressive anti-immigration policies as the Republican presidential candidates vied for Hispanic votes Friday, entering the final, frenzied weekend before Florida’s primary.

“I’m very concerned about those who are already here illegally and how we deal with those 11 million or so,” Romney said. “My heart goes out to that group of people... We’re not going to go around and round people up in buses and ship them home.”

The compassionate approach, like Gingrich’s calls for politically practical reform, was aimed at improving the Republican Party’s tarnished reputation among Hispanics. Both men delivered speeches Friday to the same group of Hispanic leaders gathered in Miami but avoided — at least briefly — criticizing each other in what now looks like a two-man race for the nomination.

Any calls for temperance on immigration didn’t apply to personal attacks elsewhere. The former House speaker released a new television ad in Florida using former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to question Romney’s integrity. “If a man’s dishonest to get a job, he’ll be dishonest on the job,” Huckabee says in the ad.

The outburst overshadowed a detailed discussion about immigration, in which the rivals called for democracy in Cuba and across Latin America, touching a theme that caused clashes between the GOP front-runners at Thursday night’s debate in Jacksonville.

Immigration is a flashpoint issue in Florida for the GOP candidates, who are trying to strike a balance between sounding compassionate and firm about stemming the tide of illegal workers. The state has roughly 1.5 million Hispanic voters.

Gingrich pushed for a measured approach to revising the nation’s immigration laws, “because any bill you write that is comprehensive has too many enemies.” The former House speaker says he wants stricter border control, faster deportation proceedings and a guest-worker program for certain immigrants.

If elected, Gingrich said, he would bring to bear “the moral force of an American president who is serious about intending to free the people of Cuba, and willingness to intimidate those who are the oppressors and say to them, ‘You will be held accountable.’”

SOURCE



27 January, 2012

Two Church of England clergymen ‘conducted hundreds of sham marriages to help illegal immigrants stay in Britain’

This is another aspect of the way the CofE now preaches a Leftist gospel rather than the gospel of Christ. These bozos probably thought that what they were doing was right

Two Church of England vicars conducted 'hundreds' of sham marriages to help illegal immigrants stay in Britain, a court heard today.

The Reverend Elwon John, 44, and Reverend Brian Shipsides, 55, performed the sham wedding ceremonies at All Saints Church in Forest Gate, east London, jurors were told.

Once wed there were a 'strikingly high proportion' who then made applications to the Home Office for the right to remain in the country.

In some cases, EU nationals were even flown into Britain just so the marriages could take place before being flown straight out again, Inner London crown court heard.

According to the prosecution, 31-year-old 'fixer' Amdudalat Ladipo - herself an illegal immigrant - arranged the weddings between mainly Nigerian and EU nationals.

It was not until officers from the Metropolitan Police and UK Border Agency caught wind of the scam that the trio were finally rumbled on July 31, 2010.

All three are now charged with conspiring to facilitate unlawful immigration. Shipsides has already pleaded guilty. Ladipo and John deny the charges.

David Walbank, prosecuting, said: 'This case involves a massive and systematic immigration fraud. 'At the centre of this fraud is one particular parish church in the east of London, All Saints Church in Forest Gate.

'The Crown’s case is that there took place in that church over a two-and-a-half year period a very large number indeed of sham marriages entered in to for the purpose of immigration.

'Most of the so-called couples participated in these marriage ceremonies were not actually couples at all. 'They were married in that church not because they wished to spend their lives together and wanted the blessing of the church; most of the persons married there for a very different reason. 'Their ultimate purpose was to obtain enhanced rights to enter and live in the United Kingdom.'

Mr Walbank told jurors the majority of the marriages which took place were between Nigerians and nationals from the European Economic Area (EEA), mainly from Portugal and the Netherlands. He added: 'The fraud, the Crown suggest, wasn’t confined to one or two, or even a couple of dozen of ceremonies. We are concerned in this case with hundreds of sham marriages. 'On some occasions EEA nationals were flown into the UK specially for marriages to take place and then flown back out again.'

The court heard Nigerian Ladipo may also have been involved in fixing sham marriages at other churches, although the jury were told she only faces charges in relation to weddings at All Saints.

When police attended the church in July 2010 after being told a number of sham weddings were due to take place there that day they found Ladipo there.

The court heard one of the officers approached her and asked her why she was there. She replied one of her friends was getting married. However, when asked for her friend’s name she is said to have become agitated and was later seen trying to get rid of a brown envelope under a bush in the church grounds.

When seized the enveloped was found to contain a number of ID documents which were not hers and sham paperwork relating to the marriages and she was arrested. Rev John, the curate at All Saints Church, and parish priest Rev Shipsides were arrested a few days later on August 3.

Mr Walbank told jurors: 'If the sham marriages hadn’t been stopped they would have continued at a rate of knots as there were many more booked at the church that would have taken place.'

Jurors heard Ladipo herself may have entered into a sham marriage with a Dutch national in February 2010. 'Her reason for going through with the marriage we suggest is entirely consistent with the motive of others at All Saints Church during the indictment period, to stay in the country,' said Mr Walbank.

Shipsides, of Forest Gate, east London, has already admitted conspiring to facilitate unlawful immigration.

Ladipo, of Dagenham, and John, of Barking, both in east London, deny the same charge. Ladipo also denies possessing false identity documents. The trial, expected to take four weeks, continues.

SOURCE




And another one!


Rev Canon Dr Patrick John Magumba

A vicar who conducted 28 sham marriages to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the UK has been jailed for two and a half years. The Reverend Canon John Magumba, 58, married Nigerians to European Union residents to allow them “all the benefits from residence” in this country. The Ugandan-born vicar, a father of six, also pocketed over £8,000 paid in wedding fees for the ceremonies in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.

Magumba, who appeared at Bolton Crown Court wearing an open neck shirt and no dog collar, pleaded guilty to a breach of the Immigration Act and two charges of theft totalling £8,345. The vicar, who came to Britain from Uganda in 2004, was the team vicar for three churches in Rochdale.

The sham marriages were exposed when church officials noticed a massive explosion in the number of weddings following Magumba’s appointment.

An investigation by the UK Border agency found that there had been 28 sham weddings between Nigerians and EU nationals.

At one church there had been no weddings between 1996 and 2007 but then 21 between 2007 and 2010 - only one of which was genuine.

Magumba, of Deeplish, Rochdale married two women with the same name and same age within a week of each other. He claimed that the women were twins and that it was an African tradition to give twins the same name.

The vicar conducted marriages in secret and failed to read the banns for others or to check the addresses which had been given. He ignored a Church working party instruction to make sure that foreign nationals wanting to marry provide passports, utility bills and addresses “to ensure they were a genuine loving couple.”

The court heard an independent economic report showed that a single illegal immigrant cost the taxpayer £10,000 a year and one with a dependent child cost £23,000 a year.

Mr Hunter Gray, defending, said Magumba had been driven by a “genuine but misguided desire” to help others. “He is a man of genuinely held and deeply felt Christian beliefs and he has fallen spectacularly from grace. “He feels shame and embarrassment that he has let so many people down.”

Judge William Morris jailed him for two years for the immigration offence and six months for the thefts, to run consecutively. He told him: “You repeatedly breached immigration laws which are properly designed to prevent those with no entitlement to reside in the Uk from doing so. "These legal restrictions are essential to ensure taxpayers’ money is only applied to the needs of fellow citizens.”

Immigration Minister Damien Green said after the sentence: “This sentence sends a clear message to anyone breaking our immigration laws that Britain is not a soft touch. “We work closely with the Church to identify sham marriages and identify those who seek to abuse the institution of marriage.”

SOURCE



26 January, 2012

Nothing new in Obama's speech on immigration

Even Leftists saw that

Last night during his State of the Union speech, President Obama spoke, as he has before, about the need for comprehensive immigration reform. He also brought up, if not by name, the Dream Act, long-proposed legislation that would grant conditional legal status to undocumented young people who arrived in the U.S. before age 16 if they attend college or join the military.

“Send me a law that gives then the chance to earn their citizenship,” Obama said. “I will sign it right away.” But by and large, Obama’s statements regarding immigration didn’t draw much excitement. Here are a few snippets of reaction from media and elsewhere.

The immigration portion of the speech was nothing we haven’t heard before, wrote Elise Foley in the Huffington Post: "When President Obama’s immigration policy staffers gathered to help pen the State of the Union Address passage dedicated to their issue, they didn’t have much to work with. Comprehensive immigration reform never came close, and the Dream Act failed. What’s a speechwriter to do?" “I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration,” Obama said in his Tuesday evening speech.

Indeed, he “strongly believe[d] that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration” last year, according to his State of the Union speech.

A CNN opinion piece posted shortly before the speech last night, written by Lanae Erickson of the left-leaning policy think tank Third Way, predicted what might occur when immigration came up: "Count on it. President Obama will devote three sentences to immigration reform in the State of the Union. Two dozen lawmakers will jump to their feet and applaud. One-third of the audience will give an obligatory clap. The rest will sit silently, stifling a yawn. Five years ago, comprehensive immigration reform legislation seemed possible and deeply bipartisan. Now it seems as unlikely and distant as President Bush’s mission to Mars."

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein didn’t get specifically into immigration in his Wonkblog today, but had this to say: "Last night’s State of the Union will not take a place alongside Barack Obama’s 2008 speech on race. It won’t be mentioned in the same breath as his 2004 speech in Boston. It didn’t even have the intellectual scope and narrative sweep of his 2011 speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Rather, it was a laundry list of policies, along the lines of the State of the Unions Bill Clinton delivered late in his presidency. Which makes perfect sense. Obama is staffed by much of the same team that wrote those State of the Unions."

And more along these lines, in different words, from Victor Landa at News Taco: "He can afford to play from his base because the opposition has left the filed open. So he reiterated many of the Democratic points and positions that he’s been hitting for three years (immigration, homeowner relief, student loans, etc…), and strike a note toward the center by saying what the American citizenry has been saying all along — Washington is broken.

How did some of those young immigrants who stand to benefit from the legislation Obama was talking about react? Not with much enthusiasm, either. Obama’s track record has included record deportations and tightened interior enforcement, which among other things has eroded his Latino support as the November election gets closer. An undocumented student activist group called Dream Team Los Angeles had this line in its statement today: "The President must not blame “election year politics” for four years of inaction and political unwillingness to stand with the immigrant community that helped elect him."

Angelica Salas, director of the advocacy group Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, reacted similarly in another statement: "Although conciliatory in words, the President’s immigration policy remains at a stand-still while the massive and ever-expanding deportation machine is well oiled and humming along. The reform he promised to see through during the first year of his first term is now given short shrift as he outlines his priorities during its last."

At the same time, the president did set himself aside from his Republican competitors, whose own tone on immigration has not been winning over disenchanted Obama supporters. Candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to veto the Dream Act and most recently talked about encouraging “self-deportation,” while his chief rival Newt Gingrich, initially more lenient and favoring a path to citizenship for some, has shifted positions during the campaign. Gingrich most recently said he’d favor a military version of the Dream Act, without a college component.

SOURCE




Gingrich mocks Romney’s ‘self-deportation’ plan for illegal immigrants

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday mocked as an “Obama-level fantasy” Mitt Romney’s plan to deal with illegal immigration by encouraging “self-deportation.”

Gingrich made the comment as he began a day of outreach to Florida’s Hispanic voters with an extensive interview on Spanish-language television and a speech at Florida International University in which he called for a more a forceful U.S. role in ending communist rule in Cuba, as well as an overhaul of U.S. economic policies toward all of Latin America.

In an interview with the Univision network, Gingrich said it was unrealistic for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States to voluntarily leave the country, as Romney, his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested in a debate Monday ahead of Florida’s Jan. 31 primary. Gingrich, who upset the GOP race by decisively winning Saturday’s South Carolina primary, also used a question about the immigration issue to get in a few digs at the former Massachusetts governor over his wealth and tax returns.

“You have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million income for no work to have some fantasy this far from reality,” Gingrich told Univision interviewer Jorge Ramos. “For Romney to believe that somebody’s grandmother is going to be so cut off that she is going to self-deport, I mean this is an Obama-level fantasy.”

In a debate Monday, a moderator asked Romney how he would get illegal immigrants to go home without rounding up and deporting them, which he has said he does not want to do.

“Well, the answer is self-deportation,” he responded. He said this would happen when “people decide that they could do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here.”

After Gingrich ridiculed the idea Wednesday, Romney’s campaign highlighted previous comments by Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond, who said the vast majority of illegal immigrants would likely “self-deport” under Gringrich’s immigration plan, which Hammond said would allow only a small percentage of them to remain in the United States.

Romney himself on Wednesday accused Gingrich of pandering to Florida’s Latino voters by mocking Romney’s stance on immigration. “Unfortunately for him, these are things he’s already spoken out about and he’s spoken out about in favor,” Romney said, referring to an earlier comment from Gingrich’s spokesman that also suggested that immigrants might “self-deport.”

“Now, I recognized that that it’s very tempting to come into an audience like this and to pander to the audience and say what you hope people will want to hear,” Romney told Univision’s Ramos. “But frankly, I think that’s unbecoming of a presidential candidate.”

The two campaigns also sparred Wednesday over a Gingrich political ad that called Romney “anti-immigrant.” The ad, which aired on Spanish-language radio, was denounced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a tea party favorite who has remained neutral in the primary campaign.

More HERE



25 January, 2012

A conservative alternative to the DREAM Act

As conservatives, we acknowledge, and in fact celebrate, that the United States is a nation of laws. However, we also acknowledge that the United States is, and always has been, a nation of compassion. In fact, I would argue that the Unites States is arguably the most compassionate nation in the history of the world. I would also argue that while we embrace compassion with an open heart, we do, and must always, embrace our compassion with open eyes as well.

Therefore, we do have compassion for the children of immigrants who were brought here, through no fault of their own, illegally. For those children that in all other aspects played by the rules, excelled academically and have stayed on the straight and narrow, we do feel that they are a special case, and are most worthy of our compassion. After all, we embrace the tenet of Compassionate Conservatism. We believe that conservatism is a good thing -- a valuable thing. In our country, it is also a good thing -- some would say a prerequisite thing, and certainly a moral thing -- to allow our compassion to go hand in hand with our conservatism.

The Democratic version of the DREAM Act has been floating around the halls of Congress for over a decade, and has enjoyed a measure of bipartisan support. However, it has never enjoyed enough support to pass. We think that is because, at the end of the day, it provides a back-door amnesty to the undocumented parents of the undocumented children. Our coalition does not support amnesty, and as long as the undocumented children could someday file a petition to legalize their undocumented parents, we are divided on the DREAM Act.

However, a conservative alternative would solve that problem. A conservative DREAM Act would not provide for any path to citizenship, or even legal permanent residency status. It would allow these children to stay in this country as non-immigrants or guest workers. This offers a very relevant distinction; it provides no mechanism for the children to petition anyone, including their parents, to come to or stay in the United States. Therefore, there would be no amnesty for the parents, and no future “chain migration.”

I would add one caveat: the undocumented children that would otherwise qualify for this alternative DREAM Act that choose to serve for 4 years in the military should be given an opportunity to become citizens. Right now, these undocumented children are ineligible to serve in the military. This alternative DREAM Act would allow these young men and women to serve our country, and if they do, they should be eligible to become American citizens.

However, this alternative DREAM Act would significantly tighten up some of the other aspects of the Democratic DREAM Act, such as criminal records. We want young men and women who respect the law to be able to qualify as candidates for this bill. It would also lower the age to qualify for this bill from the current 35 years old, thus dramatically reducing the potential pool of candidates.

This conservative alternative DREAM Act would serve our country well. It would solve two very pressing issues: what we should do with the high-achieving, undocumented children in this country, and what we should do about border security.

Finally, to those on the left that would argue that anything less than citizenship is a non-starter, I say that is simply not true. In fact, just a few months ago, I spoke in Tucson, Arizona to a large audience of primarily Hispanic Evangelicals at the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference’s Immigration Summit. At that event, I suggested the plan as described above. During the Q&A session at the end of the program, we took a vote, and only 10 out of approximately 900 attendees had a problem with this “non-citizenship” plan.

More HERE





Romney Says He Favors 'Self-Deportation'

Mitt Romney said in that he favors what he calls "self-deportation" over policies that require the federal government to round up illegal immigrants and return them to their home countries.

"The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can't find work here because they don't have legal documentation to allow them to work here," Romney said.

Romney's answer came after he was pressed on how he could be in favor of illegal immigrants returning to their home countries and applying for citizenship while also saying that he does not want the federal government to round people up and deport them.

Romney said that if employers enforce high standards for legal documentation of their employees, potential illegal immigrants will not be able to find work. He says this will allow the federal government to avoid having to round up people because they will leave on their own.

SOURCE



24 January, 2012

Immigration authorities released man who then murdered three people in Florida

BuzzFeed asks whether Kesler Dufrene might not become Barack Obama’s Willie Horton. Nothing about Dufrene’s story reflects well on U.S. officials:

When burglar Kesler Dufrene became a twice-convicted felon in 2006, a Bradenton judge shipped him to prison for five years. And because of his convictions, an immigration judge ordered Dufrene deported to his native Haiti.

That never happened.

Instead, when Dufrene’s state prison term was up, Miami immigration authorities in October 2010 released him from custody. Two months later, North Miami police say, he slaughtered three people, including a 15-year-old girl …

DNA on a rifle found inside the house and cellphone tracking technology later linked Dufrene to the Jan. 2, 2011, slayings.

But North Miami detectives never got to interrogate him. Just 18 days after the murders, Dufrene shot and killed himself when he was cornered by Manatee County sheriff’s deputies in Bradenton after an unrelated break-in and shooting there. …

The failure to deport Dufrene infuriates the victims’ family members. “This guy shouldn’t have been in America,” said Audrey Hansack, 37, who moved back to her native Nicaragua after the murder of her daughter Ashley Chow. “I’m so upset with the whole situation. Because of immigration, my daughter is not alive.”

So, what was the deal? Why was Dufrene never deported? Because of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the Obama administration issued a temporary moratorium on all deportations to the island nation. That decision had at least some validity: Haiti was in a state of emergency and the Haitian government had reduced capabilities to ensure the security of Haitian society as a whole.

The more troubling issue here is that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials couldn’t detain Dufrene until deportations to Haiti resumed. A pair of Supreme Court rulings in 2001 and 2005 specify that foreign nationals who cannot be deported may not be detained for more than six months. While those rulings make sense in the abstract, they make less sense when applied in a case like Dufrene’s. He was a twice-convicted felon whom ICE officials surely could not have been confident releasing. Surely some kind of an exception could have been invoked here, right? If not, this story is another bleak reminder that overregulation often leads to the underutilization of personal judgment and common sense.

At any rate, the chilling quote from Ms. Hansack serves as a powerful reminder that immigration policy and its enforcement or lack thereof has real and painful consequences.

SOURCE




Norway tells broke immigrants to go home

It sounds like Breivik may have had some influence after all. The Norwegian Leftists lost a lot of support in the last election and had to go into coalition with the Greens to stay in power. So they may be sounding tougher on immigration to recover lost ground



Labour Minister Hanne Bjurstrøm had a message over the weekend for hopeful immigrants from southern Europe who’ve been arriving in Norway in search of jobs: “Go home.” Bjurstrøm worries they won’t find jobs, and won’t be eligible for any help, either.

“If there’s no work for them, then there is no work,” Bjurstrøm told both newspaper Bergens Tidende and Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). She claimed she wasn’t being heartless, just practical.
“We are part of the free European labour market,” said Bjurstrøm, from the Labour Party herself. “That means folks can freely travel around and look for jobs. But if there are no jobs (for which they qualify), we as a state have no obligations towards the applicants, apart from making sure they don’t suffer from acute needs.”

Norwegian immigration and tax officials have been seeing a sharp rise in the number of people arriving in Norway from Spain, where unemployment is very high. The problem, they claim, is that many of the new arrivals speak very little English much less Norwegian. That makes it hard for them to find work, because they lack proficiency in languages other than Spanish.

“Then, in my opinion, it’s better for them to go back home where they at least may have friends and family, instead of being cold and broke here in Norway,” Bjurstrøm said.

She doesn’t think Norway will see a huge influx of immigrants from Spain, Greece or Italy. Last year, reported news bureau NTB, around 3,000 tax cards (needed to work legally in Norway) were issued to people from Spain, compared to 70,000 issued to immigrants from Poland and 80,000 to Swedes.

SOURCE



23 January, 2012

Illegal immigration: More at stake than you think

The writer below makes a reasonable case based on what he knows. What he doesn't know is that Australia is a major exporter of agricultural product WITHOUT illegals to do the work. How come? There are various answers to that -- with mechanization high on the list -- but if Australia can do it so can Americans. If the supply of illegals were cut off, lots of U.S. farmers would be hopping on a plane to Australia to learn how

And if food stamps were cut off during harvest season, that would have a salutary effect too. American blacks are the descendants of people used for agricultural labor so they obviously have the capacity for it

Ask most Americans about "illegal immigration" and they are likely to conjure an image of someone of Hispanic origin swimming across the Rio Grande or evading border patrolmen in the desert. The reality is that just who is "illegal," how they got here and their impact on our society is much more complex than the visual impression we get from television news.

The Department of Homeland Security estimates that between 27 and 57 percent of the country's 12 million to 14 million "illegals" are visa overstays — people who arrived legally with temporary, non-immigrant status and didn't leave the country when their visas expired. Government policies perpetuate the problem because those who overstay their visa, once they leave, can't ever come back legally due to their overstay violation.

The bumper sticker solution

I'm generally a law-and-order type, and I used to believe that if the first thing you do when you come to this country is break the law by entering it illegally, you ought to be rounded up and sent home.

But I've evolved. Illegal immigration is far too complicated an issue, with wide-ranging social, economic and emotional considerations; we shouldn't expect a solution to be found on a bumper sticker.

So far, the federal government has yet to get the solution right. This is due in part to splintered factions of labor unions, business and agricultural groups, and "human rights" activists with divergent interests. As a result of federal inaction, several states have attempted to solve the illegal immigration problem within their borders with quick-fixes that are long on rhetoric, short on solutions and with devastating economic impacts — particularly on the farm economy, which relies heavily on immigrant labor.

The Georgia model

Last year Georgia enacted a tough law to rid the state of illegal immigrants, including a provision for employers to use the federal E-Verify program to check workers' citizenship. It worked; and the result was Georgia farmers lost an estimated $150 million due to crops that sat in the field unpicked because the labor pool fled the state, according to the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal suggested farmers hire some of the state's residents who are on probation or parole for criminal offenses. The criminals said, "Too hard" — the crops rotted.

Unlike the harvesting of commodity crops such as corn and wheat that are highly mechanized, specialty crops such as strawberries and most fruits and vegetables are highly dependent on manual labor for planting, weeding and harvesting. If these crops don't have laborers to tend to them, the crops die. They weren't growing wheat in Georgia; they were growing onions, blueberries and other crops that require pickers. Crops like strawberries.

Why "average" Americans don't work in the fields

Gary Wishnatzki is a third-generation family farmer with an easy smile and an unassuming manner. His family's "Wish" Farms of Plant City is a 21{+s}{+t} century operation that matches manual labor with the best new technology to ensure the produce you buy from his farms is fresh and tasty. Wishnatzki's farms stretch over several Florida counties, and the company is the largest strawberry producer in the state.

To get its crops picked the farm relies almost entirely on Hispanic laborers, many of whom are immigrants. Wishnatzki says his farm never knowingly hires illegals. But the process of filing paperwork and getting confirmation from the government that the worker is documented is slow. He says that by the time his farm learns of an undocumented worker from the government, the season is usually over, and that worker has moved on.

Wish Farms' repeated efforts to hire domestic American workers to work the fields have all been failures. So I asked him: Why do you think average Americans don't work out?

"The average citizen who shows up on our farms to work in the fields lasts not a few days, but just a few hours. The average American doesn't want these jobs," Wishnatzki says.

Ted Campbell of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association said, "American social systems tend to provide substantial compensation — with continuously lengthening duration — to our domestic unemployed, which can sometimes diminish or delay motivation to seek a low-end job."

If you read between the lines, Campbell is saying a lot of people want a job, but they don't want to work. If it requires work, let's just ask Congress for an extension of unemployment benefits. Something for nothing — it's the new American way.

Unworkable "solutions"

With a domestic labor force that doesn't want to work in the fields, a large, mostly Hispanic immigrant community is ready, willing and able to get the job done. Yet calls persist for massive deportations, implementation of E-Verify and denial of public services to illegal immigrants. This has resulted in a serious labor shortage at farms across the country.

"[We are] still short labor in our fields. Our farms are barely keeping up with harvesting and maintenance right now. We are very worried about March, when the crop normally peaks," Wishnatzki says.

When you stop and think about it, deportation has to be about the dumbest idea conceived since the Transportation Security Administration; but that hasn't stopped some anti-immigrant groups for calling for it.

Never mind that it took the United States military nine months to find Saddam Hussein. One guy, thousands of troops, nine months times 12 million; it ain't gonna' happen.

Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee says, "You can't deport 12 million people — it's logistically impossible, even after everyone gets their due process."

The stereotyped image of illegal immigrants suggests they're criminals who are a drain on services and don't pay taxes. Some of that may be true, but they're hardly the reason for the stock market bust, the mortgage crisis or our country being $15 trillion in debt. But it's easier to create a villain than to look in the mirror and realize what the real problem is.

When I spoke to the sheriff he dispelled the notion of illegal Hispanic immigrants as criminals who clog up the system. Sure, there are bad apples among them, but they're no different than any group.

According to Gee, if you want to target a group that's a threat to America it would be enclave groups of Russians and Eastern Europeans forming sophisticated gangs in Florida and elsewhere. "It's not the Mexicans you need to be concerned with," the sheriff says.

As for the claim that they don't pay any taxes, the fact is that most immigrants working on the farms pay into the payroll tax system — but with few receiving any return benefit. They also pay sales taxes, purchase goods and services, pay rent and contribute to the U.S. economy in other ways.

Words from the Gipper

Ronald Reagan once said, "Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion, or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world, no regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters."

More HERE





How was he allowed into the UK? 'Beast of Bulgaria' with a reputation for slicing off ears is held by police

A notorious Bulgarian gangster who was one of the world's most wanted criminals has been seized by police - after being tracked down to a gym in South London.

Shaven-headed Tihomir Georgiev, who was on Interpol's 'most wanted' list, was suspected of murder when he fled his native country for London. The 43-year-old, a boxer and former henchman to a Bulgarian mafia boss, reportedly has a fearsome reputation for slicing off the ears and fingers of his enemies.

But after fleeing the Britain, Georgiev was seized by officers from Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit yesterday at a boxing gym in Bermondsey, South London, according to The Sun.

The Bulgarian was still wearing shorts and fighters' bandages on his hands when police led him away under a European Arrest Warrant, according to the paper

Georgiev, suspected of murdering one of his own drug dealers for disobeying an order, was part of a gang of criminals seized in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2010.

But before the trial concluded, he skipped his £20,000 bail, fled to London, and lived on the streets for months until the owner of Rooney's Gym in Bermondsey took pity on him, allowing him to sleep and train at the facility.

Georgiev even took part in boxing events at the gym and his face was used on promotional posters for upcoming events.

The Bulgarian fugitive was able to flee to the UK as his home country joined the EU in 2007, meaning his background would not have been checked when he entered Britain.

A profile of Georgiev on the Interpol website listed him as being 1.78 metres tall, with greying hair and 'black' eyes. His place of birth is listed as Pleven, Bulgaria, and Interpol state he is wanted for 'life and health' offences.

A Met Police spokesperson confirmed a 43-year-old man is being held over a Bulgarian murder at a London police station.

Describing Georgiev, one source told a Bulgarian newspaper: 'The Boxer fought his competitors with brutal ferocity. 'He tried to expand his group's scope. If threats did not work, he would quickly resort to the knife and physical violence. 'Those who refused to work for the gang were brutally beaten.'

SOURCE



22 January, 2012

I'll turn back every boat, says Australian conservative leader

A COALITION government will order the navy to turn around asylum-seeker boats and return them to Indonesia in an assertion of Australian border protection, Tony Abbott revealed. The Opposition Leader is determined to impose a new and tougher policy whereby Australia uses its navy to secure its borders.

If elected prime minister, Mr Abbott will tell Jakarta Australia will no longer passively accept the arrival of asylum-seeker boats from that country, The Australian reported last night.

A radical policy departure, this has far-reaching and unpredictable consequences for Australia-Indonesia relations.

In recent talks with his colleagues, Mr Abbott said: "This is a test of wills and Australia has lost. "What counts is what the Australian government does, not what it says. "It is time for Australia to adopt turning the boats as its core policy."

Mr Abbott said this would involve an increase in the number of naval vessels to force the boats back, including the capacity to remove asylum-seekers from deliberately sabotaged boats before repairing those vessels to enable the boatpeople to be returned to Indonesia.

The Coalition has also ruled out a political deal to revive Labour's Malaysia Solution and is planning a tougher regimen of temporary protection visas.

This includes a quota on the number of permanent visas issued to temporary protection visa holders to favour authorised asylum-seekers and to provide a disincentive to people making the journey by boat.

SOURCE




New Zealand convicted criminals slip into Australia to wage crime spree

KIWI criminals convicted of serious crimes including manslaughter and rape in their home country have slipped into Australia and waged a shocking crime spree here.

Border checks are so lax that New Zealand offenders who have served lengthy jail sentences are simply ticking a box claiming they have no criminal history. A computer alert system at the border failed to detect violent and repeat offenders who went on to commit further serious crimes in Australia.

One Kiwi roofer was jailed for 11 years in New Zealand but was waved into Australia and spent his first four months working at the Prime Minister's Sydney residence, Kirribilli House, when John Howard was in office.

Jonathan Rountree admitted he lied on his passenger arrival card and went on to amass a lengthy Australian record for drug dealing, trafficking and assault.

Another Kiwi entered Australia despite being jailed for nine years in New Zealand for manslaughter and rape after a violent sexual assault. The offender, who cannot be named, admitted he lied about his criminal history on his arrival card and was later the subject of five domestic violence orders.

The cases are detailed in Administrative Appeals Tribunal decisions and court cases from the past five years. But they are the tip of the iceberg because the tribunal only looks at cases where people appeal against their visa cancellations.

Kiwis can cross the Tasman on a Special Category Visa under an arrangement to allow freer travel between Australia and New Zealand. Anyone sentenced to a year or more in jail is not eligible for the visa. Immigration can also refuse entry to anyone who fails a character test due to their criminal history.

A global Movement Alert List computer database containing about 630,000 names is supposed to flag people who may be a risk because of serious criminal records. But of the 1.36 million New Zealanders who came to Australia last year, only 175 were turned back at the border for failing the character test. In the three years to December 2011, more than 220 Kiwis who had been allowed into Australia had their visas cancelled for failing the character test.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the government was working with New Zealand to improve sharing of criminal histories to prevent criminals moving between the countries at will. Mr Bowen used his special powers to remove four Kiwis last year after they had won appeals against deportation decisions.

Dylan Murphy Kasupene, a drug addict who served 18 months' jail in New Zealand for car theft, shoplifting, burglary and threatening behaviour with a weapon, was jailed in NSW for break and enter, larceny, stealing, shoplifting and public nuisance before being deported.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said screening safeguards were inadequate. "Australians are rightly appalled when people who come here on visas from any country and are granted that privilege abuse it," he said.

NSW jails last year housed 304 New Zealanders.

The issue of information sharing between the two countries was reignited after convicted New Zealand fraudster Joel Morehu-Barlow came to Australia and allegedly embezzled more than $16 million from Queensland Health.

SOURCE



21 January, 2012

Labour Party didn’t care who landed in Britain

Labour left our immigration system in a complete mess. Everyone could see that. Millions of people came through its open doors to the UK – sometimes in the backs of lorries, sometimes as students who never went home when their studies finished, sometimes as failed asylum seekers who were never asked to leave.

Hundreds of thousands more came from Eastern Europe when the European Union expanded. Other countries erected temporary barriers to immediate migration. Britain did not – and saw a wave of people come here to find work.

We knew all this when we took office, and we began work immediately, both to bring the numbers down and to tackle the organisational chaos. What came as a particular shock, though, was the way in which Labour had managed the interaction between our immigration and benefits systems. Quite simply, they had not linked the two at all. When parliamentary questions were asked about the number of overseas nationals who were claiming benefits, we couldn’t answer. The information simply wasn’t recorded. It was a scandalous omission.

The integrity of our benefits system is crucial to the reputation of our welfare state – to whether taxpayers feel that they are getting a fair deal. There’s a natural instinct that says that no one from other countries should receive benefits at all. But if someone works and pays taxes here, it’s not unreasonable that we should help out if they fall on hard times.

But we have to have a system that is fair and transparent, and which stops people receiving money that they should not be entitled to.

In the last few months we have been working together to tackle the problem. For the first time the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions are working together on this. We started with a programme of modification to our IT systems that means the nationality of all benefit claimants will be recorded when the new Universal Credit begins in 2013.

But waiting three years and doing nothing was not good enough. So we’ve done a complex research exercise to match information about people’s nationality when they entered the country with the list of people now on benefits. As a result we now know that there are 371,000 people who were foreign nationals when they entered Britain who are claiming benefits. The majority come from outside the EU.

We’ve also done a further piece of work with a sample group of 9,000 of those people to find out more about them. We’ve tracked down three quarters of them, and most have a right to what they are receiving. They are people who have settled here, either by becoming British nationals or being given indefinite leave to remain. Those people who are now British nationals are fully entitled to means-tested benefits. Those who come here for a limited period cannot claim benefits. But if we allow them to stay, the current rules say they can access our welfare state.

We’ve yet to track down the other quarter. There may be a good reason for the fact that we can’t identify the rest – there may be data errors in our different databases, like the spelling of a foreign surname. But equally, they may be an indication of a major failure in our benefits system left behind for us by the last government.

Either way, we will find out. We’ll be investigating the records of all of those people claiming benefits to make sure they are entitled to what they are receiving. We’ve already identified some with serious question marks over both their right to benefits and their immigration status. Investigators are calling to see them.

We’re also working on urgent plans to streamline the rules so that we can stop benefits immediately. Under the regulations we inherited, it takes nearly three months in a case like this. That has to stop.

All of this represents an almighty mess. It should never have been allowed to happen. And Labour should be embarrassed by what it left behind.

We’re determined to sort things out. First, by building an immigration system that is properly controlled and which people can have confidence in. And second, by building a new generation of data systems that will ensure that no one can come to Britain and claim benefits to which they are not entitled. It’s what British taxpayers deserve, and it’s not before time.

SOURCE






370,000 migrants on the dole in Britain

More than 370,000 migrants who were admitted to Britain to work, study or go on holiday are now claiming out-of-work benefits, according to official figures compiled for the first time.
370,000 migrants on the dole

The migrants, who can claim unemployment, housing and incapacity benefit, are costing taxpayers billions of pounds a year. In other countries, many would have had to return home after their visas expired or their employment ended.

The figures are likely to reopen the debate over the generosity of the welfare system amid growing concerns that the country has become a destination for “benefit tourists”.

In an article for today’s Daily Telegraph, Chris Grayling, the employment minister, and Damian Green, the immigration minister, say that the large number of migrants now claiming benefits has been increased by the “organisational chaos” of Britain’s immigration system. “It should never have been allowed to happen and Labour should be embarrassed by what it left behind,” they add.

“We’re determined to sort things out. Firstly by building an immigration system that is properly controlled and which people can have confidence in. And secondly by building a new generation of data systems that will ensure that no one can come to Britain and claim benefits to which they are not entitled.”

In the past, the nationality of benefit claimants has not been recorded. Ministers ordered a comparison of records held by the UK Border Agency, Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs.

The analysis found there were 371,000 foreign-born claimants for out-of-work benefits, out of a total 5.5 million recipients. Of these, 258,000 were from outside the European Economic Area.

Officials used data from applications for National Insurance cards, which require people to declare whether they are foreign nationals. Just over half have subsequently become British citizens.

People from outside the European Union can legally come to Britain to work, study or visit with a visa. If they stay for a certain period of time, marry or have children they can apply to remain permanently — after which they become eligible for state handouts. Asylum seekers can also be eligible for benefits.

European nationals actively looking for work can claim unemployment benefit. However, those from some eastern European nations can only claim after 12 months on a registration scheme.

In the majority of cases, ministers found that the migrants claiming benefits were eligible for the money. In a small sample group, details from a quarter of claimants could not be verified, while 2 per cent of them were suspected of making fraudulent claims.

Mr Grayling and Mr Green write: “We’ll be investigating the records of all

those people claiming benefits to make sure they are entitled to what they are receiving.

“We’ve already identified some with serious question marks over both their right to benefits and their immigration status. Investigators are calling to see them.”

It currently takes about three months to stop benefits in these cases and ministers are drawing up plans to allow the handouts to be stopped immediately.

The analysis found that the highest number of migrants on benefits originally came from Pakistan, Somalia and India. Bangladesh, Iraq and Iran also featured prominently. European countries among the top 20 for claimants include Poland, Ireland, France and Italy.

The figures will lead to a debate over whether people who had previously paid tax should be given priority for benefits.

Mr Grayling and Mr Green write: “The integrity of our benefits system is crucial to the reputation of our welfare state — to whether taxpayers feel that they are getting a fair deal.

“There’s a natural instinct that says that no one from other countries should receive benefits at all. But if someone works and pays taxes here, it’s not unreasonable that we should help out if they fall on hard times.”

They add that the system has to be fair and stop people receiving money to which there are not entitled.

The Department for Work and Pensions has not made any estimate as to the total cost of the benefits claimed by the immigrants. Nor does the research cover those receiving the state pension, child benefit or other handouts.

Jobseekers’ Allowance is currently paid at up to £67.50 a week. Incapacity benefit is worth up to £94.25 a week. Housing benefits are typically more generous although the Government is planning to introduce a “benefit cap” to prevent any household from claiming a total of more than £26,000 annually.

Mr Grayling also disclosed last year that the Government was poised to take legal action against the EU to stop more foreigners being able to claim benefits in this country under controversial “reciprocal arrangements”.

David Cameron has pledged to bring non-EU immigration “under control” and a target to reduce those moving to Britain into the “tens of thousands” annually is one of his main policies.

The Conservatives accuse Labour of having let immigration spiral out of control with hundreds of thousands of people, including many from eastern Europe, settling in this country.

Apart from their impact on the welfare system, ministers are also concerned about the number of jobs being taken by immigrants.

Other official figures show that up to 90 percent of new jobs created in Britain over the past decade have gone to foreign -born workers while levels of unemployment have risen.

The Government believes that improving the education and training of Britons, particularly young people, is the key to ensuring that they can compete for jobs.

SOURCE



20 January, 2012

Senior judge attacks UK border system after Lithuanian sex offender was able to enter the country

A senior judge has railed at the UK border system asking “do we let anyone in?” after a dangerous Lithuanian sex offender was able to enter the country and then rape a woman.

Lady Justice Hallett demanded to know if serious criminals were allowed to just “walk in to the country” after hearing the case of Victor Akulic.

Akulic raped a 40-year-old woman in 2010, just months after arriving, and then forced her to watch a recording of the horrific attack.

It emerged at his trial that he had committed a string of serious offences in Lithuania, including the rape of a seven-year-old girl, before arriving in the UK. However his previous offences did not show up when he entered Britain because of the poor information exchange between some EU countries.

Immigration officials here are reliant on individuals owning up to previous offences themselves or their home nation passing on details to the police.

But despite her concerns, Lady Justice Hallett reduced Akulic’s life sentence to an indeterminate sentence for public protection.

Hearing the appeal, the judge asked Akulic's barrister, Catherine Purnell, how he was allowed to enter the UK with such a serious conviction to his name. She said: "He comes into this country with a conviction for raping a child. Do we let in just anyone, even if they have such a serious conviction?"

When Ms Purnell said Akulic is a Lithuanian national and Lithuania is now part of the European Union, Lady Justice Hallett retorted: "I appreciate that, but do we have to take in anybody, even if they have a conviction for raping a child."

Ms Purnell replied: "I'm afraid I don't know about that; it may be that if the authorities had known about that then something may have been done earlier. "I do know it was very difficult for the prosecuting authorities to find out details of the offence."

Akulic was jailed for life, with a minimum of eight and a half years, at Maidstone Crown Court in February last year, after being convicted of rape, assault and intimidation of a woman.

Akulic, 44, of Alexander Road, Sheerness, raped a woman in August 2010 and subjected her to three vicious assaults – including one in which he knocked her to the ground and stamped on her head – before trying to intimidate her following his arrest.

The court heard he amassed a number of previous convictions in his native country before he came to the UK in early 2010. In 1992, in Lithuania, he was convicted of assault causing grievous bodily harm, for which he received a seven-year jail term, and in 1997 he was handed a five-year jail term for another offence – which was unrecorded. He was jailed for eight years in March 2001 for raping a seven-year-old girl and was released in February 2009.

Ms Purnell accepted Akulic was a "dangerous offender", but the Appeal Court replaced his life sentence with less draconian imprisonment for public protection and reduced his minimum term to seven years, after which it will be a Parole Board decision as to whether he can be released.

However, Ms Purnell said Akulic is in the process of applying for a transfer to a prison in Lithuania, and told the court: "Hopefully he will not be a burden on the taxpayer too much longer."

SOURCE





Judge attacks immigration 'merry-go-round' that allowed Pakistani man to make 16 applications to stay in Britain

A senior judge today condemned the immigration 'merry-go-round' that allowed an asylum seeker to stay in Britain for a decade.

The Pakistani national was allowed to make a staggering 16 appeals or new applications despite being rejected at every turn, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of at least £250,000.

Lord Justice Ward said the 'depressing story' was typical of asylum cases in which 'endless fresh claims' were allowed to 'clog up' the system. He said: 'This is another of those frustrating appeals which characterise - and, some may even think, disfigure - certain aspects of the work in the immigration field.

'Here we have one of those whirligig cases where an asylum seeker goes up and down on the merry-go-round leaving one wondering when the music will ever stop. 'It is a typical case where asylum was refused years ago but endless fresh claims clog the process of removal.'

The Court of Appeal judge rejected the man's latest appeal and insisted he should now be returned to Pakistan. He concluded: 'I would therefore dismiss this appeal. It is time the music stopped and the merry-go-round stops turning. 'His claim for judicial review is now dismissed. Enough of the whirligig. The Secretary of State is now entitled to take steps to remove him.'

The 38-year-old man, whose identity is hidden by the court, first arrived in Britain in August 1998, and claimed asylum one month later. His claim was rejected by the Home Secretary two years later after an official rejected documents he presented as evidence as 'false' and found they 'cast doubt on his credibility'.

The man claimed he was a member of a religious minority in Pakistan and faced persecution in his home country.

He appealed to a tribunal and lost and in November 2001 he was due to be deported - but this was stopped after he claimed it would breach his 'human rights'.

At this point, Lord Justice Ward said 'the merry-go-round had started'. The new application was refused in December 2001. The man appealed, and lost his case before an official adjudicator in 2004.

Recounting these events, LJ Ward commented: 'Notwithstanding that setback, the carousel continued to go round and round, because, nothing daunted, the appellant had submitted a fresh claim.' The new claim was rejected on October 1, 2004, but new claims were made two weeks later, and again in January, May and December of the following year. He was arrested in February 2006, but made another new claim, which was rejected by the Home Office in March 2006. But according to the judge, the 'whirligig kept turning.'

On March 13, 2006, the applicant made a new claim for judicial review of the decision to remove him, which the High Court approved in July 2008. Lord Justice Ward said: 'This was to all intents and purposes a new challenge, another ride on the roundabout. On my count, this was the 15th submission of a fresh claim.'

The claim for judicial review was dismissed, but the case then went before the Court of Appeal, leading to a hearing in July this year, and yesterday's written ruling.

Around £100million is spent annually on legal aid for asylum seekers, but this does not include the cost of courts and tribunal system hearing the cases or the cost to the government of fighting the cases and processing the paperwork.

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has pledged to end abuses of the legal aid system by failed asylum seekers.

SOURCE



19 January, 2012

Judge-made law blocks deportation in Calif.

Rogelio Servin entered deportation proceedings in San Francisco earlier this month and came home a legal resident, thanks to a little-used wrinkle in immigration law.

Servin, 32, who lives in Sacramento, Calif., was a boy when he came here from Mexico with his family without documentation. After 20 years worrying about whether he might be deported, he rushed home after the decision to celebrate with his wife, Juana, daughters Diamond and Princess, and Romeo, his baby boy.

Servin's legal team of Daniel Karalash and Janell Clayton argued that Servin, who had a felony conviction stemming from a domestic dispute, had turned his life around and deserved to stay in the country to support his wife and children, all U.S. citizens.

They also made the case that Servin, as a boy, had been "inspected and admitted" at the border, a still-developing concept in immigration law that could help thousands of undocumented immigrants on their paths to citizenship if they weren't stopped at official border crossings when they entered the United States.

Servin's case stems from a 2010 ruling by the federal Board of Immigration Appeals, which found that a woman facing deportation, Graciela Quilantan, had in fact entered the country legally when she crossed the border without documentation in 2001.

Quilantan, the wife of a U.S. citizen, was in a car driven by a U.S. citizen. Because she wasn't trying to sneak across and hadn't been questioned by the immigration officer who waved them into Texas, the court found she had been "inspected and admitted" legally.

"It's hard to speculate how many immigrants this could help because it is judged on a case-by-case basis on how they entered, but there's a vast population that has driven over in a car and entered legally," she said.

Experts are still digesting the ruling and its ramifications.

"This has many of us immigration professors scratching our heads," said Raquel Aldana, a professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

The case doesn't apply to millions of undocumented immigrants who crossed rivers, mountains and deserts, evading U.S. immigration officials. But about half of all undocumented immigrants either walked or drove through official checkpoints and just weren't stopped and questioned, Aldana said. Some were prepared to make a case for entry; others took their chances that they would be waved through, a more common occurrence before the border inspection process tightened in 1996.

The ruling seems to apply to a narrow subset of undocumented immigrants who are immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. The idea is that they shouldn't be deported if immigration officials made a mistake letting them in in the first place, Aldana said.

The 2010 ruling "isn't a silver bullet for undocumented immigrants," said University of California-Davis Law School Dean Kevin Johnson. But under the right circumstances it could tip the balance for some of the thousands of immigrants stuck in deportation proceedings, he said. "We haven't seen a flood of these cases since the 2010 decision," he noted. "The facts of the Servin case are so extraordinary it couldn't happen very often."

There were two parts to the ruling allowing Servin to stay: He was judged to have come in legally because he was "inspected and admitted" and he was awarded his green card because he was his family's sole support.

Homeland Security officials declined to discuss the case or speculate on the impact of the Texas ruling.

But Clayton said she and Karalash have four other clients they think could benefit from the case law.

"It's hard to speculate how many immigrants this could help because it is judged on a case-by-case basis on how they entered, but there's a vast population that has driven over in a car and entered legally," she said.

SOURCE




GALLUP Poll: Majority of Americans Want fewer Foreigners, Immigrants Coming to America

According to a recent Gallup poll a majority of Americans (64%) want to see less foreigners migrate into this country. The poll taken from January 5-8, 2012 show that nearly two out of three Americans are dissatisfied with the level of immigration. Of 17 issues Gallup presented during the polling, the immigration issue came in third place.

According to Gallup, when posting a follow-up question only to those who say they are dissatisfied with the current level of immigration, asking whether the level of immigration should be increased, decreased, or remain the same. The net result is that 42% of all Americans are dissatisfied with the level of immigration and want it decreased—down from 50% four years ago.

Just 6% are dissatisfied and want the level of immigration increased, unchanged from 2008 but slightly higher than in previous years.

It is important to note that Gallup’s question does not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. [Which is dumb!]

SOURCE



18 January, 2012

Illegal Immigrants To Face 'Consequences' Before Deportation To Mexico

Pretty mild consequences but better than nothing I suppose. Imprisonment without food for a few days might be more effective. Add flogging and you would have something that really worked

The U.S. Border Patrol is moving to halt a revolving-door policy of sending migrants back to Mexico without any punishment.

The agency this month is overhauling its approach on migrants caught illegally crossing the 1,954-mile border that the United States shares with Mexico. Years of enormous growth at the federal agency in terms of staff and technology have helped drive down apprehensions of migrants to 40-year lows.

The Border Patrol now feels it has enough of a handle to begin imposing more serious consequences on almost everyone it catches from Texas to San Diego. The "Consequence Delivery System" divides border crossers into seven categories, ranging from first-time offenders to people with criminal records.

Punishments vary by region but there is a common thread: simply turning people around after taking their fingerprints is the choice of last resort. Some, including children and the medically ill, will still get a free pass by being turned around at the nearest border crossing, but they will be few and far between.

"What we want to be able to do is make that the exception and not necessarily the norm," Fisher told said.

Consequences can be severe for detained migrants and expensive to American taxpayers, including felony prosecution or being taken to an unfamiliar border city hundreds of miles away to be sent back to Mexico. One tool used during summers in Arizona involves flying migrants to Mexico City, where they get one-way bus tickets to their hometowns. Another releases them to Mexican authorities for prosecution south of the border. One puts them on buses to return to Mexico in another border city that may be hundreds of miles away.

The new tactics are part of the Border Patrol's new national strategy that is to be announced within weeks - and follow several changes along the border in recent years.

The number of agents since 2004 has more than doubled to 21,000.

The Border Patrol has blanketed one-third of the border with fences and other physical barriers, and spent heavily on cameras, sensors and other gizmos. Major advances in fingerprinting technology have vastly improved intelligence on border-crossers. In the 2011 fiscal year, border agents made 327,577 apprehensions on the Mexican border, down 80 percent from more than 1.6 million in 2000. It was the Border Patrol's slowest year since 1971.

It's a far cry from just a few years ago. Older agents remember being so overmatched that they powerlessly watched migrants cross illegally, minutes after catching them and dropping them off at the nearest border crossing. Border Patrol Chief Mike Fisher, who joined the Border Patrol in 1987, recalls apprehending the same migrant 10 times in his eight-hour shift as a young agent.

In the past, migrants caught in Douglas, Ariz., were given a bologna sandwich and orange juice before being taken back to Mexico at the same location on the same afternoon, Fisher said. Now, they may spend the night at an immigration detention facility near Phoenix and eventually return to Mexico through Del Rio, Texas, more than 800 miles away.

Those migrants are effectively cut off from the smugglers who helped them cross the border, whose typical fees have skyrocketed to between $3,200 and $3,500 and are increasingly demanding payment upfront instead of after crossing, Fisher said. At minimum, they will have to wait longer to try again as they raise money to pay another smuggler.

"What used to be hours and days is now being translated into days and weeks," said Fisher.

The new strategy was first introduced a year ago in the office at Tucson, Ariz., the patrol's busiest corridor for illegal crossings, and is being expanded on a larger scale.

Field supervisors ranked consequences on a scale from 1 to 5 using 15 different yardsticks, including the length of time since the person was last caught and per-hour cost for processing.

The longstanding practice of turning migrants straight around without any punishment, known as "voluntary returns," ranked least expensive - and least effective.

Agents got color-coded, wallet-sized cards - also made into posters at Border Patrol stations - that tells them what to do with each category of offender. For first-time violators, prosecution is a good choice, with one-way flights to Mexico City also scoring high. For known smugglers, prosecution in Mexico is the top pick.

The Border Patrol has introduced many new tools in recent years without much consideration to whether a first-time violator merited different treatment than a repeat crosser.

"There really wasn't much thought other than, `Hey, the bus is outside, let's put the people we just finished processing on the bus and therefore wherever that bus is going, that's where they go,"' Fisher said.

Now, a first-time offender faces different treatment than one caught two or three times. A fourth-time violator faces other consequences.

The number of those who have been apprehended in the Tucson sector has plunged 80 percent since 2000, allowing the Border Patrol to spend more time and money on each of the roughly 260 migrants caught daily. George Allen, an assistant sector chief, said there are 188 seats on four daily buses to border cities in California and Texas. During summers, a daily flight to Mexico City has 146 seats.

Only about 10 percent of those apprehended now get "voluntary returns" in the Tucson sector, down from about 85 percent three years ago, said Rick Barlow, the sector chief. Most of those who are simply turned around are children, justified by the Border Patrol on humanitarian grounds.

Fisher acknowledged that the new strategy depends heavily on other agencies. Federal prosecutors must agree to take his cases. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must have enough beds in its detention facilities.

In Southern California, the U.S. attorney's office doesn't participate in a widely used Border Patrol program that prosecutes even first-time offenders with misdemeanors punishable by up to six months in custody, opting instead to pursue only felonies for the most egregious cases, including serial border-crossers and criminals.

Laura Duffy, the U.S. attorney in San Diego, said limited resources, including lack of jail space, force her to make choices.

"It has not been the practice (in California) to target and prosecute economic migrants who have no criminal histories, who are coming in to the United States to work or to be with their families," Duffy said. "We do target the individuals who are smuggling those individuals."

Fisher would like to refer more cases for prosecution south of the border, but the Mexican government can only prosecute smugglers: smuggling migrants is a crime in Mexico but there is nothing wrong about crossing illegally to the United States. It also said its resources were stretched on some parts of the border.

Criticism of the Border Patrol's new tactics is guaranteed to persist as the new strategy goes into effect at other locations.

Some say immigration cases are overwhelming federal courts on the border at the expense of investigations into white-collar crime, public corruption and other serious threats. Others consider prison time for first-time offenders to be excessively harsh.

The Border Patrol also may be challenged when the U.S. economy recovers, creating jobs that may encourage more illegal crossings. Still, many believe heightened U.S. enforcement and an aging population in Mexico that is benefiting from a relatively stable economy will keep migrants away.

"We'll never see the numbers that we saw in the late 1990s and early 2000s," said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Doris Meissner, who oversaw the Border Patrol as head of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service in the 1990s, said the new approach makes sense "on the face of it" but that it will be expensive. She also said it is unclear so far if it will be more effective at discouraging migrants from trying again.

"I do think the Border Patrol is finally at a point where it has sufficient resources that it can actually try some of these things," said Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.

Tucson, the only sector to have tried the new approach for a full year, has already tweaked its color-coded chart of punishments two or three times. Fisher said initial signs are promising, with the number of repeat crossers falling at a faster rate than before and faster than on other parts of the border.

"I'm not going to claim it was a direct effect, but it was enough to say it has merit," he said.

SOURCE





Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Case Study: One Shady Immigration Lawyer and K-1 Petitions (Blog)

2. European Allies Get It on Immigration, Why Not America? (Blog)

3. The Welcome Arrival of a New, Clear-Eyed Reporter (Blog)

4. U.S. Immigration Policy Often Rewards Failure (Blog)

5. Cutting Sign at ICE: Tracking Current Enforcement Priorities (Blog)

6. Those Private Sector Immigration Lawyers: Part II (Blog)

7. Low-Skill Immigration and the Decline in Social Mobility (Blog)

8. National ICE Council Freezes the Obama Blitz (Blog)

9. DHS Inspector-General Writes a Stunning Report on USCIS (Blog)

10. Those Private Sector Immigration Lawyers: Part I (Blog)

11. ICE Officers to DHS: 'No We Won't!' (Blog)



17 January, 2012

Arizona sheriff to appeal ruling that limits his ability to do immigration enforcement

An Arizona sheriff known for his anti-illegal immigration tactics is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that prohibited his deputies from detaining people under the state’s immigrant-smuggling law based solely on the suspicion that they’re in the country illegally.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s lawyers told U.S. District Judge Murray Snow in a filing Friday that they will appeal the judge’s Dec. 23 ruling in a lawsuit alleging that the sheriff’s deputies racially profiled Latinos in immigration patrols.

Lawyers pushing the lawsuit on behalf of five Latino clients also won class-action status that lets other Hispanics join the case if they have been detained and questioned by Arpaio’s deputies as either a driver or passenger in a vehicle since January 2007.

SOURCE





Union fight slows immigration changes

President Obama's call for a review of pending immigration cases in the United States and reform the deportation process has run up against union resistance.

Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Morton has called for all ICE agents to prioritize the 300,000 pending deportation cases, starting with people who have committed crimes.

"If you're having to decide between putting someone who's lived in this country for a very, very long time, or somebody who's committed a crime, start with the person who has committed a crime," Morton said.

Although the number of deportations is not likely to change, Morton said, who stays and who goes will.

But CBS News reported Sunday the effort is being slowed by a union representing immigration agents.

Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council, the union that represents ICE agents, called the order "operationally next to impossible" because agents cannot be expected to check the backgrounds of every illegal immigrant.

Morton said despite the opposition from the union, the policy is moving forward. He said an agreement with the union could be reached by the end of January so the policy can be fully implemented.

The Obama administration has deported 1.6 million people, more than any previous administration, CBS said.

SOURCE



16 January, 2012

Mormons' immigration attitudes set them apart

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life's survey of Mormons released this past week confirms that U.S. Mormons are more conservative (66 percent) compared to the general public (37 percent), and on most issues, they closely track white evangelicals. But immigration is one issue that sets Mormons apart from their evangelical counterparts.

Asked whether immigrants are a strength or a burden, 59 percent of white evangelicals said they were a burden, while only 41 percent of Mormons felt the same, compared to 44 percent of the general public. The result is surprising given how staunchly conservative Mormons are on nearly every measure. Interestingly, 50 percent of white mainline Protestants and 49 percent of white Catholics also tilt against immigration, though neither group is as uniformly conservative as evangelicals or Mormons on other measures.

Dan Cox, Research Director at the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington, D.C. sees several reasons for the surprising result. He points first to demographics to explain why Mormons are more open to immigrants than are white evangelicals. "White evangelicals are significantly lower on the socioeconomic scale than most other religious groups. Those who are more economically vulnerable are more likely to see newcomers as threats," he says.

The Pew results validate the socioeconomic explanation. The key is a strong link between Mormon religious commitment and socioeconomic status. Eighty-four percent of Mormon college graduates are highly committed to the Church, but just 50 percent of those with high school education share that same level of commitment. This socioeconomic gap also translates to immigration: 50 percent of less committed Mormons see immigrants as a burden, against 36 percent of highly committed Mormons.

Cox also points to age as a key factor, noting the surprising anti-immigration sentiment among mainline Protestants and white Catholics. "Both of these groups tend to be older than the general public," Cox says, "and we find that younger people are much more open to immigration." Sure enough, Pew finds that 49 percent of Mormons between the ages of 18-49 see immigrants as a strength, while just 39 percent of Mormons over 50 say the same. The Mormon youth movement has an impact on the results: according to a 2009 Pew study, 41 percent of the general population was over fifty years old, while just 34 percent of Mormons fall into that category.

More HERE




Thousands of illegal immigrants obtained Missouri driver’s licenses

Thousands of illegal immigrants living across the United States used fraudulent paperwork to obtain Missouri driver’s licenses in St. Joseph, federal authorities said Wednesday.

A federal grand jury in Kansas City indicted 14 defendants, including six members of a St. Joseph family, for participation in the conspiracy, which allegedly allowed more than 3,500 illegal immigrants to obtain Missouri driver’s licenses and other state identification documents.

Prosecutors allege that defendants made more than $5.2 million in fees charged to illegal immigrants since November 2009, when the defendants allegedly started the conspiracy.

“Those who profited from this illegal scheme will be held accountable,” Beth Phillips, U.S. attorney for western Missouri, said in a written statement.

Authorities intend to track down and deport those who obtained the fraudulent licenses or documents. They plan to consider criminal charges against each on a case-by-case basis.

The 40-count indictment, filed under seal Tuesday, was made public Wednesday after authorities arrested 13 of the 14 alleged conspirators.

The St. Joseph residents charged were Deborah J. Flores, 46; her sister, Sherri E. Gutierrez, 45; and Flores’ children, Stephen Eugene Vanvacter, 24; Sara M. Gonzalez, 20; Christina Michelle Gonzalez, 23; and Jessica Mercedes Gonzalez, 21.

Flores and Vanvacter own a used car business in St. Joseph, A to Z Auto Credit, according to federal prosecutors.

Also charged were three residents of Carthage, Mo.: Elder Enrique Ordonez-Chanas, 30; Nelson Dariseo Bautista-Orozco, 26; and Ranfe Adaias Hernandez-Flores, 22. Other defendants lived in Chicago, Texas and North Carolina.

According to the indictment, customers of the scheme were recruited from around the country. Each customer paid $1,500 to $1,600 and received a birth certificate and Social Security number in the names of other people. Those documents typically came from conspirators in Texas who bought them from people willing to sell their documents, according to the allegations.

Those documents, along with Missouri residential addresses provided by the defendants, were used to obtain driver’s licenses or other state identification cards from the Missouri Department of Revenue license office in St. Joseph.

The St. Joseph-based defendants accompanied the illegal immigrants to the license office, often posing as translators, to help them with the process, according to the indictment.

The immigrants were coached on how to answer questions from license office employees and were instructed to memorize information on the Social Security and birth certificate documents. They were also told to practice writing signatures to match those on the documents, according to the allegations.

Charges filed include conspiracy, transporting illegal aliens, unlawfully producing identification documents, unlawfully transferring another person’s identification, Social Security fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Federal prosecutors said the indictment does not allege wrongdoing against any fee office worker.

Multiple local, state and federal law enforcement agencies participated in the investigation. Officials did not say how it began.

“The individuals involved in this conspiracy orchestrated an extensive identity fraud scheme on a grand scale,” Gary Hartwig, head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations office in Chicago, said in a written statement.

Identity and document fraud poses a threat to public safety and national security, Hartwig said, calling it a “burgeoning problem” in the United States.

While the defendants in the Missouri case were being rounded up Wednesday, officials in Washington announced charges against 50 people in a similar but unrelated identity fraud case centered in Puerto Rico.

Like the Missouri case, that conspiracy allegedly was nationwide in scope and involved the sale of Social Security cards and birth certificates by suppliers in Puerto Rico to brokers in 15 states, including Nebraska.

SOURCE



15 January, 2012

Stingy with Immigrants?

The U.S. is not spending enough on helping immigrants to assimilate, argues a USC professor in the New York Times. We should redirect “the billions of dollars spent on border enforcement” to the education budget, both to federal student loans and to community and four-year state colleges, says public-policy professor Dowell Myers.

The notion that taxpaying citizens are not already shelling out plenty for educating immigrants and their children is fanciful. Let’s look at community-college outlays, where the majority of second- and third-generation (overwhelmingly Hispanic) immigrant college students are found. Federal, state, and local governments spent nearly $4 billion from 2004 to 2008 on community-college students who dropped out after their first year; add in part-time students and capital expenditures, and the number would be much higher, reports the American Institutes of Research. Hispanic students are overrepresented among those community-college dropouts. Would more spending make a difference in the dropout rate? Unlikely.

So perhaps we are simply not spending enough on K-12 education. California, where over 50 percent of the student body is now Hispanic, is a bellwether. No other item in its budget comes close to K-12 education–$64 billion—much of that devoted to trying to close the achievement gap between Hispanic students and whites and Asians. So far progress has been slim, as I discuss in the forthcoming Winter issue of City Journal. Only Mississippi had as large a percentage of its 8th-grade students reading “below basic” on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP); in 8th-grade math, California came in third after Alabama and Mississippi in the percentage of students scoring “below basic.”

Myers projects that by 2030, 18 percent of second-generation Hispanic students will have a college degree. He apparently means that as good news; in fact it is a sign of how slowly progress between the generations is occurring, since the Hispanic graduation rate in California was 10 percent in 2006.

Myers wants to declare the problem of illegal immigration over, based on the claim that population flows from Mexico have become stagnant and will remain so. That remains to be seen. But it is not the case that Americans have been stingy in providing public resources to immigrants and their children.

SOURCE






British Border Agency 'sorry' after missing chance to deport failed asylum seeker who went on to kill partner and children

The UK Border Agency missed the chance to deport a failed asylum seeker who went on to murder his partner and their two children before taking his own life.

Aram Aziz killed Joy Small, 24, their son, Aubarr, 3, and daughter Chanarra, two, at their flat in Leicester, in February last year, before hanging himself.

It has now emerged officials from a department of the UK Border Agency had been searching for Aziz, an Iraqi Kurd, between May 2005 and November 2006, to expel him from the country after he had been denied asylum.

But they did not know another branch of the agency had moved him to Leicester and was paying for him to stay in asylum seekers’ accommodation.

The 32-year-old was branded an 'abusive monster' by friends of Ms Small who say he once poured lighter fluid all over her.

Agency bosses said if the two departments had realised they were dealing with the same man, they would have deported him to Slovenia - the first country in which he had claimed asylum after leaving Iraq.

Gail Adams, UK Border Agency regional director, said: 'Our deepest sympathies are with the family.' She added mistakes had hindered his deportation - and apologised.

Aziz left Iraq in February 2005 and first applied to the UK for asylum in April that year under the name of Saman Ali Rahim. That was refused a month later because it was found he had already made an application in Slovenia. He then vanished before re-emerging to make a second UK application, this time in the name Aram Aziz, in January 2006. He was moved to Leicester while that application was considered.

In December 2008, the UK Border Agency denied asylum - but because he had met Ms Small in early 2006 and had two children he was granted a three-year stay in the UK as a partner of a British national.

An investigation carried out by the Leicester Safeguarding Children Board published its findings, following an inquest earlier this week. Its report revealed Aziz had two applications to remain in the UK turned down and twice absconded when efforts were made to deport him.

It concluded the tragedy could not have been predicted, but added 'the only known preventative factor' would have been if the agency had succeeded in their attempts to deport Aziz to Slovenia.

Ms Adams said the agency had tried to remove Aziz from the UK three times. She said: 'On two of these occasions, arrangements were made to detain Mr Aziz but he absconded. 'We recognise that mistakes internally hindered his removal on the third occasion and for this we apologise.' She said the agency had since changed the way it worked.

Ms Small’s father Kevin Wathall said: 'Aziz should have been removed from the country before any of this happened. 'There was the chance to do that but the border agency messed it up because one lot sit in a different office to the others. I would have liked a personal apology but the most important thing is nothing like this should happen again.'

The report also revealed Aziz he was given a conditional discharge for assaulting Ms Small in September 2007. Police asked if he could be deported but the border agency turned down the request because of his pending asylum decision.

SOURCE



14 January, 2012

Debate Heats up Over Ill. Jailed Immigrant Policy

Controversy over a Cook County ordinance that forbids the sheriff from notifying federal officials when they're about to release suspected illegal immigrants from jail is heating up after a suspect charged in a fatal hit-and-run posted bail and disappeared.

Amid reports that Saul Chavez, an illegal immigrant, hasn't been seen since late last year when his family posted bail, the nation's top immigration official and the board president of the county that includes Chicago have squared off with dueling statements about the ordinance passed last September.

"This ordinance undermines public safety in Cook County and hinders (the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's) ability to enforce the nation's immigration laws," wrote the agency's director, John Morton, in a letter to County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. "In addition to undermining local public safety, the Ordinance may also violate federal law."

Preckwinkle said she is bothered by the case, not because of Chavez's immigration status, but because his bail was set too low for someone with a prior felony conviction and who posed a flight risk. "Some have tried to blame Chavez's immigration status, but what allowed Chavez to escape prosecution was an attainable bond that didn't take into account his criminal history and flight risk," she said in the news release.

Cook County has been at the center of the debate over the treatment of illegal immigrants for several months. While other places, such as San Francisco, have passed similar measures in response to the Obama administration's program that aims to pursue more criminal deportations, Cook County was the first to forbid a sheriff from holding suspected felons as well as those accused of misdemeanors.

Proponents say the county's previous practice of holding immigrants in jail after they served their time or posted bail until federal agents could pick them up was unfair and unconstitutional. "By refusing the detain people who are entitled to their freedom, based merely on a request from (immigration agents) we are upholding our system of justice," Jesus Garcia, a commissioner who supported the measure, said in a statement at the time.

But critics have said the ordinance is a disaster waiting to happen, that ultimately an illegal immigrant who otherwise could have been held by federal authorities is going to walk out of jail and commit another crime.

"This is our Willie Horton moment in Cook County," warned Commissioner Timothy Schneider at the time he voted against the ordinance, referring to the convicted killer who raped a woman after being released as part of a Massachusetts program.

In her news release this week, Preckwinkle said the problem has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with an overwhelmed criminal justice system. Judges, she said, have to make decisions "in an instant, without access to the appropriate level of information upon which to base their decision."

SOURCE






TN police board scraps jail immigration rules

State drops controversial screening procedure in favor of federal program

The state board governing law enforcement procedures on Friday dropped a controversial policy that had county jailers interviewing arrestees on their immigration status.

The Tennessee Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission voted unanimously to drop rules that require jail employees to ask newly booked suspects whether they U.S. citizens and where they were born. The change comes in response to a lawsuit filed by Nashville immigration attorney Elliott Ozment who argued that the rules were illegally created in secret instead of discussed in public meetings, didn’t seek input from sheriffs across the state and improperly add to the time that suspects are held in jail.

Joseph Underwood, attorney for the commission, said that jailers across the state instead will follow a new federal program, called Secure Communities, which sends fingerprints of everyone arrested to federal authorities to screen for immigration status.

“There will be no need for these questions to be asked,” he said of the old state policy.

Ozment, who attended the hearing, said he would drop his lawsuit against the commission because of the vote.

“As far as we’re concerned, we accomplished what we wanted to do, which was to eliminate the POST Commission policy,” he said after the meeting. “We consider this to be a victory - that’s not to say that we don’t have problems with the Secure Communities Program.”

Ozment is suing the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office’s implementation of the now-defunct state rules, on behalf of five immigrants who claim the agency was using powers reserved only for federal immigration authorities.

SOURCE



13 January, 2012

Romney endorsed by immigration critic

Kris Kobach, the chief architect of the country’s most controversial state immigration laws, announced his endorsement Wednesday for GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney, who promptly noted it on his website and said “I’m so proud to earn Kris’s support.”

Kobach, who is Kansas’ Secretary of State, helped author the nation’s toughest state-level immigration laws, including those of Alabama and Arizona.

Immigration is one of the hot-button issues that have arisen in the GOP race to be the nominee for the presidential election, with some candidates pushing a moderate position that includes a path to legalization, and others – including Romney – who stress only enforcement.

“Kris has been a true leader on securing our borders and stopping the flow of illegal immigration into this country,” Romney said on his website. “We need more conservative leaders like Kris willing to stand up for the rule of law. With Kris on the team, I look forward to working with him to take forceful steps to curtail illegal immigration and to support states like South Carolina and Arizona that are stepping forward to address this problem.”

Kobach’s endorsement, and Romney’s embrace of it, drew criticism from immigration advocacy groups, who described it as proof of the GOP front-runner’s nativism.

Immigration – which played little to no role in Iowa and New Hampshire -- is already becoming an issue in the campaign in South Carolina, which will hold its GOP primary on Jan. 21. Around the beginning of the year, voters in South Carolina –whose immigration law has been partially blocked by a federal judge from taking effect -- received mailings that noted Romney’s hard-line position on illegal immigration.

Romney has said that as president, he would veto the DREAM Act, a measure that would allow undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors to get conditional legal status if they meet certain criteria, such as graduate from a U.S. high school, attend college and stay out of trouble with police.

He also supports a stronger fence along the U.S.-Mexican border, and E-Verify, a federal program that allows employers to check a worker’s eligibility to work in the United States.

Romney’s hard line on immigration – as well as other controversial topics -- has helped him win the endorsement of some of South Carolina’s top Republican leaders, including Gov. Nikki Haley and state Treasurer Curtis Loftis, a Tea Party favorite.

Kobach, 45, was policy adviser to both Romney and Fred Thompson when they sought the GOP nomination for the 2008 presidential election. Kobach served as Attorney General John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration and border security while at the U.S. Department of Justice.

His online biography notes that he is a constitutional attorney “defending cities and states that fight illegal immigration against ACLU lawsuits, including: Hazleton, PA, the State of Arizona, Valley Park, MO, Farmers Branch, TX, and others.”

Kobach was quoted in an Alabama newspaper as saying that the state "has done a great service to America" by passing one of the country’s toughest immigration laws.

"I’m proud to have been a part of it, and the untold story is how successful it has already been in opening jobs for Alabama citizens," Kobach was quoted as saying.

"There haven’t been mass arrests. There aren’t a bunch of court proceedings. People are simply removing themselves. It’s self-deportation at no cost to the taxpayer. I’d say that’s a win."

In his statement -- posted on Romney's website -- endorsing Romney on Wednesday, Kobach said: “We need a president who will finally put a stop to a problem that has plagued our country for a generation: millions of illegal aliens coming into the country and taking jobs from United States citizens and legal aliens, while consuming hundreds of billions of dollars in public benefits at taxpayer expense."

“Illegal immigration is a nightmare for America’s economy and America’s national security," Kobach said. "Mitt Romney is the candidate who will finally secure the borders and put a stop to the magnets, like in-state tuition, that encourage illegal aliens to remain in our country unlawfully. He is also the candidate who will stand shoulder to shoulder with the states that are fighting to restore the rule of law."

Immigration advocacy groups, who favor a comprehensive immigration reform measure that would include both enforcement and a pathway to legalization for certain undocumented immigrants, expressed outrage over Romney's embrace of Koch's endorsement.

“With his campaign trumpeting Kris Kobach’s endorsement, Mitt Romney’s descent into the dark clutches of radical nativism is complete," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, which is based in Washington D.C. "In Kris Kobach’s America, kids who want to serve in the military and attend college are criminals, states should have the right to nullify federal immigration enforcement priorities, and undocumented immigrants who are hardworking and well-established, who take care of our kids, our elders, our food and our houses, are a plague to be banished."

"Romney’s embrace of this endorsement is nothing less than disgusting," Sharry said, "and will not be forgotten by those who have felt the consequences of the Kobach approach to immigration first-hand.”

SOURCE





Australian University teaching migrant students how to use a toilet correctly



A UNIVERSITY is teaching migrant students how to use a toilet correctly after complaints from cleaners that they were leaving them in an unhygienic state.

The toilet lessons, given on a poster on the backs of cubicle doors at Macquarie University, come after opposition citizenship spokeswoman Teresa Gambaro said migrants should be taught to use deodorant and wait in line, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Posters put up by the university show a person standing on the toilet seat and squatting over the bowl with a line through it. Another crossed-out image shows a person squatting on the floor.

Students are taught how to use sanitary bins, how to flush the toilet and wash their hands in other parts of the diagram under the heading: Protecting each other, use of female toilets. A person sitting on the toilet seat is marked with a tick.

The signs were installed 15 months ago after complaints from a company contracted to clean campus toilets. "We received a complaint from our cleaning contractors about the state of some toilets, they believed that some students may have been squatting above the toilet rather than using them in a conventional western fashion, they were concerned about the cleanliness." a Macquarie University spokesman said.

"They thought it was a health concern and they raised it with the management of the university. We put those posters around the campus in collaboration with the international students group and got advice on what information should be contained." He said the problems had stopped since the signs went up.

Ms Gambaro was forced into an embarrassing apology this week after she suggested migrants on work visas should be taught about hygiene.

The comments caused outrage and Ms Gambaro apologised and said she had been taken out of context. She later said her comments calling for migrants to have lessons covering the use of deodorant and how to wait in line were not Coalition policy.

"Without trying to be offensive, we are talking about hygiene and what is an acceptable norm in this country when you are working closely with other co-workers," she said.

SOURCE



12 January, 2012

Migration IS killing off jobs: 160,000 Britons have missed out on employment because work was taken by foreigners

Migrants have forced tens of thousands of Britons out of the workplace, a landmark report warned yesterday. An independent panel of advisers found that, between 2005 and 2010, 160,000 people had been ‘displaced’, or left jobless, by a huge influx of foreign workers.

For every four migrant workers who come to the country from outside the EU, one British job is lost, the experts said.
An increase of 100 foreign-born working-age migrants in the UK was linked to a reduction of 23 Britons in employment between 1995 and 2010, the Migration Advisory Committee said

An increase of 100 foreign-born working-age migrants in the UK was linked to a reduction of 23 Britons in employment between 1995 and 2010, the Migration Advisory Committee said

The Migration Advisory Committee also criticised the way ministers have used the potential impact on Gross Domestic Product, or GDP – the total size of the economy – to decide whether large-scale immigration was desirable.

Professor David Metcalf, chairman of the MAC, said it had led ‘inexorably’ to ‘pro-immigration’ policies because more migrants will logically expand the economy.

He called on ministers instead to consider the impact on schools, hospitals, congestion, crime rates and house prices.
Net migration figures from Mac

Referring to the current system, Professor Metcalf said: ‘The main gainer is the migrant. It’s not the British resident. The focus should be on the British resident.’

Tory ministers were last night urged to seize on the findings of the report to impose far stricter border controls. To date, the Liberal Democrats have been undermining attempts to crack down on economic migration.

But, in the first study of its kind, the MAC – set up by the last Labour government, and independent of Whitehall – said large-scale immigration was having a significant impact on the job prospects of the ‘native’ population.

The report, which follows years of controversy over whether immigration leads to fewer jobs for British workers, showed that every increase of 100 foreign-born working-age migrants in the UK was linked to a reduction of 23 Britons in employment between 1995 and 2010.

Between 2005 and 2010 alone, the number of working-age migrants in employment rose by 700,000 and displaced 160,000 British-born workers, it said.

Average wages remain the same, the MAC said, but the highest wages get higher and the lower wages get lower.
The impact and displacement of British workers also does not last for ever, the Mac report found

Asked if there would be 160,000 extra jobs for British workers if there had been no immigration, Professor Metcalf said: ‘Yes, that would be a reasonable way of putting it.’

It follows a contrasting report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research which said the number of immigrants coming to the UK had little or no impact on the number of unemployed.

The MAC report found that house prices and rents are being pushed up by the number of migrants coming to the UK. It added that migrants will inevitably contribute to the demand for public services, commit crime and generate congestion in the same way any increase in the UK-born population would.

However, the report concluded that migrants from inside the EU, including Eastern Europe, have ‘little or no impact on the native employment rate’.

Professor Metcalf said: ‘It may well be that the EU migrants are disproportionately less skilled and it may be that the labour market can adjust.’

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, said: ‘This is a thoroughly professional report. The committee have had the courage to say straight out that immigration can add to unemployment, especially during a recession. They are also right to draw attention to impacts that are harder to quantify such as housing and congestion."

On Monday, MigrationWatch said it would be a ‘remarkable coincidence’ if there were no link between a 600,000 rise since May 2004 in the number of eastern European migrants working in the UK and a 450,000 rise in youth unemployment in the same period.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said: ‘Controlled immigration can bring benefits to the UK, but uncontrolled immigration can put pressure on public services, on infrastructure and on community relations.

‘This report makes clear that it can also put pressure on the local labour market. We thank the MAC for its work and will now consider the report more fully as we work to regain control over our immigration system.’

SOURCE





Conservative Australian politician sorry for saying migrants don't know how to wear deodorant or line up properly

Her comments were undoubtedly too general but the big immigration issue in Australia at the moment is the "boat people" -- and most Australians would have understood that she was referring to them. And her comments would have been true of many of them

A Liberal [Party] MP who said migrants should learn how to use deodorant has been reprimanded by her party and ordered to apologise.

Opposition citizenship spokeswoman Teresa Gambaro said lessons on hygiene and common courtesy would make immigrants fit in better in Australia, the Herald Sun reported.

Acting Opposition Leader Warren Truss said Ms Gambaro had been left in no doubt she was out of line. "She obviously went too far in her comments and they're certainly out of step with modern Australian attitudes," he said.

While declining to say who doled out the discipline, Mr Truss said: "Certainly she's been made aware that the comments were inappropriate. They weren't in line with Coalition policy and she's acknowledged that."

Ms Gambaro had said new arrivals should be taught to use deodorant on public transport and not push in when queuing, as well as other lessons like the importance of immunisation. "Without trying to be offensive, we are talking about hygiene and what is an acceptable norm in this country," she said in an interview with The Australian.

The comments sparked a tirade of community anger, followed by a statement in which Ms Gambaro said the comments were "taken out of context". But she admitted they were inappropriate and did not reflect Coalition policy, and apologised for any offence caused.

Migration groups said the comments were offensive, pointing out that migrants on 457 visas were skilled professionals such as managers, engineers and accountants.

Source



11 January, 2012

France expels record number of illegal immigrants

President Nicolas Sarkozy's government has made a play for the anti-immigrant voters who may determine whether he wins a second term, saying today that France had booted out more illegal migrants in the past year than ever before.

Sarkozy's interior minister added that he wants thousands more expelled this year, along with fewer foreigners legally living in France. Anyone who wants to stay, he added, must shed the traditions that contradict French values.

The conservative president is unpopular and facing a tough challenge from the left and the resurgent far right in presidential elections to be held in April and May in an increasingly diverse France. Sarkozy hasn't formally declared his candidacy but is widely expected to run.

Interior minister Claude Gueant lauded the government's record, saying French authorities expelled 32,912 illegal immigrants in 2011, up 17.5 per cent from 2010.

"This result is 5,000 higher than the initial objective decided upon at the start of the year. It is the highest result ever achieved," he said. The government wants the figure to rise to 35,000 this year, he added.

Echoing one of Sarkozy's favoured themes, Gueant said immigrants must better integrate.

"We reject ... cloistered lives lived along ethnic and religious grounds, those that live by their own laws," Gueant told reporters. "The foreigners that we welcome here must integrate themselves. It is up to them to adapt to us, not the other way around."

The comment was in part a reference to France's ban on Islamic face veils, a 2010 law that supporters said defended women's freedoms, but critics said stigmatised millions of moderate Muslims.

France has western Europe's largest Muslim population, many with family ties to former French colonies in North Africa.

The majority of immigrants come to France legally, though the number of new arrivals is shrinking and Gueant wants to reduce it further. The number of residency permits issued last year shrank 3.6 per cent to 182,595, he said.

"We want to fight against illegal immigration and control the flow of normal immigration to France. What is at stake is the cohesion and the equilibrium of our society and our ability to maintain our tradition of welcoming them," Gueant said.

Sarkozy has championed strict policies on crime and illegal immigration -- ground where he is politically threatened by far right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

SOURCE




Must not speak the truth about "boat people"

"Boat people" are illegal immigrants, mostly Afghans and other poorly educated Muslims, who arrive in Australian waters by boat. They are immediatey imprisoned on arrival while their claims to be asylum seekers are assessed

SERCO, the company that runs immigration detention, has stood down an officer who posted Facebook comments saying Muslim children in detention did not deserve Christmas presents and male detainees taught their children it was acceptable to beat wives.

The Serco officer, who has direct contact with asylum seekers held at the Darwin Airport Lodge, posted the Facebook comments on Monday, after an incident in which Christmas presents for 200 children were not handed out by officers until 12 days after Christmas.

"A member of Serco Immigration Services staff has been suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation," a spokesman for the company said yesterday.

In the first Facebook comment, the officer wrote: "Sad for all the Christian kids! Not sure why Islamist (sic?) would want Christmas present."

A short time later he posted: "I don't know of any country in the world that you can enter illegally an be granted freedom immediately! No one abuses them, perhaps u forget the saying it takes two to tango. Maybe you need to come and face these men who teach their children that women have no rights. I guess you must think there is nothing wrong with domestic violence."

Victoria Martin-Iverson, a West Australian refugee advocate, saw the comments posted on Serco Watch, a Facebook page that monitors news about the multinational company that runs prisons in Britain as well as Australia's immigration detention network. The officer had boldly included his real name, which linked back to his own Facebook page that stated he was a Serco officer in Darwin.

"I thought they were pretty outrageous comments," Ms Martin-Iverson said. "What he essentially said is they are wife beaters. It is horrific and he is working directly with asylum seekers." She contacted the immigration department and the department's compliance division responded.

An immigration department spokeswoman said: "The department is aware of the incident. The detention services provider is investigating the matter as they are required to do under the terms of their contract."

SOURCE



10 January, 2012

Obama's immigration policy: Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul

President Obama’s recent executive order to shorten the time that illegal immigrants would have to spend away from their U.S. citizen spouses, children or parents while seeking legal status is unfair to both Americans and the immigrants who escape the harsh conditions of life in countries like El Salvador, Mexico, Russia or Guatemala. Here is an issue the U.S. Congress should rise to the occasion and be heard.

It is unfair to Americans because the executive order creates an even larger pool of workers who now compete for fewer and fewer jobs. In a time when black unemployment among teenagers is a staggering 38 percent or when two million Americans with a bachelor’s degree are unemployed it seems counter intuitive to enlarge the size of the labor market by allowing more illegal immigrants the chance to enter the job market.

Let us take the example of babies born to illegal parents – otherwise known as anchor babies. According to various studies this number hovers between 260,000 to 360,000 per year. Allowing the parents to stay and apply for legal status translates into 520,000 to 720,000 entrants into the anemic job market. And once this group is granted citizenship they can apply for their brothers, sisters and parents to join them – this latter process is what is called chain migration or family reunification. In short, as President Obama panders to Hispanic voters to secure another term in office, other constituencies; namely, black Americans, teenagers, elderly, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and blue-collar American workers are put behind the eight ball.

In 2000 the labor force participation rate for ages 16 and older stood at 68.5 percent but since then has stagnated (in other words, millions of Americans have simply given up their search for work) and dipped to 64 percent: a two percentage point decline is the equivalent of about three million fewer Americans working or looking for work or approximately six million.

The fact that a Mexican or Central American mother has to walk across the border and deliver her baby in the U.S. is testament to the gross injustice facing millions of Latinos in their home countries. If the healthcare system in Mexico was above average or clinics in Central America could provide quality healthcare to their citizens the issue of anchor babies would be a moot point. Indeed, Mexico should be one of the richest countries in the world because it has all the necessary ingredients for a dynamic economy: rich in natural, human and agriculture resources. The potential of tourism alone should be the engine of growth for the Mexican economy (Turkey has been able to generate between $20 - $26 billion annually from tourism). Sadly, Mexican officials have exported their revolution to the U.S. by not providing decent jobs to their citizens who are forced to find work in the U.S.

What America needs is not a president that panders to certain ethic voting blocs but a “Latin American President” who puts the issue of good governance in Mexico, Central and South America front and center. If President Obama does not insist on good governance in places like Mexico and Russia then the U.S. Congress must fill in that void. We need statesmen who will decouple our trade from China and move it to places like El Salvador or Nicaragua. With wage differentials between China and Mexico (and Central America) at par private-public partnerships to move manufacturing south of our border makes sense. For example, moving the annual $8 billion worth of toys we import from China to south of our border would a reverse magnet for immigrants. In addition, America needs bi-partisan solutions to our broken immigration system such as mirco-finance loans -- not hand-outs -- to the millions of immigrants (legal and illegal) as a means to use as start-up capital in their home countries. Congress must also pass the Dream Act immediately but ask that those armed with engineering, geology, accounting, computer science, public health and science degrees to return to their communities and help rebuild them from ground up.

SOURCE






Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Some Visa Categories Are More Vulnerable than Others (Memorandum)

2. Jerry Kammer Discusses 'Cheap Labor as Cultural Exchange' (Radio Interview)

3. Janice Kephart Discusses 9/11 Ruling (Radio Interview)

4. Caution: Watch for Farmers' Fibs on 'Labor Shortages' (Blog)

5. Cook County Pressured to Reverse Sanctuary Policy (Blog)

6. USCIS Staff Pushed to OK Questionable Cases – Unpublished IG Report (Blog)

7. ICE Gets One Right, Admittedly on a Tiny Issue (Blog)

8. Stupid Is as Stupid Does (Blog)

9. Much Easier to Get Naturalized Now Than a Decade Ago (Blog)



9 January, 2012

British government admits illegal immigrants are no longer routinely fingerprinted

Border staff have been instructed to stop fingerprinting illegal immigrants caught trying to enter Britain via the Channel Tunnel, it has emerged. Documents confirm that stowaways found in vehicles at the Eurotunnel compound at Coquelles, north of Calais, are no longer subjected to routine fingerprinting.

The news is likely to increase pressure on Theresa May, the Home Secretary, who was embroiled in controversy over the secret relaxation of British border controls late last year.

The scandal led to the resignation of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) chief, Brodie Clark.

Damian Green, the immigration minister, has defended abandoning the "lengthy" process of taking fingerprints, saying UKBA staff were better served searching cars, lorries and coaches instead.

So-called “clandestines" caught at the border have been fingerprinted and handed over to French police since 2006. Mrs May and Mr Green are under pressure to explain why the change to the policy had not been made public.

Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet who wrote to the Home Office to demand an explanation after being told of the development by a constituent, told The Sunday Times: "My constituent works for the [UKBA] service and felt there were a number of real concerns about the changes. He was very worried that no records are being taken."

In a letter to Mr Gale, Mr Green confirmed that the fingerprinting of illegal immigrants found concealed in vehicles in Coquelles "has been discontinued" and was now undertaken only when deemed to be of "added operational value".

He added that the UKBA believed the change "will enable its staff to focus on the high priority of searching vehicles and therefore prevent such individuals from even getting to the UK".

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, described Green's letter as "astonishing" and said: "By not even bothering to fingerprint anyone, the government is sending a signal that this is not a serious offence and people should feel free to keep trying."

SOURCE





Boatful of Sri Lankan "asylum seekers" adds to Australian concerns

One of three asylum-seeker boats to arrive in Australia since the start of this year is met by authorities at Christmas Island at the weekend. Picture: Scott Fisher Source: The Australian
THE interception by the Sri Lankan navy of a group of asylum-seekers bound for Australia has heightened concerns that Indonesia's plans to relax its visa restrictions could lead to a sharp spike in the number of boatpeople attempting the hazardous journey.

Last Friday, a group of 22 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers preparing to travel to Australia via Indonesia was intercepted by the Sri Lankan navy before they left the port city of Tangalle.

The group's thwarted bid came just days after Indonesia announced plans to relax visa restrictions on citizens from several countries, including Sri Lanka.

The number of Sri Lankan asylum-seekers arriving in Australia has declined over the past year, but in announcing an easing of the visa requirements last week, Indonesia's director-general of immigration with the Law and Human Rights Ministry, Bambang Irawan, conceded the new plan could lead to a surge in asylum-seeker traffic to Australia.

Last night, a spokeswoman for the Gillard government said Australia was engaged in discussions with Indonesian authorities about the planned changes to the country's visa requirements.
"Australia and Indonesia are committed to working together and with other source, transit and destination countries to develop regional solutions," the spokeswoman said.

"The government will continue to monitor the visa arrangements and their impact, and will work with Indonesia to address any issues that arise."

While the federal government has so far refused to speculate directly on Indonesian policy, Tony Abbott last week expressed his concern about the mooted changes to the visa requirements and the consequences for Australia. "Obviously, nearly all of the boats come from Indonesia and if potential boat arrivals can more easily enter Indonesia, there is potential for a problem."

"I don't believe that now is the time to be critical of Indonesia. It is the Australian government which has really fallen down on the job here," the Opposition Leader said.

In December, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd sat down with their counterparts Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop in a bid to reach a compromise on offshore processing policy. Those discussions are said to be "ongoing".

The interception of the Sri Lankan vessel and the arrival of three asylum-seeker boats in the first week of this year has accentuated the urgency of the issue.

On Saturday, a boat carrying 119 suspected asylum-seekers and two crew was intercepted off the West Australian coast.

Opposition border protection spokesman Michael Keenan said the third arrival in a week was evidence the people-smuggler trade was not slowing. "Labor must show some resolve, end their arms-wide-open policy and stop encouraging people-smugglers by taking away the product they have to sell," Mr Keenan said.

SOURCE



8 January, 2012

Immigration a problem for Romney?

The case for that is made below but I think his stance is fairly mainstream. There is even a significant minority of Hispanics who want better control. And a lot of Hispanics don't vote

Experts say Republican's hard stance during primary may hurt him against Obama in general election

With an Iowa win in hand and a double-digit lead in New Hampshire, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is on his way to secure the GOP presidential nomination. Sure, he's still got rivals, but the well-funded, disciplined, and organized Romney has the clearest path to the general election.

The question facing Democratic and Republican strategists alike is how gracefully Romney can perform the age-old pirouette from party primary, where one must pander to the base, to the general election, where one must pander to the center.

Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz took aim at Romney even before Hawkeye state voters caucused on Tuesday night, seeking to highlight the Republican's vulnerabilities to reporters at an Iowa press conference.

"He is leaving Iowa with significant primary baggage that will weigh him down in the general election," she said, according to her prepared statement. She knocked Romney for saying he would not have bailed out the auto industry with federal money and that he would also keep the federal government out of the foreclosure process and instead allow it to "hit bottom."

"Mitt Romney also repackaged the same policies that led to the economic crisis and called it an economic plan," she said. "That includes cutting taxes for the wealthy and big corporations and making the middle class foot the bill, and letting Wall Street write their own rules and do whatever it can to make money--regardless of the impact on the middle class."

And while there's no doubt that "the economy" is on the top of voters minds, Romney's commitment to the free market over government intervention may not offend the disaffected independent voters who supported Obama in 2008 but are now looking for a change.

But experts do point to one issue where a position Romney took in the GOP primary may hurt him in the general election, and that's immigration. The former governor took one of the most conservative positions of any of the Republican candidates when he said all immigrants currently in the United States illegally--estimated to total more than 10 million--should have to return to their home countries before applying for U.S. citizenship. He called a proposal offered by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to allow immigrants with deep ties to their U.S. communities to stay, while deporting "undesirables," tantamount to amnesty.

In a November GOP debate, Romney said, "Amnesty is a magnet. People respond to incentives, and if you could become a permanent resident of the United States by coming here illegally, you'll do so."

As with many issues, Romney's stance on immigration during this election seems to differ from positions he's taken in the past. In 2006, while governor, Romney had said, "I don't believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country." But his campaign maintains the position is consistent--that Romney believes illegal immigrants should return home before starting down the path to U.S. citizenship.

So why might this haunt Romney in the general election?

"A Republican probably can't win without about 40 percent, minimum, of the Hispanic and Latino vote," says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics and a well-respected election prognosticator. Sabato adds that the 2008 GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, tallied only about 31 percent support from this voting bloc in his loss to Obama.

The Latino vote is also not inconsequential because of the growing Hispanic population in a number of swing states, including Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico.

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former policy adviser to President Clinton, also identifies Romney's hard immigration stance as a potential problem for his campaign in the general election.

"I understand why Romney did it, for primary purposes, but that's the one big thing that he's done that could come back to bite him," he says.

More HERE




Britons anxious over immigration

British people welcome the cultural changes brought about by immigration but are in a state of "deep economic anxiety" as they believe it has had a negative impact on the supply of housing, jobs, schools and hospitals, according to a poll.

The study by The Observer found modern Britain to be hopeful and at ease with itself but also worried about the bleak economic outlook and its consequences.

Other concerns that emerged included a perception of worsening crime rates being heavily blamed on an influx of immigrants in recent decades.

The results revealed that while British people are less positive about immigrants in relation to the economy, they welcome cultural changes brought about by immigration, with people believing it has positively contributed to entrepreneurship, film, music, fashion and design.

There was overwhelming agreement across the country that immigration has been good for domestic cuisine, with 68% saying that it has been changed for the better.

The poll found three out of five Britons now thought former Tory minister Norman Tebbit's "cricket test", proposed in 1990, in which the loyalty of immigrants is judged by which national sports teams they support, is outdated. Fifteen per cent believe it is important for immigrants to support home teams over their countries of origin, while 50% of people believe the children of immigrants born in the UK should be free to support the teams of their parents' country of birth.

Around half of people questioned believe the government should encourage parents to put their children in ethnically diverse schools, with black and Asian people feeling this most strongly (60%), but the report points out that the "large white majority don't lag far behind"(51%).

The report also found that British people regard rising prices as the biggest threat to the country's well-being in 2012 and believe the Queen's Jubilee celebrations will lift the nation's spirits more than the Olympics.

The findings touch on the class system in modern Britain, attitudes towards Scottish independence and changes in the country since it last held the Olympic games in 1948. There is strong Scottish national pride, but Scots are as keen to stay in the Union as the English and Welsh are to keep them while it turns out to be the Geordies, not the Scots or Welsh, who feel least British.

A striking north-south divide emerges over whether class has become less important in Britain since 1948, with over 40% of Londoners confident that class matters less in comparison to 29% who disagree, and in the north 35% think it matters less compared to 41% who disagree.

SOURCE



7 January, 2012

Immigration-Rule Change Proposed for Families

The Obama administration proposed a rule change Friday to reduce the time that illegal immigrant spouses and children are separated from their American relatives while they try to gain legal status in the U.S.

Currently, many illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission.

The new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask the government to decide on the waiver request before they head to their home country to apply for a visa.

The illegal immigrants would still have to go abroad to finish the visa process, but getting the waiver approved in advance would reduce the time they are out of the country from months to days or weeks, said Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The purpose is "to minimize the extent to which bureaucratic delays separate Americans from their families for long periods of time," Mr. Mayorkas told reporters.

The waiver shift is the latest move by President Barack Obama to make changes to immigration policy without congressional action. Congressional Republicans repeatedly have criticized the administration for policy changes they describe as providing "backdoor amnesty" to illegal immigrants.

The proposal also came as Mr. Obama gears up for a re-election contest in which the support of Hispanic voters could prove a determining factor in a number of states. The administration hopes to change the rule later this year after taking public comments.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) on Friday accused the president of putting the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of those of Americans.

"It seems President Obama plays by his own rules to push unpopular policies on the American people," the House Judiciary Committee chair said in a statement.

Immigrants who don't have criminal records and who have only violated immigration laws can win a waiver if they can prove their absence would cause an extreme hardship for their American spouse or parent. The government received about 23,000 hardship applications in 2011 and more than 70% were approved.

It currently takes about six months for the government to issue a waiver, Mr. Mayorkas said.

Immigrant advocates have long complained about the current system, which can split up families for months or years. And since there's no guarantee a person will win a waiver to return, many immigrant families refuse to take the risk of going abroad to apply for one.

SOURCE





Immigration issues remain hot-button issues for Arizona Legislature

The legislative testimony, the press conference and the boycotts over SB 1070 are pretty much all history. And its architect is gone, the victim of a recall.

All that remains now is to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court will let Arizona begin enforcing key sections of the tough new immigration law.

But that is not halting efforts in the new session that begins Monday to adopt even more laws aimed at the issue.

Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, is pushing two measures in particular. And while neither will directly reduce illegal immigration, he sees both as the steps to helping reduce the financial burden on Arizona taxpayers.

One would require that parents provide some proof when enrolling a child in public school that the youngster is either a citizen or here legally.

Technically, nothing in the legislation would preclude a child from being enrolled, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled all residents are entitled to public education regardless of legal status. Instead, Smith said, it's designed so the state can get a handle on the costs.

More than just getting a number is at issue.

In its 1982 ruling, the high court overturned a Texas law that denied state aid to educate any child not in this country legally. That law also gave local districts which would not be getting money the right -- but not the obligation -- to refuse to enroll those students.

Justice William Brennan, writing the decision, noted that Texas officials argued that they were justified in excluding illegal immigrants because of the "special burden' they placed on the state's ability to provide a high-quality education. But he said the record, at least in that case, "in no way supports the claim that the exclusion of undocumented children is likely to improve the overall quality of education in the state.'

Proponents of getting the data contend that those numbers would give Arizona the chance to make that argument and get the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.

That, however, may be difficult.

Brennan said in that ruling a case might be made for denying benefits to people who purposely break the law. But he said the Texas law penalized children "who are present in this country through no fault of their own.'

Smith said that, if nothing else, the law itself might save money as some parents opt not to enroll their children in school.

"If you're the parent that's illegal, and the child is illegal, and they're afraid to go, well, guess what?' he said. "That's what we call the price of breaking the law.'

He acknowledged that the same thing could happen in the case where the child was born in this country -- and is a U.S. citizen entitled to an education under any scenario -- but the parent is an illegal immigrant.

Smith said the same is true of his other plan which would require hospitals to ask patients to prove legal presence in this country: It could deter some people from seeking care.

While illegal immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid and other programs, there is a requirement to fund emergency care for those who meet other financial requirements regardless of legal status. Hospitals also end up with some uncompensated care, with costs often passed on to paying patients and their insurance companies.

"Maybe the system is working,' Smith explained. "Maybe we can deter the amount of money that is hemorrhaging out every year in free services for people that don't deserve it.'

He said while that is not the underlying goal of either law, Smith said he would not be upset if that were a byproduct of the measures.

Both measures failed to get Senate approval last year. But Smith remains convinced that his colleagues can be convinced to go along.

But one measure that also faltered is unlikely to resurface: Having the state deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, said he still believes Arizona needs to pass such a law to force the U.S. Supreme Court to address the issue squarely of whether people are citizens solely by virtue of the location of their birth. He said that was never the intent of Congress when it approved the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the wake of the civil war.

But Gould said that the same people who voted against the controversial measure last year are still in the Senate. And he said he has no reason to believe any will be convinced to reconsider.

SOURCE



6 January, 2012

Will Santorum's immigration stance help him in Florida?

The Republican presidential race has already begun, just one extended hangover into 2012. And because Florida Republicans were insecure about losing their place in the spotlight (as if that could be possible), and decided to move their primary ahead of all other major states, the national focus will soon be on the Sunshine State.

And so, when it recently became clear that formerly overlooked candidate Rick Santorum was headed for a dead-heat finish against frontrunner Mitt Romney in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, the question was asked: Would the late-closing, weakly funded Santorum be ready for the big-game Florida primaries in just four weeks?

There are two primaries between Iowa and Florida. That’s a lot of political space in which Santorum can catch Anybody-But-Romney syndrome, which has afflicted every potential Romney challenger who briefly surged to prominence only to fall rapidly thereafter. But thanks to his Iowa showing, Santorum should now have the resources and the standing at least to get to the sunshine.

So, with the former Pennsylvania senator apparently on the way, maybe the question should be: Is Florida ready for Santorum?

Santorum’s views on social issues such as education (his children have been home-schooled and he believes government should stay out of “indoctrinating” children), and his hard line on abortion and birth control will certainly get a lot of attention.

But the issue that may truly test Santorum in Florida is immigration.

Being tough on illegal immigration has been Santorum’s calling card for years. To Santorum, former conservative House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s approach to illegal immigration is too soft. “False compassion” is what Santorum called Gingrich’s proposal: tough enforcement, but rather than deporting 10 million undocumented immigrants, looking at each case individually and offering a path to citizenship for those who have been here a significant time and who have made positive contributions to their communities.

That’s a difference of almost seven million people between Gingrich and Santorum. According to the Pew Research Center, “Nearly two-thirds of the 10.2 million unauthorized adult immigrants in the United States have lived in this country for at least 10 years and nearly half are parents of minor children.”

Santorum’s answer to Gingrich was simple and to the point: “You can’t be here for 20 years and commit only one illegal act … because everything you’re doing while you’re here is against the law.”

That plays well in Iowa, but it will be interesting to see how it goes over in a state with large immigrant — and business and agricultural — groups that understand illegal immigration is a thorny problem with thistles that can penetrate everything from families to economies.

What makes Florida particularly tricky for immigration-focused Republicans is that the alliance of Cuban-Americans, the business community agricultural interests that has opposed harsh immigration enforcement measures such as those favored by Santorum,represent three of the Republican Party’s strongest constituents in the state. That triumvirate is so strong it managed to foil state immigration measures favored by Gov. Rick Scott during a session in which Scott seemed to get everything else he wanted, including such controversial measures as privatizing prisons, dumping teacher seniority and digging into public employees’ pockets.

And on Santorum’s part, he hasn’t shown a willingness to back away from the illegal immigration issue. Will Santorum show greater political dexterity in Florida? Or will his political commitment to the issue be enough to carry the day with Florida Republicans?

Certainly, his self-identification with his Italian immigrant grandfather and father will help him, particularly in the Cuban-American community, where such stories abound. But even more than stories, the thing that could tilt that group toward Santorum would be an endorsement from Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, the darling of South Florida Cuban-Americans and the Florida tea party.

Rubio has said he would stay neutral in the presidential contest. But conservative candidate Santorum’s sudden emergence as a potential challenger makes a Rubio endorsement tantalizing — and gives the Florida senator even more clout. Expect a spike in Rubio-as-VP rumors.

That would be the same Florida senator who received the hearty support of Romney when Rubio was accused of embellishing his family story about leaving Cuba.

SOURCE






To deter the boats, Australia must rule out permanent resettlement

THERE can be no solution to the problem of illegal immigrants/boatpeople -- neither to the humanitarian tragedy of people drowning trying to get here or the policy crisis of the government losing control of its borders and its immigration system -- until all prospect of permanent resettlement in Australia is removed for people who arrive illegally by boat.

To do this would not contradict the Refugee Convention, which people write about but never read. The only requirement in the convention is that people fleeing persecution not be sent back to the countries they are fleeing from.

SOURCE



5 January, 2012

Romney Outlines Tougher Immigration Stand in Direct Mail Piece

Mitt Romney doesn't mince words when it comes to immigration. The former Massachusetts governor values legal immigration, but wants to curb illegal immigration in the country, according to a spokesman for his campaign.

In Columbia, residents have received direct mail pieces outlining Romney's stance on illegal immigration, a subject that has been a big issue for South Carolina.

Last year, the state said it had to write its own immigration laws because the federal government had failed to take action against the flow of illegal immigrants into the country. On Dec. 23, a federal judge blocked portions of the law, saying it conflicted with federal laws.

In the one-page flyer that is expected to be mailed out statewide, Romney details his plans to stop illegal immigration, according to Ryan Williams, a spokesperson for the Romney campaign. "The mailer talks about putting an end to magnets or benefits that illegal immigrants have, ensuring a tamper-proof system that allows employers to check the status of their employees and creating a strong border fence," Williams said.

Time and time again, Williams said that voters have brought attention to the very serious problem of illegal immigration in the United State. "The Obama administration is opposed to common sense immigration laws," Williams said. "With Romney's plan there would be no magnets, no jobs, no holes in the borders."

Williams said right now it is easy for illegal immigrants to come in to the country and also for them to find jobs and to support their families, even though federal law prohibits the employment of undocumented workers. "Employers need an easier way to check who is legal and who is not," Williams said.

Romney's plan also address the need to enforce the law with employers who knowingly hire illegals.

On Saturday in LeMars, Iowa, Romney said he would veto the Dream Act, a bill that would provide legal status to some undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children, according to a Huffington Post article.

Several media reports said his statements have drawn criticism from immigration advocates. A Capitol Hill blog said his remarks could disqualify him in the minds of many Latino voters.

SOURCE






Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Immigration-Related Dissertations - 2010 (Memorandum)

2. H-1B Visas a Symptom of Special-Interest Influence in D.C. (Op-ed)

3. Libertarians on Citizenship (Blog)

4. Prometheus Unhinged (Blog)

5. Looking to One's Own Backyard (Blog)

6. Three Developments in Nonimmigrant Worker Programs (Blog)
7. Old News About Latino Voters (Blog)

8. Criminals Start Small (Blog)

9. Bipartisanship in Immigration (Blog)

10. 'You Can Fool Some of the People...' (Blog)

11. Mexico Protects Its Interests with a Friend of the Court Brief, and a Friend in Court (Blog)

12. Let's Focus on Aliens and Jobs, Less So on Aliens and Voting (Blog)

13. Editors: Let's Take Immigration/Marriage Fraud Seriously (Blog)



4 January, 2012

Controversial Immigration Laws Go into Effect Around the States

This week immigration laws have gone into effect in several states, including Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

Most of the immigration laws being implemented call for employers to make sure their employees are authorized to work in the United States. They require employers to check eligibility through a federal program known as E-Verify.

E-Verify operates through a database that compares an employer’s information from a worker’s Form I-9 to data from U.S Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records.

After complaints by some in the business community about having to use E-Verify, some states are exempting employers with five or fewer employees, and allowing them to keep a copy of the new hire's driver's license instead of using the database.

In Alabama, all employers have to use E-Verify after April 1, but employers who do business with any government agency were required to use the system beginning Jan. 1.

Rosemary Elebash, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said many companies do business with government agencies, even if it's something small like catering a luncheon for a state college.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said E-Verify is his favorite part of the immigration law because it provides employers a way to make sure employees are legal.

Many supporters of state-level efforts to enforce immigration laws say jobs are a magnet for undocumented immigrants, and striking at their ability to work is key to reducing the incentive to come of stay here illegally. They say that the federal government has not met its duty to control immigration, leaving states with little choice but to deal with the matter.

But many critics of such state laws have complained that enforcing immigration measures is a federal, not a state, duty. In December, the U.S. Supreme Court said that it would hear arguments over whether Arizona was entitled to impose its anti-illegal immigration law.

In urging the court to hear the immigration case, Arizona argued that the Obama administration's contention that states "are powerless to use their own resources to enforce federal immigration standards without the express blessing of the federal executive goes to the heart of our nation's system of dual sovereignty and cooperative federalism."

In the meantime, several parts of various state immigration laws have been put on hold by federal judges pending the resolution of lawsuits by the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Provisions that have been blocked by the judges include such things as allowing police to check the immigration status of people they believe may be in the country illegally, provisions requiring schools to check the legal status of new students and making it a crime to transport an undocumented immigrant.

Not all new immigration laws are new punitive. California has a measure that allows students who entered the country illegally to receive private financial aid at public colleges.

Bentley, a Republican, says he's working to clarify and simplify Alabama’s law -- considered the toughest state-level immigration in the nation -- which critics say has damaged the state's reputation internationally and caused hardships for legal residents.

Bentley said Alabama’s law, known as HB 56, has to eliminate unnecessary burdens on legal residents and businesses and protect faith-based services while ensuring that everyone working in Alabama is legal.

"We recognize that changes are needed to ensure that Alabama has not only the nation's most effective law, but one that is fair and just, promotes economic growth, preserves jobs for those in Alabama legally, and can be enforced effectively and without prejudice," the governor said.

SOURCE





More "asylum" boats likely to head for Australia after Indonesian visa change

They're putting the heat on Australia to fix its own problems

The head of immigration with Indonesia's Law and Human Rights Ministry concedes that plans to ease visa rules for three major source countries for asylum seekers heading to Australia could spark more people-smuggling activity.

Indonesia is set to relax visa restrictions on citizens from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh within months, and similar changes for Pakistan and Afghanistan are now awaiting final approval.

The changes come despite the four countries being among 13 nations that for a long time have been on Indonesia's immigration "red list", a reference to concerns that citizens from those countries could pose a security risk. Both the Law and Human Rights Ministry and the Foreign Ministry have confirmed the visa rules are set to be eased for the four countries.

The director-general of immigration with the Law and Human Rights Ministry, Bambang Irawan, has also conceded that the new policy could trigger a fresh wave of asylum-seeker traffic to Australia from Indonesia.

Indonesia is the chief transit point for asylum seekers heading to Australia, while Afghanistan and Pakistan are regarded as major source countries.

"There's the potential for the new policy to lure more boat people heading to Australia," Irawan said in an interview published in the Jakarta Post newspaper on Tuesday. "We will see what the progress is in the future and evaluate."

The visa applications would be processed in Indonesian embassies in the countries of origin. "Based on our data, they head to Australia. To get there they have to pass our country," Irawan said.

However, he maintained that security factors would be taken into account, insisting also that Indonesia remained committed to a regional approach to combating people smuggling and the flow of asylum seekers.

"This is a regional issue that will need co-operation between the transit and destination countries eyed by the people smugglers," he said. Irawan said Indonesia already had "sufficient regulations" to combat people smuggling.

The move to relax the visa policy follows the sinking last month of an Australian-bound vessel off the coast of East Java, which resulted in the deaths of as many as 200 asylum seekers.

Authorities in Indonesia have detained four soldiers for their alleged involvement in the doomed people-smuggling venture, which is believed to have netted the syndicate responsible more than $A1 million.

Only 47 asylum seekers survived when the 25-metre vessel, carrying about 250 people, sank in rough seas 40 nautical miles off the coast. It had a safe capacity of 100. Most of those aboard the boat were from Afghanistan and Iran, but there were also a number of asylum seekers from Pakistan.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa dismissed concerns that the relaxed rules could pose an increased security risk, saying the new policy was aimed at increasing tourism and business links between Indonesia and the four countries. "It's not right for us to stereotype as if a whole country, including children, is dubbed as a terrorist nation," Dr Natalegawa said. "I'm not going to begin stereotyping my brothers and sisters in Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Afghanistan as if they are all terrorists." he said.

SOURCE



3 January, 2012

Migration to Britain will fall sharply this year ‘but it won’t hit PM’s target’

Immigration to Britain will fall sharply this year, a think-tank said yesterday – but not by enough to meet the Prime Minister’s target. The Institute for Public Policy Research claimed that net migration – the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK, and those leaving – would be cut from a record 252,000 in 2010 to 180,000.

But the figure falls short of David Cameron’s commitment to reduce net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’ during the lifetime of the current Parliament, it said.

The IPPR, considered New Labour’s favourite think-tank, claimed the best hope of fulfilling the pledge was for an economic downturn to make the country less attractive to migrants and drive away EU migrants already here.

Its report predicted that the number of migrants coming to the UK from outside the EU would fall by about 10 per cent in 2012, fuelled by new restrictions on foreign students and worsening economic conditions. But the IPPR said further curbs on skilled migrants coming to the UK were unlikely to reduce overall numbers by more than 10,000. More restrictions on family migration were also likely to have little immediate effect as they are expected to be held up by legal challenges.

Matt Cavanagh of the IPPR said: ‘While policy changes will start to achieve significant reductions in immigration from outside the EU, this will not be enough to put the Government on track to hit its target.’

But Immigration Minister Damian Green insisted the Government’s aspirations could still be achieved. ‘The IPPR’s predicted reduction in net migration of 70,000 by the end of 2012 is consistent with hitting our target of reducing net migration to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament,’ he said.

‘We’ve limited non-EU workers coming to the UK, overhauled the student visa system and will shortly announce reforms of the family migration and settlement routes.’

Mr Green added: ‘The latest quarterly figures show that student visas issued are down 13 per cent and the main work visas issued are down 18 per cent compared with last year – an early sign that our policies are starting to take effect.’

Alp Mehmet, vice chairman of the pressure group MigrationWatch, said: ‘The fact is that the Government is on course but has a very long way to go.’

SOURCE




Alabama Immigration Law, section nine now in effect

With several changes to Alabama's immigration law since Governor Robert Bentley signed it in June 2011, businesses contracting with any governmental agency, must now register with a federal system called e-verify. It allows them to check employees' immigration status.

"What we are going to require is that each business sign a document saying they've e-verified their employees. They must sign it with the city saying they are complying with the federal law," said Finance Director with the city of Auburn, Penny Smith.

This new portion of the law falls under section nine. An example of someone needing to register with e-verify is a contractor doing road work, or sewer work for an Alabama city.

"What we are asking is that the construction company give us an affidavit and that affidavit specifically state in it that they are in compliance with the law, and they are going to start using e-verify," said Smith.

The bill was set to go into effect on September first, but lawsuits filed by civil-rights groups delayed it going into effect.

"For Alabama companies it may not be as big of a deal, but when you're dealing with companies out-of-state or international, this may be difficult for them to administer," Smith said.

All business owners in the state of Alabama will have to register with e-verify by April first.

SOURCE



2 January, 2012

Cricket-playing student at the centre of new human rights row in Britain

Abdullah Munawar is an intelligent, hard-working and courteous 23-year-old trainee accountant. But when judges considered his application to remain in Britain after completing a three-year degree course, they did not base their decision on what contribution he might make to this country.

Instead, their ruling that he can stay in the UK hinged on his cricket hobby and the friendships he has made here in the three years since arriving from his middle-class home in Bangladesh.

The case of the cricketing student now takes its place in the annals of unusual immigration decisions - alongside the “Bolivian cat man”, first exposed in these pages two years ago, who sparked a Cabinet rift at the 2011 Conservative conference.

But the real question raised by his legal victory is how it might be applied to other people in the future, and whether it will undermine the Coalition’s commitment to cut immigration from the profligate levels seen under Labour.

I have analysed hundreds, if not thousands, of immigration cases for our End the Human Rights Farce campaign, and this case made among the thinnest arguments we have yet seen. Indeed, immigration lawyers have expressed surprise at the evidence and the outcome.

Mr Munawar cannot be blamed for appealing against the Home Office’s initial decision that he should return to Bangladesh. It was made under the points-based system, which was itself a flawed creation of the Labour government.

But we can question the way the immigration tribunal determines what amounts to “private and family life” - conferring a right to remain in Britain - and what does not.

Sixty years ago, with the horrors of the Second World War still fresh and raw, lawyers devised a set of principles designed to prevent a repeat of the Holocaust and other depravities. This was the European Convention on Human Rights, enshrined in British law under Labour’s Human Rights Act in 1998.

In 1950, those lawyers did not set out to protect an immigrant’s right to bowl a cricket ball on a Sunday afternoon, as in this case. Nor did they agonise over any of the other absurd scenarios - uncovered by our campaign - which have also hinged on the convention, particularly the family life measures set out in Article 8.

Take, for example, Lionel Hibbert, a 50-year-old Jamaican criminal who fathered three children by three mothers within four months of each other, and later claimed he should not be deported because of his “right to family life”. British judges agreed, and overturned the Home Office’s decision.

Or in another recent example, the violent drug dealer Gary Ellis, 23, also from Jamaica, who convinced a court he had a stable family life with his young daughter and girlfriend, when in fact she split up with him years ago and refused to allow him in her home.

The courts’ willingness to believe these stories, and attach inappropriate weight to them, is a major problem in our immigration system. Another is the Home Office’s inability to investigate each person’s family life claims, so that misinformation goes uncorrected.

Home Office ministers have indicated that some major reforms will be implemented this year. The most significant of these is expected to arise from a review of Article 8 and the “family migration routes” into Britain, which addresses the thorny problem of foreign-born people, often from Commonwealth nations, who want to join relatives here.

A consultation paper published last July asked whether the Home Office should be able to deport foreigners who showed a “serious disregard for UK laws”, as if there was any possibility that the answer could be “no”.

It remains to be seen how reforms of Article 8 will be taken forward.

Sources have also suggested that ministers will this year attempt to forcefully express their dissatisfaction to the judges - possibly through legislation - in an attempt to turn back the tide of over-generous decisions in the courts.

Appropriate and robust changes must be made as soon as possible, if we are to avoid a surge in cases which undermine our border control by exploiting the latest human rights weaknesses.

SOURCE





Republican candidate Romney would veto immigration "dream" act

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney said on Saturday he would veto a proposal granting U.S. citizenship to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children, a pledge that won hearty applause from Iowa conservatives he hopes to win over.

A young woman asked Romney about the bipartisan proposal known as the Dream Act, during an appearance at a crowded restaurant in LeMars, a conservative Republican stronghold in western Iowa.

"The question is if I were elected and Congress were to pass the Dream Act, would I veto it and the answer is yes," Romney said.

"For those that come here illegally, the idea of giving them in-state tuition credits or other special benefits, I find to be contrary to the idea of a nation of laws," Romney said.

"If I'm the president of the United States I want to end illegal immigration so that we can protect legal immigration. I like legal immigration."

Under the Dream Act, which was brought up in the Senate in May, young undocumented immigrants who have lived most of their lives in the United States and graduate from U.S. high schools would be eligible for a conditional six-year "path to citizenship" if they earn a college degree or serve two years in the military.

Romney also said he would secure the U.S.-Mexico border with a fence and enough Border Patrol agents to guard it.

The remarks drew vigorous applause in LeMars and at a later appearance in Sioux City. Romney said he would eliminate the "magnet" that draws illegal immigrants by cracking down on employers who hire them.

"We need to give those employers the tools they need to determine who's legal and illegal," he said. "But if they have those tools and don't use them, we're going to go after them just like we go after employers who don't pay their taxes," Romney said.

He said he would continue a provision that grants a fast track to citizenship for foreigners who serve in the military.

Romney has led in the opinion polls ahead of Tuesday's Iowa caucus, which kicks off the state-by-state contests to choose the Republican presidential candidate who will challenge President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the November 2012 general election.

But he has not sealed the deal with some Iowa Republicans who doubt his conservative credentials because of his history as governor of left-leaning Massachusetts.

"We need a staunch conservative to the max and I just don't see it in anybody other than (Rick) Santorum," said Pat Renken, a LeMars resident who manages a grain elevator. He turned out at a Romney rally despite planning to vote for Santorum, a conservative former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.

"There's nothing that turns me off about him (Romney)," Renken said. "I just like Senator Santorum more.

SOURCE



1 January, 2012

White House sets new obstacle to immigration enforcement

An administration Dec. 29 memo declares that illegal immigrants may have to be held until they’re convicted in local courts before the federal government will begin deportation proceedings.

The declaration “means lots of criminal aliens will be released if the locals don’t have the resources or inclination to prosecute, or if the [suspect] is found not guilty because of a technicality,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

The new rule shows “the administration wants to give up one of the most important tools in preserving public safety,” said Krikorian. “We’ll have more and more instances of illegals released by police because [federal immigration officials] wouldn’t take them [and] who then go on to commit some heinous crime.”

President Barack Obama’s campaign aides frequently say they’re seeking Hispanic support to win crucial states, such as North Carolina and Arizona. On Dec. 19, for example, Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina released a video in which he said Arizona was winnable because “hundreds of thousands” of people in the state have not registered to vote.”

The campaign is using Hispanic ethnic lobbies, such as La Raza, to help register Hispanics and to persuade them to vote in November.

But the ethnic lobbies have their own demands. They want easier immigration for their ethnic or religious groups, including Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, Irish and Muslims.

The public and Congress oppose amnesty bills, so the lobbies’ demands have prompted administration officials to roll back enforcement of immigration laws.

In recent months, Eric Holder, the scandal-plagued attorney general, has launched lawsuits against successful reforms implemented by several states — including Arizona — and has sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s police department in Arizona.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has let her political deputies end routine checks of travelers in bus depots and has stopped legal proceedings against many illegals. Her department has ordered immigration officials to largely ignore illegals who have not been convicted of major crimes. She also released the new memo on Dec. 29.

The Dec. 29 memo also announced a new 24-hour legal-aid hotline for illegal immigrants and a revised checklist for federal immigration officers.

The checklist is dubbed a “detainer” form, which federal officers have long used to request a state or local counterparts hold an illegal immigrant for an extra 48 hours beyond that allowed by local courts.

The new “detainer” form includes an additional box that federal officials can tick to make the detainer request conditional “upon the subject’s conviction.” The Dec. 29 memo says officials can “make the detainer operative only upon the individual’s conviction of the offense for which he or she was arrested.”

The political impact of the rollback policy is unclear because most Hispanics voters tell pollsters that their top political priorities are the economy and education, not immigration.

Pollsters say Hispanics’ voting is heavily influenced by candidates’ apparent insults or compliments of their community. That respect factor works to the Democrats’ advantage because many GOP candidates’ support for the enforcement of immigration law is portrayed as personal animus towards Hispanics.

Obama’s approval among Hispanics is down from its 2008 level, however, it remains above 60 percent.

The effort to rollback enforcement of immigration law follows the refusal by the White House to push for an amnesty bill.

The White House balked, in part, because the public and Congress oppose any amnesty that would bring more low-skilled workers into an economy where unemployment is above 10 percent among low-skilled workers, Hispanics and African-Americans.

Unemployment is so high that fewer than 50 percent of African-American males aged between 20 and 30 have a full-time job.

SOURCE





Georgia's immigration crackdown is about to expand

This is for anyone who relies on public benefits, owns a large business or needs professional licenses to work in Georgia: Major parts of the state’s new law cracking down on illegal immigration take effect this Sunday.

Requiring those applying for public benefits to present a “secure and verifiable” form of identification, such as a driver’s license or passport, is aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining benefits they are not entitled to receive.

Among those provisions is one that will require people to show certain forms of identification before they can get public benefits, including grants, loans and professional licenses.

Also starting Sunday, Georgia businesses with 500 or more employees must start using the federal work authorization program called E-Verify to ensure their new hires are legally allowed to work here.

Those requirements are part of a sweeping new law Georgia enacted this year. Some parts of that law took effect on July 1, including one that punishes people who use phony identification to get jobs here. Other parts are tied up in federal court amid a legal challenge brought by a coalition of civil rights and immigrant rights groups.

Requiring those applying for public benefits to present a “secure and verifiable” form of identification, such as a driver’s license or passport, is aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining benefits they are not entitled to receive.

This provision is already expected to create some unintended consequences. For example, Secretary of State Brian Kemp has been warning in recent weeks it could create months-long delays in issuing professional licenses for tens of thousands of accountants, nurses and others. State law requires certain professionals, including dentists, to obtain licenses before they can perform their jobs in Georgia.

Georgia business leaders are concerned the delays could slow commerce amid a struggling economy. Alarmed by Kemp’s warnings, organizations representing accountants, nurses and other professionals have been urging their members not to wait until the last minute to renew their licenses.

Judy Paull, who oversees more than 1,700 nurses at the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, worries such delays could sideline some of her nurses, force her to require others to work overtime and affect her hospital’s bottom line. Statewide, more than 50,000 nurses must renew their license before Jan. 31. “This is a very serious and worrisome situation,” said Paull, the Macon hospital’s chief nursing officer. “So the best I can do is be constantly reminding people and checking to see how many of our nurses have already renewed and are current on their licensure.”

Bill Harshman, a certified public accountant based in the Norcross area, said he and others who need professional licenses shouldn’t have to present their identification documents more than once. “Once you have established citizenship it seems unnecessary to have to reconfirm that,” he said.

Kemp said this month that he had reached out to the author of Georgia’s immigration law about tweaking it to avoid the license delays. The law’s author — Republican state Rep. Matt Ramsey of Peachtree City — confirmed in an email to the AJC that he was willing to look at how the law is being “implemented and interpreted” to ensure it was being used as intended.

House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said he was pleased with Georgia’s new immigration law and does not plan to seek changes to it in the upcoming legislative session. “We have only had six months for it to work,” Ralston said. “Let’s give it some more time. Let’s see what the courts do with what some believe to be constitutional issues and move on.”

Meanwhile, Georgia businesses that have 500 or more employees are preparing to start complying with the part of the law that requires them to use E-Verify. It’s meant to prevent companies from hiring workers who are not legally allowed to work here. Some supporters of the law contend illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from Georgians at a time of high unemployment.

The E-Verify requirement will kick in July 1 for employers with 100 or more workers and July 1, 2013, for companies with 11 employees or more. Those who have 10 or fewer employees are exempt.

These requirements have been triggering some thorny questions and confusion among Georgia employers in recent months. Some have asked whether they apply to seasonal employees and workers based in other states. The answer is yes if they are employed on Jan. 1 during the year those businesses must confirm for the state they are using E-Verify, Ramsey confirmed.

Officials at several large Georgia businesses said they are already using E-Verify or plan to start using it in compliance with the law.

For example, Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has more than 80,000 employees worldwide and is already using E-Verify, said a Delta spokeswoman. The Coca-Cola Co., which has more than 9,000 employees in Georgia, has been using E-Verify nationwide since 2010, said a spokesman for the Atlanta corporate giant.

A spokesman for Home Depot — which is headquartered in Vinings and employs more than 300,000 workers — said the company already uses the program in five other states. “So we’re prepared to comply with the law here.”

SOURCE






Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.


The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:

1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.

2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.

3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.

4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.

5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: You usually CAN buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.

6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.

I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.