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31 July, 2011

Breivik sows fear of wider white backlash against immigrants

While Breivik's bloody slaughter of teenagers at a summer camp was repugnant to all decent people, it is also true that a good proportion of decent people quietly share some of his political views. Support for right-wing politics is on the rise across Europe, fuelled by economic hard times and fear of Islam. A rise in the number of extremists on its fringe is expected as a result.

Breivik had intended his massacre to be a "wake-up call" to Europe about what he saw as the danger of a Muslim takeover. Instead, it has become a different kind of wake-up call, warning a Europe that had been preoccupied with the threat of Islamic terrorism that blond, Christian, home-grown threats can be just as deadly.

Many Norwegians say the only comfort over the massacre eight days ago is that Breivik must be crazy, a freak of nature, a psychopath; a product not of politics and culture but of a murderously disordered mind. "He could not possibly be sane and do what he has done," one person after another will tell you.

But those who study such things say this isn't so. The "lone wolf" terrorist is rarely mad or psychopathic, says Will Hartley, the editor of Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre in Washington.

"Terrorists tend to be better adjusted [psychologically] than the average. They often have a surfeit of qualities that would otherwise make them respectable, such as empathy and the ability to act altruistically. Their background is often surprising - with the 7/7 bombings in London, one of the terrorists was a social worker who worked with children."

A terrorism expert at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs, Helge Luras, says Breivik's internet manifesto suggests he pumped himself full of steroids to heighten his aggression, and listened to music through earphones so he would not be moved by the pleas of his victims.

"So he's not a psychopath or lacking in emotion or empathy. In the manifesto he talks about how it will be difficult to kill these people in this manner because he has empathy. Psychopaths don't struggle with that," he says.

Breivik's meticulous planning over nine years, and his attention to detail, suggest he is well and truly in touch with the real world, if markedly paranoid.

"Breivik was doing a mass murder as a form of fundamentalist PR," says Matthew Feldman, a lecturer in history at the University of Northampton in Britain and an expert on the extreme right.

He is convinced that Breivik killed to get publicity for his online manifesto and video, posted just hours before he set off a car bomb and hunted teenagers with a sub-machinegun.

"If he had posted them two weeks earlier, they would have sunk without trace. It was a publicity stunt. At the same time, the documents, video and killings were the first salvo in what he thought would be a European civil war."

Feldman sees the fundamentalist Breivik, calling on heroic figures from Christianity's distant past, as the western equivalent of the Muslim terrorist: believing that ideas are more important than human life, that violence will lead to revolutionary change, and that martyrs must offer their lives in defence of their besieged culture. "It's a kind of crusading 'Christianism' that is the mirror image of jihadi Islamism," he told the Herald.

According to his 1500-page manifesto - much of it cut and pasted from others - Breivik believes that European governments are letting Muslims take over Europe through mass immigration, which is diluting the culture. He claims to be part of an organisation called the "Knights Templar" dedicated to fighting for Europe. The original Knights Templar took part in the mediaeval Crusades to take the Holy Land back from Muslims.

His manifesto suggests he killed the young people of Norway's Labour Party at their summer camp on Utoya island because Labour deserved "the death penalty" for its multicultural policies and friendly approach to immigration, which were a "betrayal" of Europe.

Analysts concede that, even within the bizarre world of terrorism, Breivik is an unusual specimen. Most terrorists work in groups, partly because it is mutual reinforcement that leads to the gradual acceptance of radical ideas, and partly because competitive dynamics help push individuals into violence.

But, while police are investigating Breivik's claims of two more cells and international contact with bodies such as the English Defence League - denied by the league - it seems at this stage that he conceived and carried out his massacre alone.

Hartley says this suggests he is highly self-reliant and has a massive ego, full of the importance of his own ideas, like America's Unabomber. "He's not mentally ill but he may have delusional fantasies. He likes to picture himself in the uniform and cross of the Knights Templar; there is an element of role-play, of conveying himself as knight in a long line of European crusader heroes who fought for their religion."

He warns that solo operators such as Breivik are almost impossible to detect before they act. This is a big problem, because European police have been warning that exactly this kind of terrorist is becoming more likely.

The internet provides the would-be terrorist with anonymity, global reach on information and the ability to spread material quickly and widely. Feldman says there have been two recent right-wing lone-wolf cases in England, one involving a member of the white-supremacist Aryan Strike Force who made the deadly chemical ricin. "With the right amount of dedication, a credit card and a modem, you can make weapons of mass destruction from your home computer.''

Breivik claims he learnt to make a car bomb by spending 200 hours on the internet over two weeks.

In Europe, Islamism has been the major focus of terrorism fears since September 11, 2001. Europol's 2011 report on terrorism warned of a continuing "high and diverse" threat of Islamist terrorists, with 179 arrests in 2010 over plots to cause mass casualties. This was a 50 per cent increase on the year before. And it warned that more "lone actors with EU citizenship" were becoming involved in Islamist terrorism, with fewer plots controlled by leaders from outside the EU.

But the Europol report also warned that the threat of right-wing extremists was intensifying, and noted: "If the unrest in North Africa leads to a major influx of immigrants into Europe, right-wing terrorism might gain a new lease of life by articulating more widespread apprehension about immigration."

Immigration is a focus of every mainstream right-wing party in Europe, although most have worked hard to eradicate any clear sign of racism. Of course, the left argues that debating "immigration" is simply "dog-whistle politics": those being called recognise it as code for "race". But among extremists, Feldman says, there is no room for doubt: "The 20th century scapegoating of Muslims is something everyone on the far right can agree on."

Right-wing parties have become a more powerful presence in mainstream politics across a range of countries. In Russia, Hartley says: "They are conventional nationalists, against migration from the former Soviet socialist republics."

"The British National Party has actually secured seats on councils and things like that, and is much closer to giving the conventional parties a run for their money in elections."

Britain also has the English Defence League, cited by Breivik as an organisation with which he connected, which has chapters across many European countries and a Norwegian Facebook page with 13,000 members.

On the Continent, right-wing groups are gaining traction from Hungary to Italy but their rise is particularly apparent in northern European countries such as Norway that previously had liberal immigration policies.

The rapid arrival of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants, many of them Muslims, led to a significant backlash in Denmark, where the Danish People's Party has 25 out of 179 seats in parliament, and the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders's Party for Freedom won 15.5 per cent of the vote in the 2010 general election. Wilders once compared the Koran, the holy book of Islam, to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. In Sweden, a man was arrested in November last year in Malmo in connection with more than a dozen unsolved shootings of immigrants, including one fatality. The far-right Sweden Democrats entered parliament for the first time in September last year after winning 5.7 per cent of the vote.

The right is getting better at recruitment in the digital age. A spokesman for Europol, Gerald Hesztera, told the Herald that right-wing extremists were now more professional in their use of the internet, with stylish websites and clever use of social media.

"White Power" music groups hold concerts organised over the internet that attract hundreds of young people to listen to xenophobic songs with hate-filled lyrics, he says. "They have a general ideology of white supremacy and they are rock groups with a racist, sometimes fascist orientation. Right-wing skinheads go to these concerts all over Europe."

Forty-nine per cent of Norwegians questioned in a recent poll said they thought immigration had gone too far and too fast, Luras says. This is not a reaction to immigration but the way it has always been in Norway. "People said pretty much the same thing in a poll in '87," he says.

"This is not just something peculiar to Europe. This need for group cohesion and the issue of borders is so ingrained in humans. It ensured our survival in the very early phases. This is still with us and it creates problems in a phase of globalisation but we are genetically what we were 20,000 years ago.''

The right-wing Progress Party now holds about a quarter of seats in Norway's parliament and is seen to have increased its support because of its criticism of immigration, which has become more restricted as politicians began to take note of the public mood. This week, the party - which is not as far to the right as those in other nations - was at pains to distance itself from Breivik, who was a member when he was younger.

In typically Norwegian fashion - political debate here is strong but so is the tradition of consensus - leaders of all the main parties agreed to suspend partisan politics for several weeks, and this week met at the Progress Party's headquarters to discuss how best to manage the election coming up in September.

Breivik wanted to change the course of history. He thought he would light a fuse that would set fire to Europe.

Hartley says he has damaged the mainstream right wing because now some of its rhetoric is linked with his violence: "He reminds everyone of what they have been trying to bury, and now the right is being tarred as racist in the media because of his focus on Muslims."

But Breivik could turn out to be inspirational to some who, like him, feel the system is rigged against the right and prevents ordinary people from expressing views considered politically incorrect, Hartley says.

Luras warns the drivers for right-wing support - stagnating economies and pressure on borders - will continue and Europe should be "prepared and concerned" about its rise.

"It doesn't mean that it would lead to terrorism but my sense at the moment is that Mr Breivik is the beginning of what may be a cult figure for some. He has described in detail how the movement should arise to be inspired by himself, and some will be inspired."

Luras says the level of hero-worship will depend on whether Breivik cracks in prison: "If he can keep up the appearance that he is superhuman, able to stand completely on his own, still believing in himself even though he is in a cell, then the cult will definitely be created. "I will be very surprised in 10 years if, looking back, not a single terrorist act has occurred connected to Mr Breivik."

SOURCE




Por La Raza, Nada

While virtually all President Obama will talk about is the debt ceiling, he took a short break to give an address before the National Council of La Raza on Monday. Calling the audience his “Hermanos y hermanas,” he trumpeted his support of the DREAM Act amnesty, stated his opposition to Arizona’s SB 1070 and all state level immigration laws, and touted his Hispanic appointments—citing Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Raul Yzaguirre, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Obama did not mention one other Hispanic appointment, former La Raza vice president Cecilia Munoz who serves as his Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and his public liaison to Hispanics. In appointing Munoz, Obama violated his own pledge not to allow former lobbyists positions where they control money they formerly controlled, and gave Munoz a special waiver.

While our nation is going broke, the National Council of La Raza is doing just fine. Since Obama and Munoz took up the white house, they have seen their funding skyrocket, nearly tripling from 4.5 to 11 million dollars in 2010. Judicial Watch also found out that the La Raza affiliate, Chicanos por la Causa received over 18 million dollars of tax dollars. That group was the primary plaintiff against Arizona’s law against illegal employers.

And it is not as if La Raza is lacking funds. Between their various sister organizations, they have over 200 million dollars in assets, much of it paid for by corporate America, and Chicanos por la Causa have nearly 100 million dollars.

Although some of La Raza’s government funding was earmarked by congress, virtually all of it was doled out by the Obama administration. Sixty percent of La Raza's take came from the Department of Labor—run by Hilda Solis. They lobbied hard for her appointment and honored her with an award. She paid them back—with millions of our tax dollars.

Even if we were running trillion dollar surpluses, there is no reason why La Raza should get a dime of taxpayer dollars. Here are just a few reasons why.

“La Raza” means “The Race,” specifically the Latino race. Could you imagine if the government were giving millions of dollars to a group called “The National Council of the White Race”?

La Raza counts the pro-reconquista Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán) as an affiliate and helps fund the organization. MeCHA’s slogan is "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada," meaning “For the Race everything, outside the Race nothing.”

La Raza opposes free speech and has tried to get Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, and other opponents of illegal immigration kicked off the air. Their president Janet Murguia said “when free speech transforms into hate speech, we've got to draw that line.” La Raza has said calling illegal aliens “criminals” is “hate speech.”

La Raza has lobbied for every single amnesty, against immigration enforcement, for Obamacare, and against English as an official language

Barack Obama managed to address the issue of the debt briefly during his talk to La Raza. He stated, “Every day, NCLR and your affiliates hear from families figuring out how to stretch every dollar a little bit further, what sacrifices they’ve got to make, how they're going to budget only what’s truly important. So they should expect the same thing from Washington.”

While 11 million dollars is a tiny fraction of our trillion dollar a year deficit, funding this pro-amnesty propaganda outfit is not “truly important.”

Republicans in the House have passed legislation to defund left wing groups such as Planned Parenthood and ACORN. The National Council of La Raza should be be next. To slightly alter their MeCHA pals' slogan, when it comes to our tax dollars: “Por La Raza, Nada!”

SOURCE



30 July, 2011

Last of Arizona immigration protesters on trial

The president of a national religious organization and five others went on trial Friday in Phoenix a year after they were arrested while protesting Arizona's tough immigration law and a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The Rev. Peter Morales, president of the Boston-based Unitarian Universalist Association, is charged with a misdemeanor count of failure to obey an order. Morales lives in Arvada, Colo. and Salem, Mass., and was elected as the first Latino president of the association in 2009.

Also on trial in the same courtroom is Salvador Reza, the leader of an immigrant-rights group based in Phoenix and a longtime opponent of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his immigration crackdowns.

Other defendants include a UCLA graduate student in art, a security guard at a local music venue and an official at the Arizona branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

The group is the last of the so-called human-chain trials. On July 29, 2010, dozens of protesters took to Phoenix streets on the day SB1070 was set to take effect. A judge put the most contentious parts of the law on hold, and the fight likely is headed to the Supreme Court.

Arpaio organized an immigration sweep on the same day. He has conducted nearly 20 such sweeps, sending deputies and volunteer posse members to often heavily Latino areas of Phoenix to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders.

Critics say the deputies pull people over for minor traffic infractions because of the color of their skin, so they can ask them for their proof of citizenship. Arpaio has denied allegations of racial profiling, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause that a crime was committed, and only later do deputies find that many of the people arrested are illegal immigrants.

As the law took effect and Arpaio planned a sweep, people from across the country rallied in cities from Los Angeles to New York as hundreds of others swarmed downtown Phoenix.

The protesters in Phoenix massed outside one of Arpaio's jails, beating on a metal door and forcing sheriff's deputies to call for backup. Officers in riot gear opened the doors, waded out into the crowd and hauled off those who didn't move, including Morales.

"It was an act of religious witness against an outrageous violation of human and civil rights," Morales told The Associated Press before his trial began on Friday outside Maricopa County Justice Court. "It was a moral imperative to speak out."

He pointed out that the protest was "completely peaceful" and doesn't fear the consequences. "I'm a very privileged person," Morales said. "I have a whole religious organization behind me. I'm not going to get deported or separated from my family. The worst I will face is some inconvenience."

Sean Larkin, a Phoenix attorney who has represented many of the protesters arrested for free because he is against SB1070, said that none of his clients has faced serious consequences because they were charged with misdemeanors. Many of them even had their cases thrown out entirely, he said.

Morales and the other defendants likely won't face more than a fine. The trial could last through Monday.

Whatever the legal result, Morales said he's glad he was able to speak out against Arpaio. "The wrong person is on trial today," he said. "It's about time Joe Arpaio was arrested, indicted and prosecuted."

The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating Arpaio's office since March 2009 for allegations of discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and for having an English-only policy in his jails that discriminates against people with limited English skills. Arpaio has said the investigation is focused on his immigration sweeps.

In a separate investigation, a grand jury in Phoenix is examining allegations that Arpaio's office abused its powers, including trying to intimidate county workers by having deputies show up at their homes at nights and weekends.

Arpaio told The Associated Press on Friday that his deputies do their job in a professional manner and that he stands by them.

"And we're going to keep doing it," he said. "We have a lot of people living in this county and I don't see any uproar about me and my officers enforcing the illegal immigration law, except a small group of people. "I'm not going to back down," he added.

Although last year's protest delayed one of Arpaio's immigration sweeps by only a day, protesters viewed it as a small victory, said Reza, the immigrant-rights leader also on trial Friday. "We decided to lose our liberty temporarily because the human-rights abuses in Arizona are so outrageous, something had to be done to stop it for one day and send a message," he said.

SOURCE






Self-harming behaviour conveys the message that illegal immigration to Australia is no easy ride

THE chairman of Suicide Prevention Australia, Michael Dudley, has warned the mandatory detention of asylum seekers is "bad policy", saying the dark side of Australia's national character was driving the refugee debate.

The Immigration Department has asked Mr Dudley to look for solutions to the increasing rate of suicide and self-harm in immigration detention centres.

The federal government yesterday highlighted Mr Dudley's involvement as it responded to the Commonwealth Ombudsman's announcement of an inquiry into the "upsurge" of self harm in the detention network. There were 1100 incidents last year, and 54 incidents in the first week of July alone.

But Mr Dudley says he doesn't want to be seen to be supporting the detention policy, even though he would look for ways to stem the "very serious and dinky-di" incidents of young men attempting to kill themselves.

He said it typically occurred at night, when there is little supervision and dim lighting, as men sought a way out of their predicament.

Staff were demoralised and had minimal training, he said. "Length of detention is a constant thing that comes up."

Two suicide attempts yesterday in Darwin highlighted the urgency of the Ombudsman's inquiry, refugee advocates said.

A Sri Lankan man who has been in detention 18 months waiting for security clearance tried to hang himself at the Northam immigration detention centre in Darwin and had to be hospitalised, refugee advocates said. The second incident at Northam involved an Afghan man.

The department confirmed there had been two incidents and said both men had received pyschological assessments.

Australian Lawyers Alliance's Greg Barns says there would be an outcry if there were similar levels of self-harm in prison, and just because asylum seekers are not Australian citizens doesn't diminish the government's legal responsibility.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said: "I'm well aware of mental health issues in detention centres which is why the federal government has actually stepped up the supports that are available."

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the government was concerned by the instances of self-harm, and had reduced the number of people in detention by more than 2000 since April, to just over 4100.

The Immigration Department said it was working with a mental health advisory group to "examine self-harm and suicide trends across the network".

The department spokeswoman said some asylum seekers arrived with pre-existing mental health conditions, and mental healthcare including nurses and psychologists were provided.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young dismissed suggestions there were adequate mental health services in place. "There's clearly not. Normal people don't go around on a daily basis attempting to hang themselves," she said. She said she was concerned that the private operator of the immigration detention network, Serco, is able to hide reporting of self-harm incidents under the guise of "commercial-in-confidence" because it is a contractor to the government.

She will seek to have the full data revealed during the joint parliamentary inquiry into the detention network.

SOURCE



29 July, 2011

Norway terror attack exposes deeper anger over immigration

The admitted attacker behind last week's bombing and shooting spree derided immigration and multiculturalism. Experts say his beliefs are surprisingly common in Norway. They would be less surprised if they stopped turning a blind eye to Muslim behavior

Last week's Oslo terrorist attacks are raising delicate questions of immigration and integration here after the admitted attacker cited anti-Muslim views as motivating the assaults.

A country of less than 5 million people, Norway has seen its once homogeneous population change in recent years with new arrivals from Africa and the Middle East. This transformation, in part, drove Anders Behring Breivik, charged with Friday's car bombing and shooting spree that killed at least 76 people in the span of a few hours.

Now, even as this country still grieves for its victims, many say how Norway responds to the attacks could define immigration policy in the future.

While Mr. Breivik's views, revealed in his 1,500-page tirade against Muslims and multiculturalism, are extreme and his attack reviled by Norwegians of all political leanings, Breivik fed on an undercurrent of prejudice and hatred that exists in some areas of Norwegian society, where being Norwegian is still very much determined by one’s fair skin and light hair.

“We have to find out what kind of country Norway is. That’s where the struggle is going to be in the coming years,” says Thomas Eriksen, a professor of anthropology at the University of Oslo. “And we are going to have to deal with that.”

He says many immigrants still face an uphill battle in terms of integration and acceptance from their fellow Norwegians. “They can acquire our civilization but never our culture,” he says, offering up a common opinion. “In other words, they won’t be ‘us’ they’ll always be the ‘other’.”

Indeed, experts on immigration and integration point to a growing skepticism across Norway that now surrounds most Muslim immigrants. Though Breivik’s thinking is condemned, many of his views aren’t new.

“Some of his ideas are more commonplace than we’d like them to be,” says Rune Berglund Steen, communication manager for the Norwegian Center Against Racism. "This skepticism of Muslims has become a fairly central topic in Norwegian politics.”

Norway’s second-largest political party in parliament, the Progress Party, has been accused of backing xenophobic positions and Breivik was on the party’s member registry until 2006. The party quickly denounced the attacks and Breivik’s beliefs.

Mr. Steen says most Norwegians have a positive view toward immigrants. For example, he said a recent poll found that about 8 out of 10 Norwegians found it favorable if a child attends a school with mixed ethnicities.

But for Breivik and his ilk, Muslim newcomers here represent a "takeover."

“The problem can only be solved if we completely remove those who follow Islam. In order to do this all Muslims must ‘submit’ and convert to Christianity,” he wrote in his manifesto. “If they refuse to do this voluntarily prior to Jan. 1, 2020, they will be removed from European soil and deported back to the Islamic world.”

Most Norwegians, however, reject Breivik’s anti-Islamic views, preferring to see themselves as a tolerant, peaceful people and Breivik as a backwards extremist. “It’s the fact that he attacked our multiculturalism,” says Alexander Roine, waiting outside the courthouse where Breivik appeared Monday.

Mr. Roine, an Oslo native whose father came from Tunisia, says Norway is rightly famous for its peaceful, tolerant attitude but conceded older generations are still adjusting to the country’s brisk demographic shift.

“We would think a guy with these views would be like 50 or 60 years old,” he says of Breivik. “This guy was born in a Norway that was already multicultural. He attacked everything this country stands for to the last detail.”

Norway has experienced a steady rise in immigration, like many European countries, with the number of its immigrants doubling since 1995.

Most came for the robust economy, political stability and generous welfare state, settling in dense pockets [Otherwise known as "ghettoes"] in Norway’s largest cities. It’s estimated that 11 percent of Norwegians are immigrants or the children of immigrants and about 2 percent of the population practices Islam.

SOURCE





Georgia Enlists Citizens to Battle Illegal Aliens

The state’s controversial new immigration enforcement law cedes the power to punish wayward officials to a citizens panel

Georgia is about to embark on a bold experiment in privatization. Starting next year, officials in the state—mayors, county commissioners, and even business license clerks—could face $5,000 fines from a panel of citizen volunteers empowered by the state to investigate complaints about lax enforcement of immigration laws. The body will also have the authority to strip funding from local governments.

The first-of-its-kind Immigration Enforcement Review Board is part of Georgia’s new immigration statute, one of the toughest in the country. The law, which took effect on July 1, has already provoked a federal lawsuit and a court injunction—and led to a shortage of fruit and vegetable pickers during the harvest season. There were 425,000 illegal immigrants in Georgia in 2009, making up 4.3 percent of the state’s population, according to the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.

Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, says the board’s seven unpaid members will be named in the next few months and he expects the panel to begin its work in January. The law doesn’t offer any guidelines on who may be eligible to sit on the board.

D.A. King, a Georgia activist who helped shape the new law, is pleased with the results. “It is a significant step in that we have expanded Georgia law to intentionally make life very, very difficult and insecure for people who hire illegal immigrants, the illegals themselves, and the anti-enforcement politicians.”

Charles Kuck, a lawyer who is part of a team challenging the law, says the review panel will increase paperwork and waste money without any effect on illegal immigration. “It’s like a mini-McCarthy panel,” he says, referring to the Wisconsin Senator’s investigations of supposed Communists in the 1950s.

More than 10,000 protesters marched on the state capital on the day the law took effect. Just days before that, a federal court in Atlanta blocked some key provisions of the statute. One would allow police in the state to check the immigration status of people detained for even minor infractions such as disorderly conduct or running a red light. The court acted in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and several others groups.

The ACLU case did not challenge the legality of the Immigration Review Board. A Georgia law from 2006 already requires state officials to use national immigration databases to determine the legal status of non-citizens applying for state and municipal jobs, business licenses, or other types of benefits. The panel will be responsible for complaints submitted by registered voters in the state and determining whether public officials are complying with that law.

Many of them probably aren’t. In the past year just five jurisdictions in the state have reported receiving a business license application from someone whose legal status was unverifiable. Nan Riegle, the part-time city clerk and sole government official of Parrott, Ga., a 156-person hamlet three hours south of Atlanta, reported “an Indian guy” who wanted to renew a license for a convenience store. Riegle tried to look him up in the national database but “couldn’t get the system to work,” she recalls. “It is horrible. These little towns, we have so many mandates coming out of Atlanta, our workload has doubled.”

Riegle calls the enforcement board a “crappy” idea but says she’ll do her best to comply, if only to avoid the consequences. “I can’t afford to get my little town fined.”

The bottom line: Georgia has raised the immigration debate to a new level by empowering citizens to police enforcement of the state’s tough new law.

SOURCE



28 July, 2011

Requiring immigrants to Britain to speak English 'breaches human rights,' claims couple as they launch legal bid to overturn ruling

A new immigration rule requiring people to be able to speak English to move to the UK to be with their spouse is a breach of human rights, a court heard today.

A couple have launched a judicial review at the High Court to challenge the rule, which they claim contravenes their rights to a family life, their right to marry and constitutes discrimination.

British citizen Rashida Chapti, 54, and husband Vali Chapti, 57, are applying for him to join her in the UK. The couple have been married for 37 years and have six children together. Mr Chapti is an Indian national and does not speak, read or write English. Mrs Chapti has reportedly been travelling between India and Leicester for around 15 years but has now applied for her husband to come and live in the UK with her.

But under new immigration rules announced by Home Secretary Theresa May in June 2010, he cannot do so due to a new English language requirement for migrants applying to come or stay in the UK as a spouse.

The rule, which came into force in November last year, is thought to be part of the Government's pledge to reduce net migration. But the Chaptis, along with two other couples, have launched proceedings to contest it.

At the High Court sitting in Birmingham, Manjit Gill QC, representing the couple, told the court the requirement was a breach of their human rights. He said it contravenes several Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights - Article 8, the right to family life, Article 12, the right to marry, and Article 14, to be free of discrimination. Mr Gill said: 'The rule is particularly striking in that it prevents mere residence even though one of the parties is fully entitled to live in this country.'

He said the rule discriminated against people on the grounds of nationality and 'race discrimination'.

He went on: 'There may be reasons, where the Secretary of State is concerned, that for those who are already here, before he allows them to gain a benefit such as indefinite leave to remain, or citizenship, that he is entitled to ask that they show some understanding of the language and some knowledge of life in the UK so that at that stage integration is assisted.

'It may be that the Secretary of State is able to show at that point that such a requirement is proportionate interference with the rights in question.'

But he said the measure prevented people who are British citizens and settled in the country from living with their partners, adding: 'That vice is compounded by the fact that the measure does this on grounds which are blatantly, admittedly, racially discriminatory.'

SOURCE





Walking the street, the hate preacher banned by Britain . . . and now he's using human rights law to stay

Strolling in the sunshine, seemingly without a care in the world, this is the Islamic extremist who has made a mockery of Britain’s border controls. In an extraordinary immigration farce, Sheikh Raed Salah is free to walk the streets after he was released on bail.

Four weeks ago, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel was able to enter the country unchallenged, despite a banning order. Now Salah, who has been accused in Parliament of ‘virulent anti-Semitism’, is using the Human Rights Act to demand his right to stay, and preach, in the UK. He has a return plane ticket but while his legal challenge is being resolved he can stay in the country.

Salah is claiming efforts to remove him are in breach of Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, the right to free speech.

The Home Office is intent on deporting him on the grounds that his presence is ‘not conducive to the public good’. But lawyers for Salah claim kicking him out is a breach of his right to freedom of expression. In effect he is arguing it would be wrong to revoke his visa and to remove him from the country because it prevents him from preaching.

He has already cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds in court and prison costs and the bill is set to rise further during a lengthy court battle.

Salah, who was invited to Britain by Left-wing Labour MPs, was in the country for three days before he was arrested, during which time he addressed two large meetings of supporters.

On June 25 he arrived at Heathrow from Tel Aviv. Only days earlier Home Secretary Theresa May had issued an order banning him from entering the country. But the papers were never served on him by UK Border Agency officials, and when he landed at Heathrow was able to walk through unhindered on a six-month visitor visa.

He then addressed supporters in central London and Leicester before he was finally arrested. He was held at an immigration removal centre, refused to fly home on his return ticket and has rejected offers of flights home. He is now staying at a five-bedroom detached house in a leafy suburb in North London while his case is processed.

Last night Douglas Murray, associate director of think-tank the Henry Jackson Society, said the case showed Britons were being ‘taken for mugs’ by extremists. ‘It is yet another demonstration that Britain has become the retirement place of choice and destination for any crazed extremist who wants to be here,’ he said.

Salah, 52, who was banned on the grounds of ‘unacceptable behaviour’, is credited with a string of extremist statements, although he denies he is anti-Semitic or an extremist. He is said to have claimed the 9/11 plot was carried out by Israelis and Jews were warned not to go to the World Trade Centre in advance of the murderous attack.

He was released from prison in 2005 after serving two years for fundraising for the Palestinian terror group Hamas and for having contact with an Iranian spy.

He arrived in Britain only days after Mrs May launched a new strategy aimed at restricting the opportunities for extremists to spread hate-fuelled speech in the UK. She was said to be ‘incandescent’ at the blunder by immigration officials and has ordered a full investigation into what went wrong.

Ten days ago the High Court approved bail on a surety of £30,000 on condition that he report to police every day, refrain from preaching, live at a specific address and obey a curfew. The judge, Mr Justice Stadlen, said Salah had a ‘good arguable case’ for judicial review. The case will go to the Court of Appeal today where the Home Office will argue for bail to be revoked.

Ministers are still determined to kick him out, a Home Office spokesman said, adding: ‘We were very disappointed with the court’s decision to grant bail and have appealed. We are still seeking to deport Salah.’

SOURCE



27 July, 2011

Obama’s Immigration Dance Partner

Talking to The Race (La Raza) about highly qualified immigrants is typical Obama evasion. Such immigrants are the ones LEAST likely to come from The Race

In his speech Monday to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), President Obama mentioned the enormous number of “high-tech startups in America—companies like Google and Intel...founded by immigrants.” Many immigrant entrepreneurs in the high-tech industry began with employer sponsored green cards, H-1B work visas, or in American universities. The President says he wants them to stay.

He also said that needed a “dance partner, and the floor is empty.” Yet there is much his administration can do already.

First, he should look to Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). Rep. Flake’s bill, the Stopping Trained in America Ph.D.s from Leaving the Economy (STAPLE) Act (H.R. 399), would remove the quotas on H-1B visas and employer-sponsored green cards for foreign Ph.D. graduates from American universities in the sciences, technology, engineering, or mathematics.

H-1B visas are temporary employer-sponsored visas for highly skilled workers in specialty occupations. They run for three years and can be renewed once, for a second three-year term. Currently, only 20,000 spots are set aside for foreigners graduating from American universities. The STAPLE Act expands the quota by exempting a large number of petitioners from it.

In stark contrast with other immigration reform bills, the STAPLE Act has numerous co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle, and is brief—at only three pages—and easily understandable by laymen. It is a vital reform that will match growing American industries with the skilled workers they require to grow. Last year, 60 percent of computer science Ph.D. graduates from U.S. universities were foreign-born. Allowing more of them to stay and start businesses will help spur job creation.

However, highly skilled industries are not the only area where job creation is needed. The NCLR audience seemed upset by the President’s praise for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, not because they oppose it, but because Obama has been so tepid in his support. The DREAM Act would allow some undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to gain conditional legal status. That would then be extended to permanent legal residency if they complete at least two years of college or join the military within six years.

The problem was that the DREAM Act directs federal education aid to these students. It failed last December for that very reason. Poll after poll show that American apprehension about immigration mostly concerns taxes to support immigrants, and rightly so.

For a solution, the President should look to California. On the same day as Obama’s speech, Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed into law California’s own version of the DREAM Act. It allows undocumented students who went to high school in California for three or more years to pay in-state tuition for public universities and to have access to non-state scholarship and financial aid. DREAM Act supporters in Congress should adopt this last provision.

The President talked about cutting “red tape that keeps entrepreneurs from turning new ideas into thriving businesses.” If he is serious about this, he should abandon his administraiton’s endorsement of E-Verify, an electronic employment eligibility verification system, which has proven a massive regulatory burden.

According to a major 2009 audit by research service Westat, 4.1 percent of the E-Verify system’s initial responses to queries were inaccurate, negatively affecting legal workers too. E-Verify even approved 54 percent of unauthorized workers. Worse, E-Verify pushes unauthorized immigrants even deeper into the black market, according to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Immigration advocates have other reasons to be upset. The Obama administration has also begun electronic audits of I-9 records, deployed military units and predator drones to the Mexican border, and set deportation records, topping out at 387,242 last year – 176,144 more deportations than in the third year of Bush’s Presidency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on track to exceed that record this year.

We are a nation of laws but those laws should be wise. That is far from the case with America’s immigration laws—they burden the economy, create a black market in labor, and deprive America of talent by forcing highly skilled U.S.-educated immigrants to go back to their home countries after graduation.

President Obama’s stated support for immigration reform suggests that he realizes this, but he has not done nearly enough to address the problem. There is much he could do, both with and without a “dance partner”—work for passage of the STAPLE Act and a revised DREAM Act and abandon E-Verify and invasive I-9 audits. It’s a shame he didn’t mention them in his speech.

SOURCE





Australia's deal with Malaysia too cushy to be a deterrent to boat people (illegal arrivals)

THE next 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia will be fingerprinted before being flown to Malaysia, where the federal government will pay for a month in a hotel plus a living allowance, under the controversial Malaysian refugee swap agreement signed yesterday.

New transit centres in Kuala Lumpur, where asylum seekers will be processed within 45 days, are expected to be ready in weeks for the first arrivals. Malaysia will have the right to reject any asylum seekers if they are on terrorism lists or have serious criminal convictions. Australia will also screen the 4000 refugees it accepts from Malaysia in return as part of the deal.

Yesterday the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, said asylum seekers would have the right to work in Malaysia, a breakthrough in a country where 95,000 refugees cannot work legally.

Yet he rejected suggestions that the special treatment asylum seekers would receive would encourage refugees to take boats to Australia. "Critics may say asylum seekers transferred from Australia to Malaysia are getting too good a deal," he said. "On the other side, people may say the arrangements aren't strong enough. We've struck a good balance that ensures appropriate protections."

After facing heavy public criticism of his country's treatment of refugees, Malaysia's Home Affairs Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said Malaysia would be judged by the results of the scheme, and was committed to treating refugees with dignity. "The UNHCR will be there to monitor and safeguard the standards that we have set," he said.

Malaysian police officials and representatives of the International Organisation for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees were present at the signing, while a small group of activists and opposition politicians protested outside the hotel.

The UNHCR said in a statement it was not a signatory to the deal and would prefer to see boat arrivals to Australia processed in Australia, but both governments had consulted the organisation. Mr Bowen said there would be no blanket exemption for unaccompanied children but the UNHCR's feedback had shaped the document and the agency would be involved in processing both groups of asylum seekers - unlike the Howard government's so-called Pacific solution.

The deal commits Australia to funding schooling for children, and health costs. But these will be the basic facilities used by refugees in Malaysia.

The Greens condemned the deal.

The opposition spokesman on immigration, Scott Morrison, said the swap sought to counteract the "pull" factors of Labor's previous border protection policy, as a result of which 230 boats had arrived since Labor formed government.

The government also announced a reversal of its position on the 567 asylum seekers who had arrived by boat since the in-principle agreement was announced 11 weeks ago, saying they would now be processed in Australia.

Originally the government said they would be held pending removal to another country, either Malaysia or Papua New Guinea. The government is working to seal a deal with PNG.

To ensure asylum seekers knew of the deal, Ms Gillard said the government would embark on an information campaign in Indonesia and other departure points to raise awareness of the folly of boarding a boat. "Do not do that in the false hope that you will be able to have your claim processed in Australia," she said.

SOURCE



26 July, 2011

Background to the anti-immigration terrorist attack in Norway

Daniel Greenfield prefaces his remarks below with a "psycho-analysis" of Anders Behring Breivik -- but he has more confidence in his judgment than I do. I am a much published psychologist specializing in the study of political psychology -- including neo-Nazism -- and so far I see nothing very unusual in Breivik. The things that people point to -- his use of "sim" computer games, for instance -- would also be true of many millions of young men who do not become terrorists -- JR

It was Breivik who pulled the trigger, but it was the Norwegian authorities who created and then ignored the social problem of Islamic immigration, that enabled him to exploit it in a burst of horrifying violence.

The Oslo killings are a tragic reminder that conflicts rarely remain one sided. And it is foolish to expect them to. Violence begets violence and extremism creates extremists. Terrorism gives birth to more of the same.

Oslo has become symbolic of pacifist idealism, which is why the bloodshed is so stunning, but also inevitable. Any ideal pursued to a far enough extreme gives birth to its opposite number. Violence attracts idealism and idealism attracts violence. Both pacifism and violence represent unbalanced extremes. And extremes often have a way of coming together in an explosive collision of opposites.

The search for blame in all the usual places is inevitable, but counterproductive. The Oslo killings are another item on the ledger of the high cost of Islam. The explosive rage on both sides fueled by a social instability created by aggressive immigration with no thought to its impact on the country as a whole. It was Brevik who spent nine years planning and carrying out the attacks, but it was the political authorities who had created a scenario that made it possible.

There are of course shootings carried out all the time with no larger political justification, and it is possible that Brevik would have acted regardless of any of the events of the past nine years. But it is far more likely that by giving him an antagonist to fight, the authorities brought those violent events into being.

Violence driven by social instability must be at least partly laid at the feet of those who caused the social instability. And that is not a handful of American critics of Islam, but the Norwegian authorities whose social and immigration policies created an explosive situation that had already exploded into violence before.

We cannot regard Brevik as an isolated phenomenon or as the creature of a handful of foreign pundits. He was a Norwegian whose views and attitudes echoed those of many of his countrymen. His violent response to social problems created by the authorities and aimed at the authorities should be deplored. But at the same time we must learn the lessons of not the act itself, but of the social instability that gave rise to it. It is the best chance of avoiding a repetition of it by those who would, like Brevik, exploit social instability as a means of promoting a violent solution.

Muslim violence, whether it is planes being flown into skyscrapers or women being raped with religious sanction, are likely to inspire answering acts of violence. Such acts should be condemned, yet so should the apathy toward the social instability created by Muslim immigration that gives rise to them.

When a woman is raped on the steps of the Norwegian parliament, it should be every bit as shocking as Brevik’s massacres, not because their damage is equal, but because they are both wake up calls to a major social problem that cannot be swept under the rug.

Muslim immigration and its attendant violence gave Brevik his casus belli to take action against the authorities. It may inspire future Breviks as well. It is easy to blame the pattern of ideas that Brevik cited in his manifesto, but the manifesto and the ideas are the children of an existing social problem. A problem so severe that a woman can be raped on the steps of the Norwegian parliament with no one moving to intervene.

The European media will use the Oslo killings to argue against the regional trend of examining Muslim immigration. But they have it exactly backward. A social problem cannot be solved by refusing to examine it or by silencing all discussion of it. Social problems breed and worsen in silence. As do all things in the dark. Brevik’s shootings should rather be a wake up call to seriously examine the impact of Muslim immigration on Oslo in particular, and Norway in general.

Brevik was not a Muslim, yet he was motivated by Islam, as surely as the most devout Jihadist. Islam defined his actions, as surely as it does theirs. The only difference is that they were acting for Islam, while he was acting against it. But the problem of both Brevik and the Jihadist emerges from a common source. Islam.

Violence rarely remains one sided. In Norway, Brevik has added a second side to a triangle, whose third side is politically correct apathy and nervous pacifism. That second side is as bloody as the first, and no more removable without addressing the first side and the third.

Whether it is the Madrid bombings or the Oslo rampage—all these horrors are a reminder that Europe’s current policies have failed. That integration has not worked and multiculturalism has given rise to hostile cultures living side by side. Brevik’s actions and growing tension on the far right remind us that apathy and mouthing multicultural slogans can no longer substitute for a serious examination of the problem.

This latest horror warns us that violence will be exploited by the violent, and that the European equation is now in danger of having a third variable. We have had the Jihadists and the apathetic authorities, now there are the Breviks. Dangerous men looking for a cause and a reason to fight. And the social instability and violence created by Islamic immigration gives them a reason.

Anti-government violence in Norway and Sweden, countries which have repressed free speech the hardest, is no coincidence

Talk of suppressing extremism will not prevent the Breviks, it will only encourage them by giving them a more definite enemy to fight. Anti-government violence in Norway and Sweden, countries which have repressed free speech the hardest, is no coincidence. Authoritarianism only feeds anti-government tendencies. It is impossible for Europe to rid itself of the Breviks, without also ridding itself of the social problems that make them possible.

The best way to stop the Breviks of the future, is to steal their thunder. To seriously examine the high cost of Islamic immigration, the failures of integration, the violence taking place under the shadow of multiculturalism—and to honestly and seriously address these things.

Brevik would not have acted if he did not believe that the authorities would play into his hands. If the Norwegian government really wishes to defeat the ideas he championed, it must pull their claws, by addressing them as social problems, rather than by denying them and repressing their critics. Europe’s history of domestic radicalism should provide ample reasons to show why such an approach is unwise and counterproductive.

As long as a social problem remains neglected and a source of social instability proliferates, then the violent tendencies of dangerous loners will be channeled into its path. That is how World War I began. It may be how World War III will begin. The duty of responsible authorities is to address the social problem, not with slogans, but with concrete and realistic measures. If a social problem is a swamp, then it must be drained. Oslo’s social problem is Islamic immigration. The fever swamp of violence cannot be drained, until the immigration that feeds it is drained as well.

More HERE




Illegal Alien Cop Killer’s Extensive Criminal History

A Judicial Watch investigation has discovered that the drunk illegal immigrant who recently killed a Houston police officer had six arrest warrants, multiple encounters with law enforcement and had been caught driving without a license four times.

He also had been cited by police on eight occasions, was ticketed twice in 2009 and had two convictions for unlawful entry into the U.S., according to public records obtained by JW from the Houston Municipal Court. Incredibly, the illegal alien (Johoan Rodriguez) remained free and in late May struck and killed Houston Police Officer Kevin Will.

It marks the fourth time in the last few years that a Houston officer dies at the hands of a previously deported illegal immigrant protected by the city’s sanctuary policy, which, among other things, forbids police from inquiring about immigration status. In 2009 an illegal alien from Mexico (Roberto Pedroza Carrillo), who had been ticketed by Houston Police at least four times, killed an undercover police officer during a sting operation.

Also that year, an illegal immigrant drug lord shot another Houston officer in the face while attempting to serve a narcotics warrant at a house. That El Salvador native had been arrested five times for possession or delivery of drugs, thrice after an immigration judge granted him voluntary departure. In 2006 Houston Officer Rodney Johnson was murdered during a routine traffic stop by a Mexican illegal alien (Juan Quintero) who had been deported for molesting a child and arrested for driving intoxicated, driving with a suspended license and failing to stop after an automobile accident. Quintero shot Officer Johnson four times in the back of the head with a 9 millimeter handgun hidden in the waistband of his pants.

Judicial Watch represents Johnson’s wife, Houston Police Sergeant Joslyn M. Johnson, in a lawsuit against the City of Houston, the Houston Police Department and its chief challenging the illegal alien sanctuary policies that ultimately led to her husband’s murder. A few months before Johnson’s death JW had launched a probe and requested public records related to Houston’s sanctuary policy and a taxpayer-funded day laborer center.

Despite the murder of four cops in the last few years and countless other crimes attributed to illegal immigrants the city continues offering undocumented aliens sanctuary. Like the other cases before it, Officer Will’s tragic death could have been prevented considering the illegal immigrant who killed him had an extensive criminal history and should have been jailed and deported.

Rodriguez first got caught entering the U.S. through Brownsville Texas on December 29, 2005, though his criminal record dates back to 2001, according to court documents obtained in the course of JW’s probe. He was fined and deported and got caught the next day entering the U.S. in McAllen Texas. That led to his second fine and removal, the records reveal.

Despite two deportations, Rodriguez obtained a Texas driver’s license in 2007 even though he was in the country illegally and had numerous encounters with the law. Beginning in 2001 Rodriguez was cited for offenses including driving without a license or insurance, speeding, operating an unregistered vehicle, running a stop sign and not wearing a seat belt. When he killed Officer Will, Rodriguez had six outstanding bench warrants for failing to appear in court for his various offenses.

Although his criminal history is not violent, it’s extensive and he should have long ago been incarcerated and removed from the country. The same can be said for the other illegal immigrants who have killed cops in Houston in the last four years.

SOURCE



25 July, 2011

Analysis: Norway massacre exposes incendiary immigration issue

It looks like Anders Behring Breivik may have achieved his goal. We see below a recognition that failure to hold full and fair discussions of immigration issues has been a mistake and some view that more openness might have prevented the massacre

For many years, the USA, Australia, Britain and some other countries were perfecly at ease with imigration but when some groups started arriving that caused problems for the existing population, the public rightly expected their governments to do something about it. But governments instead tried to suppress debate about the issues concerned. One result of that policy is Anders Behring Breivik -- and his clear and very loud message that the Leftist elite have got it wrong

Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik said he killed 93 people to spark a "revolution" against the multiculturalism he believed was sapping Europe's heritage, and experts say a frank debate about immigration may be the best way to prevent similar explosions of violence.

In some Nordic countries, and elsewhere in Europe, political parties have fed on rising public concern over immigration as economic conditions worsen and a drip-feed of Islamist attacks stokes fear and suspicion of new arrivals.

But experts argue overly aggressive political rhetoric and scare tactics have inflamed passions rather than address the many complex, underlying problems.

Conflicting messages and political squeamishness in tackling immigration and multiculturalism have frustrated the public and given space for hardline ideologues, they say.

"If the twin attacks in Norway fail to trigger an honest discussion of the issue, exposing often scare-mongering arguments used by the extreme right, this may marginalize the radical groups and worsen the situation, which in turn could bring more similar attacks in the future," said Lilit Gevorgyan, Europe analyst at the IHS Global Insight think-tank.

"This is not just an issue in Norway. Across Scandinavia and also in Western and Eastern Europe, you have a lot of people who are very frustrated by the lack of open debate," she added.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Nicolas Sarkozy have all declared in recent months that multiculturalism has failed, in speeches that were otherwise careful to highlight the contribution of immigrants.

But critics say such statements at best do little to offer solutions to tackle the economic and societal pressures that stem from increasing immigration and globalization, and do even less to harness the benefits of a multi-ethnic society.

At worst, they say such comments risk victimizing often vulnerable immigrant communities and souring race relations.

"What has clearly emerged from recent speeches and ensuing public national debates on multiculturalism is a sense of confusion, malaise and often contradictory messages," said Sara Silvestri, lecturer in religion and international politics at London's City University, in an article dated June 8.

"So we look for easy answers presented as simple choices e.g., moderate vs. radical Islam, multiculturalism vs. assimilation ... Yet such simplistic naming and categorizing further divides people and provokes animosities," she added.

FUEL ON THE FIRE

A number of Scandinavian political parties have tackled immigration head on, but the inflammatory tone used by some politicians may have fueled Breivik's anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic hatred.

Many far-right European groups have shifted away from overtly racist rhetoric and have instead focused their argument on stressing what they see as the incompatibility of Islam and European values.

In a 1,500-page violent manifesto published by Breivik, the 32-year-old expressed his admiration for Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, and the tome included reported anti-Islamic comments Wilders made to the Dutch parliament. However, Wilders at the weekend denounced Breivik's actions.

Anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic parties have gained traction in Nordic and Scandinavian countries in recent years, tapping public anxiety over the relatively recent phenomenon of mass migration, particularly of Muslims, to their region.

The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats were last year elected to the Swedish parliament for the first time, despite the party having roots in neo-Nazi movements of the 1980s and 1990s. The party has criticized Muslims and Islam as being un-Swedish.

Swedish anti-fascism magazine Expo, where the late best-selling novelist Steig Larsson was highly active, says while there may be no direct link between violence and comments by politicians, the rhetoric creates a fertile environment for ethnically motivated attacks.

"It is very aggressive ideology that the Swedish Democrats are pushing toward Muslims ... it has become a more and more accepted way to speak about Muslims this way," said Expo reporter Johannes Jakobsson.

"Of course if you are in the Swedish parliament and point fingers at Muslims and say these people are dangerous, of course this is going to influence people to become more hostile toward them," he added.

"ATROCIOUS, BUT NECESSARY"

Harald Stanghelle, political editor of Norway's Aftenposten conservative newspaper, said it was unfair to accuse Norway's anti-immigrant Progress Party of inflaming the passions of individuals such as Breivik, who was once a member.

Stanghelle says Breivik left the party because it did not go far enough in representing his views, highlighting a dilemma for those who say parties that drive away those with fringe views on immigration risk creating militant underground groups.

"It's totally wrong to hold the Progress Party responsible for extremists like this. A few smaller, anti-immigration groups, anti-multicultural groups, have broken from the party because they believe it is too polite, too mainstream," Stanghelle said.

Stanghelle was careful to paint Breivik as a lone extremist with little link to the wider discourse on immigration in Norway. After years on the fringes, Breivik's views are now likely to echo loudest at his first court hearing on Monday.

Breivik has described his bombing of an Oslo government building and his shooting spree at a youth camp run by Norway's Labor Party as "atrocious" but "necessary" in his crusade against liberal immigration policies and the spread of Islam.

"He now wants to meet in court for the first time, and wants an open court meeting, and why? Most criminals fight for a closed court meeting, but he sees himself as a crusader," Stanghelle said.

SOURCE






Parts of Alabama immigration law likely to stand up in court

Federal judges have temporarily blocked most criminal provisions in states that recently passed laws like Alabama's targeting illegal immigrants, but have allowed state regulations on employing undocumented workers, an analysis of the litigation shows.

The coalition of advocacy and legal groups, unions and individuals that filed suit this month against Alabama's comprehensive immigration law will seek a temporary injunction from U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn on Aug. 24.

Six states -- Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama and South Carolina -- passed or amended laws since 2010 aimed at people in the country illegally. Alabama's law is considered the nation's toughest.

Lawsuits are pending in five of those states. Temporary injunctions have been granted on all or part of the new laws in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia.

A suit is planned in South Carolina, national advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have said.

Federal judges have issued temporary injunctions against laws in Arizona and Utah that -- like Alabama's new statute -- require immigrants to carry registration papers.

Judges also have temporarily blocked laws in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia that -- like Alabama's -- allow police to detain suspected illegal aliens to check their immigration status.

But the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a state law similar to Alabama's requiring employers to use the federal E-Verify system to confirm the legal status of new hires or risk losing their business license.

While injunction rulings in other states address some laws similar to Alabama's, several elements of the new Alabama law have not been tested in court, said William G. Ross, a professor at the Cumberland School of Law.

They include:

Requirements that schools check students' and parents' immigration status.

A prohibition on renting to illegal immigrants.

A ban on courts enforcing contracts with known illegal aliens.

Criminal sanctions for people in the country illegally who make any financial transaction with a government, like paying taxes.

Seeking a temporary injunction is one of the first steps in a constitutional challenge to a law.

Plaintiffs must show they are likely to win the case and that harm would result if the law were to go into effect. They also must show a delay would benefit the public and not hurt the litigants.

"That does not mean the law is unconstitutional," Ross said. "It just stops things so there is no irreparable harm to people that could not be remedied."

State vs. fed power

Opponents say the new state laws are preempted by federal authority because the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government broad power to regulate immigration.

When a state law conflicts with a federal law or hinders its enforcement, the federal law prevails, they argue.

But a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling has given hope to proponents of state laws targeting illegal aliens. A court majority ruled that Arizona could use its state power to license businesses by passing laws banning companies from hiring illegal workers.

State legislators in Alabama and other states have been trying to craft new laws targeting illegal immigrants that fit within the state's inherent power to protect the safety, health and morals of its people, said Ross, who wrote about Arizona's immigrant laws in the May 2010 edition of the legal journal, Jurist.

Alabama's new law requires employers to use the federal E-Verify system after April 2012, and creates licensing penalties for hiring illegal workers. It is likely to be upheld, Ross said.

But the new state requirement for schools to check students' and parents' immigration status could be vulnerable if it is proven to discourage children from attending school, he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that undocumented children have the same right to a free public education as citizens.

"If a law discourages people from exercising a constitutional right, the Supreme Court has said many times the law is constitutionally suspect," he said. "I'm not saying that it's necessarily unconstitutional. But it is something that is likely to be stayed."

New state crimes

Another boundary limiting state immigrant laws, recent court rulings have indicated, is when states set criminal and civil penalties.

Federal judges have temporarily suspended enforcement of new state laws that either criminalize behavior that is not criminal under federal law, or laws that also could punish people living in the country legally.

Federal judges have temporarily blocked all criminal penalties in Georgia's and Utah's new laws, and some of the criminal penalties in Arizona's legislation.

But federal judges have differed on new laws in Arizona, Utah and Georgia regarding harboring or transporting illegal immigrants, or encouraging anyone improperly in the country to move or live in that state. Alabama has a similar law.

Separate judges in Utah and Georgia issued temporary injunctions, but a third judge allowed the Arizona version to go into law after ruling the plaintiffs were not likely to prove the state laws were preempted by federal law.

Final rulings by the trial-level federal judges on the constitutionality of the new state immigrant laws could take months or longer.

Ultimately, as the cases wind through federal appeals, they are likely to be bundled for a potential landmark ruling, Ross said.

"An issue that involves such intense political controversy, such difficult legal questions and such diversity of opinion is a very likely candidate for ultimate adjudication by the U.S. Supreme Court."

SOURCE



24 July, 2011

Norway massacre part of an anti-immigration backlash

Muslims seem to gain a lot by murdering people. One should not be surprised that others may see that and consider the same strategy. The Left is of course most pro-Muslim and it was young Leftists who were targeted

Despite a proud reputation for peace and tolerance, Norway is a country which has suffered increased tensions over race and immigration in recent years. In the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, the far right has attracted increasing support both at the ballot box and on the streets.

Behind the growth in extremism lie concerns about a rising numbers of immigrants, in a struggling economy. In parliament, the anti-immigration Progress Party is now the second largest group, winning one in five votes at the last election.

Commentators have likened the party - Fremskrittspartiet in Norwegian -to the French National Front and the Dutch Pim Fortuyn List, though its leadership says it is much more liberal.

And earlier this year a report by the Norwegian Police Security Service noted an “increase in the activity of far-right extremist circles” and predicted this would continue. It also warned that “a higher degree of activism in groups hostile to Islam may lead to an increased use of violence”, although it concluded that Islamist extremists were the greater threat.

Kari Helene Partapuoli, director of the non-governmental Norwegian Centre against Racism, said yesterday that fringe groups had hardened their rhetoric about Islam and immigration, which has turned Oslo into Europe’s fastest growing city.

The percentage of immigrants in the population has grown from 2 per cent in 1970 to 11 per cent. The nation’s 163,000 Muslims make up 3.4 per cent of the population, and analysts say that Islam has been a particular flashpoint.

The Progress Party, created in 1973, campaigned against immigration, saying it placed too great a burden on Norway’s generous welfare state. In recent years it has shifted to a broader attack, saying that immigrants are failing to integrate and creating tension in a small and culturally cohesive country.

However it denies holding neo-Nazi views. The charge is particularly explosive in a country which fought a bitter resistance campaign against German occupiers during World War II, and whose war-time prime minister, the Nazi sympathiser Vidkun Quisling, is a byword for collaboration.

Since Siv Jensen became leader in 2006 the Progress Party has made efforts to tone down its extremist image. Whereas mainstream party once shunned the fringe group, the centre-right Conservatives have recently considered co-operating. Ms Jensen said it was “absolutely terrible” to learn that Anders Behring Breivik had been a Progress activist, but insisted “this is not the time for analysis” about it.

Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s Labour prime minister, attempted to quell panic over the scale of the far right’s activities, and to appeal to the country’s tradition of democracy and tolerance. “This is dramatic, it’s frightening, but we must not allow ourselves to be scared,” Mr Stoltenberg said. “We stand for an open society, and open democracy in Norway, and violence like this can’t scare us.”

He said the country did not have a notable problem with far-right wing extremism, and that police were now looking into these groups following the attacks.

While tensions have simmered, flashpoints have been rare. One of the most public came last year, when a photograph of a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad printed on the front page of Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet sparked mass protests including wildcat strikes by taxi drivers, many of whom are Muslim.

The country’s tradition of tolerance reflects a population which is broadly Christian, but distinctly unevangelical about it. While most are baptised as members of the Protestant Church of Norway, very few people attend services. Latest figures suggest just 2 per cent of Norwegians attend church weekly, the lowest percentage in Europe.

Across the Nordic countries, a rise in the far right has produced a backlash. In the mid 1990s Stieg Larsson, the late crime writer, founded an anti-racist publication in Sweden following a rise in violence carried out by neo-Nazis.

While the Swedish movement had gained momentum, and was tightly controlled, groups in Norway a the time were disorganised and largely incoherent, he said.

SOURCE





Immigration restrictions are the one policy that can save the Labour Party – but they're so mesmerised by diversity they cannot see it

Away from the main stage and today’s headline act, Maurice Glasman’s comments about immigration seemed to have done great damage to “Blue Labour”.

On Monday the Labour peer and academic told the Daily Telegraph that “Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first”, and when asked by the Telegraph’s Mary Riddell whether he would support a temporary ban on immigration, replied: “Yes. I would add that we should be more generous and friendly in receiving those [few] who are needed. To be more generous, we have to draw the line.”

As far as any Labour people have commented on this, there has been universal condemnation. Anthony Painter called it “toxic”, writing in the Guardian:

In Blue Labour’s economic cosmology, immigration is the root of economic misery. Our economic advantage is not based on having world-class universities attractive to some of the best global minds. London and our other successful cities don’t need to attract the very best global talent. We don’t need to be in the EU to remain a location for global economic partnerships and inward investment. Our public services don’t need any highly qualified staff who aren’t British. And the economic drive of many migrants with an enormous range of skills can’t serve any purpose in an ageing society. There are a set number of jobs to go around, of course.

In the New Statesman Dan Hodges reports that:

Blue Labour, the informal Labour policy group established by Ed Miliband advisor Maurice Glasman, is to be effectively disbanded.

Labour MP Jon Cruddas and Middlesex University academic Jonathan Rutherford have both informed Lord Glasman they no longer wish to be associated with the project following an interview given by the controversial peer in which he expressed a belief that immigration to the UK should be completely halted.

A third influential supporter, Dr Marc Stears, is said by friends to be “deeply distressed” by Glasman’s comments, and is also considering his future engagement with Blue Labour.

Lord Glasman has since apologised for overstepping the mark in an email to Hodges, but it’s curious that, even if they were not prepared to go as far as him, not a single Labour figure as yet can be found to even criticise their party’s attachment to mass immigration. Yet, as I (and many others) have pointed out, mass immigration harms Labour’s traditional supporters the most.

Note that Glasman is not hostile to elite migration, an altogether different thing; when Painter talks about “world-class universities” and “highly-qualified staff”, does he not realise that Britain exports more graduates than it imports, with an overall loss of roughly 200,000 people? That over 50 per cent of migrants from some countries are economically inactive? Look around any London area outside that rich blue area left of the City and you can see quite clearly that most immigrants are not members of this imagined world brains trust. The economic arguments for mass immigration are very thin.

Neither, as Painter claims, are immigration restrictions toxic. In the US attitudes towards foreigners have improved and deteriorated with immigration levels, showing upwardly positive views throughout the long pause from 1924 and 1965. In the UK race relations improved throughout the 1980s and 1990s as immigration restrictions took effect; they worsened under New Labour. Of course positive internal measures also have an impact, especially a society-wide effort to make racism unacceptable, but numbers make a crucial difference. Those two efforts – restricting immigration and delegitimising racism – are not contradictory.

Yet at some point in the 1980s the Labour Party became convinced that any opposition to increased diversity was itself a racist idea. Diversity became its new Clause 4 – a social good in itself. Yet most, or at the very least a very large minority, of Labour voters are unconvinced, and have seen the downsides of mass immigration in their neighbourhoods – both economically and socially.

For those Labour supporters unfettered globalism, where people can be shipped around as easily as computer parts, seems more like a Marxist parody of capitalist cruelty than the ideology of “progressives”. But because their traditional champions have embraced wholly the millennial idea of universalism and unrestricted altruism, they find themselves like pond-dwelling fish drowning in a large and cruel sea.

Jon Cruddas once said he was a “true” conservative in that he wished to conserve communities thrown apart by housing costs and shrinking social housing sector. That is a reasonable and decent aspiration, of course, but it’s not compatible with the sort of diverse society we are becoming. Neither does that sort of society have much place for the sort of egalitarian, liberal policies which the Labour party believes in.

A glimpse of the future of British politics can be seen in a Guardian piece today, “Stop patronising poor Americans”, in which a US Democrat laments that poor people vote Republican against their economic interests. It’s an old refrain, heard often. Yet the article does not mention a crucial factor: poor whites vote Republican because in the most racially-mixed areas of the US people vote along fairly strongly-marked racial lines. In Mississippi, the most African-American state, over 80 per cent of whites vote Republican – and most aren’t rich by any means.

Labour people hate discussing this issue – it’s just so distasteful, and besides which it won’t happen here because England, is, you know, progressive and we have the BBC rather than Fox News. And yet this pattern has occured everywhere. How many working-class Ulster Protestants vote for the SDLP rather than for the less redistributionist Unionist parties? How many poor Lebanese Christians vote for Hezbollah? Who knows, maybe the grandchildren of Yorkshire miners will all vote Tory. Diverse societies are not fertile ground for progressive politics – so why is Labour horrified by the one policy, immigration restrictions, that gives the European Left any sort of a future?

SOURCE



23 July, 2011

Immigration fines cost 14 New England companies

Fourteen New England companies were fined a combined $285,000 during the past fiscal year for failing to document that their workers were in the country legally, federal authorities announced yesterday.

The fines followed audits by the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of federal I-9 forms, paperwork that must be filled out by employees when they are hired to show they have legal authorization to work.

Eight of the cited companies were in Massachusetts, including Commercial Cleaning Service in Allston, which was fined $100,000, and masonry contractor D’Agostino Associates Inc. in Newton, fined $22,792.

The immigration agency said it also fined Andover Healthcare Inc. of Salisbury, All In One Insulation Inc. of West Boylston, Polcari Enterprises Inc. of Saugus, Seatrade International of New Bedford, Harvest Co-op Markets of Cambridge, and Collt Manufacturing Inc. of Millis. The amounts of those fines were not released.

Some of the companies were found to have “suspect documents,’’ said Bruce M. Foucart, head of investigations for ICE in New England. “That means more than likely they had an illegal workforce,’’ Foucart said by phone yesterday. “By not having the proper paperwork, workers had to be let go.’’

Fine amounts were calculated based on the seriousness of violations, whether companies were cooperative, and whether there were multiple offenses, he said.

While none of the 14 companies appealed, some negotiated lesser fines; others agreed to pay the initial amount ordered.

A voice mail left yesterday afternoon at the Allston cleaning company was not returned.

The owner of D’Agostino Associates, Romeo D’Agostino, said his company was fined for not properly filling out paperwork. “I didn’t dot my I’s and cross my T’s,’’ he said by phone. “. . . I don’t hire’’ illegal immigrants.

In 2006, the Globe reported that the company “had 19 instances of workers with bogus or questionable Social Security numbers on public school projects in Littleton and North Easton.’’

Blueberry grower Jasper Wyman & Son of Milbridge, Maine, was fined $118,000. In November, the Globe reported that the firm had been cited “for violations that range from paperwork errors to the possibility that more than 200 of its 1,200 person workforce over two years were in the country illegally.’’

Edward R. Flanagan, president and chief executive of Wyman, told the Globe then that he never knew the workers lacked proper documentation. He said he had started using a federal verification system that lets companies check the legal status of workers.

Foucart said yesterday that the blueberry grower also cooperated with ICE officials in fall 2008 during the arrests of eight potentially illegal employees. They were arrested on administrative, not criminal, charges and went through court deportation proceedings, he said.

Nationally, ICE says nearly 4,000 businesses have been fined nearly $7 million combined on such violations.

SOURCE






Even Leftist Spain is biting the immigration bullet

Spain Restricts Romanians Job-Market Access to Ease Pressure on unemployment

The Spanish government will temporarily restrict Romanian immigration to those who can show a job contract as the country seeks to ease pressure on its labor market, which has the highest jobless rate in Europe.

“The job market has completely changed since 2008, so the government decided to adopt a mechanism that enables it to require that Romanians coming to Spain to work apply for authorization,” Development Minister Jose Blanco told journalists in Madrid today. Approval will only be given to those who have a contract, he said.

Spain’s Socialist minority government is battling with a 21 percent unemployment rate that threatens the country’s fragile recovery and its ability to rein in the euro area’s third- largest deficit. Exports drove growth in the first half as the most drastic austerity measures in the last three decades weighed on demand.

“The measure is a negative sign for the free-labor movement in Europe,” said Raffaella Tenconi, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research in London. “It will reduce competition in a country where the rigidity of the job market is already a structural weakness.” About 800,000 Romanians work in Spain, representing 14 percent of the country’s foreign workforce, Tenconi said.

The right to restrict immigration from the most recent European Union members was designed to enable other EU countries to adjust during a transition period, not to change the rules depending on internal growth while targeting a specific country, according to Tenconi.

The restriction is temporary and may be suspended, depending on how employment evolves in Spain, Blanco said.

Spain can enforce the rule until 2014, after which Romanians will be able to move as freely as other EU citizens.

Blanco said the new rules won’t affect Romanians who are already working in Spain but didn’t specify what would happen to those whose contracts had ended.

SOURCE



22 July, 2011

Crazy deal by the Australian government

Sending away 800 Afghan Muslim boat people and accepting 4,000 Burmese Buddhists instead is hard to explain. Though it may be a reflection of what Australians think of Muslims, I guess. And in the main, the Burmese are genuine refugees, which the Afghans are not

THE Federal Government's refugee swap agreement with Malaysia is a "bad deal" that will not stop asylum seekers, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says. His comments come after reports that The Government could sign its refugee swap deal with Malaysia early next week.

Under a deal announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard in May, Malaysia will take up to 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat, in return for Australia accepting 4000 processed [Burmese] refugees.

"It's a bad deal. I don't think it's going to stop the boats," Mr Abbott told the Nine Network. "It's now two-and-a-half months since the so-called Malaysia deal was announced and I think in that time we have had 10 boats and more than 500 people arrive."

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is reportedly set to clinch the deal in Malaysia on Monday, Fairfax reported today, but the minister's office would not confirm this with the newspapers.

The head of the Malaysian police and the chairman of Malaysia's Human Rights Commission are expected to attend the signing ceremony, the report said.

SOURCE





New crackdown on illegal workers already in Australia

Illegal workers are a bigger problem for Australia's immigration system than boat people, an official report says, prompting the Federal Government to introduce tougher penalties for bosses caught using them.

The independent review, by barrister Stephen Howells , says a "significant number" of tourists, backpackers, business people and foreign students come to Australia and work illegally.

Mr Howells estimated that at least 50,000 people, and potentially more than 100,000 people, were working illegally in Australia.

His report found that organised rackets were behind some of the groups of illegal workers, who were vulnerable to sexual exploitation, unsafe work practices, underpayment, taxation and welfare fraud and associated crime.

He said there was a strong perception among illegal workers that the only punishment would be deportation at taxpayers' expense.

Mr Howells said immigration officials had identified at least 100 breaches since 2007, when the Howard government softened penalties for employers caught flouting the system. Of these, 10 had been thoroughly investigated but there had been only one successful prosecution. Mr Howells said the number of asylum seekers coming by boat was relatively small but a much larger group travelled here legally.

The crackdown on illegal workers follows Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announcing earlier this week that Perth would be declared a country town so it will be easier for businesses to bring in foreigners on working visas to meet skills shortages. He announced yesterday companies would face a fine of up to $10,000 per worker if caught using illegal labour.

SOURCE



21 July, 2011

How Does Deportation Work?

New Report Sifts Through Complicated Proceedings

Immigration policy is often discussed in sweeping, over-simplified terms. Beyond the op-ed commentary is the complicated reality of how an illegal alien travels from point A, their first contact with law enforcement, to point B, their country of origin. Discretion, logistics, and copious paperwork by law enforcement and judicial officials separate the two points.

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies, “Deportation Basics: How Immigration Enforcement Works (or Doesn’t) in Real Life,” discusses the ground-level process of what is now called 'removal proceedings' and the issues that surround it. The report is available at http://www.cis.org/deportation-basics.

Among the findings:
A large percentage of aliens flee from removal proceedings – perhaps as many as 59 percent of all those released to await hearings. On a cost basis from the alien’s perspective, this makes sense. If you are in proceedings and have little chance of relief, why not treat the bond money (if it’s even required) as the cost of having been caught, and then flee, hoping to stay under the radar for as long as possible, perhaps until the next amnesty?

Though fashionable in the Obama administration, the exercise of “prosecutorial discretion” is problematic for ICE field officers. If the alien that they decline to remove goes on to commit a heinous act, they could be subject to lawsuits from victims and will be held accountable by their own agency (even if agency leadership encourages them to use the tool).

Even in today’s technology-driven world, charging an alien with immigration violations is a paperwork-intensive, cumbersome process that requires agents to fill out nearly 20 different forms each time.

ICE officers are supposed to consider two key factors in determining whether to detain or release an alien in proceedings – if the alien is a flight risk and if he is a risk to the community. The latter factor obviously is given serious consideration, but it is equally obvious from the large number of absconders that officers don’t give the same weight to the likelihood of flight, especially considering the scarcity of funded detention space.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides for several types of due process for aliens, depending on their circumstances of arrival and stay. The law does not require that all removals be ordered by an immigration judge.

The option of Voluntary Return, where the alien requests to be returned home in lieu of formal removal proceedings, is not really “voluntary,” but is beneficial to the alien because it carries fewer consequences if the alien returns illegally. It also has become subject to overuse or misuse in recent years as a tool to increase the volume of removals, at the expense of more formal methods of removal that have more deterrent value.

Immigration law provides for seven ways to remove an alien, which are explained in the report. Four of these options are relatively efficient, but used less frequently. If ICE chose to expand their use, the workload of the immigration court could be reduced and the immigration enforcement system would be less dysfunctional.

The total number of apprehensions of illegal aliens by immigration enforcement agencies is less than half of what it was five years ago. For instance, the drop in apprehensions by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is often explained by improvements in border security; however, this rationale is suspect, as has been pointed out by the Rand Corp. in a study of border metrics. But ICE apprehensions also have dropped steeply, although there has been only a modest drop in the size of the illegal population inside the United States.

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Jessica Vaughan, jmv@cis.org, (202) 466-8185. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization







Fewer students to win skilled migrant visas to Australia

FAR fewer overseas students will be able to parlay Australian qualifications into skilled migrant visas under tough new rules, Monash University researcher Bob Birrell says.

They may account for just 4000 visas a year, compared with 19,352 visas for this group in 2006-07 and 17,552 in 2007-08, boom times for the business model in which education was sold as a pathway to migration.

Dr Birrell said the unpublished Department of Immigration and Citizenship estimate of 4000 was "an unmistakable signal that the industry needs to set its marketing around selling an education that is valuable back in the country of origin".

A series of reforms, including a new skilled migration points test from July 1, have weakened the policy link between education and migration.

Announcing changes last year, then immigration minister Chris Evans famously said under the old rules cooks and hairdressers would qualify but not a Harvard environmental scientist.

The new regime favours offshore rather than onshore applications and advanced rather than basic skills. The benefit of having a relative in Australia has all but gone. "The changes will favour overseas applicants from English-speaking countries who can meet the much tougher English language requirements of the new points test," Dr Birrell and colleagues say in a report from the Monash Centre for Population and Urban Research.

The report gives new insight into the "stockpiling" of thousands of overseas students by DIAC. These include many students with cookery and hairdressing qualifications who would win visas under the old rules but whose cases have been put off and who are now on bridging visas.

In December last year, there were 29,211 former vocational education students on bridging visas, as well as another 26,309 former higher education students. About 16,000 of these former students had applied for skilled migration visas. In 2009-10, there were 28,126 applications for the graduate skilled bridging visa that is held by many former overseas students caught mid-stream by policy reforms.

The Birrell report predicts some of Mr Bowen's hypothetical Harvard scientists will have to wait as his department works through this backlog of students with lower skill levels. "Unpublished statistics show tens of thousands of former overseas students will benefit from the transitional arrangements in place," the report says. "Applications for permanent residence from these students will crowd out better qualified applicants for several years."

But a DIAC spokesman said applicants "who demonstrate the skills most needed by the Australian economy" always would be processed first.

SOURCE



20 July, 2011

Freeze immigration and put British people first, says Labour Party guru

Insists 'Britain is not an outpost of the UN'

Britain should freeze immigration to stop foreign workers taking jobs from Britons, according to one of Ed Miliband’s key policy gurus. Lord Glasman, who was appointed to the House of Lords by the Labour leader, said the country was not a United Nations ‘outpost’.

The peer also called for the UK to renegotiate rules allowing the free movement of migrant workers within the EU – a proposal that Mr Miliband insisted his close friend had not discussed with him.

Lord Glasman told the Daily Telegraph: ‘We’ve got to re-interrogate our relationship with the EU on the movement of labour. ‘Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first. The EU has gone from being a sort of pig farm-subsidised bloc to the free movement of labour and capital.’

Lord Glasman, a politics lecturer and social thinker, said it may be necessary to stop immigration for a while to put British workers at the front of the queue for new jobs. Such a move would also make it easier for the genuinely deserving to be let into the country if they had in-demand skills, he suggested.

Lord Glasman said: ‘We should be more generous and friendly in receiving those [few] who are needed. To be more generous, we have to draw the line.’

As founder of ‘Blue Labour’, which mixes the principles of faith, flag and family with socialism, he has admitted his views can be ‘more conservative than the Conservatives’ and has accused Labour of lying over immigration.

Yesterday, Mr Miliband tried to play down the significance of his comments, adding: ‘I’ve said in the past we’ve underestimated the impact of Polish migration to Britain. It’s quite hard to negotiate the terms of free movement of labour.’

He said the right solution was to ‘have a firm immigration policy, also to provide people with the guarantees that they need in relation to wages and conditions which is one of the biggest worries that people have about some of the migration that we’ve seen’.

But he was urged to heed Lord Glasman’s advice by Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch campaign group, who said: ‘It’s quite clear that Ed Miliband still doesn’t get it if he’s talking about Polish migration when 80 per cent of net migration under Labour was from outside the EU. The public are going to get very tired of continuing Labour evasion on a matter of deep and widespread concern.’

However, Sir Andrew admitted: ‘Although Lord Glasman understands the depth of public feeling on immigration, renegotiating the free movement of people is over the top. It is simply not practicable.’

Ministers want to cut immigration to tens of thousands a year. But Lord Glasman’s renegotiation plan goes even further than calls by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith for bosses to employ young Britons ahead of foreigners.

SOURCE





Continuing riots and protests at Australian immigration detention centres

These are an excellent way of publicizing the fact that most illegals simply get locked up. They should deter future illegal arrivals

ANOTHER protest has broken out at the Christmas Island detention centre with at least three asylum seekers taking to the rooftop of the facility to wage a "peaceful protest".

The assistance of the Australian Federal Police was required overnight at the island's North West Point facility after about 50 detainees were involved in a disturbance.

The detainees caused damage to the centre and lit small fires, some in rubbish bins, which were quickly extinguished by detention centre managers Serco.

"There's been some disruptive behaviour within the compound overnight. The Australian Federal Police was called in to assist. It was serious enough to warrant their involvement," an Immigration Department spokesman said this morning.

By this morning, the AFP had restored order to the facility and the disruptive asylum seekers are now being monitored in the common area of the compound known as the "green heart".

Under changes to the Migration Act which passed the parliament earlier this month, any detainee who is convicted of an offence in immigration detention will automatically fail the "character test".

An immigration department spokesman warned that disruptive behaviour could affect visa processing outcomes and said the department found the conduct of those involved disappointing. "This kind of behaviour can effect the processing of a visa," said the spokesman.

However, according to Social Justice Network spokesman Jamal Daoud, about 200 detainees were involved in setting fire to rubbish bins and other materials at the centre late last night. He could not say what started the trouble. "There are three on the roof protesting," he said.

On Sunday night, a group of 11 asylum seekers climbed on the roof at the detention centre's main compound, which mainly holds single adult males. They climbed down on Monday.

SOURCE



19 July, 2011

Slashing migration to Australia won't hurt, says report

AUSTRALIA could meet looming skills shortages created by the resources boom with just half the annual migration intake planned by government, a report says.

Researchers led by demographer Bob Birrell have found that if today's net overseas migration target of 180,000 a year were slashed to 90,000, the pool of available workers would still expand significantly over the next decade.

Business groups and economists have argued net overseas migration of at least 180,000 will be needed as mining skills shortages intensify in the next few years. This is a far cry from the 320,000 peak reached in 2008, which sparked the "Big Australia" debate.

However, the report from Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research, to be released today, challenges "alarmist" business claims that the mining boom requires higher migration.

Instead, it suggests the key to skills shortages could lie in the participation rate - the share of the population who enter the labour force - and some temporary migration.

For instance, there has been a sharp increase in participation among men and women over the age of 55 in the past decade. If this trend of more participation continued, the report said Australia's workforce would expand by 1.7 million by 2021 if annual net migration were halved to 90,000.

Even if participation rates remained unchanged, the workforce would grow by one million over the same period, it said.

Alongside temporary migration, this would be adequate to meet skills shortages if migration were better targeted to employer's needs, it said. "It can safely be concluded that a [net overseas migration] of 90,000 per year is not the dark apparition business advocates imply," the report said. "The bulk of current migration has little to do with providing scarce skills to the resources industries."

Rather than mining, the majority of recent migrants worked in professional urban jobs, or were studying or taking working holidays, it said. Twenty-six per cent of migration growth in recent years was linked to employer sponsorship.

The report has one point of agreement with government: it concedes temporary migration would be needed for the mining boom. This year's budget made it easier for projects worth $2 billion with a peak workforce of 1500 people to employ foreign workers.

Although the report is likely to receive a cool reception from mining companies, there is a point of agreement with the industry. Miners have also recognised the need to tap more diverse domestic sources of labour, including female workers.

The chief executive of resources employer group the Australian Mines and Metals Association, Steve Knott, last month said the industry could do more to attract women to the male-dominated trade.

"With 92 per cent of AMMA resource industry employers stating they wish to employ more women, and being an industry where currently less than one in five workers are female, there are immense opportunities for Australian women to have a fulfilling and long-term career in the industry," he said.

SOURCE




Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Backgrounder: Deportation Basics: How Immigration Enforcement Works (or Doesn’t) in Real Life

2. Op-Ed and Blog: How Can the Asylum System Be Fixed?

3. Video: Jon Feere discusses birthright citizenship and foreign diplomats on Fox News

4. Blog: Asylum Fraud Takes Center Stage

5. Blog: Case Study: ICE Moves at Glacial Speed to Deport Convict

6. Blog: Alabama's Religious Left Sues

7. Blog: The Death Penalty for Immigration Marriage Fraud?

8. Blog: Government Departments Offer Dueling Nonimmigrant Worker Programs

9. Blog: USCIS Hails More Permissive Handling of EB-5 Alien Investor Program

10. Blog: More Secure Communities Kabuki

11. Blog: The Tale of Two Immigration-Related Freedom of Information Act Requests



18 July, 2011

British MP seeks to stop criminals using human rights law to avoid deportation

The first plan to reduce drastically the number of foreign criminals who use human rights law to avoid deportation from Britain has been drawn up by a Conservative MP.

Dominic Raab has devised a crucial change to immigration law which aims to limit the use of the controversial Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the "right to family life".

Mr Raab believes his proposal will prevent judges from making increasingly wide interpretations of Article 8, which The Sunday Telegraph is campaigning to reform. He is now seeking cross-party support for the measure.

His proposed amendment to Labour's UK Borders Act 2007 would remove a reference to Article 8 from the law on deportation in a bid to ensure that the only way for foreign criminals to avoid being thrown out of the country would be to show that they face a "serious risk of torture".

Mr Raab said: "There are now around 400 cases each year where serious criminals defy deportation by claiming family or social ties. "They can be as loose as a casual girlfriend or non-dependent relatives. "This is a direct result of judicial legislation since the Human Rights Act.

"My proposal would maintain the ban on sending anyone back to the arms of a torturing state, but prevent creeping exceptions to deportation based on the ever-expanding right to family life - unless our elected lawmakers expressly approve them."

Mr Raab will now seek support for the amendment from the Labour benches in the Commons as well as within the Coalition. He expects to introduce the proposal to Parliament later this year.

The MP also urged members of the public to give their views on Article 8 in response to the consultation paper launched by the Home Office last week, which asks a series of questions about whether the law on deportation should be toughened.

The document refers to a series of cases highlighted by this newspaper in our End the Human Rights Farce campaign. The consultation also indicates that ministers want to revoke another controversial aspect of immigration law highlighted by The Sunday Telegraph. It suggests that the "long residence rule", under which illegal immigrants can claim settlement in Britain if they avoid detection for 14 years, could be scrapped.

The review of Article 8 was welcomed by Paul Houston, whose daughter Amy, 12, died after being knocked down by illegal immigrant Aso Mohammed Ibrahim in 2003.

But Mr Houston expressed concern that the Home Office proposals did not go far enough. "I fear that this could end up being simply more guidelines for the UK Border Agency and not actually make any practical difference to the decisions made by judges," he said.

"This consultation is an opportunity for the general public to vent their anger about the Human Rights Act and the way it is being used for the wrong reasons. "The Act has been twisted and perverted in this country and in Europe, and now we all have an opportunity to let politicians know our feelings and actually make a Human Rights Act that we can be proud of."

He added: "I welcome the fact that ministers have acknowledged that there is a problem, at last. It has been a long time coming. "We will have to wait and see what comes out in the recommendations."

SOURCE






Convicted killers, rapists and paedophiles cleared to stay in Australia

DOZENS of foreigners who committed despicable crimes in Australia have escaped deportation because of a tribunal's rulings. Convicted killers, rapists, paedophiles, armed robbers and serial offenders who have had their visas cancelled have won the right to remain in Australia.

In the last financial year the Administrative Appeals Tribunal overturned 24 cases - reinstating serious convicted criminals' visas that had been cancelled by the Immigration Department.

In another eight cases the tribunal told Immigration Minister Chris Bowen to reconsider the Government's finding that the offenders were not of good character and to give them visas.

One of the most shocking cases involves Maltese-born "DNCW", a convicted rapist and paedophile, who settled in Victoria after moving to the country from overseas as a child. In 2003, in his 20s, he twice attempted to commit incest with his 12-year-old step-daughter and raped his estranged wife. He was jailed for a maximum of seven years and six months. His other offences included theft, unlawful assault, breach of an intervention order, burglary, cultivating a narcotic plants, unlawful possession, and possession of housebreaking implements.

The tribunal allowed him to stay because he had no close relatives in Malta, barely spoke the language, was not eligible for social security in Malta and would "suffer considerable hardship" if deported.

As well as the broken visa cases, the AAT found six permanent residents - refused citizenship by the department because of their criminal records - were of "good character" and should become Australian citizens.

Leading criminal lawyer and Queen's Counsel Peter Faris said the situation was "scandalous". "The system is not working to protect the public and needs to be changed," he said. "People who have committed serious offences such as murder, manslaughter and rape should be excluded from appealing (decisions revoking their visas). "There must be crimes that are not acceptable and therefore there can be no debate, no appeal. People such as murderers must be automatically excluded."

But Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria chairman Sam Afra said because the criminals were in Australia, the local law that allowed them to appeal should apply. "If they are on Australian soil and the system allows them to stay, then that is the situation," he said. "If they have been punished and served their time, then they must be treated like any other Australian."

The Sunday Herald Sun understands the Government has become concerned by unelected members of the AAT reinstating the visas of criminals.

The Government said that since April serious cases had not been decided by department officials and had instead been referred directly to the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, whose decision could not be appealed in the tribunal - it had to go to the Federal Court. Mr Bowen has cancelled eight visas and since April has notified a further eight criminals that he will cancel their visas.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the minister should have intervened in the first place in such serious crimes to stop ensure that criminals involved in such serious crimes could not "play the system".

He said criminals could plead compassionate grounds to stay in Australia at the tribunal, but if the minister cancelled their visas the matter had to go to the Federal Court, which could consider only failures of legal process.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister refused to say whether any legal action was being taken to quash the tribunal's controversial decisions. But he said the Government took "very seriously" its role to protect the Australian community from harm caused by foreigners and had in recent years cancelled or refused hundreds of visas. "It's obviously disappointing and concerning where the department's visa cancellations on character grounds are overturned," the spokesman said.

The tribunal's principal registrar, Philip Kellow, said the organisation did not comment on individual cases. "The tribunal is an independent body that reviews government decisions on the merits," he said. "It considers afresh a decision under review based on the evidence before it."

The reasons the tribunal gave in recent rulings for letting criminals stay included that the offenders had close ties to Australia and none in their homelands or that they had prospects for rehabilitation. One man was allowed to stay because he and his partner were expecting their 10th child in Australia.

The criminals include career offenders who started as juvenile thugs and graduated to violent crime, as well as wife-beaters, a tax evader, thieves, burglars and offenders who assaulted police.

Most of those allowed to stay are from New Zealand. Others come from such countries as Liberia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Samoa, Lebanon, South Korea, Bosnia and Fiji.

The Department has a dedicated unit which monitors judicial lists and hearing and liaises with police and correctional authorities to establish if foreigners on visas have commited crimes. If a visa is cancelled, the person is deemed to be an "unlawful non-citizen" and is deported as soon as possible, depending on whether they appeal.

SOURCE



17 July, 2011

‘Green card lottery’ future is in question

The Diversity Visa Lottery attracts millions of applicants worldwide and each year provides about 50,000 immigrants a legal route to permanent residency in the United States.

Begun in 1995 with the backing of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the lottery is unknown to many Americans but has stood as a symbol of hope for millions seeking the opportunity to transform their lives. But it has been pulled into the larger debate over immigration, with critics saying it is rife with security risks and brings no benefits to the United States.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to discuss a bill to drop it. “If you’re a terrorist organization and you can get a few hundred people to apply to this from several countries .... odds are you’d get one or two of them picked,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who introduced the bill, said in an interview.

An earlier version of the bill twice passed in the House in recent years but was rejected by the Senate in part, Goodlatte said, because of the support of Kennedy, who died in 2009. But with high unemployment in the United States, he said, “it’s hard to justify bringing an additional 50,000 in that need a job and will be competing with the 14 million Americans for jobs.”

Supporters of the program say that lottery winners and their families undergo the same rigorous security screening as any other visa applicant and that the congressional hearing is a distraction.

“At a time when we should be focusing on our economy and how immigrants can play a positive role, the House is now simply taking cheap shots at legal forms of immigration,” said Michele Waslin, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center. “Eliminating the diversity visa program will do nothing to fix our broken immigration system and nothing to grow our economy.”

Last year, a record 15 million people applied for the lottery. Unlike other immigrant visas that require applicants to demonstrate close family ties, specific job skills or humanitarian need, the lottery is open to anyone who has completed high school, can pass criminal and security background checks, does not fall under any other inadmissibility in immigration law, and has not applied more than once for the same drawing.

Citizens of countries that already have large numbers of nationals in the United States, including Mexico, the Philippines and India, are not eligible. Also, no more than 7 percent of winners can come from one country in a given year.

Each year, 90,000 to 100,000 applicants are selected at random and may apply for the 50,000 available visas, based on the order in which they were selected. Qualified people on the list who are not selected before the year is up, or before the 50,000 visas run out, lose their slot and must start over in a subsequent lottery — one reason that State Department officials urge people not to quit jobs or make other major decisions until they have a visa in hand.

Those who get the visas can move to the United States with their immediate families and eventually qualify for U.S. citizenship. “It can be a potentially life-changing moment,” said Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Proponents say the lottery provides the United States with a more diverse mix of ethnicities and nationalities — and the occasional gem. Freddy Adu, the child soccer prodigy, came to the United States from Ghana at age 8 when his father won the lottery.

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What's wrong with Britain's immigration system? Released on bail, the extremist who shouldn't be in Britain at all

An extremist who exposed gaping holes in Britain's border controls will be free to walk the streets after a judge granted him bail.

Sheikh Raed Salah entered the country last month despite an order banning him from doing so. He was eventually arrested and locked up but is using human rights laws to try to remain.

Now, in a further blow, the High Court last night released him from custody while his case is dealt with.

Salah, 52, who has been described in the House of Commons as 'virulently anti-Semitic', could be at large for months as the legal challenge makes its way through the courts. Lawyers for the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel argued he did not pose a security risk and should be let out.

The Home Office opposed the application but Mr Justice Stadlen approved bail. Strict conditions attached are understood to include a ban on public speaking.

The Palestinian radical will also be fitted with an electronic tag and will have to comply with a 15-hour curfew between 6pm and 9am every night. He will also have to report to an immigration centre every day.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'We are very disappointed with the court's decision and will consider our options. We are still seeking to deport Salah.'

Salah was invited to speak in Britain in late June by a group of left-wing Labour MPs.

Home Secretary Theresa May issued an order banning him from entering the country but he waltzed through controls at Heathrow Airport. He was detained two days later after addressing a meeting of Islamic activists in Leicester.

Ministers say his presence is not 'conducive to the public good' and he should be deported. But his lawyers say his treatment is a breach of Article 10 of the Human Rights Act - the right to 'freedom of expression'.

He was held in Colnbrook immigration centre before being transferred to a prison in the Midlands. He is likely to be released on Monday.

Mrs May ordered a full investigation into how he was able to enter the country despite being on a 'no-fly' list. Theresa May ordered a full investigation into how he was able to enter the country despite being on a 'no-fly' list

Jewish groups reacted with outrage to his arrival. He is accused of making a string of extremist statements, but denies he is anti-Semitic. Among comments attributed to him are those casting doubt on Osama Bin Laden's culpability for 9/11, suggesting instead the attacks were an Israeli plot and that Jews were warned not to go to work at the World Trade Center on that day. He is also said to have accused Jewish people of using children's blood to bake bread.

SOURCE



16 July, 2011

Australia applies a tough test of written English to would-be immigrants

THE Federal Court has seized on the use of English language tests by immigration authorities as potentially unfair.

In a decision this month involving an Indian-born graduate from the University of New England, Justice Nye Perram said the court had noticed something puzzling in a number of cases.

There was "a disjunct between the apparent ability of [former overseas students] in skilled migration visa appeals to conduct their own cases in fluent English, on the one hand, and the operation of the [International English Language Testing System] test which deemed them not able to speak competent English at all, on the other".

Justice Perram began his judgment by recalling the 1934 attempt to deport the communist Egon Kisch by setting him a dictation test in Scottish Gaelic, a device used to apply the White Australia Policy.

"Experiences such as these have led to a natural caution in the legal mind about the use of language tests in an immigration setting," the judge said. However, he conceded that today's immigration authorities had a legitimate concern about English proficiency and said IELTS was not "a discreet tool for the implementation of concealed policies".

To make sure the legal issues were properly argued, the Indian graduate, Dushyant Manilal Parmar, was given a court-appointed barrister, Kellie Edwards.

Mr Parmar had taken more than 10 IELTS tests but could not get the score needed for a skilled migration visa. His challenge to the visa refusal failed and Justice Perram said the court could not set itself up as an arbiter of English proficiency. "It is all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because a person appears to speak English with reasonable fluency that their reading and writing skills are necessarily of the same order," he said.

In a separate challenge rejected the same day, Justice Perram expressed sympathy for the litigant, Sardar Khan Ghori, another Indian-born graduate of UNE.

Mr Ghori had taken the IELTS test five times but had not managed to get the reading and writing scores needed for his skilled graduate visa.

Justice Perram expressed a "natural sympathy" for him, especially given "the fact that his English appears to have been sufficient to obtain a Masters of Information Systems with Honours from [UNE in 2008]".

Mr Ghori had wanted time to sit another IELTS test.

In a third case last December, Justice Robert Buchanan had no choice in law but to reject an appeal by an Egyptian-born man, Moemen Rady Abdelnaeim Mohamad, who had Australian qualifications in commercial cookery, tourism, hospitality and business.

Mr Mohamad had taken 18 IELTS tests. For his visa he needed a score of at least five in each of the speaking, listening, reading and writing components.

He had attained that score in each component -- but never in the one test.

Justice Buchanan said there was a very real possibility "that the test result process yields a false result in the case of the appellant, due to his inability to cope well with an examination environment.

"The possibility of practical injustice was revealed starkly at the hearing of this appeal. "The appellant appeared for himself, without the aid of an interpreter. He had no difficulty expressing himself and reading from notes. "Were it a matter for me I would have no hesitation in pronouncing him capable of speaking, reading and understanding English to an acceptable everyday level."

In the Parmar case, Ms Edwards said the immigration rules meant that an IELTS test was just one way to prove competent English.

But Justice Perram said the rules clearly made IELTS the only proof of English.

Ms Edwards also argued that the design of the test showed that an overall score of six was enough to show competent English.

(The immigration rules required a score of at least six in each of the four elements of the test: speaking, listening, reading and writing.)

Justice Perram rejected this argument, too, saying the rules made careful use of an internationally accepted test to set up a hierarchy of proficiency in English.

And judges listening to apparently fluent litigants could not substitute their own opinion about proficiency, he said.

Ms Edwards' final argument was that by relying on the IELTS organisation, the government had put decisions about English proficiency beyond the reach of judicial scrutiny but Justice Perram said there was no problem with this arrangement.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship pointed out that it had won the cases and no legal error was found in the decisions under challenge.

SOURCE





World's top asylum spot South Africa plans crackdown

South Africa has set the stage for the mass deportation of more than one million Zimbabwean immigrants later this month in a move that could alter its status as the world's largest country of refuge.

South Africa has been a beacon for asylum seekers due to its liberal immigration laws, proximity to African trouble spots and massive economy compared to the rest of the continent that has attracted millions seeking wealth they cannot find at home.

About one in five of the 845,800 asylum seekers globally in 2010 sought refuge in South Africa, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

That is nearly double the combined figure for the United States and France, the world's number two and three countries in terms of asylum applications.

The bulk of asylum seekers are from neighboring Zimbabwe, which has become an economic basket case under its entrenched leader Robert Mugabe, whose ZANU-PF party has been charged by global powers with using violence and vote fraud to stay in power.

The government said the crackdown on the Zimbabweans is a signal it wants to get tough on those who use asylum applications to seek work and money. "Following this project, our intention is to document nationals of other neighboring countries," said Home Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa.

South Africa allowed hundreds of thousands from Zimbabwe to enter without documents about two years ago when its neighbor was swept up in political violence and its already unsteady economy collapsed under the weight of hyperinflation.

It set an end of 2010 deadline for the Zimbabweans to apply for proper visas -- with 275,000 filling out paperwork -- and said when July ends, it will start deporting what analysts estimate could be one to two million other Zimbabweans without proper documents.

BOTTLENECKS

With few staff and a flood of applicants, it can take Home Affairs months or even years to process applications, allowing immigrants to stay long enough to earn mostly modest sums of money to help their families back home.

"As long as regional economic inequalities remain so stark, South Africa will continue to be a primary (if temporary) destination," said Loren Landau, director of the African Center for Migration and Society at the University the Witwatersrand.

The only problem is that those legitimately seeking political asylum face an uncertain future, waiting longer in South Africa for a decision than in many other countries.

A concern for South Africa is that not only are the number of asylum seekers from neighboring countries growing, but so are the numbers from further afield African states including Somalia, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With unemployment at 25 percent, the government has faced criticism from its poor for allowing immigrants into South Africa, where they compete for scarce jobs and space in shantytowns that have mushroomed in major cities.

Tensions flared about two years ago when attacks on migrants left at least 62 dead and more than 100,000 homeless, rattling the nerves of the government and investors.

The refugees strain public services but many also take on jobs for which there are not enough skilled South Africans, or perform work that South Africans do not want to do. "I would say that the net result is that the benefit equates to or surpasses the burden," said James Chapman, a refugee attorney at the University of Cape Town Law Clinic.

The government, concerned about the influx, is planning to tighten its borders and expel those who stay illegally. "The issue here is not about too many asylum seekers, per se. Rather, it's about a migration management regime that is ill-suited to South Africa's regional position," Landau said.

SOURCE



15 July, 2011

Birthright Citizenship for Children of Diplomats?

New Report Finds 14th Amendment's Limiting Language Has No Practical Effect

The intended scope of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause has been hotly debated in the context of children born to illegal immigrants. While it appears unlikely that the intent of those who authored the 14th Amendment was to ensure automatic citizenship for children born to illegal and temporary immigrants, some argue that the amendment protects such grants of citizenship.

Amid this debate, however, there is one area of solid agreement among advocates on all sides: at the very least, children born here to foreign diplomats are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are therefore not to be granted U.S. citizenship. But even that low standard is not being met according to a new Center for Immigration Studies report.

A lack of direction from Congress has resulted in children born to foreign diplomats on U.S. soil receiving U.S. birth certificates and Social Security numbers (SSNs) – effectively becoming U.S. citizens – despite the limiting language within the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. The report is at

www.cis.org/birthright-citizenship-diplomats

Among the findings:

Despite Congress’s clear intent, the current application of the Citizenship Clause is so lax that the United States has a de facto universal birthright citizenship policy that denies U.S. citizenship by birth to no one.

There is no federal requirement that hospitals ask new parents if they are foreign diplomatic staff. The same birth certificates are issued to all newborns.

The State Department is currently rewriting guidelines on birthright citizenship, signaling a possibly significant departure from current 14th Amendment jurisprudence. The agency claims that children born to foreign diplomats are “entitled to birth certificates.”

The Social Security Administration (SSA) recognizes that children of foreign diplomats are not eligible to receive SSNs, but there is no mechanism to prevent such issuance.

Children of diplomats who receive U.S. birth certificates and SSNs have greater rights and protections than the average U.S. citizen because they can enjoy all of the benefits of U.S. citizenship but also can invoke diplomatic immunity if they break a law. A lack of direction from Congress has created what one might consider a “super citizen” who is above the law.

In order to end the practice of granting automatic U.S. citizenship to children of foreign diplomats, Congress could author regulations requiring declaration of parental diplomatic status on birth certificate request forms. As an alternative, Congress could require parents to have SSNs before a U.S. birth certificate or SSN is issued to a newborn. While this latter proposal might create better results and be more easily administered, it would have the effect of ending automatic birthright citizenship not just for children of diplomats, but also for children of illegal aliens and temporary aliens – an outcome that is more aligned with the intended scope of the 14th Amendment than the outcome created by current practices.

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Jon Feere, (202) 466-8185, jdf@cis.org. The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization




New Reality Emerging on Illegal Immigration

Maybe -- JR

The United States is a country that has been peopled largely by vast surges of migration -- from the British Isles in the 18th century, from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century, from Eastern and Southern Europe in the early 20th century, and from Latin America and Asia in the last three decades.

Going back in history, almost no one predicted that these surges of migration would begin -- and almost no one predicted that they would stop when they did.

Thus when the 1965 Immigration Reform Act was passed, almost no one predicted that we would have massive immigration from Mexico. Experts told us that immigrants came in large numbers only from Europe.

The experts got that wrong. From 1980 to 2008, more than 5 million Mexicans legally entered the United States. And Mexicans account for about 60 percent of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. today.

Immigration policymakers have assumed that the flow of Mexican immigrants would continue indefinitely at this high level. But now evidence is accumulating that this vast surge of migration is ending.

The Pew Hispanic Center, analyzing Census statistics, has estimated that illegal Mexican entrants have been reduced from 525,000 annually in the 2000-04 years to 100,000 in 2010.

"The flow has already stopped," Douglas Massey of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton recently told The New York Times. "The net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative."

One reason is the deep recession and slow economic recovery here in the United States. Tens of thousands of construction jobs, once plentiful in high-immigration states, have disappeared. Foreclosures on mortgages that should never have been granted have been especially high among Hispanics.

State laws, like Arizona's law requiring use of the federal e-Verify system to check on immigration status of new hires, have clearly had some impact. And the cost of crossing the border illegally has sharply increased.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates the 2010 illegal population at 11.2 million, down from the 2007 peak of 12.0 million and just about the same level as in 2005. It's probably lower today.

Even more important, things have changed in Mexico. Its birth rate has fallen from 7 children per woman in 1971 to 3.2 in 1990 and 2 in 2010, barely enough to prevent population loss.

Mexico has finally become a majority middle-class country, former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda argues in his recent book "Manana Forever?" Mexico has more cars and television sets than households now, most Mexicans have credit cards, and there are almost as many cell phones as people.

There has been a boom in higher education, especially in technical schools. The increasing numbers of well-educated Mexicans have no need to go to the United States to live a comfortable and even affluent life. Mexico has grown its way out of poverty.

The historic experience has been that countries cease generating large numbers of immigrants when they reach a certain economic level, as Germany did in the 1880s. Mass migration from Puerto Rico, whose residents are U.S. citizens, ended in the early 1960s, when income levels reached one-third of those on the mainland.

All of which has implications for U.S. immigration policy. It seems clear that tougher enforcement measures, like requiring use of e-Verify, can reduce the number of illegals in the United States. Returning to Mexico is a more attractive alternative than it used to be.

And the desire of legal immigrants to bring in collateral relatives under family reunification provisions is likely to diminish. That means we can shift our immigration quotas to higher-skill immigrants, as recommended by a panel convened by the Brookings Institution and Duke University's Kenan Institute and as done currently by Canada and Australia.

Such a change would be in line with the new situation. Mexican immigrants have tended to be less educated and lower-skill than immigrants from other Latin or Asian countries. Lower Mexican immigration means lower low-skill immigration. Employers of such immigrants may have to adjust their business models.

Probably they are already doing so. But government adjusts more slowly.

Barack Obama has been calling for immigration legislation similar to what George W. Bush sought, legislation geared to a status quo that no longer exists and seems unlikely to return. That's going nowhere. But sooner or later we should adjust the law to address the new emerging reality.

SOURCE



14 July, 2011

Britain is Europe's top destination for permanent migrants

More immigrants settle permanently in Britain than any other country in Europe, a study revealed yesterday. The latest figures showed that 397,900 foreigners decided to live here in 2009 – second in the world only to the U.S.

The figure marked a rise of 14 per cent from the previous year. It was the largest increase in the developed world, at a time when most countries saw dramatic falls in the number of permanent settlers.

The study, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said the increase was largely down to family members coming to stay with those already in Britain, and the large number of foreign students living here.

The study comes just over a week after Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said a generation of Britons would be condemned to a life on benefits unless immigration rules were tightened.

He said back-to-work schemes would fail without strict controls on incomers, and called on firms to employ British-born people rather than rely on migrant labour. Business leaders responded to his plea by saying British workers had a poor work ethic compared with those from abroad.

The OECD report, Trends in International Migration, appears to back up the business leaders’ view. It found Britain is one of the few countries where migrant workers are less likely to end up unemployed than locals.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the think-tank MigrationWatch UK, said last night the figures proved Labour had made Britain a soft touch for immigration.

‘Labour’s loss of control of immigration .... has left us with a situation where our population is growing at the fastest rate for 50 years,’ he said. ‘The pressure on housing, health and education can only be intensified at a time when Labour left no money to deal with the extra demand.’

The OECD report shows Britain is one of the only countries where the level of permanent migration increased in the years after the credit crunch.

The number of permanent migrants here is exceeded only by the U.S., where 1.1million people settled permanently – up 2 per cent on the previous year.

France had only 178,700 new settlers – down 7 per cent – and Germany 197,500, down 13 per cent. In Ireland, the total fell by 42 per cent to 38,900. The number of people settling in Britain has risen by more than 50 per cent since 2003.

The report by the OECD, which represents developed nations, said: ‘Most countries saw declines in permanent migration in 2009, almost half showing falls of 10 per cent or more.’

It said Britain actually saw a fall of more than a quarter in the number of people coming for work, but the total of permanent settlers went up because those who had moved here on temporary visas opted to stay, ‘especially but not exclusively international students’.

It added: ‘This, along with increases in family migration and in movements for other reasons, more than offset what would have otherwise been a demand-induced decline.’

Last night Mr Duncan Smith said: ‘This report confirms that even during the recession, jobs in the UK were going to migrant workers while other countries saw a decline in migrant labour.’

SOURCE





Canada to legislate against people smuggling

CANADIAN Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says it cost twice as much for asylum seekers to travel by boat to Canada as it does to reach Australia, and his country does not want to be the next "doormat".

He called a press conference in response to information from Indonesian police that the asylum boat MV Alicia had been destined for Canada before it was intercepted. The people on board have also displayed signs pleading with New Zealand for help.

The Canadian government would seek to rush through anti-people-smuggling laws "designed to get people to think twice about Canada as the best destination", he said.

"It's more expensive to come to Canada, it requires large steel-hulled vessels as opposed to the small wooden fishing boats, Mr Kenney said.

Australia has been the most common destination for Sri Lankan asylum seekers, but the federal government's change in policy - to hold boat arrivals in limbo on Christmas Island ahead of a planned refugee swap with Malaysia - is claimed to have prompted the latest boat to target New Zealand or Canada instead.

Its 87 Tamil passengers had lived in Malaysia for two years.

Mr Kenney said people-smuggling syndicates often had "open-ended" contracts that did not guarantee a specific destination - and this could account for confusion over whether the boat was destined for New Zealand or Canada.

Only two boats of Sri Lankan asylum seekers have reached Canada since 2009, and none have reached New Zealand, where Prime Minister John Key has also reacted sharply to suggestions the Tamils on the MV Alicia wanted to seek refuge there.

Mr Kenney said Tamil refugees should go to "neighbouring countries" in south-east Asia to seek protection instead of paying for expensive, long journeys across the Pacific to Canada.

He said Canadian police had set up a presence in Asia to work with Indonesia, Thailand and Australia to tackle human smuggling syndicates in the aftermath of the MV Sun Sea arriving in Vancouver in August 2010. The cargo ship, carrying about 400 Tamils, had earlier been turned away by the Australian navy.

SOURCE



13 July, 2011

States' immigration drive held up in the courts

A year ago, immigrant labor activist Salvador Reza thought Arizona's tough state immigration crackdown could empty the work site he ran in north Phoenix.

But 12 months on, after a federal judge blocked key parts of the law, day laborers still line up from dawn to tout for work, occasionally heckled by protesters who want them gone. In short, deadlock. "This is low intensity warfare that's going to go on for years," said Reza.

The stalemate at the sun-baked day labor site in Phoenix is emblematic of the impasse around the country as other states have followed Arizona's lead on immigration, only to be knocked back by the courts.

Parts of Arizona's law -- notably a measure requiring police to quiz those they detained and suspected of being in the country illegally about their immigration status -- were blocked hours before they took effect last July, after a judge ruled that immigration matters are Washington's responsibility.

The wave of judicial rebuttals continued in May, when a federal judge temporarily blocked Arizona-style enforcement provisions in a package of immigration laws passed by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert in March.

Then in June, key parts of tough state crackdowns due to take effect in both Georgia and Indiana on July 1 -- seeking immigration powers for police and other restrictions -- were stayed in temporary injunctions imposed by the courts.

In Alabama, civil rights groups last week filed a challenge to a law widely seen as the nation's toughest, requiring public schools to determine the immigration status of students and punishing employers who hire people who are not legal residents and landlords who knowingly rent property to them.

"It's been kind of one step forward and one step back," said Bruce Merrill, an Arizona State University pollster and political scientist, of the emerging pattern of deadlock. "All it does for me is emphasize the need for true reform at the federal level," he added.

'NO DESIRE FOR COMPROMISE'

The states passed the laws amid frustration at the federal government's failure to overhaul the United States' broken immigration system, tightening security along the porous Mexico border and tackling the status of 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the shadows.

"We promised the people of Alabama we would take action to combat illegal immigration in this state, and that's what this law does," Mike Hubbard, the Republican speaker of the Alabama state House said in a statement last Friday after the state's law was challenged in a suit.

While each court ruling adds to the impasse, any resolution remains far off, analysts say, either in terms of Washington overhauling immigration laws, or the courts reaching a final ruling on the states' measures.

Under pressure as he heads for reelection next year, President Barack Obama reiterated his support for a major immigration shake-up in a key-note speech in El Paso in May, giving millions of illegal immigrants a shot at citizenship if they pay a fine and go to the back of the line.

But while he said his Democratic administration had met Republican concerns over border security -- by boosting the number of federal border police, among other steps -- there is no mood for compromise in the U.S. Congress before he seeks reelection in November next year.

"If you look at the Republican House, it's complete intransigence. There's no desire to look for some realistic compromise reform," said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Texas.

The legal battle in the courts is also likely years from any final resolution.

Arizona has yet to petition the U.S. Supreme Court in its immigration battle, and any resolution of the state's appeal there could be delayed while lower courts thrash out appeals lodged by others states, legal experts say.

"At the moment it seems likely that it's going to take a couple of years before there's a final decision from the Supreme Court," said Gabriel "Jack" Chin, Chester H. Smith Professor of Law at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "I think we are still in the early to middle stage of the legal journey here," he added.

SOURCE






Illegals now targeting New Zealand

Australia just locks up most illegals who arrive by boat

PEOPLE smugglers have attempted to take 85 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on a long voyage from Indonesia to New Zealand, and possibly Canada, in a sign the Gillard government's message that Australia has shut its door to boat arrivals is taking hold.

The New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, was facing his country's own version of the Oceanic Viking standoff yesterday as Sri Lankans holding NZ flags and signs reading "We need New Zealand" refused to disembark when their boat was intercepted by Indonesian authorities near Bintan Island.

The boat was being held at the port of Tanjung Pinang last night. No boat carrying asylum seekers has ever reached New Zealand.

Sri Lankans have typically made up one of the largest groups fleeing to Australia by small wooden boat. But more than 400 asylum seekers are now in limbo on Christmas Island awaiting deportation under the government's planned refugee swap with Malaysia.

Some of the asylum seekers on this boat said they had lived in Malaysia for several years.

Mr Key said intelligence agencies had briefed him there were "indications" the large boat was heading towards New Zealand.

"It's only a matter of time before large steel-hulled vessels capable of navigating their way to New Zealand or Canada, or far away parts of the world, would try and make their way here. It's eminently possible this boat was intending to do that," he said. "Our simple message to them is they're not welcome."

Maps and charts found on the boat had also indicated Canada as a destination, another source said. A cargo ship carrying 500 Sri Lankans reached Canada last August after Australia's freeze on processing refugee applications.

A spokeswoman for the Refugee Council of Australia, Sophie Peer, said: "Given the current situation, coming to Australia is clearly not a first option for people who have engaged people smugglers in Malaysia."

Ms Peer said it was embarrassing to Australia as a Refugee Convention signatory that the Malaysia swap policy was forcing asylum seekers on a "more desperate and longer journey", and this was now affecting a neighbour such as New Zealand. "It's a blight on Australia - we are certainly not burden sharing."

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, said the number of boat arrivals at Christmas Island was down significantly. "We're focused on finalising the Malaysia deal and not claiming any sort of victory - it is early days," he said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was negotiating with the asylum seekers and Indonesia yesterday.

Mr Key said it was unclear what would happen next. NZ accepts 750 humanitarian refugees a year.

SOURCE



12 July, 2011

Alabama immigration law challenged in federal court

The state's new crackdown includes bans on renting to and driving illegal immigrants and requires police to check residency status during arrests or stops if they suspect a person is an immigrant

Alabama's new law cracking down on illegal immigration, widely considered the toughest such law in the nation, was challenged in federal court Friday by opponents who argued that many of its provisions — including bans on knowingly driving illegal immigrants and renting them property — were unconstitutional.

The law signed by Republican Gov. Robert Bentley last month is one of a number of recent bills approved by state lawmakers frustrated by what they say is Washington's failure to address the presence of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Thus far, however, federal courts have temporarily suspended portions of laws in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia, including those sections giving police broader immigration enforcement powers. Courts have blocked a Utah law in its entirety.

Civil rights groups have vowed to sue to stop a similar law signed June 27 by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

At issue is the extent to which states may set immigration policy, traditionally a federal prerogative. Fresh answers may soon come from the U.S. Supreme Court: In May, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said her state would ask the high court to lift a temporary injunction preventing parts of the state's controversial law, known as SB 1070, from taking effect.

The broader immigration issue, meanwhile, continues to roil even those parts of the country where lawmakers have taken a more conciliatory approach. This week in Maryland, a recent law to grant illegal immigrants in-state college tuition breaks was suspended after opponents gathered enough signatures to place the matter before voters in a 2012 referendum.

The Alabama measure requires police, in the course of any arrest or traffic stop, to try to determine a person's residency status, given a "reasonable suspicion" that the person is an immigrant — unless doing so would hinder an investigation.

Friday's lawsuit, whose plaintiffs include unions, individuals, and social service groups, alleges the law would result in racial profiling, subjecting many to "unlawful interrogations, searches, seizures and arrests" — a throwback to "the worst aspects of Alabama's history."

Among other things, the suit argues the law will hinder due process and violate the Constitution's contracts clause by deeming invalid civil contracts knowingly entered into with an illegal immigrant.

One plaintiff, the AIDS Action Coalition, would be barred from "harboring" illegal immigrants in its buildings, taking them to medical appointments, and helping them find rental housing, the suit said.

Another plaintiff, an Alabama-born man named Matt Webster, is in the process of adopting two young orphans who are in the country illegally. He and his wife plan to apply for the boys' citizenship after the adoption goes through. But in the meantime, the suit notes, the new law will make it illegal for him to drive the boys anywhere.

"Lawsuits have been filed in every state that has passed a strong immigration bill," Bentley's spokeswoman, Rebekah Mason, said in a statement. "...Gov. Bentley supports having a strong Immigration law in Alabama."

SOURCE





Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Memorandum: America’s Collection of Quasi-Amnesties

2. Radio: Steven Camarota Debates Immigration Issues on the Diane Rehm Show

3. Radio: Mark Krikorian Discusses the Case of Jose Antonio on NPR

4. Video: Steven Camarota Gives Senate Testimony on DREAM Act

5. Blog: Immigration News: Some Good, Some Bad, Some Really New

6. Blog: State Dept. Policy: No Mexican Left Behind

7. Blog: Napolitano Is Releasing a Border Strategy Tomorrow; Does Anyone Care?

8. Blog: As U.S. Gets More Like Mexico, More Mexicans Stay in Mexico

9. Blog: On Turning E-Verify 'Sprinkles' into 'Icing'

10. Blog: H-1B Cluelessness in the Shadow of Lady Liberty



11 July, 2011

How the BBC's silence on immigration damaged the country

Mark Thompson's confession that the BBC shied away from subjects like immigration shows how an insidious culture of the unsayable took hold under Labour, says Jenny McCartney

It was interesting to hear Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, admit last week that in the past, the corporation “has had limitations. For example, I think there were some years when the BBC, like the rest of the UK media, was very reticent about talking about immigration. There was an anxiety whether you might be playing into a political agenda if you did items on immigration.” In other words, it was quietly believed that even raising the topic meant that the BBC was producing propaganda for British National Party.

What Mr Thompson has admitted – and at least he is honest about it – is that before 2010, our national broadcaster became a hostage to the insidious culture of the unsayable, which established itself across so much of British life during the Labour years, and left a legacy of widespread damage.

I can understand that immigration was a sensitive subject: I have complicated feelings about it myself. On one hand, the steady flow of newcomers has shaped Britain’s character and success for thousands of years. My in-laws are first-generation immigrants from India, who came to Britain in the early 1960s, and in terms of industry and achievement, they and their peers have been a tremendous boon to this country. Frequently, immigrants represent the boldest and best from their homelands, the ones with the courage and drive to struggle towards a better life somewhere else, and carry on grafting when they get there.

But it also seems reasonable that if there is going to be a very sharp rise in immigration in a very short time – as there was under Labour, when just over three million legal immigrants arrived in 13 years – there should at least be an open discussion about how many can be welcomed without flooding the job market and putting an unsustainable strain on health and education systems. Immigrants don’t tend to compete for the jobs of BBC executives. The professional middle classes might well be delighted that they suddenly have a glut of cheap, efficient Polish workmen to choose from. A painter-decorator with a family to support might not.

The topic of immigration today is no longer primarily bound up with racism, but with resources and economics: the views of the children and grandchildren of the Windrush generation are just as varied on the subject as anyone else’s. All of this should have led to a vigorous discussion, on the BBC and elsewhere, which would have helped considerably to detoxify the debate.

Yet for far too long, the corporation simply bottled it, preferring to leave any mention of the i-word to the BNP. As a result, the notion of the “unsayable” was perpetuated, an official omertŕ that let government policy proceed unchallenged – in a chaotic style that even Labour now admits was a mistake – while popular concern mounted.

There were other “unsayables”, too, although in fairness, the BBC tackled at least some. Under Blair, GCSE and A-level results rose annually – bumper exam crops of Stalinist proportions. To question the worth of this, ministers repeatedly suggested, was to malign the hard work of pupils and teachers alike.

But what’s this? David Frost, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said recently that businesses are employing immigrants because they require young people who can “read, write, communicate and have a strong work ethic” and in British-born youths, “too often that’s not the case”. Sir Terry Leahy, the former boss of Tesco, has said that “standards in too many schools are simply not good enough” to prepare children for the world of work. The routine ignoring of another “unsayable” – that paper qualifications are not translating into skills or employability – has let down a generation of children.

Not so long ago, to voice the opinion that there should be a re-examination of immigration policy, that qualifications were ebbing in value, or even that the ideal of the European Union was expensive and unworkable, would be to outrage several bien-pensant orthodoxies at once. Today, they all sound like simple common sense. As the BBC has now realised, difficult topics do not evaporate because one ignores them: the unsayable has a way of becoming the unavoidable.

SOURCE





Why Jose Antonio Vargas Should Leave The U.S.

NPR interviews Mark Krikorian, rather surprisingly. The accusations of bias against them seem to have had some effect


Mark Krikorian heads the Center for Immigration Studies

Mark Krikorian says Jose Antonio Vargas, the journalist who recently came out as an undocumented immigrant in the New York Times Magazine, should go back to the Philippines.

"It's not so much that he's undocumented. It's that he's an illegal immigrant — he had illegal documents," says Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates a "low immigration, high enforcement" immigration policy. "He came here as a child [but] ... he came here with an identity formed as a Filipino. In other words, he came at 12."

Vargas says he was inspired to write his article after the Senate failed to pass the Dream Act, which would have granted amnesty to people younger than 36 who arrived in the United States as children, have lived here for five years or more and are currently attending college or serving in the military.

But Krikorian says legislation like the Dream Act shouldn't apply to people like Vargas — because he arrived in the United States at the age of 12.

"The moral case that you can make for the Dream Act — or something like the Dream Act ... really only applies, it seems to me, to people whose identities have been formed here, who have no memory of any other country, who really are — as some of the advocates sometimes put it — are Americans in all but paperwork," he says.

"This doesn't really cover a lot of the people who would be covered under the current version of the Dream Act, including Mr. Vargas. The man has real abilities and real skills, and he should go home to his country of citizenship, the country he grew up in for most of his childhood."

Providing amnesty to illegal immigrants — even through something like the Dream Act — has two important consequences, Krikorian says.

"[It] encourages further illegal immigration by sending a message that if you keep your head down long enough, eventually you or your children will be able to get legal status. So it serves as a kind of magnet for new illegal immigration," he says. "And the second effect that all amnesties have is that they reward people who broke the law. Now the kids ... wouldn't fit in that description because they were legally incapable of having violated the law, but the adults that are responsible would — and so the two important things that any Dream Act 2.0 would have to deal with would be these questions."

Do We Really Need Immigration?

Krikorian says illegal immigration is only part of the larger immigration problem in the United States.

"Our take on it is really that a modern society has no need for any immigration," he says. "We don't actually need immigration. Our land is settled, we're a post-industrial society, and so ... from our perspective, we need to start from zero — like zero-based budgeting — and then say, 'Are there groups of people whose admission is so compelling that we let them in despite the fact that there's no need for this sort of thing?' "

That group, says Krikorian, would include husbands and wives of current U.S. citizens, a "handful of real Einsteins," and a modest number of refugees who wouldn't have anywhere else to go.

Immigration, he says, has changed since his grandparents came to the United States from Armenia.

"The idea that immigration — which was an important element of the second half of the 19th century in forming who we are as a country now — is somehow essential to our sense of self indefinitely into the future just strikes me as anachronistic and incorrect," he says. "The difference from a hundred years ago isn't really the immigrants — they're really not that different today from my grandparents and yours — but what's different is our country. We've become a middle-aged country, if you will, and we have outgrown mass immigration. It was an important part of our adolescence, just as settling the frontier was, but we've left it behind."

Krikorian says we can think of immigration like a good fat-filled doughnut.

"When you're 11 years old, you eat all of the doughnuts that your parent will let you eat, and they're probably good for you at that point," he says. "When you're 50 years old, you can't eat doughnuts like that anymore. There's nothing wrong with the doughnuts. They're the same doughnuts. But your metabolism has changed. And our body politic's metabolism has changed so that we need to start now looking at what's good for our grandchildren, not what was good for our grandparents."

On how Jose Antonio Vargas should leave the country

"You give people like this something called voluntary return. You have to leave in 90 days or in six months or something like that. So you pack up your things, you resolve your affairs and you can go home. I mean, he's got a skill that's clearly usable in much of the world, including the Philippines. They have large numbers of English-language media. The man has real skills and real abilities, and he ought to use those in his own country."

On when the Dream Act should apply

"The strongest case you can make for something like the Dream Act is for people who prudence suggests we should allow stay because their identities have been formed here. They really are, psychologically speaking, Americans. Because you have to understand that what we're proposing here is an amnesty — in other words, legalizing illegal immigrants at the expense of legal immigrants who did not sneak in or were brought in illegally into the country. And it seems to me that that's a pretty high bar to meet. And it just doesn't seem to me to say that any person involved here has certain skills and they'll be able to earn a living and distinguish themselves — that just seems to me not enough of a rationale."

SOURCE

Media Mutters is enraged that NPR gave Krikorian a platform



10 July, 2011

Border Patrol agents prosecuted to appease Mexico

Another Border Patrol agent on the southwest border is facing a long prison sentence for doing his job. Isn't it amazing how this happens only on the southwest border and never the Canadian border?

Veteran agent Jesus Diaz faces a sentence of five to 25 years in federal prison for "mistreating" an illegal alien who was apprehended crossing the border near Eagle Pass, Texas, in 2008. The man was handcuffed, and allegedly, Diaz lifted his handcuffs to force him to the ground because he was not cooperative. For this "offense" Diaz was prosecuted by U.S. attorney for the West Texas region, Johnny Sutton, and convicted and will be sentenced in September.

Diaz's "victim," who was carrying a backpack with 50 pounds of marijuana at the time, was subsequently given a visa and is free to enter and leave the U.S. any time he chooses.

We remember U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton as the prosecutor in the Ramos and Compean case. Border Patrol officers Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos went to prison and later had their sentences commuted by President Bush in January 2009. The "victim" in their case, a well-known smuggler named Oswaldo Aldrete-Davila, also got a visa but – surprise! – was later arrested and convicted for drug smuggling.

Concerned about the impact of illegal aliens on the United States? Don't miss Tom Tancredo's book, "In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security" -- now just $9.95!

These two Border Patrol prosecutions have more in common than the eternal vigilance of Johnny Sutton. In these cases and many others, the U.S. attorney's office was responding to protests from the Mexican government that its citizens were being mistreated by Border Patrol agents.

In 2008 the U.S. attorney's office in southern Arizona declined to prosecute a Border Patrol agent after he accidentally killed an illegal alien who was in a group of four he was trying to subdue a hundred yards from the border fence near Naco, Ariz. But in this instance, the local Cochise County attorney decided to prosecute the agent under state law after the Mexican government protested the lack of action against the agent. He was prosecuted twice, but when both juries ended in deadlock, the government gave up trying to put him in prison. The family of the Mexican national who had been killed then sued the Border Patrol agent for damages in civil court.

In San Diego last month, an illegal alien was shot by a Border Patrol agent in self-defense after a group of illegal aliens came at him with cement blocks that had nails embedded in them. The man who was shot had a long criminal history and had been deported twice, yet the Mexican government is demanding prosecution of the Border Patrol officer involved.

In Texas this week, a "Mexican citizen" was executed for the brutal murder of a teenage girl he had met at a party. He confessed his crime, was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection. In the last weeks before the scheduled July 7 execution, President Obama got involved and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to order Texas to delay the execution. Why? Because the man had not been advised before trial that under a U.S. treaty with Mexico, as a citizen of Mexico he had a right to ask for assistance from the Mexican government. He confessed his crime and had a fair trial in every respect, but the government of Mexico was offended.

In response to the Mexican protests, Obama asked the Supreme Court to delay the execution so Congress can have time to pass a law ordering Texas to give the man a new trial. You heard that right: Obama asked the court to rule on the basis of a law that had not yet been enacted – and may never be enacted. Five justices of the court ignored Obama, as did the state of Texas. Two cheers for Texas!

Why do we see this acute sensitivity to the wishes and interests of the corrupt government of Mexico in matters of U.S. criminal law and U.S. border security? This is almost laughable, but to the 20,400 officers of the Border Patrol, it is more than a nuisance. It is a threat held over their heads daily. Rock-throwing incidents and other physical assaults on Border Patrol officers have increased dramatically in recent years.

It is a well-established fact that the Mexican military and Mexican law enforcement at both the state and local levels is thoroughly penetrated by the drug cartels – yet the Border Patrol and the sheriffs of border counties are required to "collaborate" and cooperate with Mexican agencies.

About 1,000 illegal aliens are apprehended on a typical day on the southwest border. In each Border Patrol station, as these trespassers are processed for "voluntary removal," the nearest Mexican consulate must be called and allowed to interview the illegal interlopers to determine if any person was mistreated. To the Border Patrol agent walking the line, this is a recipe for manufacturing allegations of misconduct.

The government of Mexico should focus its efforts on getting its own house in order. After that has been accomplished, and after they stop encouraging and facilitating "northward migration," we might be interested in their opinions on the American criminal justice system.

SOURCE





Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Senate Testimony: The DREAM Act

2. Video: Stephen Steinlight Speaks to Rotary Club

3. Blog: Today, as in 1950: Keeping Wages at Rock Bottom

4. Blog: Addicted to Illegal Labor

5. Blog: H-1B Applicants: Purer than Ivory Soap?

6. Blog: Immigration Common Sense North of the Border

7. Blog: Immigration Footnotes to Non-Immigration Stories, Like that of Strauss-Kahn

8. Blog: Roundup of Developments in Nonimmigrant Worker Programs

9. Blog: E-Verify Bills: Legislative Perspective

10. Blog: Tucson Weekly Wants Answers on Arizona Wildfires

11. Blog: The Road To IRCA, June 1986

12. Blog: The Progress of Refugees: How are we doing?

13. Blog: That’s Alright, That’s OK, We’ll E-Verify Anyway

14. Blog: Secretive USCIS Agency Rejects H-1B Petitioner over Secrecy Issue

15. Blog: ICE’s Mission Melt 5: Another No Confidence Vote for Morton

16. Blog: Soccer as Immigration Litmus Test

17. Blog: With Payroll Taxes and Migrants it is Still -- ‘Ems That Has, Gits



9 July, 2011

Illogic in immigration

Victor Davis Hanson:

Recently, in symbolic fashion, spectators of Mexican ancestry in Pasadena's Rose Bowl did not merely cheer on the Mexican national soccer team in a game against the U.S. national team -- such nostalgia is natural and understandable for recent immigrants -- but went further and jeered U.S. players and references to the United States.

Which was the home team? Was the United States to be appreciated for accepting poor immigrants, or resented for not granting them amnesty? Is the idea of the United States to be conveniently booed or opportunistically thanked -- depending on whether you are watching a soccer match or, for example, entering an Los Angeles emergency room with a life-threatening injury?

This otherwise insignificant but Orwellian incident reminds us that illegal immigration in the 21st century is becoming an illiberal enterprise. Consider the prevailing myth of Mexico as the United States' "partner."

Aside from the violence and drug cartels, an alien from Mars who examined the relationship would characterize it as abusive. Close to a million Mexican nationals annually try to cross illegally into the U.S., aided and abetted by cash-strapped Mexico -- in a fashion the latter never would permit on its southern border with Guatemala.

If Guatemala had published an illustrated comic book instructing its presumed illiterate emigrants how to enter Mexico illegally -- as Mexico did -- the Mexican government would have been outraged.

So is the surreal logic of Mexico City summed up by something like, "We value our own people so much that we will help them break laws to go elsewhere"?

In the immigration narrative of the 1960s and 1970s, affluent, profit-minded white U.S. employers exploited cheap workers from Mexico. But that matrix is often superseded. So-called whites are no longer a majority in California, where large Asian and black populations often object to illegal arrivals from Mexico who cut in front of the legal immigration line or tax social services and raise costs to the detriment of U.S. citizens.

Even the notions of "white" and "Latino" are becoming problematic in today's intermarried and interracial society. Does one-quarter or one-half an ethnic ancestry make one a member of the "minority" or "majority" community?

For hiring or college admission, should we apply one-drop rules from the Old Confederacy to measure our racial purity? Poverty is no longer so clearly delineated either. In an underground economy where wages are often in cash and tax-free, and entitlements easier than ever to obtain, far more than $20 billion a year in remittances are sent southward to Mexico, and maybe double that sum to Latin America as a whole.

Something here again has proven illiberal: Does a liberal-sounding but exploitative Mexican government cynically encourage its expatriates to scrimp and save in the United States only to send huge sums of money home to help poor relatives, so Mexico City might not?

In turn, do an increasing number of illegal immigrants count on help from the U.S. taxpayer for food, housing, legal and education subsidies to free up $20 billion to send home?

The paradoxes and confusion never end. Do today's immigration activists work to grant amnesty on the basis of legal philosophy and principled support for open borders, or just because of shared ethnic identity? If there were 11 million East Africans here illegally, would today's Latino immigration lobbyists seek amnesty, bilingual services in Swahili, and more illegal immigration from Kenya and Uganda? Would they seek racially blind legal immigration into the United States, based on education and skills rather than point of origin?

The yearly arrival of hundreds of thousands from Latin America, mostly without English-language skills, a high-school diploma and legality, has challenged old ideas of everything from the assessment of U.S. poverty rates to affirmative action.

Once an impoverished resident of Oaxaca crosses the border, does his lack of education and his modest income help cement the charge the U.S. Latino population has not achieved economic parity? Or, in the nanosecond after illegally crossing the border, does a Mexican national or his family in theory become eligible for affirmative action, on the basis of historical underrepresentation or present-day discrimination or poor treatment in Mexico -- in a way not extended to the Arab-American or Punjabi-American citizen?

Why does the present administration oppose anti-illegal immigration laws in Arizona and Georgia that are designed to enhance existing federal law, but not "sanctuary city" statutes that in some municipalities deliberately contravene federal law?

The old liberal ideal of a racially blind, melting-pot society in which the law is applied equally across the board has descended into the postmodern practice of enforcing many laws selectively -- and based entirely on politics, matters of race, ethnic chauvinism and national origin.

In sum, yesterday's immigration liberals have become today's illiberals.

SOURCE





Moronic British airport security

Prime Minister David Cameron has been warned over a loophole in immigration which could potentially allow terrorists to enter the UK without having their passports checked. The gap in security was noticed by Conservative MP for Harlow, Robert Halfon. He voiced his concerns during Prime Minister’s Questions.

Special branch officers and immigration officials have said that they are worried that extremists could be using the Common Area Travel Channel to slip past security. The way this typically happens is for a passenger to fly into London carrying a separate ticket for travel into the capital from another airport in Britain. This is then shown in the common area where officials rarely ask to see any other form of documentation.

Mr Halfon asked Mr Cameron if he was aware that special branch and immigration at Stansted were worried that the current common area was open to abuse from those entering the UK illegally as well as terrorists and extremists.

He added that the issue urgently needed to be addressed because the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympic games were just around the corner. Mr Cameron described Mr Halfon’s point as an important one. He said that he accepted that common areas were subject to abuse and that steps would be taken to resolve the issue.

Mr Cameron added that passport-free travel offered a number of social and economic benefits and that any tightening up of the rules should not impinge on those who use the Common Area Travel Channel in a legitimate way.

SOURCE



8 July, 2011

Illegal immigrant who pleaded to be deported after jail sentence is still being held in UK after FOUR YEARS

Some prize British bureaucracy

An illegal immigrant jailed for theft begged to leave Britain, but is still being held four years after it was ruled he should be deported.

Raki Munir was detained in January 2007 having served a one-year sentence – but because the Home Office can’t prove his nationality, it can’t send him home. It costs the taxpayer £119 a day to keep him here, or nearly £200,000 over four years, which is more expensive than detaining someone on a life sentence.

Munir, who is being held at Harmondsworth detention centre in London, told The Sun: ‘I want to go home. I have been in six centres the past four years. It is not good for me and not good for the British people.’

Munir arrived in Britain on a false French passport, eventually revealing that he is Palestinian and wants to return to the Middle East. But he has no ID papers, which the UK Border Agency says it needs to send him there.

A spokesman for the agency told MailOnline: 'This individual has been non-compliant in providing us with his true nationality and has looked to frustrate the removals system at every turn

'Detention is a vital part of our immigration system, ensuring that foreign criminals, who pose a threat to public safety and those who are here illegally, are removed from the country.

'We only ever detain someone as a last resort and for no longer than is necessary. However, where they deliberately give false, misleading or incomplete information, they inevitably delay their return and extend their detention. They have to take responsibility for that.'

His case is similar to that of 33-year-old Rashid Ali. He is suing the UK Border Agency for locking him up for five years – even though all he wanted to do was go home to Morocco.

In an extraordinary case that exposes the immigration system to ridicule, Rashid Ali is seeking a six-figure compensation payout after being detained following six attempts to stow away on ships leaving Britain. Although UKBA has spent five years trying to deport him, officers did not want him to be freed from detention in case he escaped Britain illegally.

Now he has gone to the High Court for compensation after being freed on bail from the detention centre – where his stay was costing taxpayers £100 a night.

The Moroccan was given a room in a shared house in Ilford, East London, and food vouchers worth £140 a month pending a court hearing to determine whether he should receive damages. His prolonged detention has already cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds.

SOURCE





Two minutes with Rick Scott on immigration

Asked if Florida should pass an immigration-enforcement law like Georgia’s recently approved H.B. 87, Gov. Rick Scott says the federal government needs to do its job: Secure the border, implement a national immigration policy and create a work visa program that actually works.

Scott tells Hispolitica that if you’re in Florida and you’re stopped by law enforcement, officers should be able to ask for your immigration status. In its latest session, the Florida Legislature failed to pass immigration-enforcement bills that would have allowed local law enforcement to do just that.

Scott adds that immigration reform must be fair and avoid racial profiling, and he comments about his experience using E-Verify, a federal program that allows companies to discover if a job applicant is authorized to work in the U.S. Asked if he supports state and national E-Verify, Scott says we need something that is fair.

One of Rick Scott’s first acts as governor was to sign an executive order requiring that all state agencies — and all companies that enter into contracts with state agencies — use E-Verify to check the employment elligibility of their workers.

Georgia’s H.B. 87, effective July 1, includes provisions that mandate E-Verify; the measure is opposed by the Georgia Farm Bureau. A federal judge this week granted a preliminary injunction against key provisions of the law that would allow police to investigate the immigration status of certain suspects and a measure punishing those who knowingly harbor illegal immigrants.

A federal bill filed by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, would mandate E-Verify nationwide. It is currently moving through the U.S. House of Representative, but has also earned the opposition of many business organizations. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is cosponsoring the Senate version that also calls for mandatory E-Verify.

Scott says he recognizes that Hispanic voters were important for his election and he has made a point to address their issues: education, jobs and housing. But in Florida immigration reform bills have divided GOP legislators, especially South Florida Hispanic Republicans.

SOURCE



7 July, 2011

Competition between illegals and "refugees" in Utah

A culture clash reminiscent of many in American history is surfacing here as Latino immigrants find they have new competition for service-sector jobs.

The clash occurs after an immigrant population gets a firm hold on the lower rungs of the economic ladder and then sees competition from a newer immigrant population.

Today's competition affecting the Latino community comes from refugees, about 1,100 of whom will arrive in Utah during the year, mostly from southeast Asia and Africa. The new arrivals join a population of about 25,000 in Salt Lake County whose journey here began with refugee status.

Reported jitters among the Latino workforce at the Grand America Hotel, for example, has brought to light some of the angst the Latinos have with refugees. Tony Yapias, director of immigrant activist group Proyecto Latino de Utah, said housekeeping workers at the hotel say they are getting letters from Immigration and Customs Enforcement with requests for more documentation about their residency status.

The workers' concern is they won't be able to satisfy requirements of the new federal E-Verify system, which allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States, and they will lose their jobs to refugees.

Neither the hotel nor immigration officials are talking about potential job actions, and the hotel turned down a request to talk about the challenges of managing a workforce of both Hispanic immigrants and refugees from other parts of the world.

Regardless of the hotel involved, the clash is nothing new in American society nor to potential employers who work with both groups. And no hotel wants to be singled out as the focal point of the debate, said Michael Johnson, executive director of the Utah Hotel and Lodging Association.

"I don't know whether any hotels have found a difference between (the two groups) as workers, but I think hotels would, at this point, be likely to hire a refugee and very unlikely to hire somebody who's illegal," Johnson said. "The demographic has changed."

One of the significant differences between the Latino immigrant and refugee populations is that each refugee — placed in Utah with the involvement of international relief organizations and the State Department — arrives here with short-term financial and health benefits, a caseworker and permission to work.

"They have papers. They have Medicaid and everything else," Yapias said of the refugee community. The only government involvement the Latino immigrants have is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said, which is seen as a communitywide threat, not a help. "The only resource (the Latino) has is contact with a friend or a family member."

More HERE





Georgia Prepares to Fight Federal Ruling Blocking Immigration Law

The Georgia state attorney general's office is preparing to file an appeal challenging a federal judge's ruling blocking parts of its immigration law. A spokeswoman for the state attorney general’s office announced that it has filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

The spokeswoman, Lauren Kane, says the official appeal has not yet been filed with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 11th Circuit filing will include a brief that will lay out the state's objections to the ruling. Kane did not specify a date for the appeal.

Federal Judge Thomas Thrash on June 27 granted a request filed by civil liberties groups to block two sections of Georgia House Bill 87 from taking effect until a lawsuit challenging the law's constitutionality has been resolved.

One provision that was blocked authorizes police to check the immigration status of suspects without proper identification.

Other blocked sections authorize authorities to detain undocumented immigrants and penalizes people who knowingly and willingly transport or harbor unauthorized immigrants while committing a crime. Parts of similar measures in Arizona, Utah and Indiana also have been blocked by the courts.

Other parts of the law, passed by the Georgia Legislature this year, took effect Friday, including one that makes it a felony to use false information or documentation when applying for a job.

Another provision creates an immigration review board to investigate complaints about government officials not complying with state laws related to illegal immigration.

More HERE



6 July, 2011

Alabama Deals with Immigration Problems

Alabama has suddenly become the leader in comprehensive immigration reform, passing up Arizona whose laws have had so much news coverage. Passed by large margins in the Alabama State Legislature, this new law covers most areas of abuses by illegal aliens. Like the Arizona law recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Alabama’s law requires employers to verify the legal status of their employees by using the federal government’s E-Verify program. That Arizona law was signed by then-Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, who is now director of the Department of Homeland Security.

E-Verify was created by the federal government for voluntary use. It can now be made mandatory by state law. E-Verify instantly checks workers’ Social Security numbers to make sure they are eligible to work, and is so easy and inexpensive for employers to use that more than 99% of lawful workers receive positive verification within seconds.

Opponents of the Arizona law that made E-Verify mandatory tried to get supremacist judges to knock it out on the argument that it was preempted by federal law. They lost bigtime when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Arizona law is okay as a business license statute, which is an ordinary power of the states and expressly allowed by federal immigration law. The employer doesn’t commit a crime if he fails to use E-Verify, but he could lose his business license, which the state government has the authority to revoke. This law also bars businesses from taking state tax deductions on wages paid to illegal aliens.

Three other states also make E-Verify mandatory. A half-dozen others require the use of E-Verify for state employees or contractors.

SOURCE





Dutch want to throw out migrant Poles who can't find a job

Holland is on a collision course with the EU over a threat to deport Poles and other Eastern Europeans who cannot find work.

Ministers in the Hague also want to withhold migrants’ state benefits if they don’t speak Dutch.

Brussels fears that other countries experiencing an influx of jobseekers from member states might be tempted to copy the Netherlands’ threat, even though such a move would breach EU laws.
Dutch Defence minister Henk Kamp believes that Poles who have not been able to find work for three months should be kicked out of the country

Dutch social affairs minister Henk Kamp has presented proposals to expel Polish and other Eastern European nationals who are without work for three months and have little prospect of finding any. He also plans to withhold welfare benefits from those who have not learned Dutch.

The moves are likely to breach rules protecting freedom of work and movement for people within the EU.

Holland has about 200,000 migrant workers from Eastern Europe. Although this figure is far less than for some other countries – such as the million-plus who have come to Britain since Eastern European accession to the EU in 2004 – the number is growing rapidly.

Poland’s economic affairs minister Waldemar Pawlak called the Dutch plans ‘worrying’, adding: ‘This development is dangerous and could lead to the collapse of the European system of freedom of movement.’

Poland’s European affairs minister Mikolaj Dowgielewicz said there have been ‘robust talks’ with the Netherlands on the proposals.

Poland took over the presidency of the EU last Friday for the next six months.

Europe’s justice commissioner Viviane Reding has warned the Netherlands that it ‘must respect EU rules on the freedom of movement between member states’. If the Netherlands fails to comply with EU legislation, the commission will make its position ‘loud and clear’, she said. ‘All member states are equal and the rules are transparent,’ she added.

All people within the EU have a right to freedom of movement and work as long as they are either working or are self-sufficient in funding.

The accession countries partially enjoyed these rights after 2004, and have fully done so since the end of the ‘transition’ period in May this year.

This means it is likely to be illegal for Holland to carry out the proposals, particularly those which relate to language requirements.

While countries like Britain have rigidly stuck to EU laws and directives, other nations have been less circumspect on doing so, and in many cases go unpunished.

Other than receiving a rebuke from the European Commission, they could eventually be dragged through the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg – which could take many years.

Poland’s ambassador to the Netherlands said recent anti-Polish statements by politicians there ‘border on discrimination’.

There is a growing discontent with labour migrants in the Netherlands, where Poles are accused misusing the social benefit system.

In 2007 there were 20,000 Poles there, now there are close to 200,000, according to figures from the Polish Embassy in the country.

The rise has prompted a number of factories in the Netherlands to use Polish to communicate, with signs written in the language as well as the hiring of Polish managerial staff.

SOURCE



5 July, 2011

Georgia Immigration Law Goes (Mostly) Into Effect Amid Confusion

A federal judge blocked some controversial parts of Georgia's new immigration law, but most of the measure took effect July 1.

A new law targeting undocumented immigrants has gone into effect in Georgia, though some of the most controversial parts are on hold after a federal judge blocked them pending further review of the measure's constitutionality.

At the moment, the law is going into the effect amid a lot of confusion.

State Rep. Debbie Buckner, D-Junction City, said she's gotten a lot of calls from constituents -- including landscapers, roofers and farmers -- who have questions about the new law.

"It's been a confusing law from the beginning for a number of people in my area," she said. "After the ruling, it was like, well, now what does it mean."

Judge Thomas Thrash on Monday granted a request by civil liberties groups to block two sections of the law until a lawsuit they filed challenging its constitutionality can be resolved.

"There is confusion about the law, about the judge's decision and about what is going into effect," said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials.

One of those sections authorizes police to check the immigration status of suspects without proper identification and to detain illegal immigrants. The other creates a state penalty for people who knowingly and willingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants while committing another crime.

The parts of the law that take effect Friday include:

-- A new felony offense with hefty penalties for using false information or documentation when applying for a job;

-- The creation of an immigration review board to investigate complaints about government officials not complying with state laws related to illegal immigration;

-- Fines and possible removal from office for any public official who fails to use federal databases to verify the immigration status of new hires or applicants for public benefits;

-- Instructions for the state Agriculture Department to study the effects of immigration on that sector, to suggest improvements for federal guest worker programs and to study the possibility of a state guest worker program.

Starting Jan. 1:

-- Businesses with 500 or more employees will have to use a federal database called E-Verify to check the immigration status of new hires, a requirement that will be phased in for all businesses with more than 10 employees by July 2013.

-- Applicants for public benefits will have to provide at least one state or federally issued "secure and verifiable" document. The state attorney general must provide a list of such documents by Aug. 1.

The law's main sponsor, Rep. Matt Ramsey, R-Peachtree City, has repeatedly said the requirement for businesses to use E-Verify to weed out those who are ineligible to work in this country is the most important section of the law because a large part of what draws illegal immigrants to the state is jobs.

Buckner said she supports fixing the broken immigration system but fears that the law is too complicated and that small business owners and farmers may be punished for unintentionally violating it. She'd like to see a website or handout provided to let businesses know exactly what their responsibilities are under the new law.

Though there is relief in immigrant communities that two sections of the law were blocked, there is still much concern and uncertainty, Gonzalez said. At a meeting at an Atlanta-area apartment complex Wednesday night, Gonzalez said there was a lot of concern about the new felony offense for using false documents and whether it is safe to interact with police or if people's immigration status will be checked.

The Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and other immigrant outreach groups are organizing a "Day Without Immigrants" Friday to protest the law. They are encouraging immigrants and their supporters to stay home from work and not to buy anything. And on Saturday, opponents of the law plan to rally at the state Capitol to speak out against the new law.

SOURCE






Australia starts punitive immigration measures

Comment from India

After thousands of aspirants managed Australian immigration by making false claims through fake certifications, the department of immigration and citizenship of Australia has now introduced a new 'fraud public interest criterion' (PIC) under which applicants making bogus claims can face a three-year ban.

According to the provisions of Fraud PIC, if an applicant is found to have supplied false, misleading or bogus information or documentation to the department, not only will the application be turned down but the applicant would also face a three-year visa bar. Even the migrating family members included in an application refused under Fraud PIC would also face the three-year bar.

Experts in immigration business revealed that while the provisions would be applicable on applications from anywhere in the world, the Australian authorities have been forced to include such stringent provisions in their immigration rules mainly due to bad experience with applications from north India (read Punjab) as thousands from here managed certificates making false claims about their work experience.

"While other countries also bar applicants for a few years if documents supplied by him/her are found forged or fake, but this is the first time that immigration authorities have included punitive action for a false claim on a genuine document," said Diamond Sodhi, programme director of Caan Wings, an immigration consultant firm.

"Officials from Australia have been expressing anguish and shock at claims made by people from here," she revealed, adding "now this would help check unscrupulous elements." It is learnt that Australian authorities were already subjecting applications for education or professional visa to thorough scrutiny including multilayered verifications from a number of sources.

Notably, even the trend of "paper marriages", whereby marriage exist only in papers for the sake of migrating abroad and actually no such relation exist between the student visa applicant and his/her spouse, started first for Australia. The trend was so rampant and open that even such matrimonial advertisements appeared in big numbers in a number of vernacular newspapers. Then thousands from here flooded Australia while showing their experience as hair dressers or cooks but actually they did not know anything about these professions.

SOURCE



4 July, 2011

ICE Agents Slam Obama Administration's Immigration Policy

Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents' union officials throughout the nation issued a unanimous no confidence vote in that agency's Director John Morton on behalf of ICE officers, agents and employees nationwide citing gross mismanagement within the Agency as well as efforts within ICE to create backdoor amnesty through agency policy. And almost one year later, the law enforcement agents and their union haven't changed their minds.

In a biting June 23, 2011 statement, ICE union leaders say that since the June 10, 2010 no confidence vote was first released, problems within their agency have increased, citing the Director's latest Discretionary Memorandum as just one example.

"Any American concerned about immigration needs to brace themselves for what's coming," said Chris Crane, President of the National ICE Council which represents approximately 7,000 ICE agents, officers and employees, "this is just one of many new ICE policies in queue aimed at stopping the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the United States. Unable to pass its immigration agenda through legislation, the Administration is now implementing it through agency policy."

As with other federal agencies under his command -- such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Labor Relations Board, and other government entities -- President Barack Obama is expected to use agencies he controls and executive orders to bypass having to work with both houses of Congress to pass legislation.

Crane emphasized that agents, officers, employees and the Union had no input in these policies, "ICE and the Administration have excluded our union and our agents from the entire process of developing policies, it was all kept secret from us, we found out from the newspapers. ICE worked hand-in-hand with immigrants' rights groups, but excluded its own officers."

Agents say the policy is a "law enforcement nightmare" developed by the Administration to win votes at the expense of sound and responsible law enforcement policy. "The desires of foreign nationals illegally in the United States were the framework from which these policies were developed," Crane said, "the result is a means for every person here illegally to avoid arrest or detention, as officers we will never know who we can or cannot arrest."

The union says just as concerning is the way policies are implemented at ICE. Agents claim that under Director John Morton the agency always presents written policies for public consumption, but then makes "secret changes" to the policies which ICE refuses to put in writing.

"The Obama administration department heads have made 'bait and switch' practically an art form," said a former federal law enforcement agent. ICE knows the policy changes will create a political outcry, or could place the public or ICE officers at risk.

"Our officers are already under orders not to make arrests or even talk to foreign nationals in most cases unless another agency has already arrested them; you won't find that written in any public ICE policy," alleges Chris Crane.

With regard to the entire idea of prosecutorial discretion, Agents say they will have none. "Tell any ICE agent he or she will have the final say on making an arrest or holding someone in custody and they'll tell you you're crazy, officers will be ordered not to make arrests and failure to comply will result in the end of the agent or officer's career, that's business as usual at ICE.

It's unfortunate but the Administration protects foreign nationals illegally in the U.S. but does nothing for our employees." The Union also alleges that ICE Field Office Directors (FODs) have confided in the Union that when the FODs raised questions about the effectiveness of the new policies ICE Headquarters responded by telling the FODs to turn in their badges and file for retirement.

"I think the writing is on the wall for every person concerned about good government and effective immigration reforms - the things happening at ICE represent neither, said Crane. We are asking everyone to please email or call your Congressman and Senators immediately and ask them to help stop what's happening at ICE, we desperately need your help."

SOURCE






British human rights law to be reviewed

The Home Office is to review a central plank of human rights law in an admission that it is causing serious damage to Britain's border controls.

A consultation paper to be launched within days will open up a debate on the future of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees "the right to a family life".

Article 8 is increasingly being used by foreign criminals and illegal immigrants to dodge deportation.

A highly-placed source told The Sunday Telegraph that the issue would be raised in a paper on immigration to be issued by Home Secretary Theresa May before Parliament breaks up for the summer.

It comes as this newspaper can reveal that a new Article 8 test case has created a "loophole" which could allow thousands of asylum seekers granted the right to stay in Britain under the Government's "back door amnesty" to bring their families to this country.

Last week, a separate court ruling left the Home Office unable to deport more than 200 Somali immigrants, most of them criminals, after judges in Strasbourg decided that sending them home would breach Article 3 of the convention, which bans inhumane treatment.

The serial offender who brought the case has told this newspaper that he is ashamed of his criminal record and wants to find a job and lead a law-abiding life in Britain.

The issue of immigration has also divided the Cabinet, it has emerged. Downing Street has rejected a plan by Mrs May to put a cap on the number of foreign students allowed to work after they finish their studies in Britain, after resistance from Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Michael Gove, the Education Secretary.

The developments make it harder for the Coalition to meet its pledges to tighten border controls and cut immigration, after figures last week showed the UK population was growing at its fastest rate for half a century.

The review of Article 8 will aim to ensure the law is applied in a "more balanced way", the Government source said, after a string of cases in which criminals have escaped being sent back to their homelands by claiming they had the right to a family life in the UK.

They have included a drug dealer from the Caribbean who beat his partner and failed to pay child maintenance, and a Sri Lankan robber whose only claim to "family life" was that he had a girlfriend in Britain.

This newspaper has campaigned for a review of the legislation. It is the first time that the Government has indicated that Article 8 needs to be re-examined, and opens the way towards full reform of the law.

The Government source said that including Article 8 in the forthcoming consultation paper on "family immigration rights" should be taken as a "clear signal" that ministers are alarmed by the current situation.

The source said the Government had listened to this newspaper's concerns about "family life" cases, adding: "We do want to start a debate about Article 8 rights and how they can be expressed in a more balanced way."

Our campaign, launched in April, has called on David Cameron to review the laws that cite Article 8 with a view to removing the family life defence from legislation.

The Government source expressed concern about a new test case ruling in which Article 8 was used by an asylum seeker to win permission to bring her family to Britain.

The woman was one of the 161,000 permitted to stay in Britain under the "legacy" scheme after their files were lost in a Home Office blunder. Critics have called the scheme a back door amnesty.

Like most of the asylum seekers who have benefited from the "legacy" scheme, the woman was not awarded full refugee status, which confers automatic rights to bring dependants to Britain, but instead was given the lesser status of "indefinite leave to remain", which does not.

Officials fear the ruling could open the door to more asylum-seekers to bring their families to Britain.

The senior Government source said: "This is a disturbing development and another example of the courts opening up a new loophole.

"Article 8 rights have always been about when you are in this country. If a single person comes here then claims Article 8 rights for relatives then that does take it further."

The test case centres on a woman who fled the war-torn African country of Burundi in 2003 and claimed asylum in Britain. After a long delay, Peace Musabi's case was considered under the legacy scheme and she was granted indefinite leave to remain.

Now she has won a key victory granting her three children permission to come to Britain on Article 8 grounds.

Last week a similar case was brought by Jeto Titti, a mother-of-three who fled Rwanda in 2002. The judge in her case was still considering the verdict this weekend.

In the latest family rights cases, both mothers presented evidence that they genuinely suffered in their war-torn home countries, but there was no claim that their children are fleeing persecution. It opens the prospect of less-deserving applicants bringing similar cases.

Dominic Raab, the Conservative MP, said: "Yet again, inflated interpretations of the right to family life risk undermining all attempts to bring immigration under control.

"I welcome this recognition that Article 8 is creating a serious problem – the review is an opportunity for the coalition to tackle a problem the last government created."

A spokesman for the Home Office said: "We are going to consult on the family route shortly and look at what requirements we should place on foreign nationals who wish to establish a family life in the UK. This is part of a package of reforms we are putting in place to manage migration.”

SOURCE



3 July, 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn saga exposes lax immigration oversight

Amid the apparently collapsing attempted-rape case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is evidence of yet another refugee scam — this one perpetrated by the hotel maid who has been accusing the former head of the International Monetary Fund.

A national of Guinea, the 32-year-old woman — who continues to remain anonymous as a possible sex-crime victim — received legal asylum in the United States after recounting horrendous stories of her plight in her West African homeland.

Now she’s had to admit that most — if not all — of her claims were not true, according to reports.

The most damning thing she said in terms of disqualifying her as a credible witness in the prosecution of Strauss-Khan, 62, was that Guinean soldiers gang raped her because she and her husband in that country opposed the ruling government.

She told Manhattan prosecutors that she had indeed been raped, but not in that way. She had embellished her story, her lawyer said, in order to boost her asylum application.

Her asylum bid was, in fact, so sophisticated that some unknown collaborator had even given her a tape of the story she should tell. She apparently listened to the tape over and over to learn the story by heart.

The Manhattan prosecutors took but a few interview sessions with her to break her down and have her admit to the ruse — and to having told a multitude of other lies.

Back in 2004, however, gullible refugee processing officials accepted the gang-rape story and gave her papers to stay in the country.

There’s no reason to believe there’s any more scrutiny in Canada, which accepts even more asylum-seekers per population.

As far back as 2001, I revealed that a secret RCMP-assisted United Nations probe determined most individuals or families admitted to Canada from Kenyan refugee camps over the previous six years paid bribes of as much as $7,000 each to local UN staff for help in slipping past the Canadian screening process.

In that case, UN officials were demanding the bribes, while Canadian officials “assumed the UN agency was providing reliable material and approved many of the cases,” sources told me at the time.

Strauss-Kahn’s accuser, once inside the United States, proceeded to dupe even more social-services types, winning the right to remain in subsidized housing by lying about her income, the Manhattan prosecutors uncovered. They learned she also lied on her income tax returns, claiming deductions for two children, when one was the child of a friend.

In one interview with the prosecutors, the woman “threw herself to the floor in response to questions,” the New York Times reported, citing a “well-placed source.”

Which all goes to show, with just a little bit of verbal pressure, this asylum beneficiary could indeed be outed by determined truth seekers. But such types are not, apparently, to be found among the administrators of the asylum process that granted her leave to remain in the United States, or in the oversight mechanism for subsidized housing.

It’s not as if the prosecutors hadn’t given the maid a fair shake. The proof that they listened to her, and initially took her at her word, lies in the fact police were dispatched to arrest Strauss-Kahn at the earliest opportunity after she claimed he’d sexually assaulted her as she tried to clean his luxury suite in Manhattan’s Sofitel hotel May 14.

The police yanked him from a Paris-bound plane at John F. Kennedy Airport within hours of the accusation.

We learned at the time that the police knew of his whereabouts thanks to Strauss-Kahn himself, because the Frenchman called the hotel to say that he’d left behind one of his cellphones, and revealed his location so that a hotel staffer could deliver the device to him.

But the prosecutors were faced with a woman alleging attempted rape, so they’d hardly be swayed by the notion that his calling was inconsistent with that of a man who knows he should be running from the law.

You can bet that high in the prosecutors’ collective mind would also have been the inevitable backlash from women’s activist groups had they let a suspected sex attacker return to France, which does not extradite its nationals.

There would have been immediate comparisons to the debacle over the 1977 sex-with-a-minor case against Franco-Polish film director Roman Polanski, who fled the United States for France in order to avoid sentencing after admitting to having sexually abused a 13-year-old girl.

Indeed, against the backdrop of politically correct dictates, the prosecutors and police appeared to spare Strauss-Kahn no indignity as they shoved him through the booking system.

This was despite the uproar that erupted in France over the way the U.S. authorities subjected him to the infamous “perp walk” — which saw him paraded in front of cameras, wrists cuffed behind his back.

For the French, this was one of their most high-profile personalities: IMF chief when arrested, and a leading Socialist Party contender to challenge French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the country’s next presidential election.

Strauss-Kahn’s arrest led to his having to resign his IMF post, and drop out of the race for the French presidency.

The woman, meanwhile, remains unidentified, while experts say she is unlikely to face perjury charges over her grand jury testimony that led to Strauss-Kahn’s indictment – for fear it will send the wrong message to sex-assault victims.

And yet, there’s no need to feel too sorry for Strauss-Kahn, a married man whose defence in the case was that he did have sex with the maid, but that it was consensual.

The New York Post cites sources Saturday saying that the maid was doubling as a prostitute — raising the question of whether the sex act could have been transactional.

And her lawyer continues to insist that, despite his client’s past “mistakes,” she’s not lying about her encounter with Strauss-Kahn. It was violent, he says.

Still, this was one asylum seeker that should have been stopped in her tracks from the get go. When screeners are ready to bite at any old sob story, the integrity of the entire program is called into question. That can only lead to doors being closed to genuine refugees and asylum-seekers, as the public loses confidence in the bureaucrats’ ability to keep out the scammers.

SOURCE





E-Verify bill hit, defended

Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation to make it mandatory for US employers to electronically verify workers’ legal status as a means of discouraging illegal immigration and preserving jobs for Americans.

House Judiciary Committee chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and 11 other Republicans introduced the so-called E-Verify bill, also known as the Legal Workforce Act, which requires employers to use a Homeland Security Department electronic data base to check the immigration status of newly-hired workers.

The proponents said the measure has a good chance of passing the GOP-controlled House.

At the Senate, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and nine other fellow Republicans have introduced a companion bill, but the fate of the measure passing is probably less certain in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Smith said the proposed measure would make more jobs available to millions of unemployed Americans, who, he said, are being eased out by undocumented immigrants.

“Seven million individuals work illegally in the United States. These jobs should go to legal workers,” Smith said. “And Congress has the opportunity to make sure this happens.”

He said E-Verify, an electronic employment eligibility verification system available free online, allows employers to quickly identify those working illegally in the United States.

Requiring its compulsory use by all employers would weed out illegal workers and open up more jobs for Americans and legal immigrants, Smith added.

The US Chamber of Commerce threw its support behind the bill but said it is only one component of immigration policy that needs to be addressed by “balancing many competing interests.”

“While some concerns and technical issues may arise as the bill is subject to hearings and line-by-line analysis, this legislation represents a legitimate balancing of many competing interests. We hope to continue to work with Chairman Smith to resolve any impediments to passage as the legislation moves forward,” said Randy Johnson, vice president of the chamber.

“The chamber believes a workable employment verification system addresses only one part of our nation’s dysfunctional immigration system in need of reform,” Johnson added. “It is our hope that Congress can also move legislation concerning other aspects of immigration reform, recognizing that compromises will be necessary.”

But opponents of the bill warned the bill, if passed, would have disastrous impact on local industries, especially those in agriculture, and do more harm than good to the US economy.

Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-California) said that by requiring all employers to use E-Verify, the bill grows the government and adds tens of billions to the burden already shouldered by taxpayers.

The San Jose lawmaker stressed that the system “does not even work half of the time and could shrink the economy, decimate at least one industry, and destroy millions of jobs.”

Lofgren pointed out that since 2005, every serious proposal to “fix our broken immigration laws” has included an electronic system as a means of ensuring those legally allowed to work make it to the American workforce.

“Some now want to move E-Verify on its own … Without other reforms to fix the entire system, mandatory E-Verify would cause tremendous damage to our economy and kill American jobs,” Lofgren said.

According to supporters of E-Verify, the system — which is already mandatory in such states as Arizona, Alabama and Georgia — is simple, convenient and free.

Numbers USA, an organization that espouses cutting back present levels of immigration, said that the use of E-Verify is the smart thing to do for any employer now, even while the bill is pending.

“An employer who uses the pilot in good faith cannot be held liable for hiring an illegal alien — use of the system is an affirmative defense — or for discrimination because he never has to ask the candidate for more or different documents since the computer does all of the checking,” the group explained in its website.

Moreover, mandatory use of E-Verify (formerly Basic Pilot Program) ensures that all U.S. businesses operate on a level playing field, Numbers USA said.

Detractors argued that E-Verify “is good only on paper and that its full implementation would do more harm” to Americans — unless it becomes part of a broader, comprehensive measure to address the immigration system.

According to those opposed to the bill, the E-Verify system is imperfect and the accuracy cited by Smith could be misleading because it refers only to verification of workers with legitimate documents. For instance, the system fails to verify undocumented workers half of the time because many of them use valid documents belonging to other people, critics said.

SOURCE



2 July, 2011

Immigration Row Engulfs U.K. Minister, Ian Duncan Smith

I am afraid that I agree with British business rather than IDS on this. I think most Australians would. Because of the huge and constant flow of people between the two countries, Australians know Britons very well and the slangy Australian verdict on Brits is that "they wouldn't work in an iron lung". That expression probably makes sense to Australians only but what it means is that Brits are seen as usually lazy and workshy. And their useless public educational system doesn't help either. So I would tend to hire a foreigner in preference to a Brit too. I think it's only immigrants and private school graduates who keep Britain going -- JR

U.K. business organizations have fiercely criticized a senior government minister for telling them to employ more British people rather than hiring "labor from abroad."

In a speech Friday at the Spanish Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies in Madrid, Mr. Duncan Smith said if the immigration system wasn't more strictly controlled, increasing number of U.K. citizens would be left out of work, in particular young people.

Mr. Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said the government is doing its bit to control immigration by placing an overall limit on the number of non-European Union workers allowed into the country each year, but that British businesses also needed to help.

A former leader of the Conservative Party, Mr. Duncan Smith risks inflaming tensions with coalition partners the Liberal Democrats over immigration policy—a subject which has been one of the most contentious areas for the one-year-old government.

He said in his speech: "As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labor market we need businesses to give them a chance, and not just fall back on labor from abroad. "If Government and business pull together on this, I believe we can finally start to give our young people a chance."

Under EU law it is illegal for the government or employers to discriminate against workers from EU countries.

David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said businesses in the U.K. need to have a highly skilled workforce, and for many firms that means employing migrants. "Highly skilled foreign workers are important to our economy, and it is vital that they are allowed to enter the country so businesses can hire the workers they need."

He said many young Britons lack the basic skills needed in the workplace—such as reading, writing and communication. "Getting more young people into work in this country doesn't rely upon stemming the flow of skilled migrants coming to the U.K.," he added.

Neil Carberry, director for employment at the Confederation of British Industry, said employers should be able to choose the best person for the job, and that the challenge for the government was to ensure more young Britons were in a position to be the best candidate.

The pro-business Conservatives have to balance private sector demands for open markets with party promises to clamp down on immigration after a decade of record new arrivals caused increased complaints by voters.

Mr. Duncan Smith, who is considered on the right wing of the party, said that coming out of the last economic down turn in the early 1990s, employers looked abroad as they struggled to fill jobs at home and have yet to get out of the habit.

Youth unemployment is an issue that has dogged successive U.K. government. However, the problem has become acute since the recession with one-in- five people in the 16-to-24 age group unemployed. In comparison, the overall unemployment rate in the U.K. is 7.7%.

The government has attempted to tackle the problem by promoting apprenticeships and internships for young people but to date its policies have had limited impact.

Further fueling the immigration debate are figures from Labour lawmaker Frank Field showing that 87% of the 400,000 new jobs created during the coalition government's first year in office went to immigrants.

Liberal Democrat lawmakers, in particular Business Secretary Vince Cable, have previously sided with business groups to argue that changes to immigration policy could hurt British competitiveness.

A row over immigration policy erupted within the coalition in April after Cable publicly criticized Prime Minister David Cameron's comments about mass immigration as being "very unwise".

SOURCE





Australia enforces new, tighter immigration rules which will affect Indians, among others

Australia has a substantial population of industrious people from the subcontinent already. They greatly improve the restaurant scene but are not as prominent in retailing as they are in Britain. Note: I have tidied up some Indian English below -- JR

Australia's new immigration rules that focus on higher qualification and advance English language skills as requirements for those wanting to migrate to Australia, came into effect today.

The new rules, according to Australian officials, aim to pick up the "best and the brightest" from the pool of applicants, and have been criticised by Indian groups.

The Australian government announced changes to its independent skilled migration points test, introducing the new immigration points system to put more emphasis on work experience and high-level educational qualifications with higher English language proficiency.

"These changes to the points test are an important next step in the series of reforms to the skilled migration programme announced by the Government in February this year," Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said. "The reforms set the foundations for a skilled migration programme that will be responsive to our economic needs and continue to serve Australia's interests in the medium to long term," he added.

However, the new programme has been criticised by the Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria (FIAV) which said the level of English proficiency is like an "iron curtain" being imposed on immigration to Australia.

IAV president Vasan Srinivasan said the organisation sympathises with the government's need to attract to Australia migrants with good English speaking skills but the requirement that is appropriate for skilled professionals such as doctors and accountants, should not be required for other less professional occupations.

The new points test will only affect skilled independent immigration and not employer-sponsored immigration.

Srinivasan said to address the skills shortage of the economy the government should allow persons skilled to do the work and understand the language with only the level of language competency required to understand directions given by their employers.

Anything more than that is merely another barrier to "legitimate migrants", Srinivasan, who also heads National Council of Indian Australians (NCIA) said. "We need skilled individuals who can contribute due to their skills and who have functional English language skills! Then adopt such a policy and stop shifting the level," he said.

The Australian government introduced the points test in the selection process whereby the applicants applying for migration are awarded points for the skills and attributes considered to be needed in Australia.

As of today, the test is said to focus on better English levels, more extensive skilled employment, higher level qualifications obtained in Australia and overseas and better targeted age ranges.

SOURCE



1 July, 2011

Top Tory calls for tougher British border controls

IAIN Duncan Smith will today lay bare the growing Coalition rift over immigration by launching an outspoken attack on Lib Dem attempts to block tougher border controls.

In a stark plea to David Cameron not to break the Tory promise to bring immigration under control, the Work and Pensions Secretary is expected to warn that any failure to reduce the number of newcomers settling in Britain every year will wreck his drive to overhaul the welfare benefits system.

He will also rubbish suggestions that tough immigration controls could lead to a skills shortage in the UK as a “red herring”.
And he will make clear that controlling immigration is part of the Government’s “contract with the British people”.

His remarks are bound to be seen as a sharp riposte to arguments from Business Secretary Vince Cable and other Lib Dems against tightening border controls.

And they come after the Prime Minister recently admitted that being in a Coalition with the Lib Dems was preventing him from being more “radical” in tackling immigration.

Mr Duncan Smith will make clear his concerns about the direction of the Coalition’s immigration policy in a speech to a think-tank in Madrid today. He will say: “If we do not get this right then we risk leaving more British citizens out of work, and the most vulnerable group who will be the most affected are young people.”

Mr Duncan Smith will argue that the huge influx of migrants under Labour led to a boom in cheap labour that undercut British-born workers. As a result, the number of UK-born people living on welfare handouts spiralled. The Work and Pensions Secretary will warn that continuing high levels of immigration could leave millions on benefits for life.

“We have to ensure that our immigration system works in the interests of Britain, enabling us to make a realistic promise to our young school leavers,” he will tell the Foundation for Social Studies and Analysis in Madrid, a think tank close to Spain’s centre-right Popular Party.

“It is part of our contract with the British people. This Government is reforming welfare to make work pay, and to help people back to work.”

SOURCE





UK population growing at fastest rate for 50 years

The UK population is growing at its fastest rate for half a century driven by immigration and an imminent new baby boom.

Almost half a million people were added to the UK population last year – the highest level since 1962 and the start of the last baby boom, figures revealed yesterday. New migrants accounted for almost half the increase while the number of births hit a 20 year high.

However, the increase in children was also partly down to a rise in migrant mothers meaning immigration had both a direct and indirect impact on population growth, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

The trend means enough people to fill the city of Manchester were added to the country last year and, if it that rate continues, the population will hit the 70 million mark by 2026.

The growing figures are a fresh headache for the Government which has pledged to slash immigration. Ministers were last night warned they must “get a grip” on immigration because there is no money to fund the extra pressure on public services.

The UK population grew by 470,000 to 62.3 million in the 12 months to June last year, representing a rise of 0.8 per cent on the previous year. That was both the highest rise and largest growth rate since 1962, the ONS said. It also means the population is growing at four times the rate of the 1980s when it averaged just 0.2 per cent a year.

Almost half the growth was due to a 230,000 net immigration, the difference between those moving to and those leaving the UK, over that period. The other major driver was so-called natural change, the difference between births and deaths, which added an extra 234,000 people to the country.

The total number of births for the year was 797,000, the highest since 1991, and around one in four of those were to non-UK born mothers. The ONS report added: “Past migration has contributed to the increase in natural change through its impact on births.”

Immigration also helped the number of women aged between 15 and 44, which incorporates those of child bearing age, increase by 200,000 to 12.5 million between 2002 and last year.

However, the report stressed that the rise in births is also being driven by older mothers who had put off having children to pursue careers and are now “catching up”.

The rising net migration is a blow to David Cameron who has pledged to bring it down to the “tens of thousands” by 2015. A report released by Oxford University's Migration Observatory last week said it is thought they will only achieve half the desired effect at best.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: “The evidence is mounting that the Government must take urgent steps top get a grip on immigration which is a major factor in this growth. “Otherwise, there will be immense extra pressure on public services for which there is simply no money.”

Damian Green, the immigration minister, said: "This is yet more evidence of the impact that a decade of uncontrolled migration has had on the UK. "We are in the process of fixing the immigration system we inherited to ensure that any migration-related population growth is sustainable and brings benefits to the UK. "Net migration has been too high but the controls and reforms we are introducing will bring it back down to the tens of thousands."

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.