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March 31, 2012

Immigrants ordered deported may be released in US

The case of a Vietnamese ex-con accused of brutally slaying five people in a San Francisco home has shed harsh light on Supreme Court rulings that have allowed the release of thousands of criminal immigrants into U.S. communities because their own countries refused to take them back.

After Binh Thai Luc, 35, spent years behind bars in San Quentin for an armed robbery, an immigration judge ordered him deported six years ago. Instead, he resumed his old life in a quiet San Francisco neighborhood because his native Vietnam never provided the travel documents required for his return.

While Luc's case is a particularly striking one, it is far from uncommon. From 2009 through the spring of last year, records show about 8,740 immigrants were ordered to leave the country after serving time in prison, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials let them go because their native countries wouldn't take them back by the time they had to be released from an immigration jail.

Two Supreme Court rulings have established that immigrants who have committed a broad range of criminal offenses can't be locked up in detention indefinitely while they await deportation, and should be released after 180 days unless they are likely to be deported soon. If the government decides they pose a terrorist threat or deem they are especially dangerous, such as sex offenders, some provisions allow for them to be held for a longer period.

ICE put a new immigration hold on Luc this week, and officials said the agency was following the law when they released him after the Vietnamese government ignored their request for his travel documents. The country is one of the slowest in the world to respond to the U.S. government's paperwork requests.

Now, as the investigation into the gruesome San Francisco homicides continues, the political debate over the legal standards that allow criminal immigrants to remain on U.S. soil if their own countries refuse them is flaring again, as it did following a few other high-profile murders at the hands of immigrant ex-felons lingering in the country.

"It is a tragedy that five Americans lost their lives because a dangerous criminal immigrant could not be deported to his home country," said Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, who is sponsoring a bill that would challenge the high court's rulings by expanding the pool of immigrants who could be detained for more than six months, perhaps indefinitely, if they can't be repatriated. "Dangerous criminal immigrants need to be detained."

It is "a public safety problem" to release anyone who has committed a violent crime, countered Ahilan Arulanantham, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "But the Constitution doesn't give the government to power to lock people up forever, regardless of their citizenship."

Gary Mead, ICE's executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, testified before Congress in May that he anticipated more than 4,000 immigrant former felons would be released into the community in fiscal year 2011 because their native countries did not cooperate.

ICE statistics provided to Smith's office show 1,012 immigrants with criminal records had been released by April of last year, in addition to 3,882 released in 2010 and 3,847 in 2009. ICE would not provide details about the nature of their criminal offenses, the timing of their previous convictions, or whether they ever were removed. About 4,040 immigrants without criminal records also were released during that time because their home countries would not cooperate.

"Every alien's removal requires not only cooperation within the U.S. government but also the cooperation of another country," Mead testified in May.

Luc's native Vietnam is one of about 20 countries that is slow to cooperate, if it does at all, according to ICE. While Cambodia is least cooperative, the agency said Vietnam was the second-slowest country, taking an average of 218 days to respond to paperwork requests.

International relations also come into play. Citizens of Cuba, which doesn't have diplomatic relations with the U.S., represent about 40 percent of all the criminal immigrants released after serving time, the ICE statistics show. About one of every eight was Vietnamese.

Iran, Laos and Pakistan also "are generally uncooperative," the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General wrote in a recent report.

The high court's rulings make things difficult for ICE officials. Government auditors, however, have raised concerns about whether ICE is doing enough to monitor immigrants who have served prison terms and been released.

In 2007, the inspector general said ICE needed to do more to ensure that dangerous foreign nationals were removed, or that their release was adequately supervised.

In 2008, Cuban national Abel Arango was released after serving time in prison for armed robbery, because the Cuban government would not take him back. He went on to fatally shoot Ft. Myers, Florida police officer Andrew Widman.

Following Luc's arrest Sunday, ICE officials revealed this week that he originally entered the U.S. legally in October 1989 as the child of intending immigrants. But an immigration judge ordered Luc's deportation in 2006, after he served eight years in prison for armed robbery and assault.

Court records show Luc was arrested in two armed robberies of a Chinese restaurant and a clothing wholesaler in San Jose and was convicted in 1996 of second-degree robbery and assault with a firearm.

While holding up the clothing business, Luc said in Chinese with a Hong Kong dialect: "I have a gun, if you move I will kill you," according to the victim's statement to police. He then pistol-whipped the man in the head during a struggle.

After his sentence was up, Luc was shipped to an ICE detention facility in Eloy, Ariz., but was sent back home to San Francisco six months later when the Vietnamese government failed to respond. He was initially required to check in with ICE every month but later was allowed to check in every six months since he was complying with his release requirements. ICE officials said he told the agency he planned to live with relatives and look for work as a cable installer.

San Francisco police still have not revealed the circumstances surrounding the recent slayings, only saying they believe that Luc allegedly targeted the family who lived in the home in the city's Ingleside District.

They have not laid out connections between Luc and the victims, 32-year-old Yuan Ji "Vincent" Lei; his parents Hua Shun Lei, 65, and Wan Yi Xi, 62; his sister Ying Xue Lei, 37; and his girlfriend Chia Huei Chu, 30.

The Vietnamese Embassy did not return multiple messages seeking comment.

Texas Republican Rep. Ted Poe recently filed a bill to block diplomatic visas from being issued to people from countries that deny or delay their citizens' return.

"Why are we issuing visas to anybody from Vietnam until they take back their criminals?" said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration controls.

Still, the ACLU said current congressional proposals would risk creating a scenario where immigrants with a broader range of prior convictions, as well as permanent residents and asylum seekers, could be held indefinitely.

"We live in a world of due process where we don't try to predict in advance, for the most part, which people will commit crimes and lock them up forever," Arulanantham said. "If we did, that would be a frightening world to live in, and would go against our basic notions of liberty."

SOURCE






Government of Canada Transforms Economic Immigration Program

To create a fast and flexible immigration system that creates jobs and promotes Canada's long term prosperity, the Government of Canada will eliminate the backlog in the main federal economic immigration program.

"The Federal Skilled Worker Program backlog is a major roadblock to Canada's ability to respond to rapidly changing labour market needs," said Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney. "Having to process applications that are as many as eight years out of date reduces our ability to focus on new applicants with skills and talents that our economy needs today."

As announced in Economic Action Plan 2012, Citizenship and Immigration Canada is planning to refund fees and return stale applications from nearly all those applicants who applied under the dated criteria in existence before February 27, 2008.

CIC is transforming its suite of economic immigration programs to create a just-in-time system that recruits people with the right skills to meet Canada's labour market needs, fast tracks their immigration, and gets them working in a period of months, not years. Eliminating the longstanding backlog of FSW applications will allow the Department to focus resources on facilitating the arrival of skilled immigrants who apply under the current eligibility criteria.

Under proposed legislation, CIC will close the files of FSW applicants who applied before February 27, 2008, and for whom an immigration officer has not made a decision based on selection criteria by March 29, 2012. This is expected to affect around 280,000 applicants, including their dependants. CIC will begin the process of returning the full amount of fees paid to the Department by these affected FSW applicants. For those who have passed the selection criteria stage - approximately 20,000 people - CIC will continue processing their applications until they are approved for entry into Canada or not.

Over the last decade, the number of FSW applications received has greatly exceeded the space available within the Immigration Levels Plan each year, resulting in long processing times and an increasing inventory. Under the 2008 Action Plan for Faster Immigration, CIC began to limit intake to priority occupations. The Department added caps to the number of new applications in 2010. As a result of these efforts, CIC has reduced the pre-2008 backlog by more than 50 percent, and the overall FSW inventory by over 25 percent. However, without further action, some FSW applicants might have to wait until 2017 for a decision.

"It's unreasonable to keep applicants waiting for another five years," said Minister Kenney. "It's also a far cry from the nimble and responsive immigration system Canada needs to remain a destination of choice."

SOURCE



March 30, 2012

'Studying' in Britain – one big immigration scam

Incredible news – a London college ranked as "highly trusted" by the UK Border Agency has been accused of helping foreign students cheat the immigration system.

According to Sky News: "The investigation discovered that diploma certificates and dissertations were for sale inside the London College of Business in Barking. It is also revealed that some 159,000 people are thought to be in Britain despite their student visas having expired, and that just 2,700 students have been removed since 2009.

Whatever the allegations involving this particular college, it has been well known for some time that the foreign student system is a scam.

Look at the figures: the number of students arriving in Britain increased sharply during the Labour years, with the International Passenger Survey, which records the main reason for migration, showing that the number arriving for study increased from 87,000 in 2001 to 175,000 in 2006-2007 and up to 209,000 the following year. This leapt to 273,000 in 2008-9 and, once one includes students student visitors and dependants, the figure for 2009 is 489,000, up 100,000 on the previous year.

Why the leap? Because the Government that year introduced PBS Tier 4, which was either designed with total incompetence or was yet another one of New Labour’s bright ideas for shifting immigration away from areas where it would be unpopular and scrutinised, to areas where it was still imagined to be beneficial.

The new rules required that anyone studying for more than six months possess 40 points: 30 points are awarded for possessing a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) issued by the sponsoring college and ten points are given for maintenance.

Finding a college is not difficult since Britain is dotted with “business schools” which offer courses of dubious worth and whose main source of income is immigration.

So as long as a school, however crumby, will accept you, and you can prove you have £800 per month for six months, you can come and study here. You can work, in theory for only 20 hours a week, but in reality who can know? After two years you can work full-time, legally, assuming you can get a job that pays £20,000 a year. You can also bring in dependants, who can also work without restrictions (if you studied at degree level, however awful the university).

In the first year of operating Tier 4, the number of student visas rose by a third, and over two-thirds of these came from the Middle East or South Asia, those regions which are considered the biggest risk for overstaying.

The system is a scam; it is, in effect, a legal way for someone to pay their way into Britain. Legalised people trafficking.

And the working restrictions are unenforceable. Britain is a free country and the state can’t, and shouldn’t, spy on its residents; the whole benefit of having a strong, properly enforced border is that you don’t need to. And yet it is isn’t – only one-third of colleges have been checked by immigration officials before they were allowed to accredit students.

Education has become an unofficial way to buy entry into Britain because it is less unpopular with the public than other routes, such as asylum. There is still a popular misconception that the people coming are studying maths at Cambridge, when in fact it is widely abused. The higher education establishment has been complicit in this scam, vocally opposing any restrictions because some of the weaker universities now depend on fee-paying immigrants.

Anyone wishing to study in the United States, Canada and Australia must first have a face-to-face interview by an immigration official, yet this does not deter the supply of physics students to Harvard. Why can’t Britain do the same?"

SOURCE




Many Bay Area deportation cases will be dropped in June

The federal government will begin closing hundreds of Bay Area deportation cases in June, allowing some illegal immigrants a partial reprieve if they have strong community ties and have not committed crimes, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by the Bay Area News Group.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review this summer will suspend the daily schedule of the San Francisco immigration court, one of the busiest in the nation, to allow a team of federal judges and attorneys to scour the entire caseload for low-priority deportation cases to drop.

Among those who will benefit from the court review are students brought to the United States illegally at a young age who are otherwise upstanding residents. While their deportation cases will be halted, the reprieve does not give them legal residency or citizenship and authorities have the ability to seek their deportation later.

Following up on a 6-week pilot program in Baltimore and Denver, immigration authorities will begin rolling out the program at immigration courts across the country.

Of more than 10,000 cases reviewed in the pilot program, judges dropped about 16 percent of the Denver cases and about 10 percent of the Baltimore cases.

Judges will be reassigned to hear detained dockets and Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys will devote the added time to review backlogged cases, dropping low-level cases and pursuing those they consider more serious.

The program will begin April 23 in Detroit, New Orleans, Orlando and Seattle. It will move to New York City in May, San Francisco in June and Los Angeles in July, according to the statement.
The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee criticized the move Thursday.

"The Obama administration's decision to expand its backdoor amnesty plan to cities across the United States endangers Americans and insults law enforcement officials," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, in a prepared statement.

The Obama administration has deported record numbers of people -- nearly 400,000 last year -- but the number of deportation proceedings began to decline late last year.

Deportation filings dropped by a third in the last quarter of 2011 from the same time in 2010, according to records obtained by Syracuse-based Transactions Records Access Clearinghouse.

The public records researchers believe that the "substantial drop" resulted, in part, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton's June 2011 directive ordering his agents to use more discretion in whom they choose to deport.
The Obama administration also announced in August that it would review all 300,000 pending deportation cases to target criminals, public safety dangers and egregious violators of immigration law.

SOURCE



March 29, 2012

Terrorist Sleepers?

Vast Inflows of Middle East Immigrants, Visitors May Put U.S. at Risk

The possibility of an attack on Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program, and the Iranian retaliation such an attack might prompt, again highlight the potential national security consequences of a sustained period of mass immigration.

A new Center for Immigration Studies report examines recent admissions of immigrants and temporary visitors from selected countries from the broader Middle East whose citizens could be involved in Iranian attacks on domestic targets in the United States, including Iran, its neighbors, and other countries with Shia populations. It finds a disconnect between current immigration policies and national security needs. While a number of important security-oriented improvements have been made to our screening systems, the sheer volume of the annual inflow of visitors and permanent residents has created a “haystack” so large as to overwhelm even the most sophisticated pre- or post-admissions screening or targeted enforcement programs.

The report is online here. Key findings include:

 *   In just a single year, 2010, the U.S. admitted more than 300,000 visitors and immigrants from 16 selected countries. These individuals were admitted as non-immigrant visitors, refugees, asylees, or permanent residents.

*    Nearly 58,000 of these were admitted as permanent residents. The vast majority of permanent admissions from high-risk countries were on the basis of marriage to a U.S. citizen or as a refugee or asylee. Both of these categories are notorious for high fraud rates.

 &   Over the last decade, well over 2.5 million people were admitted from these high-risk countries, with the largest numbers coming from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Iran. These numbers have been trending up over the last decade.

*    These numbers suggest a shift away from the mindset that a more restrictive admissions policy and consistently robust immigration law enforcement is a necessary component of national security.

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. Contacts: W.D. Reasoner, wdr@cis.org Bryan Griffith, press@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





Canadian Immigration minister plans reforms to foreign credential recognition

In an effort to address issues surrounding foreign credential recognition, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has proposed a plan to assess skilled workers before they arrive in Canada.

For instance, immigrants applying to come to Canada as federal skilled workers would have their education credentials verified by a third party.

If adopted, the plan would give newcomers a sense of how their credentials stack up against someone with a similar Canadian education. It's also expected any new policy would screen out those who don't have adequate levels of education.

Kenney ultimately hopes it will address the problem of immigrants arriving in Canada only to discover they can't work in their respective field.

"Our government is building an immigration system that is focused on economic growth and ensuring that all Canadians, including immigrants are able to contribute to their maximum capacity," Kenney said Wednesday. "By having their foreign education credentials assessed before their arrival to Canada, foreign skilled workers will have a better sense of how their credentials fit into the Canadian labour market and will be able to contribute their full skill set to the economy more quickly."

The pre-arrival assessment does not guarantee the applicant will find work in Canada commensurate with their skills, nor does it guarantee they'd become licensed in their field.

That would require a more in-depth assessment by a professional regulatory body in the jurisdiction in which they intend to settle.

SOURCE



March 28, 2012

Student visa fiasco as its revealed one in six handed out by Britian  goes to a worker

A flawed immigration crackdown may have allowed up to 50,000 bogus students into Britain, a damning report reveals.

The National Audit Office estimates that around one in six of student visas granted went to workers whose intention was to take jobs.

It found that predictable failings in Labour’s points-based system meant the number of student visas issued went up by a third in its first year.

The public spending watchdog also criticised the UK Border Agency for failing to remove from the country an estimated 160,000 migrants whose visas have expired.

It is the latest blow to the reputation of UKBA. Last year it was disclosed that border checks were downgraded without ministers’ approval.

And a report last month revealed 500,000 passengers were allowed into Britain on Eurostar trains without checks against the database of known terrorists and criminals. 

Today’s report exposes how Tier 4 of the points system, which covered higher and further education students from outside the EU, was introduced in 2009 despite major flaws.

It reveals only one third of colleges had been checked by immigration officials before they were allowed to accredit students. And officials were stripped of their powers to turn away suspected bogus students at the borders before proper checks on document applications were in place.

That meant they were often powerless to turn away students who they believed had no intention of studying and were simply here to work.

In the first year of operating Tier 4, the number of student visas issued rose by a third from 235,615 to 313,320.

The NAO estimates that between 40,000 and 50,000 of those – up to one in six – were applicants intending to work rather than study.    

The report finds students whose visas have expired are regarded as a ‘low priority’ by the agency compared to illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers.  As a result, very little action is taken to kick them out. Since 2009 just 2,700 students have been removed.

The report quotes UKBA figures showing around 159,000 people  are thought to be in Britain despite their visas having expired, including tens of thousands of Tier 4 students.

To test how hard it was to find  them, the NAO hired a private  contractor which in just a week discovered addresses for nearly one in five of 800 individuals.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said: ‘This is one of the  most shocking reports of poor management leading to abuse that I have seen.  ‘It is completely unacceptable that the programme was launched without key controls being in place.

‘The agency has done little to stop students overstaying their visas. And it is extremely worrying that the agency does not know how many people with expired student visas are still in the country.’

Former Border Agency chief Lin Homer, recently appointed to a senior role within HM Revenue and Customs, is likely to face a grilling by the committee in coming months.

The Home Office said it disputed the 40,000 to 50,000 figure.

Immigration Minister Damian Green added: ‘This government has introduced radical reforms in order to stamp out abuse and restore order to the uncontrolled student visa  system we inherited.’

SOURCE






Republicans Craft more realistic Version of DREAM Act

The Democrat version had virtually no enforcement provisions so there are big areas for improvement

 Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate are preparing a watered-down version of the DREAM Act to legalize undocumented students as a type of "lure" to capture the Hispanic vote in November.

Although no details of the prospective bill have filtered out, Sen. Marco Rubio is working along with other Republican on an "alternative version" of the DREAM Act, which became stalled in the Senate in 2010.

Rubio told the daily The Hill that for now there is nothing new to announce but that his goal is to arrive at a "responsible" solution to the presence of undocumented immigrants in the United States and announce it "quickly."

In remarks to Efe, a spokesman for Rubio, Alex Burgos, said Tuesday that the Florida senator "wants to help these young people and do it in a more limited way than the DREAM Act would do." "He will continue working with his colleagues to achieve a bipartisan solution," Burgos added.

Rubio said in a March 1 interview with Efe that he is maintaining his commitment to achieving a bipartisan solution to illegal immigration.

Among the possible ideas he is weighing, he said at that time, is creating "a student visa so that they can stay to finish their studies until they can apply legally."

Without citing any names, Rubio also complained that some politicians, instead of conducting a bipartisan dialogue, are only seeking to use the problem of undocumented immigrants "as a political weapon in November."

Citing Senate sources, The Hill said that the proposal, negotiated in secret, will be announced after Mitt Romney secures the Republican president nomination.   It would be, The Hill says, a bill from which both parties would benefit: undocumented students would regularize their immigration status and Republicans would have something tangible to show the Hispanic electorate in November.

Romney, who continues to have a sizable advantage over his rivals in both money and organization, opposes immigration reform that allows the regularization of all undocumented immigrants in the United States, whose numbers are calculated to be more than 11 million.  In January, however, Romney suggested that he would support the legalization of undocumented students who serve in the U.S. military.

In any case, the Republicans are now seeking - as a bloc - to resuscitate measures to provide immigration relief for undocumented foreigners in the midst of an election year and this is raising suspicions both among pro-reform groups and Democrats.

SOURCE



March 27, 2012

The Fremont (NE) Battleground

Appeals have been filed on both sides following last month’s summary judgment on Fremont’s illegal immigration ordinance. The City of Fremont filed a cross appeal after the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund appealed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals last week.

U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp upheld parts of Ordinance 5165 and struck down other parts in a declaratory judgment on Feb. 20.

Smith Camp issued a permanent injunction and declared void provisions prohibiting the harboring of illegal aliens, providing for the revocation of occupancy licenses and penalties following the revocation of occupancy licenses. Smith Camp wrote those provisions are preempted by the Immigration and Nationality Act and violate the Fair Housing Act.

The rest of the ordinance, however, was upheld, including portions authorizing the city to issue occupancy licenses. The Fremont City Council voted on Feb. 28 to enact employment portions requiring the use of E-Verify, and to continue delaying the rest of the ordinance until legal challenges have been settled.

Amy A. Miller, ACLU Nebraska legal director, announced in a Feb. 28 letter to the city council that the ACLU would appeal Smith Camp’s decision, “because we remain convinced that the entire ordinance is an illegal use of city power.”

The ACLU and MALDEF each appealed Smith Camp’s decision to uphold portions of the ordinance allowing the city to issue occupancy licenses.

The ACLU is also challenging whether Smith Camp’s decision to deny plaintiffs’ claims that the ordinance exceeds the city’s municipal authority, and her ruling that parts of the ordinance found to be invalid are severable from other parts of the ordinance.

The city, in its cross appeal, takes issue with Smith Camp’s ruling holding that parts of Ordinance 5165 are preempted by federal law and violate the Fair Housing Act.

Attorney Kris Kobach of Kansas City, Kansas, who wrote the ordinance and is defending it on behalf of the city, also questions whether plaintiffs have standing to claims in the case.

SOURCE





Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Panel: The Summer Work Travel Program The $100 Million Work Travel Industry (Video and Transcript)

2. An Unintended Trifecta EB-3: Is the Worst of the Foreign Worker Programs (Memorandum)

3. Brushbacks, Proxies, and Connecting the Dots: Our Immigration Policies Still Put Us at Risk in a Post-9/11 World (Memorandum)

4. Visas for Sale (Op-ed)

5. New DHS Estimates Confirm that Illegal Immigrant Population Stopped Declining Under Obama (Blog)

6. Rethinking TPS for the Syrians: Let's Make It a Freeze, Not a Bonanza (Blog)

7. Sadly Laughable and Laughably Sad: ICE Plans for Improving Employee Morale (Blog)

8. State Department's OIG Rips the Summer Work Travel Program (Blog)

9. New York State's 'Dream Act': 'Good Character' Equals No Violent Felony Conviction (Blog)

10. Medieval Farm Labor Practice OK'd by USCIS (Blog)

11. The Homeland Security Show with Janice Kephart - Premiere Show (Blog)

12. New York State's 'Dream Act': Committing Most Crimes Is No Barrier (Blog)

13. New York State's 'Dream Act': An Ongoing Incentive for More Illegal Immigration (Blog)

14. Suggestions for a Term to Replace 'Illegal Immigrant' (Blog)

15. Less Profit, More Oversight Needed for Exchange Sponsors (Blog)

16. New York State's 'Dream Act' for 'Children': Bait & Switch (Blog)

17. Unfortunate Precedent — the Uruguayan ID Card for Its Illegals (Blog)

18. New York State's 'Dream Act': An Unnecessary Bill (Blog)

19. An Unintended Burst of Governmental Honesty? (Blog)

20. What Will It Take to Get Congress to Clean Up the H-1B Program? (Blog)



March 26, 2012

Farmers Branch to fight on

Local officials in a Dallas suburb say they plan to continue pushing for a ban on undocumented immigrants renting property within the city limits -- a measure that has cost the city $5 million and remains unenforceable due to court challenges.

The fight has pushed Farmers Branch, a quiet collection of bedroom communities and office parks, into the national debate about illegal immigration. Local Latinos say it also has made U.S. citizens and immigrants feel unwelcome in the city, where the Latino population has fallen in recent years.

City officials and law backers argue that undocumented immigrants strain local schools and police resources. They also note that local voters supported an early version of the law five years ago by a 2-to-1 margin.

"We're trying to solve a problem that people perceive to have," Mayor Jack Glancy told The Associated Press. "If the (federal) government would do what it's supposed to do, we wouldn't be in the middle of this thing."

The city council must now decide whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or push for a hearing before the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel last week upheld a lower court's ruling blocking the law.

Farmers Branch's city council, which has never included a Latino, has in recent years declared English to be the city's official language and resisted efforts to shift voting from an at-large system, which Latinos complain dilutes their voice. The council first passed a renters' ban in 2006, but replaced it two years later on the advice of its attorneys.

The new law would require all renters to obtain a city license and the city's building inspector to check the status of any applicant who wasn't a U.S. citizen. Undocumented immigrants would be denied a renters' permit, and landlords who knowingly allowed them to stay could have their renters' license barred.

A federal judge put that law on hold after landlords and renters sued the city, and courts have continued to block it — most recently on Wednesday by the 5th Circuit. Similar bans pushed in other cities, most notably Fremont, Neb., and Hazleton, Pa., are in the middle of similar court fights.

A judge recently allowed Fremont to require renters to obtain a permit but stopped the city from revoking the permits if renters were found to be illegal immigrants.

Hazleton's law, which would sanction business owners for employing illegal immigrants and property owners for renting to them, also is on hold. But backers will get a new hearing because the Supreme Court last year, citing its decision in another case, vacated a federal appeals court's ruling against the law.

Kris Kobach, a national advocate for tougher immigration laws and Kansas' secretary of state, has represented Farmers Branch in court and said the city would have a good chance if it continues its case. He noted that much of the legal work has been done, so costs shouldn't grow much.

Latino civil rights group MALDEF, which is helping fight the Farmers Branch law, said backers of such laws should give up.

"The federal courts have made clear that cities cannot make their own immigration laws and target residents for expulsion simply because of their race or nationality," Nina Perales, MALDEF's vice president of litigation, said in a statement.

Despite rallies and heated protests at the time, Ben Robinson, a Farmers Branch councilman, points to the 2007 referendum that showed strong support for the law. "As far as I know, they still feel that way," he said.

Glancy emphasized that the city is targeting undocumented immigrants, not documented immigrants or U.S. citizens, noting that the city's library hosts English classes. Thursday's class drew 50 people from all over the world — Cambodia, Germany and several Latin American countries — who sounded out nouns and verbs with the help of local volunteers.

The mayor also said that since the law was first passed, the number of car accidents involving uninsured drivers has declined and fewer students have moved in and out of local schools.

Statistics from the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district, which includes parts of Farmers Branch and surrounding cities, show the percentage of "mobile" students has fallen, though district spokeswoman Angela Shelley said the school does not keep track of students' immigration status.

A message seeking comment from local police about Glancy's uninsured drivers claim wasn't returned.

"Something needed to be done," Glancy said. "The federal government wasn't doing it. People were frustrated, and we're the ones closest to the people."

Elizabeth Villafranca sees things differently. Villafranca owns a local Mexican restaurant and moved to Farmers Branch after the push to ban undocumented immigrant residents began. She ran and lost for city council.

Villafranca said she and other U.S.-born Latinos, along with legal immigrants, are more often pulled over by police or threatened by other residents. Though the law never went into effect, Villafranca said, supporters "had the effect they wanted."

Longtime resident Jack Viveros, a financial planner, said friends and neighbors started asking questions about his background in recent years.

"It's still a dividing factor," Viveros said. "It has divided the city dramatically."

The city has an annual budget of $77 million and has to cut salaries and benefits in recent years, making the $4.5 million spent on immigration-related lawsuits stand out.

Robinson, the longtime councilman, called the legal fees "outrageous" but said he supported continuing the case.

"I think the only way that we're ever going to have a proper handle on, and control over, illegal immigration in this country is by the states and the cities having the types of laws ... necessary to control illegal immigration," he said.

SOURCE




Georgia still on the warpath against illegals

A bill making its way through the Georgia Legislature could prevent illegal immigrants from being able to get a marriage license or access to water and sewage service in the state.

The bill sponsored by Sen. Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville, has gotten a lot of attention because it would also bar illegal immigrants from the state's public colleges, universities and technical schools. But another provision that's generated very little discussion removes foreign passports from a list of identification documents that government agencies can accept for certain transactions. To be acceptable, foreign passports would have to be accompanied by federal immigration documentation proving someone is in the country legally.

"It's very interesting that the reliability of foreign passports is being questioned by the Georgia Legislature when the Transportation and Security Administration has considered the passport to be a very secure form of ID," said Azadeh Shahshahani, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. "I think my worry is that perhaps some legislators might not be aware of the implications of this because it seems so innocuous. It doesn't say on its face that undocumented immigrants can't get water or can't marry."

Loudermilk said the possibility of preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining marriage licenses and access to water and sewer was not intentional. He added that an amendment was likely that would remedy that.

Versions of the bill have cleared the state Senate and a House committee. If the full House passes it, the Senate would have to approve changes made by the House before the session ends Thursday.

Under last year's law cracking down on illegal immigration, the state attorney general's office was charged with creating a list of "secure and verifiable" documents that government agencies could accept if they require identification for an official purpose. The list was released last summer and includes a U.S. passport, U.S. military identification card and a U.S. driver's license, among other documents. It also includes foreign passports, the only document on the list that illegal immigrants would be able to obtain.

By removing foreign passports from the list, the new bill would technically prevent illegal immigrants from getting a marriage license in Georgia or from accessing water and sewage service in the many municipalities that require identification to turn on service. That's because illegal immigrants wouldn't have the extra paperwork needed to prove not only that they have a passport, but that they are in the country legally.

However, it's possible illegal immigrants may not face much of a hurdle if local authorities don't bring their policies in line with the list of accepted documents. In many instances, local authorities still accept documents that aren't on the list approved by the attorney general.

A survey by The Associated Press of the websites or staff of probate courts in Georgia's 25 most populous counties shows at least 21 currently accept a birth certificate or a foreign driver's license as acceptable identification for those seeking a marriage license. Neither of those documents is on the attorney general's list.

Unlike other utilities, which are generally managed by private companies in Georgia, water and sewage services are provided by local government agencies. Calls to water and sewage authorities in some parts of the state found that some currently accept foreign driver's licenses, which is not acceptable under the current law.

Technically, an agency could be penalized under the law for accepting documents not on the attorney general's list. But penalties are unlikely, as long as any problems that spark complaints are quickly rectified.

The author of last year's illegal immigration crackdown, Rep. Matt Ramsey, said he believes all public agencies should comply with last year's law and should accept only identification documents on the attorney general's list. But the Peachtree City Republican added that he believes a U.S. birth certificate, though not a foreign one, should qualify as a "secure and verifiable" document. The attorney general's office has the power to add documents to the list.

SOURCE



March 25, 2012

Britain plans major immigration crackdown

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is planning a major immigration crackdown on tens of thousands of people who "abuse" family visas to settle in Britain, according to a leaked cabinet letter.

The letter from Mrs May to Nick Clegg, which has been seen by The Sunday Telegraph, proposes a tough new minimum income of £25,700 a year for anyone seeking to bring a spouse, partner or dependant to the UK from outside the European Union from June - almost double the current threshold of £13,700.

The minimum income would rise dramatically - up to £62,600 - if children are also brought in.

Mrs May also wants a longer probationary period of five years before spouses and partners can apply to live permanently in Britain, and a higher level of English to be required.

The proposals could cut the number of immigrants allowed in by 15,000 a year - a significant step towards the Government's aim of reducing "net" migration to 100,000 people each year.

However, they are expected to fought hard by Mr Clegg and other Liberal Democrat ministers, escalating still further the tensions between the two Coalition partners that have risen dramatically since last week's controversial Budget.

The leaked letter suggests that Mrs May is determined to take a tough stance on immigration. In the 12 months until June 2011 the "net" figure for arrivals in Britain was 250,000 - making it virtually impossible for David Cameron to hit his target of bringing the figure down below 100,000 by 2015. The figure was just 5,000 short of the previous record.

The Home Secretary tells Mr Clegg that outline plans for a reduction in numbers who come to Britain through the "family route" won "broad public support" in the coalition's consultation last year.

In 2010, some 48,900 visas were issued under this category. The majority of those who come to settle in Britain using this method are women from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

Mrs May adds: "The package which I propose to implement from June 2012 will reduce the burdens on the taxpayer, promote integration and tackle abuse."

The Home Secretary also refers in the latter, dated 14 March, to a need to "differentiate between genuine and non-genuine relationships" - a clear sign that ministers believe many of the marriages entered into under the current system are sham.

She tells Mr Clegg: "In particular I propose a minimum income threshold of £25,700 for a British citizen or person settled in the UK to sponsor the settlement of a spouse or partner of non-EEA [European Economic Area] nationality."

For a partner with one child, the income threshold would rise to £37,000 a year, for two to £49,300 and for three children it would hit £62,600 according to the letter.

The "probationary period" before which spouses cannot apply to live permanently in Britain would lengthen from two to five years under the proposals while the "level of English required to achieve settlement" would be raised.

Grandparents and other "non-EEA adult dependants" would only be allowed in under the "most exceptional circumstances" - as current rules already require.

Mr Clegg, who received the letter as chairman of the Cabinet's home affairs sub committee, is likely to push for a much lower minimum income threshold.

Liberal Democrats take a much "softer" line on immigration - and a key plank of their manifesto at the 2010 general election was an amnesty for all illegal immigrants already in Britain.

Relations between the coalition parties hit a new low in the wake of the Budget, whose preparations saw the Lib Dems publicly call for a number of their key policies, in defiance of the usual secrecy surrounding negotiations.

Tory ministers blame their Lib Dem counterparts for a series of leaks of major proposals - with the ill-feeling rising in major departments across Whitehall.

The migration cap was part of the Conservative manifesto and is in the Coalition agreement, which sets out what the current Government will do before a 2015 General Election.

However ministers are powerless to cut migration from European Union member states because of rules on freedom of movement, meaning that they must make large cuts in the number of people arriving from outside the EU.

Last year's consultation pointed the way towards the planned shake-up of the "family route" to settling in Britain.

There is concern not just over the numbers, but the impact "family route" migration has on social cohesion, and in particular on the education system.

Last week figures released by the Department for Education showed that children with English as their home language were now the minority of pupils in more than 1,600 schools across England.

One in six primary school pupils - 547,000 - does not have English as a first language, with the figure for secondary schools one in eight, or 400,000.

Punjabi is the most frequently spoken language among pupils without English as a first language, followed by Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Somali, Polish, Arabic, Portuguese, Turkish and Tamil.

The proposed £25,700 minimum income threshold is at the upper end of the scale recommended by the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) last year.

Ministers asked the committee to recommend an increase in the current threshold - equivalent to £13,700 a year before tax - which would prevent the entry of those who could be considered a burden on taxpayers.

The committee, which is the government's main advisory body on immigration, said the figure should be between £18,600 and £25,700.

SOURCE





Children who speak English as their main language at home are now in the MINORITY in 1,600 schools across Britain

The number of children who count English as their mother tongue are now in the minority at more than 1,600 schools across England.

The new figures show that close to one million children who now attend schools in England do not have English as their first language at home - with the multicultural effects of migration now showing in the nation's classrooms.

And the amount of schools with a majority of pupils who do not class English at their home language is steadily increasing by one a week.

There are 97 schools where children with English as their first language are in such a minority that they make up less than one in twenty pupils.

The statistics released by the Department of Education shows that in 1997, when Tony Blair first came to power, there were 866 schools in England where more than 50 per cent of the pupils had English as a second language. Last year that figure had nearly doubled in just 14 years to 1,638 schools.

Now there are 1,363 primary schools, 224 secondary schools and 51 special schools where more than half the pupils come from a non-English speaking background. One in six youngsters in primary schools - 547,000 - do not have English as their first language.

In secondary schools the figure stands at 400,000 - just over one in eight.

A recent study found that Punjabi was the most frequently spoken language among pupils who did not have English as a first language. After that the most popular languages were Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Somali, Polish, Arabic, Portuguese, Turkish and Tamil.

But schools also have to cope with sizable populations of pupils who speak Shqip from Albania and Kosovo, Igbo from parts of Nigeria, Luganda from Uganda, Sinhala from Sri Lanka and Amharic from Ethiopia.

In the 14 boroughs that comprise Inner London, there are 98,000 schoolchildren whose first language is not English, compared with just 79,000 who speak English at home.

Anastasia De Waal, head of Family and Education at the think tank Civitas, said: 'It is vital that schools are organised in such a way to adequately accommodate pupils who start school in the UK with weak English language foundations. 'In our often highly standardised classroom situations schools are frequently asked to side-step language barriers. 'This significantly and needlessly hampers the progress of those children without secure English, as well as the progress of their peers.'

The local authority areas with the smallest proportion of pupils who have English as a second language are Halton with 0.9 per cent and Redcar and Cleveland also with 0.9 per cent. They were closely followed by Derbyshire with 1.3 per cent, Rutland 1.5 with per cent, St Helens with 1.5 per cent, and Cornwall with 1.6 per cent.

SOURCE



March 24, 2012

Los Angeles now privileging illegals

Disregard for the law is becoming an American epidemic under the Obama regime

The Los Angeles Police Department will soon start ignoring California state law, which requires police to impound the vehicles of unlicensed drivers for 30 days.

The majority of unlicensed motorists in Los Angeles are immigrants who are in the country illegally and have low-income jobs. The LAPD says the state's impound law is unfair because it limits their ability to get to their jobs and imposes a steep fine to get their car back.

As long as drivers can produce some form of I.D., proof of insurance and vehicle registration, they'll be allowed to keep their car. Police Chief Charlie Beck insists that it's simply leveling the playing field.

"It's about fairness. It's about equal application of the law," Beck told a Los Angeles TV station earlier this month.

Opponents of Beck's decision are furious and refer to studies showing unlicensed drivers are among the most dangerous on the road. Indeed, a 2011 AAA study titled "Unlicensed to Kill" finds they are five times more likely to be involved in fatal crashes and more likely to flee the scene of a crime.

The decision has angered Don Rosenberg, a resident of Los Angeles County, who lost his 25-year old son, Drew, in a 2010 accident caused by an unlicensed driver in San Francisco, a city with lax impound policies. The driver, who tried fleeing the scene, had previously been pulled over but was allowed to retrieve his car after a short time, months before the accident.

"It doesn't matter to me who killed my son-- what their nationality was. It was the fact that if the law were followed, he'd be alive today," Rosenberg told Fox News.

Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley wrote Chief Beck, saying his policy would be "invalid" in light of state law, which states a vehicle "shall be impounded." But supporters of Beck's decision say, regardless of the law, he's doing the right thing for illegal immigrants who cannot yet obtain driver's licenses here.

"A low-income person doesn't have the ability to pay the fees after 30 days to get their car back," said Cardinal Roger Mahony, former Archbishop of Los Angeles and an immigration activist. "Basically, we're just creating more punitive problems for them."

The L.A. Police Commission voted in favor of the new policy 4-1 last month. The LAPD says officers will begin implementing it in a matter of weeks. The city attorney has also sided with Beck's decision.

Immigrant advocates say the controversy highlights the need to provide provisional driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

Don Rosenberg says he'd favor that, as long as the police enforce state law by impounding unlicensed drivers' cars when pulled over. But he believes that the city is pandering to the Latino community and doesn't hold out hope that the policy will change anytime soon.

"It's more important that people who are in the country illegally get to drive than it is that people who are here get to live," he said.

SOURCE




Geert Wilders pushing for tougher Dutch immigration policy

Anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders holds in his hands the fate of the Dutch government and of austerity measures meant to save the country from economic crisis. Immigrant groups fear, however, they could pay the price he demands for his support.
"It is threatening," said Ahmet Azdural, director of Turkish lobby group IOT which was set up to promote minority issues. "In the last 10 years, the climate has really changed for immigrants and people who are different."

Wilders has made very clear he wants the Netherlands to go further in curbing immigration if he's to agree to up to 16 billion euros ($21.10 billion) of budget cuts.

"Wilders is a power player," said Maurice de Hond, who runs a Dutch polling agency: "He can pull the plug on the cabinet."

But opinion polls show no single party would win a majority if an election were held now, making this a less likely option.

Liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte's coalition partner, the Christian Democrats, has plunged in popularity while Wilders' Freedom Party has lost some ground since the 2010 election.

Wilders, in talks with the coalition, has abandoned his normally fluent manner in favour of a reticent discretion. "We want to come to an agreement but not at any price," Wilders told reporters earlier this month.

A member of Wilders' Freedom Party announced this week he would quit the party in a move that would further weaken the coalition's hold on power. Hero Brinkman said he would not let Rutte's government collapse, but stopped short of pledging unconditional support for new budget cuts.

Wilders' price is likely to be an even tougher line on asylum-seekers and immigrants, particularly Muslims. He has previously called for a closed-door policy and opposes letting fellow members of the European Union work in the Netherlands.

A recent proposal by Wilders, inviting members of the public to post their complaints about central and eastern Europeans on a website, has also hurt the Netherlands' image abroad and drawn strong criticism from the European Commission.

"Don't underestimate the way he is pushing around (immigration minister) Gerd Leers. The anti-Polish website is an example of how he limits the government's collaboration in Europe," said Andre Krouwel, political analyst at VU University Amsterdam. "It's symbolic, it impacts public opinion".

Wilders won't spell out his demands to the government, but could push for tougher citizenship criteria, cuts to benefits for immigrants and asylum-seekers, or a ban on new mosques.

"The Netherlands is now known as hardline when it comes to immigration and minorities in society," Azdural told Reuters. "Since Wilders supports the cabinet, all the ministers are careful to nuance their policies because they can feel Wilders breathing down their necks."

RECESSION

The planned cuts are all the more vital given the state of the economy. A think tank warned this week that the Netherlands was in the same fiscal boat as the peripheral euro zone states it has criticised for missing budget targets.

In recession since July, it is among the euro zone's worst performers, and expected to shrink 0.9 percent this year, while triple-A peers Germany, Finland and Luxembourg are seen growing.

Wilders, 48, is playing a game with high stakes. It is not in his interest to end his party's pact of support for the minority government. If he did that, he would lose his influence over the Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition, possibly forcing it to find a new partner or to call early elections.

Since storming onto the political scene in 2004, Wilders has made a significant mark. He has influenced Dutch immigration policy and set the tone of public debate, whether on Muslims and burqas or bailouts and the euro, in what once would have been regarded as politically incorrect language.

His anti-Islam rhetoric, likening the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, has elicited death threats, and for many years he moved between various safe houses, and used disguises such as wigs and glasses when traveling.

VEILS

In any public gathering, he stands out from the crowd with his instantly recognisable peroxide mane that earned him the moniker "the golden pompadour" in the Wikileaks cables, and his entourage of sniffer dogs and beefy bodyguards.

"We were influential in the past...on healthcare for the elderly, fighting crime in the Netherlands, reducing immigration numbers, asylum numbers. But I don't want to talk about that because indirectly I would talk about my negotiation strategy."

His pact with the minority coalition, signed in September 2010, sets out policies he wants this government to adopt.

Some could soon be implemented. For example, the cabinet recently proposed a law banning face-covering veils worn by some Muslim women, one of his demands, and recently agreed to a law which would ban dual nationality and set stricter conditions for obtaining Dutch citizenship.

Wilders opposes euro zone bailouts and says Greece should leave the euro: "We are paying for the Greeks' beers and ouzo. That has to stop," he told journalists recently.

The fact Wilders is sitting at the same table as the government to discuss cuts means the public increasingly sees him as part of the government, pollster De Hond said.

But he could alienate his supporters if he agrees to the government's proposals unless he wins concessions in return, for example on immigration or on where budget cuts are made.

Wilders has said he wants the government to chop 4 billion euros from the overseas development aid budget of 4.6 billion euros rather than cut any health or unemployment benefits, or address reforms of the labour market or of housing subsidies.

"If Wilders sticks to his programme, the cabinet will fall," said Ronald Plasterk, member of parliament for the opposition Labour Party: "If he concedes on what remains of it, maybe not."

SOURCE



March 23, 2012

ICE refuses to deport illegals arrested by Arpaio

"Policy" overrides law in Obamaland, another part of a very serious development. These are dictatorial powers

Federal authorities say they won't deport six undocumented immigrants arrested during a Phoenix protest over Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration policies.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Wednesday that they determined that the protesters did not fall under "ICE's enforcement priorities,” which focuses on people with serious criminal records.

Nearly 150 people were at Tuesday's rally, which blocked a street in front of Trevor Browne High School in Phoenix.

The online group Dream Activist helped organize the protest, saying it sent a representative to Phoenix to act as a coordinator. The group has sponsored protests in more than six cities in recent years, according to the Arizona Republic.

None of those arrested were students in the district where the protest took place, school spokesperson Craig Pletenik said, according to the Arizona Republic. About 30 students from Trevor Browne high school joined the protest, Pletenik added.

Arpaio criticized the protesters, saying they should target the politicians who make the laws rather than the officials who enforce them.

“If these students/demonstrators have a concern over the immigration laws, they should bring those concerns to Congress, State Legislators, or the White House and not use this Sheriff as their poster boy," Arpaio said in a statement.

Phoenix police say the protesters were told to leave by 5:30 p.m. A line of officers then approached the protesters in the road and took some into custody.

The six were arrested for obstructing a thoroughfare and disorderly conduct. They included two girls, ages 16 and 17, two 20-year-old women, an 18-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man.

SOURCE





Irish immigration bill likely to pass, despite criticism

Given Ireland's financial problems, there should be no shortage of skilled Irish workers seeking opportunities elsewhere. Australia has seen an upsurge of Irish arrivals

Congress may have finally found an immigration issue it can agree on in an election year: letting in more Irish people.

At a time when the volatile issue of comprehensive immigration reform is hopelessly stalled in a divided Congress, senators of both parties are rallying behind legislation that would allow 10,500 Irish nationals to come to the U.S. to work each year.

The legislation by Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., has been attacked by critics as a cynical ploy to win Irish-American votes as Brown battles for re-election in a state where one in four residents is of Irish descent. It also has been decried by both pro-immigration and anti-immigration groups as an example of favoritism toward European immigrants over Hispanics and Asians.

But supporters of the bill — including Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York — say they are trying to help reverse discrimination against Irish nationals that was inadvertently created by a 1965 overhaul of the U.S. immigration system.

That overhaul, designed to end a bias against immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa, made it difficult for Irish immigrants to obtain visas despite their strong cultural ties to the U.S., supporters of Brown's bill say. Hispanics and Asians have been the dominant immigrant groups to the U.S. since 1965 and, as they become citizens, their close family members have been given priority for U.S. visas as part of the U.S. government's emphasis on family reunification.

About 40 million Americans identify themselves as being of Irish descent, or about 13% of the U.S. population of more than 313 million. Hispanics make up about 16% of U.S. residents. The number of Irish immigrants granted permanent legal status in the U.S. has plunged from nearly 38,000 in the 1960s to about 16,000 in the 10 years from 2000 through 2009.

Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of the immigrant rights' group America's Voice, has no quarrel with the Irish visa bill but resents Brown's opposition to measures that would benefit Latinos and other immigrant groups.

Brown opposes any measure that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the nearly 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States. The senator also has opposed the Dream Act, which would provide legal status to children of illegal immigrant parents if the children enroll in college or serve in the U.S. military.

"The bill is actually a modest and sensible measure, and the Irish-American community has fought very hard for immigration reform that would benefit everyone," Sharry said. "We consider them close friends. But I think what Scott Brown is doing smacks of shameless opportunism. He's pandering to the Irish to say, 'I'm your candidate,' and he's pandering to the tea party by showing that he'll fight for white immigrants but not brown ones."

Brown's spokesman said the senator cares about all immigrants and supports a bipartisan House-passed immigration bill that would remove the current limit on the number of legal permanent residents who may be admitted to the U.S. in any given year from a single country. The bill would benefit all nations, but especially those countries with the greatest numbers of people waiting for U.S. visas: China, India, Mexico and the Philippines.

"For decades, the Irish have been unfairly shut out by our immigration laws while immigration from many other countries has sharply increased," said Brown's spokesman, John Donnelly.

Brown's bill would make Irish nationals eligible for a special visa program created in 2005 to allow up to 10,500 high-skilled Australians to come to the United States on temporary work visas known as E-3 visas. The program grew out of a trade pact with Australia, but it was also seen as a reward for a country that supported U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The program allows skilled workers with job offers from U.S. employers to get a two-year work visa that can be renewed indefinitely. Workers with an E-3 visa can bring their spouses and children with them. Their spouses also can work legally in the United States.

While the broader visa reform bill has stalled in the Senate, Brown's bill appears poised to move forward. After initially opposing the legislation for favoring just one country, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has decided to stop blocking it provided that Brown makes a few changes in the bill. Those changes are being negotiated among Brown, Grassley and Schumer, who chairs the immigration subcommittee.

SOURCE



March 22, 2012

TX: Court Upholds Ban on Farmers Branch Immigrant Housing Law

A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that stopped a Dallas suburb's ban on illegal immigrants seeking housing.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Farmers Branch overstepped its authority in 2008 when it passed a law calling on the city's building inspector to check the immigration status of anyone wanting to rent an apartment who wasn't a U.S. citizen.

Under the law, illegal immigrants would have been barred from rental housing, and landlords who knowingly allowed them to stay could have their rental licenses barred.

The appellate court said the city was seeking to exclude illegal immigrants, particularly Latinos, under the guise of policing housing.

"Because the sole purpose and effect of this ordinance is to target the presence of illegal aliens within the City of Farmers Branch and to cause their removal, it contravenes the federal government's exclusive authority over the regulation of immigration and the conditions of residence in this country," the court's opinion stated.

The city had appealed the decision of U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle, who ruled two years ago that the law is unconstitutional after a lawsuit was filed by apartment owners and tenants.

William Brewer, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said he sensed a "strong undercurrent" throughout the appellate court's decision that Farmers Branch was engaged in discrimination. The ruling is particularly meaningful because the 5th Circuit has a reputation for conservatism, he said.

Brewer noted that the ruling affirms Boyle's decision that Farmers Branch must pay the plaintiffs' attorney fees, which before the appeal were nearly $2 million. He called that portion of the decision "a strong deterrent" against other cities seeking to pass similar laws.

"Clearly, both the trial court and the appellate court recognize that this ordinance was discriminatory," Brewer said.

Farmers Branch Mayor Bill Glancy said he will talk with City Council members before deciding whether to push for the matter to be heard by the full appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court.

Glancy, who took office last year, said he supported the law and other efforts to keep illegal immigrants out of Farmers Branch, a suburb with nearly 29,000 residents northwest of Dallas.

"Basically, it has discouraged people who are illegal from coming into the city," he said.

SOURCE





Israel's illegal immigration problem

The Left tell us that Israel is an apartheid society so it must be all that apartheid that attracts Africans [/sarcasm]

The place is Tel Aviv, but it doesn't look at all like Israel: Dozens of African men are sitting on broken stools and plastic at a makeshift restaurant. Sudanese fare is on the menu. The men scoop up the stews and salads that remind them of home.

Abdullah Mohammad Mustafa started this restaurant with a couple of other African men who arrived in Israel five years ago from Sudan's troubled Darfur region. They are among some 40,000 Africans who have come to Israel illegally, and many have congregated in neighborhoods in Tel Aviv.

Mustafa says he hoped the business would be part of a new life, but now Israel is moving against them, and he's giving up on that dream. "For me, I think this is the last year in Israel," he says. "We tried to make a business and we failed. So we cannot spend the rest of our life here. We cannot waste our time for nothing. This year most of the people will leave Israel."

Mustafa is among the many Africans and Asians who have been arriving in Israel in recent years, and most have been sneaking across the country's porous southern border with Egypt.

Like many other countries in the world, Israel faces a serious problem with illegal immigration. Israel always has to find the most humane way of dealing with this tricky issue.

- Josh Hantman, spokesman for Israel's Defense Ministry
Israel Plans Several Measures

Israel is now taking a series of steps to stop the influx and reverse the flow. This summer, Israel will begin deporting those who agree to leave voluntarily. Other parts of the plan are still under construction - like a 150-mile fence being built along the border with Egypt. And there will also be a massive detention center.

"Like many other countries in the world, Israel faces a serious problem with illegal immigration," says Josh Hantman, a spokesman for Israel's Defense Ministry. "Israel always has to find the most humane way of dealing with this tricky issue."

He says the detention center, which will be completed later this year, will have spacious rooms, computers and a sports center. Detainees will have access to lawyers and health care.

By the end of this year, Israeli officials say, the facility will be able to hold several thousand people. By the time it is fully built, it will have a total capacity of 11,000 people - making it one of the largest detention facilities in the world.

Human-Rights Group Objects

Physicians for Human Rights, a private group that works closely with the African community in Israel, is often the first stop for new immigrants. It has extensive files documenting the torture and violence that many immigrants faced in other countries before reaching Israel.

"We see from other countries that the effect of detention centers on asylum seekers that went through trauma in their home countries, or on their way to Israel, will be very harmful for their health, both mental and physically," says Shachar Shoham, the director of the Migrants Department at Physicians for Human Rights.

Shoham says Israel already has a policy of detaining some of the people who enter the country without permission. Up until now, they've been sent to Ketziot, a sprawling prison in southern Israel.

The site of the new detention center is adjacent to Ketziot. Shoham says she fears it will become an extension of the prison, rather than a separate facility.

Mustafa knows Ketziot all too well. He was kept there for over a year, without being told the charges against him, he says, or having access to a lawyer. He says he nearly went crazy there, not knowing what would happen to him.

Many African immigrants are young people "and they are looking for their future. If you put them in a detention center it will drive them crazy," Mustafa says.

Seeking Another Destination

At age 35, Mustafa says he already feels old. It's been nearly 10 years since he left Darfur, and Israel is the third place he has sought asylum. "We cannot ever go back [to Darfur], but we will try to see another place like Kenya or Uganda," Mustafa says.

This week, he joined hundreds of people protesting Israel's decision to begin deporting some Africans. None of us, he says, are really going home.

SOURCE



March 21, 2012

A bad DREAM

The DREAM Act has become a rallying cry for President Obama, members of his administration, and liberal Democrats everywhere. President Obama has vowed to “keep fighting for the DREAM Act,” which would grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

It’s true when listeners or those polled don’t know the facts that the DREAM Act has some appeal. After all, we are all naturally sympathetic when children are involved.

But the descriptions of the DREAM Act voiced by President Obama and his cohorts are not accurate. And the consequences are never told.

DREAM Act supporters claim that only children would benefit from such a bill, but the facts tell another story. Under most DREAM Act proposals, amnesty would be given to individuals up to the age of 30—not exactly children. And some other proposals don’t even have an age limit.

These supporters also maintain that illegal immigrants can’t go college without the DREAM Act. But the truth is that illegal immigrants can already go to college in most states.

And ultimately, most versions of the DREAM Act actually don’t even force illegal immigrants to comply with all the requirements in the bill, such as going to college or joining the military. The administration can waive requirements because of “hardship” at its complete discretion.

DREAM Act proposals are also a magnet for fraud. Many illegal immigrants will fraudulently claim they came here as children or that they are under 30. And the federal government has no way to check whether their claims are true or not.

Such massive fraud occurred after the 1986 amnesty for illegal immigrants who claimed they were agricultural workers. Studies found two-thirds of all applications for the 1986 amnesty were fraudulent.

And this amnesty did nothing to stop illegal immigration. In 1986, there were about three million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. Today, there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and about seven million of them work here, unfairly taking jobs from unemployed Americans.

While DREAM Act supporters claim that it would only benefit children, they skip over the fact that it actually rewards the very illegal immigrant parents who knowingly violated our laws. Once their children become U.S. citizens, they can petition for their illegal immigrant parents and adult siblings to be legalized, who will then bring in others in an endless chain.

This kind of chain migration only encourages more illegal immigration, as parents will bring their children to the U.S. in hopes of receiving citizenship.

President Obama tried to get the DREAM Act passed during a lame duck session about a year ago but it faced bipartisan opposition in Congress. This hasn’t stopped the administration from passing its agenda. The Obama administration does everything it can to let illegal immigrants stay here, which compounds the problem.

Political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security recently issued new deportation guidelines that amount to backdoor amnesty and strike another blow at millions of unemployed U.S. workers.

Under the administration’s new deportation policy, DHS officials review all incoming and most pending cases before an immigration court to determine if the illegal immigrant can remain in the U.S. Since the administration has made clear that many illegal immigrants are not considered priorities for removal, including potential DREAM Act beneficiaries, this could open the door to allow millions of illegal immigrants to live and work in the U.S. without a vote of Congress.

The Obama administration has also cut worksite enforcement efforts by 70%, allowing illegal immigrants to continue working in jobs that rightfully belong to citizens and legal workers. And the list goes on and on – this administration has a pattern of ignoring the laws and intent of Congress.

The United States is based on the rule of law but the Obama administration already has dirty hands by abusing administrative authority to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. The DREAM Act doesn’t stop illegal immigration—it only encourages more of it by rewarding lawbreakers.

SOURCE







Australia: Asylum seekers 'straining' Northern Territory hospital

DARWIN'S main hospital is under strain from asylum seekers needing treatment, some with chronic anxiety, doctors say.

President of the Australian Medical Association in the Northern Territory, Dr Paul Bauert, says the Royal Darwin Hospital has three to five asylum seekers a day turning up at the emergency department.

"They are all complicated cases, because virtually of them will have some mental health issue," Dr Bauert said.

He said some of the patients had serious psychiatric illnesses.

Others had chronic anxiety, manifested in symptoms such as abdominal pain or chest pain, which became worse after they were returned to detention centres following treatment.

"The longer they are detained, the more likely these mental health issues are going to become permanent and we end up producing permanently damaged Australian citizens," Dr Bauert said.

Because of the difficulty in treating the patients and the need for interpreters, each asylum seeker tended to take up at least double the resources used by a typical patient, he said.

People housed in Darwin's two main detention centres were coming to hospital on a weekly basis after harming themselves, he said.

Last year a senate inquiry into mandatory detention heard a nine-year-old asylum seeker in Darwin had attempted to take their own life.

Dr Bauert said the money and resources used to address the health of asylum seekers could be better spent trying to fix the health needs of people in the Northern Territory.

He called on Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and Health Minister Tanya Plibersek to visit the hospital to see for themselves what was happening. "Nothing seems to change, and I just think it is a bit of (a case of) out of sight, out of mind, on the part of Minister Bowen and Tanya Plibersek," he said.

A spokeswoman from the Royal Darwin Hospital was unable to comment immediately on the claims by Dr Bauert. Neither the Department of Immigration and Citizenship nor Minister Plibersek was immediately available for comment on the matter.

SOURCE



March 20, 2012

New Alabama Opinion Poll Shows Broad Support for State Immigration Enforcement Law

A statewide opinion poll of likely Alabama voters, conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, finds broad support for the state's immigration enforcement law, HB 56. The survey of 500 likely voters was commissioned by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and was conducted on March 6.

Seventy-five percent of Alabama voters support HB 56, with 52 percent of voters saying they "strongly support" the law. Only 24 percent of likely voters in the state oppose HB 56, including 11 percent who "strongly oppose" it.

Despite a vigorous effort by opponents of HB 56 to discredit the law, Alabamians overwhelmingly dismiss the contention that it will damage the state's economy. Only 18 percent of respondents think HB 56 "will harm Alabama's economy by depriving businesses of workers they need," while 59 percent believe it "will free-up jobs for other Alabama workers and will save the state money on services for illegal immigrants."

The poll was conducted while advocates for illegal aliens were carrying out what they described as a "reenactment" of the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. However, the poll shows that voters overwhelmingly reject the assertion that HB 56 will lead to racial profiling or other forms of unlawful discrimination. Just 22 percent of Alabama voters agreed that HB 56 "is likely to lead to discrimination against people who appear foreign, especially people who are Hispanic." Two-thirds of Alabama voters, 66 percent, believe the law "will only be enforced when there is evidence that someone of any race or ethnicity is in the country illegally and will not rely on profiling."

As critics of HB 56 press for repeal or substantial changes to the law, Alabama voters remain firmly committed to maintaining the law and allowing the state to play a role in immigration enforcement. Fifty-four percent of Alabama voters want to keep the law on the books, compared with just 18 percent who strongly support and 15 percent who somewhat support repealing the law.

"Despite shrill and relentless attacks by illegal alien advocacy groups, the media, and the Obama administration, HB 56 continues to enjoy strong support from the people who should count the most: the voters of Alabama," commented Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "This is a phenomenon we see repeated over and over again wherever an effort is made to enforce immigration laws. Advocates for illegal aliens make a lot of noise and hurl unfounded accusations, while voters steadfastly register their support for common sense immigration enforcement policies.

"HB 56 enjoys broad support among Alabama voters because, like Americans all across the country, they do not believe that the federal government is doing the job or protecting their interests," continued Stein. "It is clear that voters in Alabama believe that mass illegal immigration is a serious problem and that the state has a legitimate role to play in enforcing laws that discourage illegal immigration."

SOURCE





Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Jessica Vaughan Interviewed by MSNBC Rock Center on the Foriegn Exchange Student Program (Video)

2. Religious Agencies and Refugee Resettlement (Memorandum)

3. USCIS Again Focus Resources on a Tiny Alien Population — Wandering Ministers (Blog)

4. Where Are You, Now That We Need You, Booker T?: Black Leadership and Immigration Reform (Blog)

5. USCIS Annual Report Lacks Editorial Punch of the Phone Book (Blog)

6. Sunshine, Saguaros, and Smugglers (Blog on our 2012 Border Tour)

7. Album of 2012 Border Tour: Tohono O'odham Nation (Pictures)

8. Album of 2012 Border Tour: Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (Pictures)

9. Album of 2012 Border Tour: Ajo and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge (Pictures)

10. Album of 2012 Border Tour: Yuma, Imperial Valley, and San Luis (Pictures)

11. Album of 2012 Border Tour: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (Pictures)

12. Why You Should Be Concerned About Utah's Key Role in the Amnesty Movement (Blog)



March 19, 2012

SC immigration law exempts farmworkers, nannies

A loophole in South Carolina's immigration law exempts farmworkers and private maids and nannies from a mandatory immigration status check.

The law went into effect January 1 and requires all private employers in South Carolina to use the federal E-Verify database to check newly hired employees' immigration status.

But the State newspaper reports (http://bit.ly/zmBZsA) Sunday that a little-known loophole provides exceptions for agriculture laborers, domestic workers in a private residence, ministers and fishermen working on small crews.

Bill supporter Sen. Chip Campsen says the loophole was necessary to get the legislation passed. The Charleston Republican says he opposed the exemption but said it doesn't make the bill ineffective.

Critics say it's is unfair for legislators to create an exemption for select groups and not provide it to other small businesses.

SOURCE




DHS Border Patrol Arrest Statistics Underestimate Illegal Immigration

Recently published reports have focused on a letter submitted on March 1st by Congressman Darrel Issa to Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. Issa is the Californian Republican who chairs the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. His letter demanded Napolitano address claims that the Border Patrol has been “cooking the books”--distorting the true number of undocumented immigrants who are apprehended along our nation's southwest border. Issa's letter to Napolitano was predicated on information that insiders at the DHS have purportedly provided to Issa's office.

These statistics are extremely important because they have not only been used by the administration to reflect on how secure our border is, but also used to support the contention that because arrests along the border are down, that the number of undocumented immigrants present in the United States is also down.

This claim has a number of potential benefits for the administration, especially as the upcoming election looms closer on the horizon.

It used to be said that Social Security was the “Third Rail” of politics. Today you could say that immigration and border security constitutes the so-called “Third Rail,” and this third rail has lots of political juice running through it.

Some Liberals have tried to demonize anyone who seeks to enforce the immigration laws and secure our borders while Republicans like to portray themselves as being tough on law violators and want to be perceived as being in favor of the “Rule of law.”

In order to win the upcoming election, current administration would like to be able to say that the immigration problem is correcting itself, thereby placating voters on both sides of the issue. By touting reduced arrest statistics, the administration could lay claim to securing our nation's borders and convincing everyone that immigration is no longer a problem. This would enable the president to be in two places at one time.

Clearly if the arrest statistics being reported are false, then all suppositions based on those doctored statistics would be false. As the folks in the computer field would say, “Garbage in – Garbage out!”

However, as a former INS Special Agent, I have been more than a bit skeptical about the validity of using Border Patrol arrest statistics to determine how many undocumented immigrants are actually present in the United States. There is lots more to the immigration system than the Mexican border.

On December 21st I was a guest on Neil Cavuto's program on the Fox Business Network. Neil noted that it is believed that because of the economic situation in the United States that fewer undocumented immigrants were seeking to come to the United States to seek employment. I commented that “Attempting to determine how many illegal aliens are present in the United States by simply looking at arrest statistics were a bit like taking attendance and asking those not present to raise their hands.”

There is no definitive means of determining what percentage of undocumented immigrants are actually arrested and what percentage evade the Border Patrol. Additionally, undocumented immigrants do not only enter the United States by running our nation's border, that is supposed to separate the United States from Mexico.

Our nation also has a border that separates the United States from Canada that is nearly twice as long as the U.S.-Mexican border.

Additionally, our nation has some 95,000 miles of coastline and seaports and marinas to be found all along that huge coastline.

While the extreme porosity of the U.S. borders creates a huge problem for the United States in terms of national security, crime and other factors to be associated with the lack of border security, it is estimated that some 40 percent of all undocumented immigrants in the United States did not run our nation's borders at all, but entered the United States through the inspections process and then, in one way or another, violated the terms of their admission into the United States.

Still more aliens have been granted immigrant visas and work visas who committed fraud in order to game the system. This not only impacts national security but costs American workers jobs, especially in the high-tech fields.

On March 6, 2012 the Washington Post published an article entitled: “Illegal immigrants with long-expired visas remain tough to track 10 years after 9/11 attacks.” That report addressed how a would-be terrorist, Amine El Khalifi had been living illegally in the United States for more than a decade, an issue that became the basis for a hearing conducted by the House Homeland Security Committee.

“The criminal case against Amine El Khalifi, 29, of Alexandria, Va., has renewed the debate about how the U.S. government — a decade after the terror attacks of 2001 — routinely fails to track millions of foreign visitors who remain in the country longer than they are allowed,” the article reads.

“A House Homeland Security subcommittee is conducting an oversight hearing Tuesday. The panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., said El Khalifi ‘follows a long line of terrorists, including several of the 9/11 hijackers, who overstayed their visa and went on to conduct terror attacks.’ His tourist visa expired the same year he arrived from his native Morocco as a teenager in 1999,” the piece continues.

This is not a newly discovered problem. Nearly six years ago, on May 11, 2006, I testified before a Congressional hearing entitled “Visa Overstays: Can We Bar the Terrorist Door?” that was conducted by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on International Relations.

Finally, while so many politicians talk about the need to create jobs, just about no one talks about the need to liberate jobs by effectively enforcing our nation's immigration laws from within the United States.

The point is that by attempting to keep everyone's attention focused on the Mexican border, many of the other components of the immigration system are being ignored.

It is important and commendable that Rep. Issa continues to demand accountability where the DHS is concerned, but neither he nor anyone else should lose sight of the fact that where immigration is concerned, we are dealing with a system with many moving parts, and all are critically important.

Simply stated, our immigration laws are intended to save American lives and American jobs and no politician from either side of the aisle should lose sight of those two incredibly vital goals.

SOURCE



March 18, 2012

Immigration hits Canadians in the pocket

A leading public policy organization wants Canada's immigration selection process revamped to counter the huge cost caused by people emigrating to the country.

The Fraser Institute said the cost of supporting immigrants who arrived in Canada between 1987 and 2004 is between $16 billion and $23 billion a year.

That's because they receive more in government services and payments per person than they pay in taxes.

“As a result of Canada's welfare-state policies, our progressive income taxes and universal social programs, these immigrants impose a huge fiscal burden on Canadian taxpayers,” said report co-author Herbert Grubel.

Immigrants who have come to Canada since 1987 “are not doing as well economically” as those who came previously, with their annual income 72 percent of that of other Canadians, he said.

The controversial report calls on the government to scrap the points-based selection process and instead let the market decide the types of workers and professionals that are needed in Canada.

Report co-author Patrick Grady said their lower income and tax payments “are likely to persist over all stages of their lives.”

SOURCE





Foes of illegal immigration put pressure on GOP leadership to vote on E-Verify

A group calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration is pushing a bill that would require businesses nationwide to verify the work status of their employees. They're also running ads accusing House Republican Speaker John Boehner of not letting Congress vote on internet database E-Verify:

Right now, only a handful of states require employers to check a nationwide electronic database before hiring new workers. According head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Alejandro Mayorkas, so far, more than a 100,000 have tapped into E-Verify.

"We have the capacity currently to process far more queries than we currently handle," he said.

A bill sponsored by Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas would require nationwide use of Everify. Mayorkas said that would be a challenge.

"If it was mandated across the country, it would take us some time to ramp up for that exponentially greater volume," he explained.

Critics accuse GOP leaders of dragging their feet in an election year for fear of alienating Latino voters. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner says the bill is stuck in the legislative process. The Obama administration supports nationwide expansion of E-verify as part of comprehensive immigration reform.

SOURCE



March 17, 2012

Congressmen furious as DHS delays partnership with tough-on-immigration Alabama

Members of Congress are openly criticizing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano after tough questions from Alabama Republican Rep. Mike Rogers revealed that she halted a tough deportation program involving his state and her Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Testifying on Feb. 15 before the House Homeland Security Committee, Napolitano said pending federal litigation over Alabama’s tough anti-illegal-immigration law forced her to freeze ICE’s cooperation.

Responding to a question from Rogers, Napolitano explained that “one reason is that, as you know, the Alabama state law is in litigation. It’s at the 11th Circuit. The schedule for oral argument is coming right up.”

“We left the program in place where it was turned on, and where it’s turned on covers 75 percent of the foreign-born population in Alabama,” Napolitano told Rogers. “But given the pendency of the litigation we decided to just hold off on the remaining quarter.”

The federal government and a coalition of activist groups sued Alabama in 2011 to invalidate its immigration law, seen as one of the most unforgiving in America. On March 8, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked two provisions of that law, but said it would not decide the larger case until the Supreme Court had ruled on a similar challenge to new immigrations laws in Arizona.

Napolitano also said ICE would stop implementing the program, known as “Secure Communities,” in additional Alabama counties as long as the pending federal lawsuit reflects unanswered constitutional questions. Currently 37 of Alabama’s 67 counties are enrolled in the program and cooperate with ICE.

Secure Communities is already implemented in every county in South Carolina and Arizona, states with similar immigration laws. The program is a data-sharing initiative intended to give ICE instant access to biometric data of municipal inmates when they are booked into jails, for the purpose of identifying known illegal immigrants.

“I was not satisfied with Secretary Napolitano’s response to my questioning and would love to know why the administration has put the brakes on the Secure Communities program when it originally touted it as a way to crack down on illegal immigration,” Rogers told The Daily Caller.

Committee chairman Rep. Peter King also wasn’t satisfied. “I am supportive of both the 287(g) and the Secure Communities programs,” the New York Republican told TheDC, referring to the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act which permit the federal government to enforce immigration laws in partnership with state and local governments.

“If, as Secretary Napolitano asserts, Secure Communities is more cost-effective than 287(g), then DHS should roll the program out everywhere, and as quickly as possible. Delaying the program in states that have passed immigration laws that are the subject of litigation is unacceptable.”

SOURCE






How uncontrolled immigration to Britain has created primary schools with 1,000 pupils and forced children to eat lunch in shifts

One of the first lessons learned at Ladybarn Primary School is not to linger over lunch — a recent surge in pupil numbers means there isn’t enough room in the dining hall for that.

Instead, more than 400 children at the Manchester school eat in five shifts — the first wave sitting down to their lunch at 11.15am.

‘The trouble is that the ones who eat early are hungry again by 2.30pm, so we then have to give them a snack,’ says headteacher Lisa Vyas.

‘And because the dinners take longer to serve, I can’t provide every child with a gym and dance lesson because there’s not enough time available in the hall.’

It’s clear the school is bursting at the seams: there are temporary buildings in the playground, the cloakroom has been turned into a library and the 60 teachers can’t all fit into the staff-room.

‘The temporary classrooms are state-of-the-art, but they are separate from the main building, so some children don’t feel as if they are part of the school,’ says Mrs Vyas. ‘We can’t all fit in for assembly.’

Educational analyst Professor John Howson, a senior research fellow at Oxford University, has warned that a shortage of places for five-year-olds ‘is the biggest problem facing schooling in Britain’.

Due to a baby boom caused in part by a decade of open-door immigration under New Labour, and also because many women born in the late Sixties and early Seventies delayed motherhood, the pupil population is rapidly rising.

By 2015, the number of children at primary school is predicted to increase by 10 per cent compared with last year. By 2020, the increase will be 20 per cent — a total of 4.8million primary school pupils, a figure not seen since the early Seventies.

The increase in demand is sharper in some areas of the country. In the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, for example, the local council is predicting a 43 per cent increase in primary school pupils between 2011 and 2015.

Other London boroughs are expecting 30 per cent increases, while places such as Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Kent and Hampshire are also predicting heavy demand.

Overall, it is estimated that an extra 450,000 primary places will need to be created in England by 2015.

The problem is that many primary schools where demand is most acute are already over-subscribed and unable to expand any further. As a result, temporary classrooms are popping up on playing fields, and store cupboards are being converted into teaching areas.

One council in East London is drawing up plans to lease an empty Woolworth’s store and a vacant MFI building and turn them into makeshift classrooms.

In Brighton, it has been mooted that pupils could be taught at a football stadium, in a bingo hall or in redundant churches.

Super-sized primaries with five forms of 30 pupils for each year — 1,000-plus across the school — could soon become the norm.

Desperate council chiefs are even calling for the law that sets maximum class sizes at 30 to be scrapped.

More radical still are proposals to teach in ‘split shifts’, where one group of pupils would attend from 8am until 2pm and a second from 2pm until 8pm.

Frank Field is the joint chair of the Cross-Party Group on Balanced Migration. He is also a Labour MP — one of the few voices from the Left prepared to speak out about the strains placed on the country’s infrastructure by immigration.

Mr Field says that the situation facing primary schools today was ‘entirely predictable’.

‘The birth rate has risen among the host population, but the big stimulus is people who have migrated here and brought children or had children here — mainly the latter,’ he says.

‘We had the figures showing what proportion of babies were being born to mothers born overseas, so the figures and the trends were clear — people just wanted to ignore it.

‘They continued to vote for what was, in effect, an open-door policy, irrespective of being told what the outcome would be. It was serious when public expenditure was actually increasing, but when it is being cut, it is proving to be chronic.’

While the Government is providing an extra £1.3 billion this year to help provide more places, schools complain that the money is too little, too late to do anything more than provide a stop-gap.

‘You don’t need to be a statistical genius to realise that an increased birth-rate in the middle of this decade is going to lead to a massive increase in the need for primary school places later,’ says Gavin Williamson, Conservative MP for South Staffordshire.

‘I think immigration was, and still is, a pertinent issue in politics. There was a desire under the last government to deny this was going to have any impact in terms of a need to deal with this issue. ‘They buried their heads in the sand and hoped the problem would go away. The trouble is that it hasn’t.’

In 2000, 15.5 per cent of all births in the UK were to mothers born outside the country — in 2010, it had risen to 25.1 per cent.

This is because the number of foreign-born women living here has increased, but also because they have more children than British-born women, and because they are more likely to be aged 25 to 34, when fertility is at its highest.

SOURCE



March 16, 2012

Mississippi Lawmakers Pass Anti-Illegal Immigration Law

Joining a nationwide trend, Mississippi House members voted for a bill Thursday that seeks to crack down on undocumented immigrants. The bill, which passed with a 70-47 vote, calls for police to check the immigration status of people they arrest.

Leaders stripped more controversial provisions before the vote on House Bill 488. Next, the Republican-controlled state Senate is expected to pass it, and the governor has expressed support for the measure.

After initially failing, opponents of the bill were able on a second attempt to strip a provision requiring schools to count undocumented immigrants, saying it would violate federal law.

House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Andy Gipson, a Braxton Republican, denied opponents' claims that the measure was racist or immoral, saying it was about enforcing the law. Gipson said he tried to craft a bill that would survive court challenges and allow charity toward migrants.

"It's about the rule of law," he told House members. "We want to say you're welcome here, we just want you to follow the proper procedures, the proper protocols."

Opponents warned families would be shattered by deportations and that the bill would reinforce outsiders' stereotypes of Mississippi. "If we pass this bill, it will set Mississippi back 60 years," said Rep. Sonya Williams-Barnes, D-Gulfport. "Let us show America we are not the narrow-minded people they say we are."

No Republicans opposed the bill, while 10 mostly white and rural Democrats voted for it. They crossed party lines despite an appeal from House Agriculture Chairman Preston Sullivan, D-Okolona, a rural white Democrat who warned the bill would hurt farmers.

A provision that allowed law enforcement officers to ask about a person's immigration status in a traffic stop was removed. That means someone would have to be arrested for another offense before inquiries could be made.

"If they're stopped, that in itself will not trigger this bill," Gipson said. "It would require an arrest to be made. If they are found to be unlawful, then they would be deported."

Among earlier changes was the removal of a clause that said people could be arrested for not carrying identification, a clause that had led opponents to nickname the measure the "papers, please" bill. That portion, like several others removed in committee last month, have been blocked by courts in Arizona, Alabama and elsewhere.

During the debate that ran from late Wednesday into Thursday, Gipson also removed a provision that could have allowed municipal utilities to refuse power, water, sewer and other services to undocumented immigrants. Such a provision was also recently blocked by a federal court in Alabama.

Gipson said he was balancing the need to write a law that will survive court scrutiny versus the desire to remove undocumented immigrants. "I have tried to bring the best possible product to the body for a vote," he said.

The changes did little to mollify critics, who continued to question whether the bill was needed. Opponents emphasize that Mississippi doesn't need to summon any ghosts of its racist past.


SOURCE





Immigration chief: Proposed change is not amnesty

The federal government plans to change the rules to make it easier for some undocumented relatives of U.S. citizens to stay in this country. The nation’s top immigration official insists this is not amnesty.

Under current law, the undocumented spouse or children of a U.S. citizen can apply for what’s called a “601 waiver.” It grants permission to stay in the U.S. due to a hardship, such as an undocumented spouse providing medical care.

But the applicant had to leave the country first, then wait outside the U.S. for a hearing. The proposed new rule would allow those people to wait in the U.S.

Conservative critics label the change “amnesty.” Not so, says Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "All we are doing is making the process more efficient and more effective."

The rule does not allow undocumented immigrants to use their U.S.-born children as an "anchor" that would allow them to stay in the U.S. Only parents and spouses are eligible.

Mayorkas says few people have applied for the waiver because, if they’re turned down, they could be barred from re-entering the U.S. for up to 10 years. "The risk of separation is so dramatic, people who might be eligible do not take the risk of leaving the country and applying."

He also warned of "notario fraud": immigration lawyers who are scamming immigrants by telling them the proposed rule is already in effect.

The new "stay 'til you’re scheduled" rule could be in place by the end of this year.

SOURCE



March 15, 2012

A very problematical border

Leaking like a sieve, and not in a good way

Cynthia Kendoll, as president of Oregonians For Immigration Reform, considered herself fairly knowledgeable about immigration issues. And then she went on a six-day tour of the Arizona-Mexico border.

“I learned more in one day than I had in 10 years,” Kendoll said.

The tour was organized by the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C., that is devoted to research and policy analysis of the impacts of immigration on the United States.

Kendoll and five other concerned citizens, including a lawyer, a fire chief and the owner of a fence company, traveled with three members from the center for an up-close look at the border region from Yuma to Tucson.

They saw the border from several different vantage points, with Border Patrol agents, law enforcement officials and other protective agency representatives, the folks on the front lines, guiding them on intimate tours.

“They took us to points that are not your average tourist stops,” Kendoll said. “We went into many places that were off limits to the public.”

This was hardly a vacation for Kendoll, whose husband and two grown sons were concerned for her safety. She was the only woman among the group.

Their concerns were eased by the fact that the group was accompanied by law enforcement officers and heavily armed guards. The guards were riding in vehicles in front and behind the two SUVs the group traveled in.

Whenever Kendoll and her travel mates emerged from the SUVs, they were instructed to not be more than touching distance away from another member of the group, and the armed guards scattered into the brush to patrol the perimeter.

Even so, there were a few tense moments, like the day a Black Hawk helicopter swooped in nearby and did a maneuver referred to as “dusting up.” The helicopter hovered low to the ground, stirring up a tornado of dust and debris long enough so the suspects could be rounded up by Border Patrol agents.

In addition to Border Patrol, officials from the Tohono O’odham Nation reservations, the Arizona DEQ Office of Border Environmental Protection, the U.S. National Parks Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University joined the group at different points along the more than 300-mile journey.

“What was helpful for us was hearing from all of those people what’s working and what’s not working, what’s politics and what’s propaganda,” Kendoll said.

Kendoll went into the trip with an open mind to learn about the work being done on the Arizona-Mexico border. “If I am going to be in a leadership position, I want to be able to speak from experience,” she said.

She noted that the mantra for Oregonians For Immigration Reform, a nonprofit, public service organization with more than 3,000 members statewide, is to “be informative, not inflammatory.”

“We’re not a hate group,” Kendoll said. “We want what’s best for the people of the United States. We want people to know the issues.”

Meeting and getting to know some of the agents who work along the border personalized the issues for Kendoll even more. She learned, for example, that Jon Young, state chief for the Arizona Bureau of Land Management, has a $10,000 bounty on his head.

“These agents are laying their lives on the line every day,” Kendoll said. “I fear for them.”

The group spent some time at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which has been called the most dangerous national park in the U.S. That’s where park ranger Kris Eggle was shot and killed in the line of duty in 2002 while pursuing members of a drug cartel who fled into the United States after committing a string of murders in Mexico.

A memorial for Eggle was erected at the park, and the visitor center was named in his honor.

A large chunk of the park is closed to the public because of dangers. Kendoll was able to visit some of the restricted areas and even walk some of the trails people have used to illegally cross the border.

Some of the state’s most magnificent desert landscape is in the park and at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, and it’s literally being trampled by the traffic of illegal immigrants and drug cartels, not to mention the garbage left behind.

“And it’s gross garbage,” Kendoll said. “Condoms, baby diapers, piles of poo, tampons, drug paraphernalia, food containers …”

Black plastic bags, used as rain gear and to avoid infrared detection, were discarded everywhere. So were makeshift “booties,” which are made out of old blankets and twine and used to mask shoe prints.

Kendoll spent some time with the DEQ Border Environmental Protection group faced with cleaning up the mess. She photographed one man holding up a discarded drug sack.

She also came home with photos of her standing next to the various types of fences along the border. Some are 15 feet tall, posted 5 feet deep in the ground, with metal poles filled with concrete. Others are shorter and less imposing. Some were erected as vehicle barriers and look like giant jacks.

At one area where Kendoll and the group traveled, double fencing and stadium-type lighting was installed to control what was once a free-for-all of illegal border crossings.

Officials told them tunnels have since been dug under the border at that location.

“We all left just feeling completely overwhelmed with the issues on the border and how complicated they are,” Kendoll said. “People say, ‘Why don’t we throw up a fence?’ It’s not that simple. We have a Third World nation on our border, and the magnet of what we have to offer is huge.

“As I got more involved in the issue, the fence isn’t the be-all and the end-all. The magnet is the problem.”

If people looking for a better life make it across the border, they are likely to find it — a job, free health care and other assistance. And that’s what is so frustrating to those who labor along the border day in and day out.

“These people are working so hard to keep them out, but if they get in there are no consequences,” Kendoll said. “The only way to stop it is to not only have a secure border, but to have and enforce mandatory E-verify law, requiring all businesses to hire legal workers.”

SOURCE






Attack on EU immigration policies gives Sarkozy a much-needed election boost

Nicolas Sarkozy has bounced back in the French presidential election polls after launching an attack on European Union immigration policies.

With the first of two rounds of voting due to take place on April 22, it is a morale boost for the current president who has been widely predicted to lose.

In the poll, 28.5 per cent of voters said they would back him in the first round, with 27 per cent opting for his main rival, Socialist Francois Hollande.

However, there was still bad news for Mr Sarkozy as the poll revealed that at the second round of voting on May 6, which is expected to be a head-to-head battle between Mr Sarkozy and Mr Hollande, the latter would win with 54.5 per cent.

As in the 2007 presidential election, Mr Sarkozy is trying to woo Right-wing supporters by hammering away on immigration, security and trade protection.

During recent campaign speeches he has also demanded greater protection of Europe’s internal borders and threatened to pull out of the Schengen agreement, which allows passport-free movement between most European Union nations, in a bid to almost halve the number of immigrants arriving in France.

However, Mr Sarkozy’s threats yesterday pushed Germany to issue a public rebuke, in a sign of growing concern in Berlin with the tone of his re-election campaign.

But such tough words appeal to traditional followers of France’s Right-wing National Front (FN) party, led by Marine Le Pen, many of whom are believed to have switched to Mr Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party.

Mr Sarkozy’s poll boost came as Miss Le Pen, who is ranked third in the polls, said she had secured the 500 signatures that are needed from elected local mayors to enter the presidential race.

SOURCE



March 14, 2012

Australian taxpayers will fork out at least $60 million in free legal advice for asylum seekers this year

TAXPAYERS will fork out at least $60 million in free legal advice for asylum seekers this year as new figures reveal 80 per cent of detainees are winning their appeal for refugee status.

A Daily Telegraph investigation can reveal $32 million has been paid to 22 refugee legal firms since July - and the surge in boat arrivals is likely to swell their slice of the immigration budget.

And Labor's immigration review scheme is on track to cost up to $30 million as record numbers of asylum seekers use courts to challenge refugee visa rejections.

Meanwhile, the lawyer who led the fight to have the Gillard Government's Malaysia Solution overturned in the High Court, David Manne, appears to be one of the landmark decision's biggest beneficiaries. His Melbourne-based Refugee & Immigration Legal Centre has received $4.13 million since the refugee swap deal with Malaysia was sunk last August, courtesy of funding through the Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme.

With 1221 asylum seekers arriving in the first two months of this year, a small army of immigration lawyers are receiving similarly generous taxpayer funds, with 22 organisations receiving a large cash injection to give free advice to asylum seekers.

Just $220,000 was spent on the Independent Merits Review scheme in 2009-10 but this increased to $12 million in 2010-11 and $6 million was spent in the three months to September 30, 2011.

The opposition dubbed it the "Hotel California" scheme with the firm message to asylum seekers that "once you're here, you'll never have to leave".

New figures show the proportion of asylum seekers winning their appeals to become refugees has jumped from 46.8 per cent in 2009-10 to 79.3 per cent.

The department anticipated the scheme cost $22.8 million in 2010-11, with most of this ($19.4 million) allocated to help asylum seekers.

In eight months this financial year, the government has forked out $32.6 million in IAAAS funding, according to figures from the Commonwealth's tender website.

Other big winners include Adelaide-based Australian Migration Options, which secured $5.5 million in IAAAS funding, and the Refugee Advice and Casework Service, with $3.6 million.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison last night vowed to scrap the merit review scheme if the Coalition wins office.

He said Labor's "only policy now is a 'let them in and let them out' that has made Australia an even bigger magnet for boat arrivals than at any other time".

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said: "If the Coalition really cared about reducing asylum seeker costs, they would stop saying no to offshore processing so the government can put in place a genuine deterrent."

He said Australia had a "robust process for determining whether people seeking asylum are in need of our protection".

SOURCE







Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Statement of Jessica Vaughan at House Hearing on Illegal Aliens Arrested for Drunk Driving (Testimony)

2. The Hairsplitters Are at It Again, This Time with L-1B Alien Workers (Blog)

3. Ten Reasons to be Skeptical of an Obama Biometric Exit (Blog)

4. Exit Coming Soon? (Blog)

5. Immigration Marriage Fraud and Murder, a Recurring Combination (Blog)

6. With Friends Like Boehner. . . (Blog)

7. Two New Immigration Bills Illustrate the Slow Growth of Migrants' Power (Blog)

8. USCIS Gets an Easy $100 million from TPS Roll-Over for Salvadorans (Blog)

9. Bowling Alone and SWT Employers (Blog)

10. For Better Service, 'Marque el Número Dos' (Blog)

11. Canada Reminds: There Are Two Kinds of Marriage Fraud (Blog)

12. The More-Migration People Add Old Dictionaries to Their List of Weapons (Blog)



March 13, 2012

Senators Claim to have Votes to Increase Irish Guest Worker Visas in time for St. Patrick's Day

Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Scott Brown (R-MA) continue to push legislation granting an additional 10,500 work visas to Irish nationals in hopes of passing it in time for St. Patrick's Day, March 17. Sources say that at least one of them is claiming to have the filibuster proof majority necessary to pass the legislation in the Senate. The legislation could appear on the Senate floor in one of two forms: (1) an amended version of S. 1983, introduced by Sen. Schumer; or (2) S. 2005, introduced by Sen. Brown. Unlike some of Sen. Schumer's proposals, Sen. Brown's bill does not include an amnesty for illegal aliens of Irish nationality. Nonetheless, both pieces of legislation have the effect of expanding the E-3 visa program to admit at least 10,500 Irish guest workers annually, PLUS an unlimited number of visas for spouses and children of E-3 visa holders.

Congress created the E-3 visa program under the 2005 REAL ID Act. It is exclusively for Australian nationals who seek a nonimmigrant visa to come to the U.S. to work in a "specialty occupation." (See Pub. L. No. 109-13 § 501(a)) The current annual cap for E-3 visas is 10,500, and there is no cap on the number of derivative visas handed out to the spouses and children (up to age 21) of E-3 visa holders. (INA § 214(g)(11)) While touted by some as a visa for "high-skilled" workers, the threshold for qualifying for it is low. Federal regulations define "specialty occupation" to require only a Bachelor's degree — or its equivalent — in a broad variety of fields ranging from architecture and the social sciences to accounting. (8 C.F.R. 214.2(h)(4)(ii))

Both the amended version of S. 1983 and S. 2005 would allow an additional 10,500 E-3 guest worker visas to be given solely to Irish nationals. (INA § 101(a)(15)(E)(iii); INA § 214(g)(11)) However, rather than holding Irish nationals to the same "specialty occupation" standard as the Australians, these bills would lower the skill standard even further by only requiring Irish recipients of the E-3 visa to have just two years of work experience in a particular field, OR to have obtained a high school diploma or its equivalent.

Overall, S. 1983 as amended and S. 2005 represent poor immigration policy on several levels. Admitting an additional 10,500 individuals into the country (even more with an unlimited number of spouses and children) would increase immigration — and competition for scarce jobs — at a time when there are already 13 million unemployed Americans seeking work. Further exacerbating this problem, the bill lacks a requirement that employers seek legal U.S. workers before they can hire an E-3 visa holder and lowers the skill-set required to gain entry into the country. Finally, these bills carve out a special rule for members of a single nationality, creating a slippery slope in which representatives from every country around the world will seek similar preferential treatment.

SOURCE





Immigration, Border Security Agencies Still At Odds

The various federal agencies that deal with immigration and border security issues are still not on the same page even more than a decade after the 9/11 attacks, according to a new report unveiled this week.

The Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), said the country is more secure than before 9/11.

But the report also concluded that agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP, which includes the Border Patrol) still have significant problems linking databases and maintaining efficient lines of communication.

“Progress has been made, but there are some issues that stand between us and more success,” said Douglas Ellis, lead investigator on the report for OIG.

“Some have to do with our data systems, most of which are old and don’t connect well to each other or in some cases don’t connect at all with each other,” Ellis noted.

Other problems concern infrastructure. These agencies within DHS are physically based far from each other in Washington, D.C. In other words, it’s not just like someone from ICE can just walk down the hall to meet with CBP.

Officials at DHS who reviewed the OIG report agreed with most of the recommendations to improve the system.

But they also took some exceptions, such as not agreeing to permanently shut down a program — the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) — created in 2002 which called for immigrants, primarily from Middle Eastern countries, to report and register with the government.

The program was actually discontinued years ago, but kept on the books. Homeland Security wants to maintain it alive in case it needs to be brought back, officials said in their response to the OIG report.

The 9/11 attacks prompted a massive restructuring of the federal immigration system.

The former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was closed down and most immigration matters were transferred to DHS, which began operating in March 2003.

Another federal agency, the Department of Justice, retained some immigration functions, such as overseeing the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) — the immigration court system.

SOURCE



March 12, 2012

Control illegal immigrants or I'll pull France out of visa free zone, says Sarkozy

A withdrawal by France would of course destroy the Schengen arrangements so this will put huge pressure on the Brussels bureaucrats if Sarkozy is re-elected

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened in a key election rally to pull France out of Europe's 26-nation visa free zone unless the European Union does more to keep out illegal immigrants.

Mr Sarkozy, who this week said France had too many foreigners, made the threat at a mass meeting which he hopes will turn the tide against front-running Socialist Francois Hollande with just 42 days to go before election day.

The so-called Schengen passport-free zone must urgently be overhauled to fight the flow of illegal immigration, said the right-wing leader, returning to a constant theme in his bid for five more years at the Elysee palace.

To chants of "Nicolas, president!" from the tens of thousands in the flag-waving audience, Mr Sarkozy said unchecked immigration would put extra strain on social safety nets for Europe's poorest.

"In the coming 12 months, (if) there is no serious progress towards this (reforming Schengen), France would then suspend its participation in the Schengen accords until negotiations conclude," he declared.

The Schengen area is home to 400 million Europeans who can cross borders without a passport, and once inside the area illegal immigrants can theoretically move freely between the participating states.

Mr Sarkozy accuses some EU states of having lax border controls that let in illegals who may later turn up in France.

Mr Sarkozy's UMP party chartered TGV high-speed trains and fleets of buses to ferry supporters from across France for the rally in a cavernous exhibition hall in Villepinte, near Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

Mr Sarkozy also said he wanted the EU to introduce a Buy European Act based on a US measure that obliges the state to use domestically produced products in public contracts.

If the European Union did not do this within a year, he would, if re-elected in the two-round vote in April and May, implement a unilateral Buy French law, he said.

"I want a Europe that protects its citizens. I no longer want this savage competition," he told the crowd, which the UMP estimated at 70,000. He rejected the idea of "a Europe that opens up its markets when others do not", he said.

"I have lost none of my will to act, my will to make things change, my belief in the genius of France," he insisted.

Mr Sarkozy produced few surprises, sticking to familiar themes such as immigration and portraying himself as the steady captain steering France through the economic storm.

He got the loudest cheer of the rally when he reminded his supporters he had banned Islamic veils in France and was opposed to having special Islamic halal meals in school canteens. "It was to give back to women control of their destiny that we wanted to ban the burqa...," he told the crowd.

Mr Sarkozy a week ago picked up on a debate about halal meat launched by Marine Le Pen, declaring that its spread was a major problem for the French.

But his critics have accused him of fishing for support from voters who lean towards the National Front, the anti-immigrant, anti-EU party led by Ms Le Pen, who polls put in third place in the presidential race.

Mr Hollande, who has never held a ministerial post and whose ex-partner Segolene Royal lost to Mr Sarkozy in 2007, this week pressed home his attacks on his rival's record in five years at the Elysee palace.

He mocked Mr Sarkozy's plan to slap a new tax on the profits of listed companies. The president has said it would bring in up to three billion euros ($3.9 billion) a year to help cut the public deficit.

An OpinionWay-Fiducial opinion poll on Thursday forecast that Mr Hollande would take 29 percent of the vote in the first round, with Mr Sarkozy at 26 percent and Ms Le Pen third at 17 percent.

Mr Hollande, who has enjoyed a clear lead for five months, would romp home in the second round with 56 percent, well ahead of Mr Sarkozy at 44 percent, the poll said.

Among the celebrities at the rally were actress Emmanuelle Seigner, wife of Roman Polanski, and actor Gerard Depardieu.

Depardieu described the president as frank and honest and said that since Mr Sarkozy had been in power, "I only hear bad things about this man who only does good".

The Villepinte rally came just days after the 56-year-old Sarkozy said he would quit politics for good if not re-elected.

SOURCE






The GFC refugees heading for Australia

Representatives of Australia's Portuguese, Spanish, Greek and Italian communities told The Sun-Herald that in recent months they have fielded a rush of inquiries about job openings and migration to Australia.

"There is an increasing interest from our nationals in Portugal writing to us, inquiring about jobs," Antonio Gaivao, first secretary of the Portuguese embassy in Canberra, said.

Many of the Portuguese citizens who emailed the embassy were young and well educated, he said. Some were doctors and lawyers.

Spanish, Greek and Italian chamber of commerce officials echoed the sentiment, saying rising numbers of lawyers, doctors, architects and other skilled professionals had contacted them about jobs.

"I would say 95 per cent of the CVs we get are from qualified professionals. They have qualifications be it in engineering, architecture, law, whatever it may be," said Lillian Ajuria, an immigration lawyer and spokeswoman for the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Australia.

The Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne last year received "three to four thousand emails" from Greek citizens looking to move to Australia, the group's president, Bill Papastergiadis, said.

Many held university degrees and were highly skilled but had been battered by Greece's austerity program, Nick Mylonas, president of the Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said.

Last month, however, the federal government rejected a call by the Greek community to provide a special working visa for Greeks caught in their country's worsening financial crisis.

Ms Ajuria said Spanish citizens have it even tougher than Italians, as Spain is not part of the working holiday program with Australia. Italian nationals under the age of 31 can at least get a working holiday visa and work in Australia for six months without being sponsored, she said.

Australia's working visa program is open to Irish citizens but not Portuguese; Italians but not Spanish; Cypriots but not Greeks.

Ms Ajuria said working visas would open doors for young Europeans but would also help employers who would be able to "put [the visitors] on the job, test them for three or six months and then decide whether they are worthy of being sponsored".

Of the many Europeans turning to Australia since the financial crash, it has mostly been the Irish who have scored visas. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship counted a 68 per cent increase in Irish visa grants for last financial year over the previous one. However, there has been no significant rise in visa grants to Ireland's neighbouring "debt crisis" countries.

Given the high youth unemployment rates in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, embassy officials believe the situation may soon change.

If these new batches of Europeans were granted visas, they would be unrecognisable from the migrants who arrived in Australia half a century ago, said Tim Harcourt, a trade and migration expert and fellow at the University of NSW's school of economics.

The Greeks and Italians who emigrated after World War II were mainly blue-collar workers who drove taxis, ran shops and worked on building sites, Mr Harcourt said. Yet, he said, a disproportionate number of these migrants became entrepreneurs and exporters. He believes that if the latest inquiries turn into visas, then Australia will benefit handsomely.

"According to Sensis data, 50 per cent of Australian exporters were born overseas," Mr Harcourt said. "The inquiries … are like a canary in a coalmine. If successful, these economic refugees could well be among the ranks of future Australian exporters."

SOURCE



March 11, 2012

DHS Expands Controversial Secure Communities Program

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the budgetary request to complete the enlargement of the controversial Secure Communities program as part of "smart and effective enforcement of U.S. immigration laws."

She outlined Department of Homeland Security priorities for the 2013 fiscal year during an appearance before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

Napolitano said DHS' 2013 budget "includes funding to complete nationwide deployment" of the Secure Communities program in fiscal 2013, which ends Sept. 30, 2013.

The S-COMM initiative is aimed at identifying and removing deportable undocumented immigrants who land in state prisons and local jails.

"Nationwide implementation of Secure Communities and other enforcement initiatives, coupled with continued collaboration with DOJ (Department of Justice) ... is expected to continue to increase the number of criminal aliens and other priority individuals who are identified and removed," the secretary told lawmakers.

To criticisms from pro-immigrant groups, DHS insists that 94 percent of those deported through S-COMM are foreigners already convicted of crime, fugitives, repeat criminal offenders, and people detained crossing the border illegally.

The S-COMM program, which requires state and local law enforcement to share all detainees' fingerprints with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has driven deportations of undocumented immigrants to record levels.

Presente.org, an advocacy group, cites ICE statistics showing that a mere 22 percent of the nearly 400,000 people deported in the 2011 fiscal year had convictions for serious offenses.

It is only by redefining "criminal removal" to include people who committed minor infractions that authorities can claim criminals account for half of deportees, according to Presente.org.

Widespread opposition has led numerous municipalities and several states to attempt to opt out of S-COMM, though DHS says the program is obligatory.

A committee assembled to the program issued a report last September urging a series of reforms to increase transparency and focus the effort on deporting dangerous criminals.

"ICE should clarify that civil immigration law violators and individuals who are convicted of or charged with misdemeanors or other minor offenses are not top enforcement priorities" in the absence of other indicators that they pose a serious risk, the Task Force on Secure Communities said in its 33-page report.

Specifically, the panel said that the taking of fingerprints under S-COMM should not result in the deportation of an undocumented immigrant detained for a minor traffic infraction.

SOURCE




Immigrant Tracking System Ready Soon

In a statement before the House of Representatives Homeland Security subcommittee, the Department of Homeland Security is now on the final stages of its biometric data system. This new system would be able to keep tabs on immigrants when they leave the United States.

This system has been on the top wish list for security before 9/11. The exit system would be able to track individuals as they leave the country but was seen to be too costly to operate and maintain. During the testimony before the House subcommittee, John Cohen, DHS Deputy Counter Terrorism Coordinator did not disclose the cost of the system but assured members of the House that the system would be up and running “within weeks”.

The country’s inability to track millions of foreign visitors especially if they overstay their visas has been a hot topic in both politics and government. While the current administration has not made deportation of overstaying individuals a priority, those though with other criminal offenses, especially those considered as threats to public and national security, have been deported posthaste.

The new system would be pivotal, as data accumulated from immigrants is collected, stored and made available to law enforcement agencies to be able to identify visa overstays. This is most especially important when the individual entering the country since they pose a threat to national security or public safety.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the agency primarily responsible for deporting illegal immigrants. Their agents comb through visa records to assist in identification of individuals that have overstayed in the country and undertake deportation proceedings considered threats to the national security or community.

As of the latest statistics, 37,000 individuals with expired visas have been deported between 2009 and 2011. There is a current backlog of 1.6 million of suspected overstaying individuals since 2004. Nearly half of these individuals have left the country or applied to change their immigration status. The other half is still under review as these were deemed national security threats as priorities for deportation

SOURCE



March 10, 2012

Migrants with no English become 'jobless sub-class': They must speak it like a native, says British minister

Immigrants who do not learn English become a virtually unemployable ‘sub-class’, a Cabinet minister claimed yesterday. Eric Pickles said it was unacceptable that children were leaving school unable to speak the language ‘like a native’.

No other senior politician has been so outspoken on such a contentious issue. Mr Pickles, who is in charge of community cohesion and integration, said: ‘In terms of wanting people, encouraging people, to be part of British society, they can’t do that unless they have more than an understanding of English.

‘If we don’t get our resident population with an understanding of English, then they become a sub-class that is virtually unemployable or are stuck in a ghetto.

Official figures suggest that around 17 per cent of pupils in state primary schools, and 12 per cent in state secondaries, do not speak English as a first language. The equivalent figures six years ago were 12 per cent and 10 per cent.

Announcing a £10million grant to ‘actively encourage’ the teaching of English, the Communities Secretary said Labour had exacerbated the problem by regarding minority groups as victims. He told parliament’s weekly magazine The House that his aim was ‘real integration, an opportunity for people to meet, to mix, to be engaged in activities beyond their ethnic group’.

Suggesting the last government had made the situation worse with its attitude to minorities, Mr Pickles said: ‘Sometimes they called it a problem, sometimes they called it a challenge.

We need to be a little bit more upfront about it and say Britain is stronger, much stronger, because of British Hindus, British Sikhs, because of British Muslims, because of British Jews.’ Mr Pickles was scathing about Labour’s doctrine of multiculturalism, describing it as ‘the politics of division’.

He insisted public bodies should no longer ‘bend over backwards’ to translate documents into dozens of languages and migrants must be asked to learn English and demonstrate an understanding of the British way of life. Schoolchildren should be educated in a ‘common culture’, promoting a British identity that crosses class, colour or creed, he suggested.

Events such as the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, meanwhile, should be used to celebrate the nation’s traditional culture and to ‘fly the flags of Britain’ with pride.

Mr Pickles said the Government’s integration policy ‘essentially builds on what we have in common, rather than to seek differences’.

Explaining that his own upbringing shaped his views on cohesion, Mr Pickles added: ‘I can remember asking my mum why there was a sign up in a shop that said “no blacks in here” or something to that effect in Bradford, when I was not very old at all. ‘It is quite right that we have introduced laws to outlaw that kind of thing. Nobody should feel frightened in the United Kingdom.

People should feel safe in their beds, they should feel comfortable in their neighbourhoods.

‘These dreadful extremists want to create fear in the minds of the community. We have always been of the view that if the Muslim community of Britain, British Muslims, are seen as the enemy within, then the forces of extremism win. We should be able to unite on the things we have in common, rather than constantly harp on the things that we have that are different.’

Mr Pickles launched a strong defence of the right of Muslim women to wear the veil. ‘We are a tolerant nation and frankly I have absolutely no patience in adopting a kind of French system that is going to remove people from wearing headscarves,’ he said.

Labour questioned Mr Pickles’s choice of language. Hilary Benn, opposition communities spokesman, said: ‘Eric Pickles should be thinking of practical ways to ensure that anyone settling in this country is able to speak English rather than talking about sub-classes and ghettos.’

Tom Brake, Lib Dem backbench home affairs spokesman, said: ‘We need to sing the praises of our immigrant communities rather than consign them to a ghetto. Migrants often make superhuman efforts to learn English and end up creating jobs that benefit British workers.’

SOURCE




Immigration Official: Will not Suspend Program Over Racial Profiling Investigation

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said Thursday that the agency has no plans to suspend a controversial program that gives police authority to detect undocumented immigrants, even in jurisdictions under investigation for racial profiling.

"From our perspective that is a fairly draconian step, and we're very concerned about the public safety implications of not identifying serious offenders who would otherwise be released to the streets," Morton told a House of Representatives subcommittee on homeland security.

ICE has remained staunchly committed to the Secure Communities program, despite opposition from many immigrant-rights groups, lawmakers and law enforcement offices. And even though the agency, partnered with the Department of Justice, is investigating whether local police are engaged in racial profiling, the administration of President Obama plans to move ahead at the same rate to implement the program nationwide.

Secure Communities requires police to share fingerprint data on all arrestees with the federal government, namely the FBI, which transfers the data to ICE in order to detect undocumented immigrants. The program currently exists in 2,385 jurisdictions, including all along the Southwest border, and will be rolled out in all 3,181 nationwide by 2013.

Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) pressed Morton on problems with the program, including the fact that ICE has yet to report back on analysis meant to help detect racial profiling.

"On the question of have we suspended Secure Communities in any place that is under investigation --," Morton said to Roybal-Allard.

"-- The question is why have you not," she interjected.

The hearing, which was held to discuss Obama's Fiscal Year 2013 budget proposal for ICE, came on the same day as a letter from 80 civil rights organizations urging the FBI to stop participating in the program.

"[Secure Communities] threatens public safety, encourages racial profiling, undermines community policing, and serves as a deportation dragnet, ensnaring anyone who is booked into police custody," the letter reads.

The program's detractors say it could discourage immigrants from coming to police as witnesses or victims, hurting overall public safety. They also say it could unnecessarily put undocumented immigrants arrested for minor crimes -- even if they were never charged or convicted -- in deportation proceedings.

Racial profiling has already proved a problem in the predecessor to Secure Communities, the 287(g) program that the government is now beginning to phase out. Maricopa County, Ariz., led by infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, was stripped of its 287(g) contract amid reports that law enforcement officers racially profiled there.

The roll-out of Secure Communities does not seem likely to be slowed by similar investigations, despite evidence that racial profiling may exist. A recent study from the Warren Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, found that 93 percent of those detained under Secure Communities were Latino, even though Latinos make up 77 percent of the undocumented population.

Some jurisdictions, and even states, have attempted to opt out of Secure Communities but were told they could not -- contradicting earlier statements and documents. Cook County, Ill., announced in September that it would no longer honor requests from ICE to hold undocumented arrestees that it would otherwise release.

Morton said ICE is tracking Cook County's releases and offered to pay any extra cost for detention at the agency's request. "We do not think it's a good idea that hardened felons are released onto the streets of Cook County," he said.

Morton "willfully ignores" problems like racial profiling, said Chris Newman of National Day Labor Organizing Network, which advocates for ending Secure Communities. "To me, among the most pernicious elements of Secure Communities is the extent to which it endorses the view that undocumented immigrants are serious criminals," he said.

SOURCE



March 9, 2012

Immigration paves Australia's way into the Asian century

BY: CHRIS BOWEN (Chris Bowen is the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in Australia's Green/Left government)

What Chris Bowen's writers say below is true enough in that East Asians and South Asians integrate well into Australian society and, now that that is generally recognized, their presence is not controversial.

Though young Caucasian/Australian women could be forgiven for being bothered by the way that East Asian young women tend to snap up all the tall Caucasian men. No shortage of integration there!

Bowen deliberately ignores what IS controversial in Australia, however: Illegal immigration. The people are overwhelmingly against it but the Leftist government winks at it. Leftists represent elites and would-be elites these days, not the people.

And since Afghans are prominent among the illegals, there is good reason for disquiet. Importing medieval ignorance and religious hostility has little good to be said for it

SOMETHING big happened in the history of immigration last year. It didn't get any headlines. It had nothing to do with boats or asylum-seekers. It wasn't debated in parliament.

But it is probably the most important development in immigration in years. Last year, for the first time in the history of Australia, Britain was not our largest source of permanent migrants. For the first time, more people moved to Australia from China than any other country.

As we talk of Australia's role in the Asian century, there is a lot of focus on trade and resources, naturally enough. But it is immigration - and skilled migration in particular - that is the greatest cross-cultural and economic development program of them all.

Skilled and business migrants from Asia increase our trade links, our understanding of the region and our national language skills. And it's not just China we're talking about, of course. Putting aside New Zealand, which has separate migration arrangements with Australia, India and The Philippines are our third and fourth largest sources of new residents.

All of this has occurred with little public criticism. The days of John Howard or Pauline Hanson warning of the social upheaval caused by Asian migration seem like an eon ago.

Skilled migration is vital to our economy. Without migration, the labour force is expected to contract by 2050. Australia simply won't have enough people to keep our economy growing - even with the government's strong investment in skills and education, participation and social inclusion, and productive capacity. We need migrants for future growth and prosperity.

We are no longer victims of the tyranny of distance. Indeed, we have been blessed by geography. But let's be clear, the opportunities the Asian century present Australia aren't purely down to chance.

Our nation is a highly open economy, open to significant flows of people. More than a quarter of our people were born overseas and migrants add more to our population each year than natural increase.

The potential then offered by six million migrants, a third of them born in Asian countries, is extraordinary. Think also about the hundreds of thousands of Australian residents fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Hindi, Punjabi, Indonesian, Tagalog and Japanese.

Asian migration to Australia is very much driven by a mutually beneficial emphasis on skills. Much more than 60 per cent of migrants to Australia come under our skilled migration program, and this applies particularly to migrants from Asia.

Perhaps the most reassuring element of the shift in emphasis towards Asian migration is that we don't need to tweak the system to tap into these skills, because the skilled migration system we have developed has the flexibility to automatically respond to shifts in the world's economic activity.

Of equal importance to our economic future are temporary migrants, such as students. Students from Asia now comprise 68 per cent of all student visitors - which has already equated to 100,000 visas granted in the past seven months.

The importance of international education for the bottom line of our universities is well understood, as is the economic activity of the students and their families who regularly visit them. Not as frequently discussed is the importance of international education to the nation's long-term strategic interests.

Having large numbers of Asia's future leaders who have had a positive education experience in Australia is of incalculable benefit to our long-term diplomatic engagement in the region. Every international student becomes another ambassador for our country, another advocate for our interests in the region. And those advocates often end up in some pretty important roles.

When I travel through the region, I'm often struck by the number of senior players in government who studied here or who have children who study here and therefore have a heightened appreciation and positive disposition towards Australia.

Singapore's first directly elected president, Ong Teng Cheong, and Indonesia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Marty Natalegawa, both studied at Australian universities. Australian university alumni are littered across the region, particularly in China, India, Malaysia and Singapore.

The reforms Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans and I have announced, based on the recommendations of former NSW Olympics minister Michael Knight, are very focused on encouraging more genuine students, particularly from Asia, to have the Australian education experience.

We will provide post-study work rights of two years for bachelor degree graduates and up to four-year work rights for PhD graduates. We are also streamlining the process for assessing genuine students to make it easier for people who want to study here.

The rise of Asia brings new and exciting opportunities for Australia. Solid economic fundamentals and geography mean we're well placed to act.

Dwindling domestic labour force growth and the need to shore up our economic future mean we must act. If we get it right, the potential is profound.

SOURCE





'We have too many foreigners': Sarkozy outrages minorities in France

Nicolas Sarkozy has infuriated ethnic minorities by claiming that there are ‘too many immigrants in France’ and that the number arriving should be reduced by almost half.

The outspoken claims were made on live TV as the increasingly desperate President tried to persuade people to re-elect him in May.

‘Our system of integration is getting worse and worse,’ said Mr Sarkozy. 'We have too many foreigners on our territory and we can no longer manage to find them accommodation, a job, a school.’

The conservative President, who is trailing badly in all opinion polls to his Socialist rival Francois Hollande, said he wanted to reduce the number of immigrants from some 180,000 a year to 100,000.

Speaking about immigration, Mr Sarkozy said: ‘Over the five year term, I think that to restart the process of integration in the right way, we must divide by two the number of people that we welcome, that is to say to pass from 180,000 per year to 100,000.’

Mr Sarkozy said he also wanted to limit the amount of welfare benefits paid to immigrant workers so that only those had lived in the country for 10 years, and worked for at least five, received them.

In what appeared to be a specific attack on Jews and Muslims – who make up a community of around 5 million in France and are the largest ethnic minority – Mr Sarkozy had earlier called for all kosher and halal products to be labelled properly.

He said that all consumers needed to know whether food had been prepared in accordance with Islamic and Jewish law,as they might object to eating it.

Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the French Muslim faith council, said Islam should ‘not become a target in the election campaign’.

Richard Prasquier, president of the representative council of Jewish institutions, has also expressed ‘shock’ at the ‘stupefying’ claims being made by Mr Sarkozy and his colleagues.

Mr Sarkozy was also attacked for ‘scape-goating and stigmatizing’ Muslims by Manuel Valls, communications chief for Mr Hollande’s campaign.

Mr Sarkozy is hoping he can win over those who currently vote for Marine Le Pen’ s National Front (FN), but his increasingly right-wing agenda is not making him any more popular.

Before his TV appearance on Tuesday night, a CSA poll suggested Mr Sarkozy would gain 46 per cent of the vote in a second round run-off, compared to 54 per cent for Mr Hollande.

An editorial in Liberation, the Paris daily newspaper, said the French had ‘solidly and profoundly fallen out of love with the outgoing President’.

SOURCE



March 8, 2012

Report Challenges Attack on Secure Communities

Finds No Evidence of Racial Profiling

A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies examines the outcomes of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Secure Communities program and how those outcomes have been misleadingly described in one widely-circulated study published by the Earl Warren Institute at the University of California, Berkeley Law School. The Center's report, second in a three-part series, uses the same database of actual case histories provided by ICE as the Warren Institute report.

The groups that first obtained the ICE records have claimed that they reveal a disturbing pattern of abuse of authority by ICE, including wrongful arrests of thousands of U.S. citizens, a pattern of racial profiling against Latinos, and denial of due process for aliens in removal proceedings. These allegations have been uncritically passed on by major news media outlets and repeated by members of Congress. While the database does provide an interesting and relatively rare snapshot of the ICE caseload, the Center found that the records did not support any of the racial profiling allegations.

The Center's findings are online here

The Warren Institute report asserts that 93 percent of the individuals apprehended were 'Latino'. Yet ICE databases do not contain information relating to a person's race or ethnicity. Such judgments of race and ethnicity based solely on nationality are speculative and prone to error.

The Warren Institute authors claimed there is ethnic bias in the operation of Secure Communities because 93 percent of arrested aliens in the dataset were Latino, while only 77 percent of the illegal-immigrant population nationwide is Latino. This is a faulty analysis because most of cases in the database were drawn from just three southwest border states (Arizona, Texas, and California), where the illegal-immigrant population is disproportionately Latino.

We found that the presumed ethnic profile of the cases in this database (based on country of nationality) very closely matches the ethnic profile of the actual population of criminal aliens nationwide and also in the states where most of the SC arrests took place. According to a variety of government and independent sources, the population of criminal aliens nationwide and in Texas, California, and Arizona, where most of the arrests in the database took place, is approximately 90 percent Latino, which is nearly identical to the percentage of Latino detainees in the database (93 percent).

We found that the percentage of presumed Latino arrests in the database (93 percent) was lower than the percentage of Latino DHS arrests and removals nationwide (94-98 percent). If Secure Communities is inviting racial profiling against Latinos, then the percentage should be higher, not lower.

Neither the information in the database nor in other reputable academic or government studies supports the Warren Institute allegations that the Secure Communities program is having a negative effect on community policing and masking illegal racial-profiling practices.

Part 1 of the Center's look at the Warren Institute report is here

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. Contacts: Jessica Vaughan, jmv@cis.org, (508) 346-3380
Bryan Griffith, press@cis.org, (202) 630-6533

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






Canadian immigration boss hints at seeking younger, well-spoken immigrant from end-year

In what was a busy week even by his usual frenetic standards, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney issued a flurry of statements on the immigration file over the last few days.

Leading the list was a broad hint indicating Canada would look for younger immigrants with better language (English and French) speaking skills and strong industry training that could pass pre-assessment requirements. As examples he cited doctors and welders.

The government would also prefer those with firm job offers — which could mean further boosting the temporary worker program — while possibly raising the threshold for those seeking investor program.

“I will continue to make changes,” he promised at the National Metropolis Conference last week. “Immigration is playing an increasingly important role in our economy and we need a system that does a better job of attracting the people who have the skills that are in demand and getting them here quickly,” he said.

The government would also continue to favour certain foreign students.

While recognizing there had been several improvements under his watch, Kenney agreed that more challenges lie ahead in seeing his vision realized. He noted, for instance, that the current points system used to assess federal skilled worker applicants needs to be more flexible and intelligent.

He also promised to do more to reduce the legacy of backlogs, where there are wait times of seven years or longer in some categories.

“Canadians need and deserve a system that boldly puts Canada’s best interests first,” he said.

Sponsorship restrictions

Canada has also put in place a bar on sponsorship in an ongoing effort to deter people from using a marriage of convenience to come to Canada, Kenney announced.

Regulatory changes now in force mean sponsored spouses or partners will have to wait five years from the day they are granted permanent residence status in Canada to sponsor a new spouse or partner.

Until now, a sponsored spouse or partner arriving in Canada as a permanent resident could leave their sponsor and sponsor another spouse or partner themselves.

Super Visa super success: Kenney

More than 1,000 Parent and Grandparent Super Visa applications have been approved in less than three months since the Super Visa program took flight, for an overall approval rate of 77 per cent, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced this week.

“I’m pleased that the Parent and Grandparent Super Visa is working as intended,” he said.

Among its other touted attractions the Super Visa aims at a processing time of eight weeks or less. But critics continued to point out the insurance requirement priced this visa out of the reach of many immigrants.

NDP joins act

NDP Immigration and Citizenship critic Don Davies is introducing two bills to “make Canada’s visitor visa system more fair and transparent”.

The first bill requires the government to provide a detailed explanation when applicants are denied a temporary resident or visitor visa. The second will allow a person to appeal a rejection if they feel an error has been made.

SOURCE



March 7, 2012

Obama has nothing to offer anybody on immigration

He's just blowing smoke

"My presidency is not over. I've got another five years coming up. We're going to get this done."

When President Obama said this recently on the Spanish-language Univision channel, he wasn't just displaying confidence in his future. He was also offering an excuse for his inaction so far on immigration reform.

Before an audience of Hispanic voters, Obama was promising once again that he would be the president to pull this sword from the stone. Just give him another term -- really, he swears.

To believe Obama's promise, one would have to ignore both his tenure in office so far and his prospects in a second term. Obama did almost nothing on the issue of immigration when he could. And if re-elected, he will face a Congress that will let him do even less.

Yesterday, Obama put the blame on Republicans -- easy enough to do, given that most of them oppose reforms as "amnesty." "We're going to have to see how many Republican votes we need to get it done," Obama said. "Ultimately, I cannot vote [on behalf of] Republicans."

It's as if he's forgotten that until recently, he had a Congress that would have passed a serious immigration reform measure. In June 2010, when Hispanic political leaders noticed he wasn't moving on the issue, he brought them to the White House to convince them to shut up, wait, and instead help him use the issue to win the midterm elections.

As the Washington Post recounted, they were told "they had to stop their public complaining about how slowly he was moving and instead direct their fire at Republicans." That phrase encapsulates Obama's entire interest in the immigration issue. The election strategy failed -- Hispanic voters did not "punish their enemies" or "reward their friends" as he'd hoped.

And given how insurmountable the 2012 and 2014 Senate maps look for Democrats, that was probably the last dying gasp for immigration reform. Through most of 2009, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and 60 Senate seats. At that time, Obama would not have needed support from a single Republican to pass immigration reform.

Even after the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and his replacement by a Republican in February 2010, there was still hope. We know because after the 2010 election, in the extreme circumstances of a lame-duck Congress, there was a vote on the Dream Act. That bill, which would have legalized some who immigrated illegally as children with their parents, was opposed by some pro-reform Republicans simply because it was viewed as a bad-faith political stunt by a Democratic Party just thrown out of power.

Yet it still received three Republican votes in the Senate, and fell short of 60 only because of Democratic crossovers. With that in mind, just imagine if the Obama White House had placed any weight behind a serious immigration proposal -- one that actually struck a balance between regularizing immigrants and increasing border security.

Had this occurred at any time in the preceding 24 months, Obama probably could have reformed the immigration system. Of course, we can never know for sure, because he never tried.

People also forget that the last time a serious attempt was made to reform immigration, under President George W. Bush, Obama was there in the U.S. Senate.

He voted for and proposed amendments that at the time were called "poison pills" and, as the AP put it, were "potentially fatal blows to the fragile coalition backing the bill."

Taken in their best light, these actions were attempts by Obama to get a better bill later. But when? To quote him from 2008, "by the end of my first term as president of the United States of America."

Obama had his chance on immigration reform, and he won't get another, whether he gets a second term or not. If it's an important issue to you, Obama is not a friend who deserves to be rewarded.

SOURCE





Ariz. Governor Blasts Feds Over Immigration Woes

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer blasted the federal government for failing to secure the U.S.-Mexico border while invoking the names of a slain rancher and Border Patrol agent on Tuesday at a major border-security expo being held in downtown Phoenix.

Speaking to a room of law enforcement officers and those in the border technology industry, Brewer said the immigration issue isn't about hate or skin color, as her critics say — it's about securing the border and keeping Americans safe.

"Of course, there are those in Washington who will tell you — from 3,000 miles away, by the way — that our border is more secure than ever," Brewer said. "No amount of distortion can hide the absolute truth. The federal government, Republicans and Democrats alike, have failed every single American, all of us."

She said Washington's "abdication of responsibility is the overarching outrage of American illegal immigration crisis."

"America's failure to understand this problem at a national level and to deal with it has haunted borders like mine for decades," she said.

Brewer pointed to the killings of rancher Rob Krentz and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Authorities believe an illegal immigrant killed Krentz while he was checking water lines on his property near the Arizona-Mexico border in March 2010.

Terry was killed in a shootout with border bandits in December 2010. A gun used in his shooting was connected to the botched federal operation known as Fast and Furious, in which agents lost track of nearly 1,400 of the more than 2,000 guns purchased by suspected straw buyers.

While Brewer was at the expo, she visited a number of booths where border-security companies displayed their wares in hopes that federal agents would like what they saw and help them win lucrative contracts.

On display were giant trucks equipped for border surveillance that are painted with eagles, all-terrain vehicles with spotlights, unmanned aerial drones, night-vision goggles and giant outdoor camouflaged monitoring centers.

In one booth that Brewer stopped at, by European Aerospace Defense Systems, the governor looked at how the company uses radar and cameras to monitor land.

The company will be one of many vying for an upcoming government contract for fixed towers at immigration hot spots along the border, starting in Arizona. The contract is part of the government's latest strategy to secure the border.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the government will use existing, proven technology tailored to the distinct terrain and population density of each region of the nearly 2,000-mile U.S-Mexico border.

She said that would provide faster technology deployment, better coverage and more bang for the buck. She also said the government learned its lesson from a failed high-tech border fence project ordered by Congress in 2006.

The nearly $1 billion program, initiated in 2005 and known as SBInet, was supposed to put a network of cameras, ground sensors and radars along the entire border.

Instead, taxpayers ended up with about 53 miles of operational "virtual fence" in Arizona for a cost of at least $15 million a mile, according to testimony in previous congressional hearings.

SOURCE



March 6, 2012

Georgia to Take Up Bill Barring Undocumented Immigrants From Colleges:

The Georgia Senate is expected to take up Senate Bill 458 on Monday's floor session that, if passed, would ban undocumented immigrant students from state colleges and universities. It must pass out of the Senate by Crossover Day on Wednesday or the legislation dies. The bill would bar undocumented immigrants from all state colleges, universities and technical schools and also makes tweaks to other state laws having to do with illegal immigration.

Supporters of the bill say it's necessary to preserve state-funded education for citizens and legal residents. Opponents say the bill unfairly denies motivated students the opportunity to further their education.

Already a university system policy bars university immigrants from any state school that has rejected academically qualified students in the prior two years.

The measure, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Barry Loudermilk, would require all the state's public universities to verify the immigration status of their applicants using a federal database and to deny admission to those who cannot prove that they are in the country legally.

Last month, a similar proposal was temporarily suspended in the legislature after a public audience at which opponents of the bill jammed the hall.

Democratic state Rep. Pedro Marin called it a "criminal" measure for destroying the dreams of young people who are only guilty of having been brought to this country when they were children by their parents.

The state's five most-selective public institutions - the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia College and State University, the Medical College of Georgia and Georgia State University - already reject undocumented applicants under a rule adopted by the Board of Regents in 2010.

Previously, all of Georgia's public universities admitted undocumented immigrants but required them to pay tuition at out-of-state rates.

According to official figures, of the 318,000 students enrolled in the state university system, just 300 are undocumented.

Mexican-born Yiovani Diaz, who has spent 16 of his 19 years living in the United States, says the measure is unfair to young people like him who regard Georgia as their home.

Diaz is currently attending Freedom University, an initiative created by several professors from the University of Georgia to provide an educational alternative to undocumented students.

SOURCE





Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Secure Communities by the Numbers, Revisited (Memorandum)

2. Jessica Vaughan Discusses Identity Theft on FOX News Boston (Video)

3. Small Nations Show U.S. How Immigration Policies Should Work (Blog)

4. California's Drive to Give Illegal Aliens Driver's Licenses (Blog)

5. National Sheriffs Association Supports E-Verify Mandate, 287(g), and Full Enforcement (Blog)

6. H-1B Question: What Is the Real Demand for High School Turkish Teachers? (Blog)

7. Sheriff Joe on Sheriff Joe (Blog)

8. Language Divisions or Language (Re)Unification? (Blog)

9. The Rodney Dangerfield of Professions? (Blog)

10. Two New Takes on 'Birth Tourism' (Blog)

11. Return of the Pharisees (Blog)

12. US-VISIT About to Be Another Obama Casualty (Blog)



March 5, 2012

Australia's Leftist government opens the floodgates for illegals

AUSTRALIA will quadruple the number of asylum seekers released from detention to live in the community, prompting accusations the Gillard Government has quietly dismantled mandatory detention.

The dramatic increase allowing 400 asylum seekers a month to be released on bridging visas to live and work or claim welfare payments before their claims are finalised prompted Coalition warnings yesterday of a "let them in and let them out" policy.

But it will be welcomed by the Greens, who have long called for the dismantling of the inhumane detention of asylum seekers.

Asylum seekers had previously remained in detention until their claims for refugee status were finalised, some after years, and were then released into the community or deported.

The forecast of 400 asylum seekers a month to be released into the community is the same number the department expects to arrive by boat every month over the next year.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen flagged the new policy in November, predicting 100 asylum seekers a month would be released.

"The rate at which we are currently processing people would see us releasing about 400 people a month on bridging visas," deputy secretary John Moorhouse said.

Immigration secretary Andrew Metcalfe added in evidence to a parliamentary hearing that on current boat arrival, "we believe we will probably get up to that figure".

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison ridiculed Minister Bowen's earlier pledge that the policy of mandatory detention was "rock solid". "Labor's policy for illegal boat arrivals has now been exposed as simply being let them in and let them out," Mr Morrison said.

"The revelation the number of bridging visas will rise to four times the level indicated by the Minister when he announced the scheme just three months ago shows just how far the Labor Government has embraced the Greens policy of onshore release.

"The big winners are people smugglers. The Government's own figures reveal the average price paid on these boats is $10,000 a person."

But the Government expects to rein in a budget blowout sparked by rising arrivals under the policy. That is because it is cheaper to allow asylum seekers to live and work in the community or claim welfare payments than it is to house them in remote detention centres.

SOURCE




New Zealand prefers wealthy immigrants

A Cabinet paper shows the Government is planning to tighten up on family members seeking New Zealand residency while giving preference to better-off immigrants.

The draft paper leaked to the Labour Party shows Immigration New Zealand is planning to create a two-tier system where applications from parents sponsored by their higher income children, or those who bring a guaranteed income or funds, would be processed faster than other applications.

The system would also be tightened for those in the second tier for wealthier immigrants so that only those with no adult children living in their home country would be eligible.

Sponsors would be required to support immigrating parents for a period of 10 years, up from five, and parents would no longer be able to bring dependent children.

Parents with poor English would also need to "pre-purchase tuition".

The sibling and adult child immigration category would be removed to reduce the number of unskilled migrants who find it more difficult to get jobs and are more likely to get benefit payments.

Samoan immigrants would also be affected with the introduction of new minimum income levels.

Immigration Minister Nathan Guy said the policy was aimed at attracting migrants with the right skills and wealth to help grow New Zealand's economy. "That is why we want new migrants to be self-sufficient and be able to contribute to New Zealand, rather than going straight onto a benefit."

However Labour's immigration spokeswoman Darien Fenton said New Zealand was becoming a country were only the rich were welcome. "We roll out the red carpet for them, yet we make it near impossible for good, less well-off families."

The paper was prepared for the first 100 days of the new government but the changes were omitted in a briefing to incoming minister Nathan Guy which was publicly released last month.

"They will come as a shock to the thousands of people in New Zealand looking to reunite their families, especially given the special treatment handed out to millionaires such as Kim Dotcom," Fenton said.

SOURCE



March 4, 2012

Los Angeles Should Stop Hugging Illegal Aliens

In what has to be the most ridiculous recommendation by any law enforcement official, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and his counterpart, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, have announced they support issuing driver licenses to illegal aliens.

Chief Beck said, “The reality is that all the things that we’ve done – ‘we’ being the state of California – over the last 14, 16 years have not reduced the problem one iota.”

Sheriff Baca qualified his recommendation by saying that licenses should be issued “as long as they have been in the United States for a number of years without committing other crimes.”

The problem would be resolved if the State of California would mandate local police officers and sheriff’s deputies to turn over illegal aliens to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation. Instead, California’s governor signs into law a state version of the “Dream Act” allowing illegal aliens to receive public and private college grants. San Francisco, Santa Ana, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles and other cities declare themselves “sanctuary cities.” Is there any wonder why California is a magnet for illegal aliens?

The Los Angeles Times reported Chief Beck said that he expected the number of hit-and-run accidents would decrease if illegal immigrants were licensed, because they would not have to fear being caught without a license at accidents. Maybe if LAPD officers told illegal aliens they had no fear of deportation they wouldn’t run after being involved in accidents.

Sheriff Baca suggested that driver licenses for illegal aliens be renewed annually and have the letter “I” imprinted on them “so police could determine immediately if they were dealing with someone in the country illegally.” That has as much change of passing the state legislature as tattooing the letter “I” on an illegal alien’s forehead.

Chief Beck is also on record of directing his officers not to impound vehicles of illegal aliens that they encounter because he thinks it is unfair for illegal immigrants who cannot receive California driver licenses. The 30-day holds (on vehicles), he said, “are too severe a punishment for never-licensed drivers and place a serious strain on their ability to get to and from jobs.”

His proposal started an uproar from taxpaying licensed and insured drivers in the city who are tired of paying state mandated “uninsured motorist” insurance, which is a euphemism for illegal alien insurance.

Rather than doing what obviously works every time it’s tried, deportation, Los Angeles city and county law enforcement and public officials chose to tolerate illegal aliens, allow them to victimize legal residents with hit-and-run accidents, and take jobs away from them. Isn’t it illegal for anyone to employ an illegal alien? Then why is Chief Beck concerned about an illegal’s ability to get to and from his job? What part of “illegal” don’t the Los Angeles police chief and sheriff understand?

As much as California may not like it, illegal aliens are arrestable by virtue of their mere presence. If Chief Beck and Sheriff Baca want illegal aliens to be licensed, let them get an international driver’s license and buy automobile insurance. Even if licensed, most illegal aliens wouldn’t buy high-cost automobile insurance because if they are involved in an accident, they merely return to their home country.

A driver license implies legitimacy from the state. Most of the 9-11 terrorists had legitimate driver licenses and never feared questioning by immigration authorities. California assumes all illegal aliens are from Mexico when in reality many are visa overstays from around the world, including Pakistan, Thailand, Iran and the Middle East.

It’s time for California to stop hugging illegal aliens and start enforcing federal immigration law. If California sheriffs bussed all the illegal aliens county law enforcement agencies encountered on a weekly basis to Tijuana, the crime rate would further go down and the quality of life for legal residents would increase substantially.

SOURCE






Sarkozy courts French right with immigration pledge

French President Nicolas Sarkozy marked a rightward shift in his re-election campaign on Saturday, pledging to cut the number of immigrants and calling for clear labelling of halal meat in a bid to entice voters away from the National Front.

Speaking to thousands of flag-waving supporters at a rally in the western city of Bordeaux, Sarkozy vowed to defend secular values in France - which has Europe's largest Muslim minority - and to send a tough message on law and order if he wins a fresh five-year term in a two-round election in April and May.

Despite rebounding in polls since launching his campaign last month, Sarkozy trails Socialist rival Francois Hollande.

"We must reduce the number of arrivals on our territory," Sarkozy said, pledging to end the automatic right of immigrants to be joined by their families. "You are not welcome in France if you are only coming to receive welfare. Everyone thinks it: it is time for republicans to say it."

"Those who come with the intention of not respecting our laws and our customs, of not respecting the property of others, of not sending their children to school, of not making an effort at integration, they are not welcome on French soil," he said.

National Front candidate Marine Le Pen, running third in polls with nearly 20 percent, sparked a scandal last month by claiming that almost all meat in Paris was halal - killed according to Islamic norms by cutting the animal's throat and letting its blood drain out.

Meat industry association, Interbev, denied this.

Sarkozy appeared to court Le Pen's supporters by echoing remarks from his hardline Interior Minister Claude Gueant on Saturday rejecting "multiculturalism" and suggesting school canteens should not serve halal meat.

"Let's recognise everyone's right to know what they're eating, halal or not. I'd like to see, therefore, the ticketing of meat according to its method of slaughter," Sarkozy said.

"We have to consider our holidays, the church and cathedral towers in our villages and towns, our eating habits, our morality, as aspects of our civilisation not just our religion: the civilisation of the French Republic."

Attitudes towards immigration and the Muslim minority have long been an important electoral issue in France, with Sarkozy accused of courting the far right when he won power in 2007.

Though polls show Hollande stands to win a May 6 runoff against Sarkozy by more than 12 percentage points, the question of where Le Pen's support would go in the second round could become decisive if that gap narrows.

Burdened with the worst poll ratings of any French leader seeking re-election, Sarkozy is attempting to recover the political initiative by drip feeding his programme on a weekly basis, with justice and immigration the latest topics. Hollande presented his own 60 point agenda in January.

Sarkozy, however, suffered setbacks this week. He was mobbed by left-wing militants and Basque activists on the campaign trail near the Spanish border and Hollande regained traction with a popular proposal to introduce a 75 percent tax rate for those earning more than 1 million euros a year.

SOURCE



March 3, 2012

Secret EU deal forces Britain to take in 12,000 Indian workers despite soaring unemployment

Brussels has drawn up a secret diktat which could force Britain to admit 12,000 workers from India despite soaring unemployment at home. The order is part of an EU-wide plan to boost trade with India. EU officials say that, in return for opening up the jobs market, countries such as Britain will be helped to land lucrative export deals.

But, of 40,000 workers who will be allowed to live and work in Europe, Britain has been told it must take 12,000, according to leaked EU documents. This is far more than any other EU nation - and twice the number which will be permitted France. Even Germany, which has one of the world’s largest economies, will admit only 8,000 workers.

The Indian migrants, who can live and work in Britain for six months, will be in addition to people given visas under Britain’s supposedly strict immigration cap.

This is despite the EU not normally being allowed to meddle in Britain’s border controls. It comes at a time when UK unemployment is close to a 17-year high, at 2.67million.

The negotiations on the India deal - which have been led by Vince Cable’s Business Department - have been going on in the shadows for years. A large number of the beneficiaries will be IT workers, who already arrive in large numbers from India.

Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch, said: ‘The (negotiations) are quite clearly against the interests of British workers at a time of very high unemployment. ‘That, presumably, is why the government has been keeping quiet about them. ‘The six month limit, although completely unenforceable, keeps them out of the official immigration figures. However, in practice, this agreement, if signed, would open the door for thousands of new migrants. ‘Of particular concern is our IT workforce - already being undercut by Indian IT companies - which will be put under further pressure.’

The details emerged in a leaked copy of the EU/India Free Trade Agreement, which is due to be signed later this year. It was first initiated by Former Trade Commissioner Lord Mandelson in 2007. The aim is to encourage greater export trade between the EU and India.

Central to the agreement is the EU’s offer on what is known as ‘Mode 4’, which will allow Indian companies to bring temporary workers into the EU. The EU has proposed that, overall, 40,000 Indian workers will be admitted without any labour market test as to their impact on the resident workforce. The proposal is for each member state to take a proportion of the EU commitment.

The UK allocation of 12,000 is 30 per cent of the total - despite the UK making up only 12 per cent of the EU’s population.

Critics points out that, although the proposed stay in the UK is limited to six months, there are currently no checks on departure nor obligations on employers to ensure that migrants return home. A six month period means no tax or National Insurance will be paid in the UK.

The 12,000 is only a minimum commitment, rather than a ceiling. The worker are in addition to the current cap of 20,700 work permits given to non-EU skilled migrants. Instead, the visas would be issued under the -so-called ‘International Agreements’ category of the immigration system. Last year only 453 visas were issued under this route.

Ministers are desperately struggling to hit the Prime Minister’s target of reducing net migration - the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK, and those leaving - to the ‘tens of thousands’. Currently, net migration stands close to a record high at 250,000.

However, only migrants who move to Britain for 12 months or more are included in this total. This means the Indian workers will never register in the figures.

SOURCE






Ottawa to tighten spousal immigration sponsorship rules

In a move intended to crack down on bogus marriages, Ottawa has increased the length of time that a sponsored immigrant can turn around and sponsor a new partner.

The new rules take effect immediately and are meant to prevent people from fraudulently marrying Canadians to get into the country, only to turn around and leave that sponsor to bring in another spouse.

Canadians who sponsor immigrants are financially responsible for them for three years. Under the new rules, a spouse must wait five years from the day they are granted permanent residence status in Canada before they can sponsor a new spouse.

"I held town hall meetings across the country to hear from victims of marriage fraud," said Citizen and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in a statement. The minister made the announcement Friday in Brampton, Ont.

"In addition to the heartbreak and pain that came from being lied to and deceived, these people were angry. They felt they had been used as a way to get to Canada. We're taking action because immigration to Canada should not be built upon deceit."

The minister was not immediately available for a comment.

The rule changes are in line with United States, Australia and the United Kingdom which have waiting periods of two to three years before a sponsored spouse could be come a permanent resident of Canada.

Kenney has long promised to tackle marriage fraud. Two years ago, Ottawa held online consultations to solicit public opinion on the issue.

The new measures come just weeks after Ottawa resident Lainie Towell's ex-husband was deported to his native Guinea. Towell's husband left her nearly one year after they exchanged vows in Guinea and four weeks after he arrived in Canada as Towell's sponsored spouse.

SOURCE



March 2, 2012

Judge blocks day labor rules in Arizona immigration law

A federal judge blocked police in Arizona from enforcing part of the state's 2010 immigration enforcement law that prohibited people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day labor services on streets.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled Wednesday that groups seeking to overturn the law will likely prevail in their claim that the day labor rules violate the Constitution. She rejected arguments by the state that the rules were needed for traffic safety and pointed out that the law, also known as SB1070, says its purpose is to make attrition through enforcement the immigration policy of state and local government agencies.

The ban was among a handful of provisions in the law that were allowed to take effect after a July 2010 decision by Bolton halted enforcement of other, more controversial elements of the law. The previously blocked portions include a requirement that police, while enforcing other laws, question people's immigration status if officers suspect they are in the country illegally.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Gov. Jan Brewer's appeal of Bolton's decision to put the most contentious elements of the law on hold. Another appeals court has already upheld Bolton's July 2010 ruling.

Three of the seven challenges to the Arizona law remain alive. No trial date has been scheduled in the three cases.

Some of Arizona's biggest law enforcement agencies have said in the past that they haven't made any arrests under the sections of the law that were allowed to take effect.

Brewer said in a statement that she was disappointed with Bolton's "erroneous decision," which she said has further eroded the state's ability to regulate public safety. Also, Wednesday's ruling is just one more reason to look forward to the Supreme Court's scheduled consideration of SB1070 in April, she said.

The governor signed the measure into law in the spring of 2010.

Dan Pochoda, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, one of the group's representing people who filed the lawsuit, said the judge saw through the government's ruse that the day labor rules were about traffic safety, when the goal all along was to get at day laborers.

"There are clear laws now that allow any cop to unclog (the streets) well before they had this law," Pochoda said.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other opponents had asked the judge for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the day labor rules, arguing they unconstitutionally restrict the free speech rights of people who want to express their need for work.

Brewer's lawyers had opposed attempts to halt enforcement of the day labor restrictions. They argued the restrictions are meant to confront safety concerns, distractions to drivers, harassment to passers-by, trespassing and damage to property.

Brewer's lawyers have said day laborers congregate on roadsides in large groups, flagging down vehicles and often swarming those that stop. They also said day laborers in Phoenix and its suburbs of Chandler, Mesa and Fountain Hills leave behind water bottles, food wrappers and other trash.

The judge wrote in her latest ruling Wednesday that the law appears to target particular speech rather than a broader traffic problem. "The adoption of a content-based ban on speech indicates that the Legislature did not draft these provisions after careful evaluation of the burden on free speech," the judge wrote.

Bolton previously denied an earlier request to block the day labor rules, but opponents were allowed to bring it up again after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a similar issue in September.

The appeals court had suspended a law from Redondo Beach, California, that banned day laborers from standing on public sidewalks while soliciting work from motorists. The court ruled the law violated workers' free speech rights and was so broad that it was illegal for children to shout "car wash" to passing drivers.

The ruling Wednesday still leaves other elements of the law in place, such as minor tweaks to the state's 2005 immigrant smuggling law and 2007 law prohibiting employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

Other parts of the law that remain in effect include a prohibition on state and local government agencies from restricting the enforcement of federal immigration law and a ban on state and local agencies from restricting the sharing of information on people's immigration status for determining eligibility of a public benefit.

SOURCE






Immigration Laws of Alabama, Georgia Under Scrutiny in U.S. Appeals Court

Alabama and Georgia argued to salvage state laws targeting illegal immigrants in a hearing before a federal court that already said there’s a “substantial likelihood” some of those measures will be thrown out.

A three-judge panel heard arguments today in Atlanta in three cases, two from Alabama and one from Georgia. U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Wilson said the panel won’t issue a decision until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a challenge to Arizona’s immigration measures. The Arizona case will be heard in April by the high court.

One provision of the Alabama law that has been temporarily blocked requires illegal immigrants to carry registration papers and forces schools to determine the legal status of students as they enroll. Wilson and U.S. Circuit Judge Beverly Martin said they were concerned with the law’s practical application.

“Is it just a scare tactic?” Wilson asked John Neiman, Alabama’s solicitor general.

“No,” said Neiman, calling the information that would be gathered “relevant to policy making.”

The judges asked if the children would be deported after declaring themselves illegal residents.

“Well, I suppose yes,” Neiman said. The children could be deported if the U.S. government decided to ask for the information, he said.

Undocumented Residents

Martin and Wilson asked several times if Alabama’s law is meant to drive undocumented residents out of the state. “That is not the intent,” Neiman said.

The law’s school papers provision says “it is a compelling public interest to discourage illegal immigration” by enforcing federal immigration laws and its own new measures.

The federal government is challenging Alabama’s law, saying immigration is a federal matter. The U.S. has also sued to block laws aimed at apprehending illegal immigrants and keeping them from taking jobs in South Carolina, Arizona and Utah.

“States are not free to complement federal law” regarding immigration, Beth Brinkman of the U.S. Justice Department, told the judges today. State courts could enforce immigration laws inconsistently with federal practice, she said.

Martin said federal immigration law allows illegal residents to live in the U.S. while applications for legal status are pending.

“Why don’t you just accept that?” she asked the states’ lawyers.

Immigration Checks

Georgia’s law would allow the police to check immigration status and bar transporting illegal aliens in some circumstances. It would require employers to verify a worker’s immigration status. The statute was blocked in June by a trial judge’s preliminary injunction. The state appealed. That issue was not considered today.

The Justice Department and nongovernment advocacy groups are likely to win parts of their challenges to the statutes because the federal government exclusively controls immigration, a different three-judge panel of the court said earlier.

Both Alabama and Georgia have argued in court papers that they are trying to help the federal government manage immigrants. The laws are aimed at authorities who police and teach illegal residents, not the immigrants themselves, the states say.

Lawyers for Georgia say the law will help prevent illegal immigrants from being “victimized by employers or others” and “forced to work in horrific conditions.”

‘Criminalizes Its Consequences’

“The state does not regulate immigration but rather criminalizes its consequences,” Georgia Attorney General Samuel S. Olens said in a brief.

Alabama’s documentation rule would “have a chilling effect,” causing children to drop out of school and thus denying them due process of law guaranteed in the Constitution, Justin Cox, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in court papers. The ACLU joined the lawsuits filed by the Hispanic groups in both states.

The Alabama law would encourage illegal residents to “self-deport to states that are supportive” of illegal residents, making it more difficult to find them, the Justice Department said in court papers. The statute “frustrates the federal government’s ability to pursue removal proceedings” when necessary, it said.

Water Services

Martin asked how illegal residents would get life- sustaining services, such as water, under Alabama’s provision that bars them from entering a government contract.

Neiman said the Alabama attorney general wrote an opinion listing mostly licensure activities as barred by the law. Such activities can include obtaining a driver’s license, according to the opinion.

“But it doesn’t exclude water,” Martin said. Martin also said the court can’t use an attorney general’s opinion as precedent for their consideration.

The Supreme Court in December agreed to review a ruling against Arizona’s requirement that police officers check the status of someone arrested who they reasonably suspect is in the country illegally. The Georgia and Alabama laws have the same provision.

The cases are U.S. v. State of Alabama, 11-14532, and Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama v. Bentley, 11-14535, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (Atlanta) and Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights v. Deal, 11-cv-01804, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia (Atlanta).

SOURCE



March 1, 2012

Miss. gov backs immigration-enforcement proposal

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant says if an immigration-enforcement bill becomes law, it would apply to all immigrants "not just to people who are south of us or Hispanic by descent."

But the Republican says violence has caused "chaos" in Mexico, and the U.S. should not ignore people coming illegally from that "very violent atmosphere."

Bryant spoke Wednesday at a Capitol news conference hosted by the Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement and the Mississippi Tea Party.

An immigration enforcement proposal, House Bill 488, awaits consideration in the House Education Committee.

Two Catholic bishops in Mississippi say they're concerned immigrant families could be hurt by the bill. Bishop Roger Morin of the Biloxi diocese says immigration is best handled by the federal government.

SOURCE





Staff transfer visa loophole is robbing Britain's migrant cap of its 'bite'

The Government’s supposedly strict cap on migrant workers is ‘not biting’, an expert warned yesterday. In a bid to bring immigration under control, ministers ruled that only 21,700 visas should be given to non-EU workers each year.

A report released yesterday by the Migration Advisory Committee shows that as few as 10,000 have entered the UK under the cap in the past year.

However, nearly 30,000 have entered via so-called intra-company transfers, which allow firms to bring in workers whom they already employ overseas without contributing towards the capped total.

The transfers – long criticised as a backdoor into Britain by campaigners – were originally set to count towards the limit of 21,700.

They were excluded after Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable protested during a trip to India, where many intra- company transfers (ICTs) originate.

When both ICTs and visas issued under the cap are taken into consideration, there has been only a slight reduction in the number of non-EU workers entering the UK.

The number of ICTs rose from 22,000 in 2009 to 29,700 in the year ending last September. The MAC said the amount of ICTs per million of the population was ‘substantially higher for the UK’ than in comparable countries such as the U.S., Australia and Germany.

Net migration – the difference between the number of people entering Britain and those leaving – remains close to record levels at 250,000. The Conservatives have pledged to reduce this to tens of thousands. Ministers are now likely to face calls to tighten the visa cap.

The MAC’s chairman, Professor David Metcalf, said the current cap was ‘not biting’ but warned that tightening it ‘could affect perceptions of the UK as an attractive place to do business’.
He said the Government would have to keep ICTs under review if it wanted to hit the ‘tens of thousands’ target.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said: ‘We welcome the report and we are considering the recommendations. The Government will announce its decisions in the near future.’

Home Secretary Theresa May will today announce new rules stating that migrants working in the UK must earn at least £35,000 a year if they want to stay longer than five years.

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.