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31 October, 2010

Who’s Really Dividing the Country?

The Democrats are going nuts over Sharron Angle’s latest anti-illegal immigration ad, “The Wave.”

Senator Robert Menendez (R-NJ) called the ad “racist” and “despicable” because it tries to “portray all Latinos in this country in a negative light in a state that has such a large, vibrant and productive population.”

TV Talk show host Joy Behar was less restrained. She described is as “a Hitler Youth commercial” and called Angle “evil,” “a moron,” a “bitch,” and even says the ad is enough to warrant her eternal damnation.

So what exactly makes this ad so bad? The ad begins by stating the facts about illegal immigration noting: “Waves of illegal aliens streaming across our border, joining violent gangs, forcing families to live in fear.”

This is simply the truth. There are between 12 and 20 million illegal aliens in this country, over 2/3 of whom came to here by crossing the Southern Border illegally. Calling that a “wave” is an understatement. As for violent gangs, the FBI considers MS 13 to be the most dangerous and fastest growing gang in the country.

Many of these gang members such as Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umana who was just sentenced to death for two counts of murder are illegal aliens. And you can be sure that Americans who live near these gang members or on the Southwest border are living in fear.

The ad then states: “And what's Harry Reid doing about it? Voting to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits, tax breaks, and college tuition. Voting against declaring English our national language -- twice. And even sided with Obama and the President of Mexico to block Arizona's tough new immigration law. Harry Reid, it's clear whose side he's on -- and it's not yours.”

Again, every word is true. The anti-amnesty group NumbersUSA gives Reid a F- grade for his votes in favor of amnesty, increasing legal immigration, and giving rewards to illegal aliens.

Behar, Menendez, and the rest of the opponents of the ad do not even attempt to dispute the facts. But they say it is racist because the illegal aliens portrayed in the ad are Hispanic.

But that is simply reflects the reality of the demographics of illegal immigration. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 78% of all illegal aliens are Hispanic. This number is much higher in the Southwest.

I sympathize with the law abiding Hispanics who feel stimagitzed by illegal aliens. But it is not fair to attack people as “racist” for simply pointing out the facts. Rather, patriotic Hispanics have all the more reason to support deporting the illegal aliens who give them a bad name.

The truth is that Hispanics are among the biggest victims of illegal immigration. The violent gangs often prey on members of their own community. Cheap illegal alien labor undercuts the wages of legal Hispanic immigrants.

Yet Obama and the Democrats insultingly assume that all Hispanics support amnesty and do not care about any other issue besides immigration.

When Univision host Eddie "Piolín" Sotelo interviewed Barack Obama, he gave the president a choice of topics to discuss, “A.) Immigration reform B.) Immigration reform, C.) Immigration reform D.) All of the above.” Obama responded, “I think I'll take D.) All of the above. Absolutely.”

He continued to tell Sotelo that Latinos need to “punish our enemies” who he had defined as those “who are supportive of the Arizona law, who talk only about border security but aren't willing to talk about the other aspects of this, who don't support the Dream Act, who are out there engaging in rhetoric that is divisive and damaging that -- those aren't the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”

When the Pew Hispanic Center asked Hispanic Voters what their top issues were, Immigration was listed as the number 5 issue. The Center for Immigration Studies asked Hispanic voters if they would prefer to deal with the illegal immigrant population by either "Enforcing the Law and causing them to return home over time", or "granting legal status and a pathway to citizenship to most illegal immigrants,” Hispanics supported enforcement over amnesty 52 percent to 34 percent.

By assuming that all Hispanics support amnesty, Univision, Sen. Menendez, and President Obama are the ones who are perpetuating stereotypes to divide the country.

SOURCE






Migrants to Britain took 9 out of 10 jobs created under Labour Party rule

Nearly nine out of ten jobs created under Labour went to foreign-born workers, astonishing figures revealed last night. Official statistics showed the vast majority of the rise in the employment total under the last Government was accounted for by workers born abroad.

Total numbers of those in work went up by two million during 13 years of Labour. But of those jobs, 1.8 million individuals were classed as ‘non-UK born’. Just a quarter of a million declared themselves to be born in the UK.

The figures, from the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, are an indictment of the last Government’s failure to control the influx of migrants, train British workers and tackle welfare dependency. Just as startlingly, the figures also revealed that the proportion of the foreign-born workforce nearly doubled under Labour – from 7 per cent to 13 per cent.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: ‘This is stunning evidence of the need to cut back on the immigration of foreign workers. ‘As long as foreign skills can be obtained “off the shelf”, employers will have no incentive to train British workers.’

The figures were released in a written parliamentary answer to Tory MP James Clappison. He said: ‘This is a reflection of the huge increase that took place under the previous Government. It does nothing to lessen the case for a cap on migrant numbers.’

The data showed there were just over 26million people aged 16-64 in employment between April and June 1997. Of those 1,946,000 were foreign born, leaving 24,058,000 born in the UK. By the same period this year, the total in jobs was up more than two million, to 28,107,000. Of those, 3,787,000 were born abroad, and 24,314,000 born in the UK. It means 88 per cent of the rise in employment was accounted for by workers born abroad, and just 12 per cent by those born in the UK.

Immigration minister Damian Green said: ‘These figures show just why the Government is introducing a limit on immigration, so that new jobs are available for UK workers. ‘We need to control immigration and to improve our training and welfare systems and the Government is tackling all of these areas.’

As Prime Minister, Gordon Brown said economic migration would fall by up to 12 per cent. But his points-based system for overseas workers actually led to totals of foreign workers going up 20 per cent and foreign students by more than 30 per cent.

This week another hole in the points system was revealed as Home Office figures showed just one in four of the 18,780 ‘highly skilled’ migrants allowed in last year managed to find a highly skilled job.

There were also fears a new EU deal with India will lead to ‘British jobs for Indian workers’, by allowing Indian firms to transfer unlimited numbers of staff to the UK without first offering the posts to Britons.

David Cameron has pledged to limit the numbers of non-EU migrants allowed in, saying he wants net migration – the number of arrivals minus those departing – to fall from 196,000 last year to ‘tens of thousands’. The final details of the limit are to be revealed later this year and the cap will come into force in April.

SOURCE



30 October, 2010

For U.S. jobless, illegal immigration can be a sore point

Javier Gonzalez believes he would have a job today were it not for illegal immigration. "I think that illegal immigrants do take jobs away from native workers, especially out here in the Bay Area," said the 43-year-old son of Mexican immigrants. "I'm unemployed, but I shouldn't have to be. I'm from the area. I was born here and I can't get a job here."

For the jobless, especially those who work in the trades, the thought of competing against an illegal work force of undocumented immigrants can be a sore point. Labor market economists have long differed about whether such fears are grounded in reality.

But a study released Friday by the Pew Hispanic Center adds fuel to the fire, finding that as the economy slowly recovers, foreign-born workers are taking up jobs faster than their native-born counterparts. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, gained 656,000 jobs since June 2009, which is the month that federal economists consider to be the end of the Great Recession. Native-born workers lost 1.2 million jobs in the same period of economic recovery, according to the report.

"There are some reasonable explanations," said Rakesh Kochhar, associate research director of the nonpartisan think tank. "I think the main one would be that the recession started earlier for foreign-born workers. They were hit hard earlier in the recession. Now, it seems they are bouncing back quicker."

The study does not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants because such data is not available, but unauthorized workers are undoubtedly a big part of the picture, Kochhar said.

Immigrants who come to the United States with limited job skills and educational backgrounds are typically the most vulnerable when there are volatile changes in the job market, he said. They also, however, tend to be more flexible in a bad economic environment, willing to move from one region or occupation to another. "They are more sensitive to the business cycle," Kochhar said. "They get hit harder, but they bounce back sooner."

Because they are denied unemployment insurance, undocumented workers are also more desperate to take whatever job they can find, even if the work is sporadic and earns them a low wage. The study found that though immigrants found more jobs in the past year, they were not doing much better financially -- the median weekly earnings of immigrants dropped 4.5 percent since summer 2009, while remaining relatively steady for U.S.-born workers.

Several variables affected the results, including the loss of thousands of temporary census jobs in the spring and summer. This disproportionately affected U.S.-born workers, because illegal immigrants are disqualified from jobs in the federal government.

The stagnant construction industry accounted for more than half the 1.2 million jobs lost by native-born workers. It was also the sector that saw the starkest difference between foreign-born and U.S.-born workers, especially among those who identify themselves as Latino.

Latino immigrants gained 98,000 construction jobs from 2009 to 2010, but Latinos who were born in the United States lost 133,000 construction jobs in the same period, along with 92,000 jobs in transportation, warehousing, wholesale and retail trade.

The study may help confirm and challenge beliefs of those who hold strong views on immigration, but Kochhar cautioned against drawing easy conclusions. "There are so many things, really, that we don't know," he said.

Born in San Francisco, Gonzalez attended community college to obtain a communication degree, paying out of his own pocket, but couldn't really find a job in that field. His father was a migrant farmworker who moved to California from Mexico in the 1950s, though Gonzalez is not sure how he was able to get in. "He's never really given me the exact story, the details of what path he took," Gonzalez said.

The majority of his American family members went into municipal trash collection. Gonzalez has also spent years working in labor-intensive jobs, but today finds most of those jobs unavailable. He considers illegal immigration a chief culprit, though he says finding a constructive solution is difficult.

Gonzalez is not alone in his thinking. Another study released by the Pew Hispanic Center on Thursday found that Latinos, though traditionally sympathetic to the challenges faced by illegal immigrants, have increasingly mixed feelings about the issue.

The national survey of about 1,400 Latino adults found that just 29 percent felt that illegal or undocumented immigration had a positive impact on Latinos already living in the United States. In contrast, half of those who took a similar survey three years ago said the impact of illegal immigrants was positive.

SOURCE





Over 100 Tamils arrested en route to Canada: Kenney

Thai authorities have arrested more than 100 Tamil migrants who were probably on their way to Canada, says Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. Thai media reported Friday that 114 Sri Lankans were detained for being illegal migrants. Reports said many of the detainees had improper identification or none at all, and some were suspected of being linked to the Tamil Tigers. It was unclear if they were travelling by boat.

Kenney said the arrests -- along with proposed legislation to crack down on human smuggling -- should deter other migrants hoping to sneak into Canada. "We understand that they ... detained over 100 illegal immigrants who apparently were planning on coming to Canada through a smuggling operation," Kenney said. "We think this sends a strong message to the smugglers and their would-be customers that they should think twice."

Opposition critics said they were supportive of Canada helping to crack down on human smuggling, but urged the government to make sure the operations are not endangering the safety of asylum-seekers. "Where we need to be careful is that that doesn't bleed over ... interfering with legitimate movement of refugees and migrants who are truly seeking to escape persecution," NDP public safety critic Don Davies said.

Kenney wouldn't say whether Canadian officials were involved in the arrests, but he made a point of highlighting increased co-operation between Canadian law enforcement and authorities in southeast Asia, especially in Thailand. The co-operation is part of Ottawa's efforts to prevent ships of smuggled migrants from coming to Canada by disrupting their operations before they set sail.

"We acknowledge that the best way to stop boats from arriving in Canada is to stop them from leaving the transit countries in the first place," Kenney said. "So local police action against illegally smuggling rings is essential. And for that reason we congratulate the Thai authorities for their alertness."

There was no immediate detail about charges against the detained Sri Lankans. In the past, Thailand has moved to deport migrants without proper documentation.

Canada has seen two boatloads of Tamil migrants land on its shores in the last year. When a ship carrying almost 500 Sri Lankans landed in Vancouver in August, Kenney and his cabinet colleagues promised a crackdown, both through legislation and by increasing Canadian co-operation overseas.

Earlier this month, Thai officials arrested more than 150 Tamil migrants in an operation that Canada may also have played a role in. But that's only the tip of the iceberg, Kenney warned. "We're aware ... of more than one smuggling syndicate, very active, that are specifically targeting Canada, with the capacity to potentially bring several large steel-hulled vessels with hundreds of passengers each year," he said. "Hundreds of people, we believe, have paid upfront fees."

The federal government is proposing new legislation that would impose stiffer jail terms on human smugglers, detain smuggled migrants for up to a year and put them on a type of probation for five years. The aim is to scare off not just the human smugglers, but their customers as well. Ottawa wants to destroy the business model that makes human smuggling to Canada a profitable enterprise, Kenney explained.

But opposition parties have been reluctant to support the bill -- and the government's operations overseas -- for fear of penalizing legitimate asylum-seekers. "I hope that it's a case of going after smugglers and that the hundred people arrested were indeed traffickers in human beings and smugglers, and not asylum seekers who are in a very vulnerable position," Liberal immigration critic Justin Trudeau said.

The Bloc Quebecois has said it will oppose the smuggling bill, while the Liberals and the NDP have reserved judgment, suggesting that they will propose amendments instead.

SOURCE



29 October, 2010

Hispanics in U.S. more divided over illegal immigrants

How Hispanics view immigrants' influence on the United States:

Hispanics are growing more divided about how they view illegal immigration, and native-born Hispanics aren't as convinced of the contributions of illegal immigrants as they used to be, according to a study released today.

Hispanics are split when asked to assess the effect of illegal immigration on Hispanics living in the United States: 29% say it has had a positive impact, 31% negative and 30% believe it made no difference, according to the study from the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center. That is a sharp decline from a 2007 survey, when 50% of Hispanics said illegal immigrants were having a positive impact.

The study also finds a split between Hispanics who were born in the United States and those who came from another country. When asked if immigrants are a strength, 69% of native-born Hispanics agreed, compared with 85% of new arrivals.

Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, said he is disturbed by what he calls a contradiction in the findings.

While more Hispanics are viewing illegal immigration as a burden on Americans, he said, there is still a collective opposition to limit immigration. The study found that 53% of Hispanics believe illegal immigrants should pay a small fine but not be deported, and 28% say illegal immigrants should not face any punishment. Only 13% of Hispanics believe illegal immigrants should be deported.

A large majority of Hispanics, 79%, oppose Arizona's immigration law, which would require police officers to determine the immigration status of suspects stopped for another offense if there was "reasonable suspicion" they were in the country illegally. The law is on hold because of a legal challenge.

Dane said that attitude stems from Hispanic organizations trying to "blur the line" between legal and illegal immigration and painting efforts to curtail illegal immigration as "discriminatory and draconian." "Over time, I think we will see a narrowing of that gap between their recognition of the problem and their opposition to the solution," Dane said.

Mark Lopez, associate director of the center and co-author of the report, says the apparent disconnect between Hispanics who view illegal immigration as having a negative impact while still opposing some anti-immigration efforts simply mirrors the complicated opinions that all Americans have over immigration.

He says polls have shown that a majority of Americans support Arizona's immigration law, but also favor providing illegal immigrants with some way to become legal. The same goes for Hispanics, who he said largely oppose worksite immigration raids and building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, but support placing more U.S. customs officers on the border.

"On different policy questions, Latinos have different points of view," Lopez says. "But you see that nationwide."

Lisa Navarrete of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights group, says the survey doesn't reflect a trend of Hispanics suddenly turning on illegal immigrants. Instead, she says the survey shows that the uproar over illegal immigration has hurt Hispanics.

Between Arizona's immigration law, copycat bills filed in other states and a hyper-charged election season that has seen political ads targeting illegal immigrants, Navarrete said Hispanics living legally in the U.S. feel they are also becoming targets.

"It's not that people are angry at the immigrants themselves, but they are concerned over the impact the uproar is having on their lives," Navarrete said. "It?s taking a toll."

The findings are from a national survey of 1,375 Hispanic adults conducted in English and Spanish Aug. 17 to Sept. 19. The margin of error is +/— 3.3 percentage points.

SOURCE





The case for immigration enforcement

If you support immigration, you have to ask yourself this question: What kind of enforcement system would you want if we were starting from zero and there were no unauthorized immigrants in the country? Would it be reasonable to deport anyone new who came and stayed illegally? If so, would it be reasonable for police to be able to fairly and easily check someone's citizenship? What about for someone who is arrested?

I think that most Americans - like citizens in other countries - would find such enforcement actions reasonable. I do.

But they present a quandary for immigrant activists, and it can be seen at its most elemental level in their opposition to a program called Secure Communities.

Field-tested in Boston, installed first in Houston two years ago, Secure Communities requires that local, state and federal jails check the fingerprints of everyone booked - regardless of color, crime or language - against national immigration and FBI databases. More than 660 jurisdictions in 32 states now participate in the program, and the Obama administration is pressing hard to install it in all of the nation's 3,100 state and local jails by 2013.

Some communities, such as the District, Arlington and Santa Clara, Calif., have tried to opt out but are discovering that they can't. The immigration check is automatic when a community checks with state and federal fingerprint databases.

Activists and some editorialists are furious, accusing the administration of caving in to bullying immigration restrictionists and nativists. The program's priority is to find unauthorized immigrants who are criminals. But critics charge that Secure Communities leads to discriminatory profiling of all Hispanics, and Asian, African and Caribbean Americans. They also say it undermines vital police relationships in immigrant communities, impairing the ability of police to fight violent crime.

These are valid concerns. But they are not enough to stop Secure Communities. The universal check of everyone arrested forecloses profiling inside the jails, while a claimed link from the jails to police actions on the street and to community relations is tenuous.

Arizona's immigration enforcement law went too far by requiring local police to seek documentation of immigration status from anyone they have "reasonable suspicion" of being here illegally. But in polls, one reason most Americans said they supported the Arizona law is that the principle of involving local police is not wrong; many European countries do the same. At some point, we have to trust our police.

Besides, there are many other controls against discriminatory harassment and arrests, including lawsuits such as the one brought this week accusing the New Haven, Conn., police department of targeting Latinos.

What, then, is the right point for local police involvement? Leftist humanitarians and rightist libertarians say almost none at all. They marginalize themselves. But more centrist and influential pro-immigrant groups such as the National Immigration Forum, though supporting enforcement in principle, stretch their credibility by emphasizing their criticism of even Secure Communities. It's as if there is no enforcement measure they like.

But here is the quandary. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced this month that a record number of more than 390,000 unauthorized immigrants were deported in this past fiscal year, but roughly half weren't criminals. Like most of the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country, they were law-abiding and already part of the American fabric.

The advocacy groups - as well as the administration and most Americans, according to polls - want to legalize them. Secure Communities has been key in contributing to the deportations, as it sweeps up people arrested for traffic violations and other minor infractions.

The nativists and restrictionists have been manipulating the Obama administration and most Americans by demanding tough enforcement measures but refusing to negotiate the legalization and temporary worker program that would make a crackdown fully work and get us back to point zero.

The 1986 amnesty failed precisely because effective enforcement and a legal temporary worker program weren't established. Today's unauthorized immigrants came in under the de facto temporary worker program left in place - crossing the border illegally for whatever jobs they could get.

The administration has no choice but to enforce the law, though it can and has been showing some leniency in putting off some deportations. But the activist groups need to be out in front of the enforcement argument, not trying to block it.

SOURCE



28 October, 2010

New immigration uproar: voters need not prove citizenship

This is a disgrace

"Déjŕ vu all over again" -- that's how some are reacting after the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled federal law trumps Arizona law when it comes to voter registration.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out an Arizona law requiring would-be voters to prove their citizenship. The judges ruled that the Arizona law conflicts with federal law, which does not require such proof. Under the federal law, a voter applicant has to swear that he or she is a citizen, but does not have to prove it.

The Arizona Advocacy Network was a plaintiff in the 5-year-old lawsuit. Its mission is to encourage civic participation by educating voters. Executive Director Linda Brown welcomed the news. "It's a tremendous victory for Arizonans because democracy works best when more of us participate," Brown said.

Brown said that because of the Arizona law, officials have rejected 40,000 voter applications.

The now-rejected statute made Arizona the most stringent state in the Union when it came to processing voters. Arizona voters approved the measure in 2004. It required documentary proof of citizenship, such as a valid driver's license, passport, state birth certificate or tribal ID.

The Arizona Advocacy group said that nearly 10-percent of Arizonans who should be eligible to vote are not able to obtain such documentation. But now all a voter applicant will have to do is to check a box on the federally-approved voter registration form declaring, under penalty of perjury, that he or she is a citizen.

The federal law does still allow election workers to require voters to show an ID, however.

Supporters of Arizona's voided law reacted swiftly, and angrily, to the ruling. "You have to have ID to vote, so how in the world can they say it's a hardship to have ID to register vote? But, then, it's not a hardship to actually complete process of voting?" questioned Tucson Tea Party founder, Trent Humphries.

KGUN9 News relayed that question to the Viewer Advocacy Network. "How are we preventing illegal immigrants from registering to vote if, in fact, you don't have to show proof of citizenship and you can just check it off (on a form)?" KGUN9's Joel Waldman asked Brown. Her reply: "Well, you do need to show last 4 of social (security number), as well as your full name, address and date of birth."

Anyone convicted of lying about citizenship on the federal voter registration form could face a prison term of up to five years.

Pima County Recorder, F. Ann Rodriguez told KGUN9 News that despite the ruling, for now, protocol will stay the same when it comes to registering voters.

That statement did not sit well with Richard Martinez, a Tucson attorney and civil rights activist who filed one of the lawsuits against SB 1070, Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigration. "It actually takes effect now, the decision is controlling," Martinez insisted.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Secretary of State Ken Bennett issued a joint statement saying, "Today's decision should not impact the election on Tuesday, but could impact our registration requirements and the integrity of local elections being conducted beginning as early as this spring, as well as statewide elections in 2012."

SOURCE





Most Australians want an end to population growth

I do myself. I am sick of having to dodge around roadworks for all my life. But a growing population requires roadworks to accomodate more and more cars. And the Australian birthrate is below replacement anyway so it is immigration that is the problem. An immigration program that focused only on highly desirable immigrants and excluded parasitic "refugees" would help solve the problem

FAMILIES should have no more than two children to limit their environmental impact, one in three Australians say. Almost half say families should consider having three or fewer children, a survey shows.

The Australian National University survey found most Australians want the population to stay at or below current levels, suggesting Julia Gillard hit the right note by rejecting Kevin Rudd's "big Australia" push.

ANU political scientist Professor Ian McAllister, who led the survey, said people opposed population growth for a variety of reasons, including the cost to the environment, urban overcrowding and a lack of housing and transport. The phone poll found just 44 per cent of respondents favoured population growth.

About 52 per cent said Australia had enough people already, and further population growth would harm the environment, push up house prices and place pressure on water resources.

But there were also concerns that skills shortages could hold back the economy, with 83 per cent of respondents calling for more skilled migrants to be allowed into Australia.

And two thirds of respondents were concerned about the impact of the ageing population, with the majority opposed to tax rises to support the elderly.

About 59 per cent of Australians supported an emissions trading scheme to curb carbon pollution. But when asked to rank the nation's most pressing problems, the environment and global warming were ranked only fourth after the economy, health care and education.

Mr Rudd, as prime minister, argued for population growth, suggesting the continent could support 36 million people by 2050. Ms Gillard changed course sharply when she became Prime Minister, arguing for a "sustainable population" in an election pitch to the crowded outer suburbs.

She said Population Minister Tony Burke would deliver a sustainable population strategy. "We made an election promise about a sustainable population policy and we'll deliver it," she said.

Greens Leader Bob Brown said something had to be done to limit population growth or the planet was in trouble. "When I came on to the planet there were 2 1/2 billion human beings, there are now seven billion. We are using more than 100 per cent of the renewable living resources at the moment. Something is going to give."

The ANU poll is a quarterly survey and compares Australian results to international opinion polls.

SOURCE



27 October, 2010

The Hispanic Vote in Next Week’s U.S. Federal Election

A Baseline to Judge Turnout on Nov. 2

Some commentators have argued that Hispanic turnout in the upcoming mid-term elections will be higher than usual, while others have argued that it will be lower. A new report from the Center for Immigration examines these claims and provides a means for evaluating them, based on data collected by the Census Bureau.

“The Hispanic Vote in the Upcoming 2010 Elections” is avaiable online. Among the findings:

* On average 31.8 percent of Hispanic citizens (18+) voted in the 2002 and 2006 midterm elections, compared to 48 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 42 percent of non-Hispanic blacks.

* The extent to which Hispanics differ from the historical average (31.8% ± 1.7), will be an indication of how energized they were in 2010.

* Polling of Hispanic voters indicates that immigration is not one of their most important issues.

* Only 28.2 percent of Hispanic voters in the 2008 election were immigrants themselves. Moreover, just 14.3 percent of Hispanic voters in 2008 lived in the same household as a non-citizen.

* The lack of direct personal experience with immigration may explain why the issue does not rank higher in importance to Hispanic voters.

* Based on past patterns we project that Hispanics will comprise 6.8 percent of the electorate in November 2010. This is a reduction from 7.4 percent in the 2008 presidential election, but is an increase from 5.8 percent in the last off-year election in 2006.

* The Hispanic share of the overall vote in 2010 is a more indirect measure of their enthusiasm because it partly depends on turnout among other groups. If Hispanic participation is average, but participation among non-Hispanic is above average, then the Hispanic share of the vote will be smaller even though their turn out was not unusually low.

* We project that Hispanics in Nov 2010 will comprise 14 percent of the total adult (18+) population and 9.3 percent of the adult citizen population.

* Hispanics comprise a much smaller percentage of voters than they do of the overall adult population because a large share (37.7 percent) of adult Hispanics is not citizens. Also Hispanic citizens register and vote at somewhat lower rates than other groups.

Methods and Data. The data for this analysis comes from the Voting and Registration Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) collected by Census Bureau, which contains about 100,000 adults. The Voting and Registration supplement is conducted in November every other year after Election Day.

The above is a press release dated Oct. 26 from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Steven A. Camarota, sac@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






Obama authorizes additional 80,000 “refugees” to entry country

President Barack Hussein Obama, in a determination letter to Congress, has announced that he will allow an additional 80,000 immigrants – - mostly from Islamic countries – - to resettle in the United States during fiscal year 2011.

Mr. Obama says that the increase in Muslim immigrants “is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

The following “goals” for new immigrants has been set as follows:

Africa ........................................15,000
East Asia ..................................19,000
Europe and Central Asia ................2,000
Latin America/Caribbean…..............5,500
Near East/South Asia….................35,500
Unallocated Reserve…....................3,000

Refugee Resettlement Watch and other organizations have expressed grave concern that Mr. Obama is allowing so many immigrants into the country while so many Americans remain out of work and living in poverty.

According to the US Department of Labor, 14.8 million Americans remain unemployed. 6.1 million have been out of work for 27 weeks or over. This figure has been challenged by the Union of the Unemployed who provide statistics that the actual number of unemployed Americans is 31 million.

The U. S. Census Bureau shows that the median household income for Americans has fallen to $49,777 – - a decline of 0.7% in the past year. One in seven Americans no longer can feed themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, 14.3% of the American people live in abject poverty.

A refugee is defined by The US Department of Immigration and Naturalization as someone who has left one’s country due to persecution or a fear of persecution. This accounts for the sharp rise of Somali communities throughout the country.

However, the definition of refugee is ‘fudged’ in several cases. “Refugees” who have not left their country due to persecution, according to Mr. Obama’s determination letter, can still be called “refugees” if they are from Iraq, one of the Islamic countries of the former Soviet Union, or Cuba.

According to Section 413 (a) of the Immigration and Nationalities Act, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is required to submit an annual report to Congress on the activities of the refugees. The report is supposed to include the number who are on public welfare programs. But no report has forthcoming from the Office of Refugee Resettlement since 2007.

SOURCE



26 October, 2010

In Appeal to Hispanics, Obama Promises to Push Immigration Reform

In the final week leading up to the midterm elections, President Barack Obama is encouraging Hispanic voters to turn their frustration over stalled immigration reform against Republicans on Election Day.

Hispanics make up a crucial voting bloc in several battleground states and Democrats are hoping to pick up voters turned off by anti-immigrant discourse.

In a radio interview that aired on Univision on Monday, Mr. Obama sought to assure Hispanics that he would push an immigration overhaul after the midterm elections, despite fierce Republican opposition.

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

Referring specifically to Republicans such as Senator John McCain, who are stressing border security and supporting strict immigration laws like Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration measure, Mr. Obama said, “Those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”

In a pitch for Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, who locked in a dead heat with his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, Mr. Obama warned voters that Ms. Angle “is completely opposed to comprehensive immigration reform.” He also denounced an ad encouraging Nevada’s Latinos to stay home on Election Day as “cynical.”

Democrats have put forth a number of proposals over the past year aimed at overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, but talks floundered after Senator Lindsey Graham, the lone Republican willing to work with them on the issues, walked away from the talks during a dispute over energy policy.

The Justice Department successfully sued Arizona over its immigration bill, arguing that it interfered with the federal government’s role in enforcing immigration laws. However, Arizona has appealed the ruling.

Comparing the immigration fight to African Americans’ decades-long struggle to gain civil rights, Mr. Obama said, “instead of us giving up, we just have to keep working until it gets done. I’m gonna keep my promise on immigration reform,” Mr. Obama said.

The interview was taped Friday in Los Angeles for a show hosted by Eddie “Piolin” Soltero. Mr. Sotelo’s radio show is immensely popular among California Hispanics. At the start of the interview, the Mexican-American comedian gave Mr. Obama “multiple” choices of what to discuss.

“A.) Immigration reform, B) Immigration Reform, C.) Immigration reform, D.) All of the above.” Mr. Obama took D. “Absolutely,” the president said.

SOURCE





Recent posts on the CIS blog below

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

1. Prospects Are Dim for More Data on USCIS' Immigration Appeals Cases

2. It's Not Illegal, But ...

3. Immigration Court Caseload Climbs – and Offers New Data Source

4. GAO's Shoddy Report on Border Patrol Operations on Federal Land

5. Court Case Illustrates Both Chain Migration and Enforcement Problems

6. Mayorkas to USCIS Staff: Just Say Yes – Or Else!

7. BIA Splits Hairs on Ski Resort Bribery Case

8. ICE's Mission Melt 4: Houston, We Have a Problem

9. President Obama's Silent Immigration Amnesty, Part II: The Consequences of Ignoring Broken Windows

10. Rare Occurrence: A Balanced Immigration Panel

11. The Use of Self-Created Ignorance as a USCIS Defense Mechanism

12. President Obama's Silent Immigration Amnesty, Part I: Ignoring Broken Windows



25 October, 2010

One third of 'brain surgeon' immigrants to Britain in unskilled jobs

Labour laws designed to bring highly-qualified foreign workers such as brain surgeons into the UK were used by immigrants to get jobs as shop assistants and security guards, the Coalition claimed last night.

Immigration Minister Damian Green unveiled research showing that nearly one in three immigrants in the Labour Government's 'tier one' category for top-level app­licants last year ended up doing ordinary unskilled jobs.

Tier one immigrants are categ­orised as doctors, scientists and entrepreneurs so skilled they could enter the UK without a job offer, said Mr Green. 'These are meant to be absolutely the brightest and the best,' he said in a BBC interview.

But the anomalies had been revealed after a sample was analysed. 'We have discovered that of the visas we issued last year 29 per cent are doing unskilled jobs,' he said. ' They're shop assistants, security guards, supermarket cashiers – all absolutely essential jobs we need for our economy.

'But at a time when we have a couple of million unemployed people in this country and we have 300,000 unemployed graduates, it seems to me pretty perverse if we say we've got to keep bringing in unlimited people because we think they are very highly skilled.'

The full research, based on a sample of 1,184 tier one immigrants out of more than 18,000 given visas in 2009 is to be published this week by the UK Border Agency. It was the first detailed look at how Labour's policies had operated, Mr Green added.

However, the revelations come amid concerns that the Coalition's interim cap on non-EU immmigration, introduced in July, is hurting British businesses and scientific research capability.

Yesterday, Chris Mawtus, chief operating officer of oil service company Expro which employs 1,000 people in the UK, warned: 'We may have to start thinking of reloc­ating some of our operations overseas.'

Former Tory Minister Lord Ryder, chairman of the Institute of Cancer Research, warned a House of Lords debate last week that the cap jeopardised its work and ability to 'bring in the right people at the right time'.

Mr Green insisted yesterday that the Government was being flexible and responding to concerns over the cap. He told The Mail on Sunday: 'It's a new system and there will be difficulties along the way but serious cases can be resolved.'

The current cap level would be reviewed and set at a permanent level next April after consultations, Mr Green added. But he stressed that the country could not go on with Labour's old 'unlimited immigration policy'.

SOURCE




Australia's Leftist policy on illegals will both encourage more to come and stoke opposition to them

IT has taken less than a week for political reality to get in the way of Immigration Minister Chris Bowen's policy response to the ever-increasing numbers of asylum-seekers.

On Monday, Mr Bowen announced a major modification to the policy of mandatory detention, perhaps the biggest change since it was introduced by the Keating government in 1992. Children and at least one parent will now be allowed to live in community housing, run by churches and charities, while their refugee claims are considered. The decision will be welcomed not just by the government's Green allies in the parliament but also by everybody in the community uncomfortable with locking children up. It is hard to imagine anything more unsettling for Australians than the sight of children playing behind razor wire.

But Mr Bowen's compassion comes at a price, and the minister should not underestimate the pitfalls. Too many Labor policies have come to grief at the intersection with the point of delivery.

The minister must start by listening to community concerns in Northam in Western Australia, where single male asylum-seekers will be housed, and Woodside in the Adelaide Hills, where 400 refugees will be housed. While it is easy for politically correct commentators to brush off opposition as unenlightened bigotry, the truth is residents have legitimate questions about what the impact of asylum-seekers' children will be on the local schools and how their health needs, and those of their parents, will be met.

The heavy-handed announcement of the Woodside decision without discussing it with anybody in South Australia, including Premier Mike Rann, will not create confidence. Mr Bowen owes a duty of care to the asylum-seekers he will send into these communities to ensure they stay safe and healthy and that their claims are processed as quickly as possible. But he must also start talking to Mr Rann and Western Australia's Premier, Colin Barnett, to ensure the communities of Woodside and Northam know they will not be overwhelmed.

Before the election, the Gillard government went out of its way to assure the electorate it would not encourage more asylum-seekers, and on ABC TV's Q&A, Mr Bowen acknowledged that detention centres existed for legitimate reasons when he took over the portfolio last month. He also told the network's Lateline he wanted to destroy the "people-smugglers business model".

While a regional processing centre in East Timor was one of the government's original schemes to destroy their industry, his new plan could easily have the opposite outcome. People-smugglers will work hard to argue that it is only a short step from being housed by a church or community group, with children free to attend school, to being accepted as a permanent resident. And if the smugglers make a convincing case, the boats will keep coming.

That Mr Bowen wants to be as kind as he can to the passengers of those that have already arrived is understandable. But releasing children and their parents into Australian communities is not a policy that can easily accommodate the right of asylum-seekers to fair process while respecting community concerns and tempting more people to take their chances on the cruel seas.

SOURCE



24 October, 2010

Canada unveils law to curb illegal immigration

The Canadian government on Thursday unveiled legislation aimed at curbing illegal immigration and human smuggling by imposing stiff penalties and even detaining asylum seekers.

The arrival of two ships carrying illegal migrants over the past year "clearly demonstrates that human smuggling networks are targeting Canada as a destination and that they believe our generous immigration system can be exploited for profit," said Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

"We will not tolerate the abuse of our immigration system, either by human smugglers or by those who are unwilling to play by the rules," he said.

The proposed amendments to Canada's immigration act would impose mandatory prison sentences on convicted human smugglers and put smuggled people in mandatory detention for up to one year while their backgrounds are checked.

They would bar illegal immigrants from applying for permanent residency for five years and terminate refugee applications from people who return to their country of origin for vacation or otherwise show they do not need Canada's protection.

The rules would also hold ship owners and operators to account for the use of their ships in human smuggling or other illegal immigration operations.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said this week his government was growing increasingly "concerned" about "mass arrivals through human smuggling."

In many cases, asylum seekers such as the hundreds who have arrived in the past year on Canada's Pacific coast aboard two rickety cargo ships, are seeking to "jump the queue and work around the system," he said.

He warned these illegal arrivals risk undermining public support for Canada's immigration and refugee programs, and was echoed on Thursday by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

"In Canada we enjoy the highest level of public support for immigration and refugee protection of any developed country in the world. But we have seen a significant erosion of that support since the arrival of the last human smuggling vessel," said Kenney.

"This unlawful behavior is nothing more than jumping the immigration queue, taking up space and resources in our immigration and refugee systems that should be focused on those who are legitimately and lawfully waiting their turn to come to Canada."

Canada, which has a population of around 34 million, accepts an average of 250,000 legal immigrants each year.

Border officials detained 492 illegal Tamil immigrants from Sri Lanka who arrived in August aboard the MV Sun Sea, a leaky cargo vessel. Another 76 were arrested in October 2009 upon arrival aboard another battered freighter.

Canada and Sri Lanka allege that there may be members of the Tamil Tigers -- a group Canada considers a terrorist organization -- hiding among the migrants. After a lengthy civil war, the Tamils were defeated by the Sri Lankan government in 2009.

SOURCE





Protests in Australian towns over plans to hold illegals there

Many of the illegals are fundamentalist Muslims from Afghanistan and fundamentalist Muslims deliberately killed a lot of Australians in Bali. Certainly not ideal neighbours

SENIOR government ministers have warned against public hysteria following an angry backlash against plans to move asylum-seekers.

Immigration officials were jeered as they tried to reassure residents at a public meeting in the Adelaide Hills that having the asylum-seekers in their communities would be a positive and rewarding experience.

Trade Minister Craig Emerson warned against public hysteria over the government's plan to build centres in the two states to handle rising numbers of boat arrivals. "Let's not start this sort of hysteria that they're somehow horrible, dangerous people," he said. "These are people who will be assessed using the normal checks that were put in place many, many years ago."

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen assured residents that resources would not be stripped from local communities, and extra resources for the centres would be provided by the government.

Residents of Woodside in the Adelaide Hills reacted angrily to plans to house up to 400 asylum-seekers on the nearby Inverbrackie defence estate.

At a meeting on Thursday night, many said they were concerned schools could be overwhelmed and crime could rise.

The Coalition leapt on the issue, vowing to push for a parliamentary inquiry to examine the plans for the centres.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the government had created a "rolling detention crisis".

"There are just so many people now that they're trying to accommodate, that the community of Inverbrackie, without any consultation, without any forewarning, has had this forced upon them.

"I'm just amazed that the government is surprised that there would be some reaction from the community when they haven't even been talked to." Mr Bowen "should front up to the community and answer the questions", Mr Morrison said. "He shouldn't be shielding himself behind Immigration officials who too often have to do the dirty work of this government."

Mr Morrison's comments drew criticism from Liberal Bruce Baird, an outspoken critic of John Howard's hard line on immigration, who held the seat of Cook before him. "They're creating myths and scaremongering, and I think that's unfortunate," Mr Baird said. "They're very vulnerable people."

Mr Baird, who is chairman of the Refugee Resettlement Advisory Council, said there was no reason for residents to be concerned. "When we released children and their families in 2005 there was concern that they would abscond and cause problems in the community, and neither of that happened. . . . They would probably be model citizens."

Mr Bowen said health services for asylum-seekers would be provided on-site. "Any additional teaching resources required will be paid for by the commonwealth, as they always are."

Mr Bowen said the residents' concerns about pressure on health facilities and schools were understandable and it was appropriate that the government respond to them. "We are working closely with the Department of Education and schools to ensure that families are accommodated at this centre with no adverse impact on local communities."

The Department of Immigration and service provider Serco would bring in medical experts to the Inverbrackie facility to care for detainees, he said. "There will be no impact on local facilities."

Federal Liberal MP Jamie Briggs wants to introduce a private member's bill establishing a parliamentary inquiry to hear the residents' views.

Mr Morrison said people were rightly upset. "These are not refugees who have been settled into the community, who have had their asylum claims proved. They are people who are maybe there for six months, three months."

SOURCE



23 October, 2010

State lawmakers working on "anchor baby" abuse

Lawmakers in at least 14 states announced Tuesday they are working on legislation to deny U.S. citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, although they weren't specific about how they plan to do it.

Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce said he and the lawmakers have a working draft of their model legislation and have consulted constitutional scholars to change the 14th Amendment and deny automatic citizenship. "This is a battle of epic proportions," Pearce said Tuesday during a news conference at the Arizona Capitol. "We've allowed the hijacking of the 14th Amendment."

Pearce declined to say how the legislation will differ from similar measures that have been introduced in each two-year congressional session since 2005. None of them made it out of committee.

He and another Arizona lawmaker did argue that wording in the amendment that guarantees citizenship to people born in the U.S. who are "subject to the jurisdiction" of this country does not apply to the children of illegal immigrants because such families don't owe sole allegiance to the U.S.

Carlos Galindo-Elvira, vice president of Valle del Sol, a Phoenix group that provides social services to community members and advocates for immigrants, said the part of the amendment Pearce is contending clearly was meant for children of foreign diplomats who are born in the U.S. Pearce's "interpretation is being used to qualify his argument to legitimize bullying babies," he said.

The efforts by Pearce and the other lawmakers come amid calls to change the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. Supporters cite costs to taxpayers for services provided to illegal immigrants and their children.

Constitutional changes require approval by two-thirds majorities in both chambers of Congress, an impossibility now because Democrats have the majority in both houses and most oppose such a measure. Even if Republicans gain power in November and legislation is passed, an amendment would still need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, the founder of a national group of legislators critical of illegal immigration, said the 14th Amendment "greatly incentives foreign invaders to violate our border and our laws." He had a news conference Tuesday in Harrisburg, Pa., on the multistate endeavor.

The effort could run afoul of the language in the 14th Amendment and lead to a court battle over the constitutionality of the law. But Metcalfe said providing birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants is an "ongoing distortion and twisting" of the amendment.

Metcalfe's office said lawmakers in at least 12 other states besides Arizona and Pennsylvania said they were making their own announcements about working on the citizenship legislation. Those other states: Alabama, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

Pearce was the main sponsor of a tough new Arizona law that would require police enforcing other laws to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the U.S. illegally. It was to go into effect this summer, but a judge put on hold key provisions pending the resolution of a legal challenge. Pearce also was the chief sponsor of a 2007 state law targeting employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the 2010 law and who is championing the state's legal defense of it against a court challenge mounted by the U.S. Justice Department, was noncommittal when asked whether lawmakers should approve legislation on citizenship.

However, Brewer said she was "always concerned" by the possibility of involving the state in a court fight. "No one wants to be in court. No one wants to be fighting the federal government," she said.

Source







Striking a balance in Australia's immigration future

By Pallavi Jain (Ms Jain is of Indian origin)

German chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken the unspeakable. In a brutally honest statement she has said that multiculturalism has failed in Germany. This statement comes close on the heels of the recently held elections in Sweden where the far right party, Sweden Democrats, won as many as 20 parliamentary seats, making a significant dent for the first time in mainstream Swedish politics. These developments reiterate the fact that immigration remains a hot button topic in most western democracies. But for all the rhetoric, how does Australia fare when it comes to immigration?

According to the Australian Bureau of statistics in the past year net immigration contributed 64 per cent to population growth while natural growth accounted for 36 per cent. Over the past five years there has been a substantial increase in immigration owing to government policy. It is not surprising then that in the recently held elections, immigration was often discussed in conjunction with increasing population. However, one wonders whether population growth itself would be an issue if it was not associated with a high rate of immigration and was just a result of natural increase.

Over recent decades Australia's per capita income has risen even as its population has increased including a huge influx of immigrants. Moreover given that Australia is ranked second on the UN's Human Development Index which assesses education, health and life expectancy as well as economic factors it is not hard to believe that by global standards Australia is doing well on almost all counts. But is there more here than meets the eye? Are the old and new members of this remarkable country really at ease with each other?

It is perhaps as unwise to criticise immigration altogether and paint all immigrants with the same brush as it would be imprudent not to express apprehension about increased immigration out of political correctness. While a gradual influx of immigrants of all hues and cultures may be tolerated at the worst and welcomed at the best, substantial increases in immigrant population, coming in sudden spurts, may lead to social tensions. Such is human nature.

Every country has a right to decide who should enter their country. In fact extra care should be taken when deciding who can come in, to ensure that a few bad apples don't give all immigrants a bad name. And while it might be difficult, the government must make a thorough assessment of aspiring immigrants. In addition to skills, it is important to establish what they think and feel about the value system that prevails in Australia.

If there is a conflict of interest cultural or otherwise that cannot be resolved, then it may even be better for the person not to immigrate, since there is a high probability of disappointment and alienation. At a macro-level such feelings of discontent could be a recipe for social friction. Last but not the least, there is one important reason why immigrants from all over the world often want to come here. It is not just about the money (immigrants to countries like Saudi Arabia, Libya or Kenya can also make money). It is at least for some about the life choices that Australia offers. It is about fundamental human rights like dignity of life, freedom or a certain level of security.

I have personally been at the receiving end of tough immigration policies when I could not gain full time employment in the UK due to visa restrictions. But even after being denied that opportunity, I did not change my views on immigration into the developed world.

I firmly believe that every nation has a right to decide who can and should stay in their country. In some cases countries may miss out on an outstanding talent because of an error in judgement, or they may sometimes allow in people who perhaps should not have been given entry. But even though one can doubt the wisdom of a specific immigration policy, a nation cannot be denied the right to make that choice.

Yes Australia is not perfect, but by many standards it is one of the best places to live on the planet. You can eat or wear anything, practise your religion, speak your mind without fear — choices that are a luxury in many parts of the world. Moreover in my opinion the task of assimilating into Australian society rests with the immigrant who has made a choice to come here. Assimilation here does not require compromising your identity in any way but rather offers a chance to expand it, making you part of the global narrative. On the other side though, it is important that Australia lives up to the immigrant's expectations of being a fair, egalitarian and free society.

Australia is one of the most developed countries in the world but to maintain that in an increasingly globalised world, it is imperative that it manages its immigration policy well. Very low immigration will deny Australia the benefits of the best minds in the world. Too much immigration may give rise to unforseen social unrest, apart from being a huge burden on the infrastructure and the environment. Striking this balance will be a key to Australia's future.

SOURCE



22 October, 2010

A Gift to the Drug Cartels: Will New Mexico Become the Next Arizona?

A new Center for Immigration Studies Memorandum explores how seemingly innocuous legislation before the Senate could turn 125 miles of southeast New Mexico’s Dona Ana County into a staging ground for drug cartels and illegal alien smugglers.

S. 1689, the “Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act,” changes the currently designated “public use” of certain Department of Interior lands to a “wilderness” designation. The end result would be to severely curtail the Border Patrol’s ability to operate due to the stringent nature of wilderness laws. New Mexico could suffer the same results as Arizona, as documented by the Center in its mini-documentary series showing the waste, destruction, and unsafe circumstances that borderlands suffer when wilderness laws (and poor federal government policy) create a law enforcement vacuum.

The new Center for Immigration Studies Memorandum, 'A Gift to the Drug Cartels: Will New Mexico Become the Next Arizona?,' authored by Janice Kephart, Director of National Security Policy at the Center and producer of the 'Hidden Cameras' mini-documentary series, leaves no doubt that bill’s goal is to support legitimate environmental conservation. However, through an in-depth examination of current law and policy, Kephart concludes that the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act would leave the Border Patrol with little ability, and little incentive, to do its job. The measure would effectively hand drug cartels 125 more borderland miles for operations; an alternative would be to assure conservation with adequate law enforcement in the area, thus keeping the cartels under control while protecting our public safety and national security.

The measure, co-sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, and Tom Udall (D-NM), was passed out of Chairman Bingaman’s committee in July 2010 and is awaiting consideration on the Senate floor.

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Janice Kephart, jlk@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





U.S. Government Does Not Have ‘Effective Control’ of 1,081 Miles of the U.S.-Mexico Border, DHS Says

The U.S. government does not have “effective control” of 1,081 miles of the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for securing the border.

“Border miles under effective control” is a metric DHS uses in its annual performance reports to measure the performance of the Border Patrol.

As defined by DHS, a mile of the border is under the “effective control” of the U.S. government “when the appropriate mix of personnel, equipment, technology and tactical infrastructure has been deployed to reasonably ensure that when an attempted illegal entry is detected, the Border Patrol has the ability to identify, classify and respond to bring the attempted illegal entry to a satisfactory law enforcement resolution.”

Simply put, a border mile under “effective control” is a place on the border where the U.S. government can be reasonably expected to intercept an illegal crosser.

The Border Patrol, a division of CBP, is responsible for securing a total of 8,607 miles of the U.S. border. This includes all 1,954 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, approximately 4,000 miles of the U.S.-Canada border, plus sectors of coastline in the Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

As of Sept. 30 (the end of fiscal year 2010), the Border Patrol had established “effective control” over 1,107 miles of the 8,607 miles it is responsible for securing, a CPB spokesperson told CNSNews.com on Monday.

Of these 1,107 miles that are now under “effective control,” 69 miles are on the U.S.-Canada border, 165 miles are in the coastal sectors covered by the Border Patrol, and 873 are on the U.S.-Mexico border.

That means the U.S. government does not have “effective control” over 1,081 miles of the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border.

Still, there has been some improvement over the past year. DHS’s annual performance report said that by the end of fiscal year 2009 the Border Patrol had established “effective control” over only 939 miles of the 8,607 miles of U.S. border it is responsible for securing.

Of those 939 miles under “effective control,” a CBP spokesperson told CNSNews.com on Monday, 32 were on the U.S.-Canada border, 165 were in the coastal sectors, and 742 were on the U.S.-Mexico border.

That means that in the past year, the Border Patrol put an additional 37 miles of U.S.-Canada border under “effective control” and an additional 131 miles of U.S.-Mexico border under “effective control.”

In its most recent annual performance report, published on Feb. 1, 2010, DHS had set a goal of having only 939 border miles (out of 8,607) under effective control by the end of fiscal 2010 and then maintaining (not increasing) that number during fiscal 2011. As it turned out, DHS exceeded its 2010 goal by 168 total miles.

When asked what CBP’s new goal would be for border miles under effective control in fiscal 2011, a CBP spokesperson would not give a specific mile number, stating instead only that CBP will maintain or increase the number from 2010.

Meanwhile, with more than a thousand miles of the Mexican border not under “effective control,” CBP officials are downplaying the significance of the metric.

CNSNews.com asked U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin last Thursday when he expected to have the full U.S.-Mexico border under “effective control.”

“If you defined it by that characterization of a piece of real state, there are places on the border where it is not a useful characterization. And I have not seen, nor have I developed my own estimate about when using that tactical definition, when some, some final end state will, will occur,” Bersin responded.

“I don’t think that’s a useful way to look at the border as an exclusive lens. What we have to look at the border is in terms of, as I suggested, public safety for our communities, and the sense in which the border is being effectively managed,” he said.

Bersin went on to say that the “best way” to secure the border is to create a “legitimate labor market between the United States and Mexico,” which a CBP spokesperson later said meant a guest worker program.

“It’s about flows of people and securing the border by deterring and preventing illegal immigration,” Bersin said. “The best way to do that is to have a legitimate labor market between the United States and Mexico. Absent that, we will manage the flows and protect the American people in terms of both public safety and in terms of effectively managing the border.

“Absent comprehensive immigration reform, people will attempt to enter this country illegally drawn by the job market,” he added. “It is our job to stop them, and we will do our best to do that.”

CBP is “doing better than ever before” in securing the border, Bersin said, “but this is not about real state.”

CBP spokesperson Kelly Ivahnenko told CNSNews.com that miles under effective control “is not the sole manner in which we define – nor is it a comprehensive examination of – effective border management.”

“Effective control of the border was intended in the past as a tactical description used by local commanders, which was defined based on their local terrain, geographic challenges, and existing resources,” she also told CNSNews.com.

Focusing “solely on previously cited effective miles of border under control” skews “the bigger picture of the need for our agency to be responsive and agile. While that may not be as quantitative as miles under control, it does explain in a more comprehensive fashion the ever-changing environment and the need to apply the right mix of technology, infrastructure and personnel across the border based on unique aspects,” Ivahnenko said.

Those aspects include “smuggling trends/threats, operational intelligence, terrain, and geographic challenges and the ever-evolving border environment,” she said.

“Our goal is to effectively manage risk by using targeting, information sharing and intelligence to segment the cargo or traveler that may pose a threat, which is a small fraction of the trillions in trade and millions of legitimate travelers who enter our country every day,” she said.

Source



21 October, 2010

Hispanic America

Peter Gadiel

A few days ago, KRGV-TV in Brownsville, Texas reported that Eulalia Garcia Maturey of that city has became a United States citizen. That's terrific for her and it could have been a great story about the American melting pot, but there are a few flies in the pot.

Ms. Maturey is one hundred and one years old. She arrived (legally) in the U.S. as an infant with her parents on October 12, 1909, one hundred and one years to the day before she became a citizen.

But you see, the problem is that Mrs. Maturey doesn't speak English, and after becoming a citizen she said "soy una cuidano Americana."

It's not easy learning a foreign language, but one hundred years does seem to be a reasonable period during which prospective citizens should be able to learn the language. Si?

I contrast this with the story of my immigrant family. My mother arrived as a thirty-five year old refugee in 1946, joining my father, from whom she had been involuntarily separated by World War II. Mom spoke not a word of English. But this was America she felt and you couldn't be really American if you didn't speak English. And what Mom wanted was to be American; to read the newspapers; learn the history of her adopted country; be able to hear President Truman when he addressed the Nation. To learn the politics and participate in the social and political life of the United States of America.

So Mom made the effort. She made the basic steps in learning English, and listened to the radio as much as possible so she'd get a true sense and understanding of spoken American English. So, within a year she was nearly fluent. My sister, who arrived speaking only French, mastered English so completely that after six months she refused to utter a single word in anything other than the language of her new country.

Mom's native language was German, and to the end of her life she never lost her German accent. Never once in my life did I hear her say the "th" sound. It was always "ze," as in "ze phone" or "ze car." Similarly, I never heard her say "what, which, where or why," only "vot, vich, vare, and vie." (Until corrected by a teacher in third grade I thought the word "clothes" was pronounced "closes.")

Accented though it was, she spoke, read and wrote in English, the language of her adopted country. As a very old lady living in Florida she would go to a German delicatessen to get her wursts. Hearing her accent the owners would immediately speak to her in German, but she always replied in English only. Though too polite to scold the shop people, she told me: "This is America, we speak English here."

So, forgive me if I find the circumstances of Ms. Maturey's citizenship less than wonderful. One hundred years in our country and she doesn't speak the language. She may not speak English, but she has sent us a clear message that in a whole century she never felt any desire to be, as my mother would say, "really American." She has also communicated to us that the schools and teachers in Texas have failed, failed completely, to make Americans out of foreigners.

When the Maturey family was asked the reason for her deciding to become a citizen after all these years, they didn't say it was because she loves this country, they said it was because her old border crossing card was no longer valid for getting back into the U.S. after visiting her family in Mexico. . . she needed a passport. Thus it is clear that from her infancy to her old age our nation failed to encourage this lady to become integrated into our society or feel a true attachment to our country. When she admitted she became a citizen because she needed the right documents, this one little old lady speaking in Spanish did a better job of exposing that failure than the most eloquent of English speakers could possibly have done.

When KRGV aired this story, it ended with Ms. Maturey's niece, Yolanda Ovalle, speaking of how happy her aunt was to be a U.S. citizen. Ovalle, evidently in her fifties, needed someone to translate her own comments from Spanish into English.

Welcome to the United States.

Source






Foreign worker numbers in Britain surge to a record 2.4m as Eastern Europeans return to Britain

The number of foreigners working in Britain has hit an all-time high despite the fragile state of the recovery. This summer, the total topped 2.4million for the first time after thousands arrived from abroad in the spring.

Some of them were Poles and other Eastern Europeans who began to return to the UK. The number of Eastern European workers also reached a record – of 551,000. It means the workforce of foreigners has surged by more than a ­million in only seven years.

By contrast the number of Britons in jobs fell by hundreds of thousands during the recession.

The growing total of foreign workers comes at a time of deepening concern over the five million British adults who do not work and the intensification of Government efforts to persuade many that jobs are preferable to a life of benefits dependency.

The rush to take jobs in Britain is also adding to immigration and concerns over population growth and overcrowding.

But some ministers, led by Business Secretary Vince Cable, are anxious to stave off the Coalition’s promised cap on immigration from outside the EU to maintain the flow of skilled and cheap, unskilled foreign workers that employers say they need.

The latest count of foreign citizens working in Britain was released alongside unemployment figures by the Office for National Statistics. It showed there were 2.401million non-UK nationals active in the economy between April and June, up by 147,000 on the previous three months.

The previous peak came at the end of 2008, as the recession began to bite, when there were 2.377million foreign citizens working in Britain. After that, Labour ministers maintained that numbers were falling because thousands of Eastern European migrant workers had gone home.

But by this spring they were returning to take jobs in Britain – a signal that work is widely available. Eastern Europeans may be taking jobs that workers here are reluctant to do, possibly because unemployed Britons regard the jobs as either too low paid or too demanding.

The number of workers from Poland and other Eastern European countries in the EU rose by 54,000 over the three-month period to 551,000. Only seven years ago, in the summer of 2003, before the admission of eight Eastern European countries to the EU, there were 1.39million foreign nationals in jobs in this country.

The new figures, drawn from the Labour Force Survey, showed there were 26.530million Britons in jobs, around 650,000 down from the peak in summer 2008.

Librarians at the House of Commons confirmed that the number of foreign workers is the highest since the count was first carried out in 1997, when it was 966,000.

Home Secretary Theresa May has pledged to set a cap on immigration from outside the EU with the aim of reducing net migration – the rate at which immigration exceeds emigration – to 1990s levels.

Sir Andrew Green, of the Migrationwatch think-tank, warned that a new wave of migrant workers would be damaging. ‘The risk is that we will get ­economic growth without encouraging more employment among British workers,’ he said.

Source



20 October, 2010

Americans split over public education for illegal immigrants, poll shows

Maybe it's the recession. Maybe it's the fight over Arizona's tough new law to step up apprehension of illegal immigrants or the headline news about border violence. For whatever reason, Americans are in no mood to coddle people who are in the United States illegally, even if they are hardworking and peaceable.

Even K-12 education for children brought to the US under the radar by their parents – a benefit that the US Supreme Court has said states cannot withhold – does not enjoy majority backing. Support for educating such children stands at 47 percent, compared with 49 percent who oppose it.

The results may hearten two gubernatorial hopefuls who have urged challenging the relevant 1982 high court ruling: Republican Terry Branstad in Iowa and third-party candidate Tom Tancredo in Colorado. Other GOP candidates for governor have said they would push for tough laws like Arizona's, but Mr. Branstad and Mr. Tancredo alone appear ready to test the Supreme Court education ruling that discrimination based on immigration status serves "no compelling state interest."

Regionally, support for educating young illegal immigrants is weakest in the West, which has absorbed the lion's share of newcomers in the past generation. Forty-two percent of Westerners support public schooling for such children, compared with 47 percent in the South, 50 percent in the Midwest, and 52 percent in the Northeast. For illegal immigrants, the findings in the Monitor/TIPP poll get worse:

* One in 4 respondents says the immigrants should be eligible for food stamps and Medicaid (health care for the poor).

* Eighteen percent are willing for illegal immigrants to receive access to public housing. That issue came to the fore with news reports that President Obama's aunt from Kenya, who stayed in the US illegally from 2004 until gaining asylum this year, lived during that time in Boston public housing.

* Support for allowing undocumented college students to qualify for federal or state education grants is just shy of 18 percent.

Legislation was recently introduced in the Senate to tighten borders, crack down on employers of illegal immigrants, and provide an eventual path to citizenship to undocumented workers who are otherwise law-abiding. Past attempts to bring similar bills to the Senate floor have failed, and the new bill is not expected to fare any better in what remains of the current Congress.

The Monitor/TIPP poll was conducted Sept. 7-12 and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

SOURCE




Australian PM softens immigration detention policy

JULIA Gillard has dramatically altered the government's policy on asylum-seekers, opening two more detention centres to house 2000 would-be refugees.

The PM has bowed to pressure to release children and their families into the community.

As Australia's detention centre network nears breaking point, with more than 5200 asylum-seekers and crew currently under guard, the Prime Minister yesterday announced plans for new centres in Northam, northeast of Perth, and Inverbrackie, in the Adelaide Hills.

Ms Gillard denied the plans indicated the government had ditched its regional approach to processing asylum-seekers. She said the new centres represented a short-term solution and would allow the closure of temporary detention housing currently being used, including tents and motels.

The decision to release children and their families into communities - effectively subcontracting their day-to-day care to church groups and non-government organisations - was welcomed by the Greens and refugee advocacy groups, who had fought a vigorous campaign to have minors released from detention. The changes will be rolled out over the next eight months.

The new detention centre at Northam will house about 1500 men, while the Inverbrackie facility will be used for about 400 members of family groups. The Northam centre will cost $164.5 million and Inverbrackie $9.7m. Some of this funding has already been provided in the budget and the July economic statement. The government said the new funding of $54.9m would be offset by cuts to follow in other areas.

Ms Gillard said the government was also prepared to use the 11 Mile Antenna Farm outside Darwin and further expand the Melbourne immigration transit accommodation if numbers of unauthorised arrivals continued to swell.

The Rudd government's decision in March to freeze new Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum claims for six and three months respectively and a fall in the proportion of applicants accepted as refugees have led to serious bottlenecks in the detention system. Ms Gillard said the new centres would lead to the closure of inappropriate detention housing, including on Christmas Island and the use of tents. "I don't think it's the Australian way to have kids behind razor wire in the hope that will be a deterrent," she said.

The Prime Minister said the government would continue to pursue a regional solution to the rising number of asylum-seekers coming to Australia. "But in the short term, these measures will give the Department of Immigration a chance to decommission inappropriate accommodation," Ms Gillard said, highlighting the use of temporary tents as accommodation on Christmas Island and motels.

It is not clear exactly how many asylum-seekers will be housed in the community, but with 738 minors in detention - about half of whom arrived as part of a family group - the number is likely to exceed 1000 by June next year.

Church and non-government organisations will be expected to provide accommodation for those under their care, as well as basic services that will include ensuring children are able to attend school.

Asylum-seekers will be subject to reporting requirements to ensure they do not abscond. They will be eligible for a Centrelink payment, under the asylum-seeker assistance scheme, to cover day-to-day living expenses. Government sources told The Australian similar schemes had been trialled with very low absconding rates.

The Prime Minister denied the government's backdown on children in detention was in response to negotiations with the Greens.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said it would cost about the same amount to have children and families housed in the community as in detention centres. Refugee advocate Pamela Curr of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said yesterday's changes were "long overdue". She said immigration detention put more stress on asylum-seekers, particularly children. "The parents are doing their best to maintain an air of normality, against the odds," Ms Curr said. "(But) if you've got a guard walking into the bedroom, counting the heads of your children, it's very hard to pretend this is normal."

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said more beds would not stop more boats, and condemned the decision to open more centres.

When asked about the Coalition's position on releasing children from detention centres, Mr Morrison said that if the Coalition were in power, they would all be housed in Nauru.

He said he believed Labor was preparing to overuse the provisions in the Migration Act with its changes. "These provisions were intended to deal with exceptional cases," he said. "They will now be used for a broad-scale exodus for hundreds of adults as well as minors from detention places."

Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the decision to remove children and unaccompanied minors and some family members from immigration detention was "testament to the long public campaign by the Greens, key NGOs and concerned members of the community". But she expressed concern that their removal from detention was entirely up to a minister's discretion, and that it would take too long to release the children.

"No new detention centres should be built until there is a legislated time limit placed on the holding of asylum-seekers in detention," she said.

SOURCE



19 October, 2010

Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. 'Hidden Cameras 3' Video Release with Women in Homeland Security (Transcript and Video)

2. For a Really Excellent Immigration Report, Try Australia's Offering (Blog)

3. Wishful Thinking from the Center for American Progress (Blog)

4. Good and Bad News on the Investors' Visa Program (Blog)

5. Chinese Illegals Coming to U.S. via Haiti (!) and Belize (Blog)

6. Murdoch and Bloomberg Put Profit Ahead of Principle (Blog)





The confusing state of immigration in Europe

Doubts about the utility of immigration is provoking aggressive attitudes toward migrants, Islamic head scarves and a mass political retreat from “multiculturalism”.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, says multiculturalism has failed utterly and it is causing a political shudder across Europe. Her complaint – that it was wrong-headed to encourage millions of Turkish immigrants to settle in Germany with no thought about how they would integrate into a liberal, libidinous and mostly irreligious society – is not original. It might have been made in Britain about immigration from Pakistan. It is already being made in France and the Netherlands where politicians are using bans on head scarves to enforce a new public intolerance toward the private intolerance of Islamic culture. In Germany, a senior official of the Bundesbank, Thilo Sarrazin, was sacked for publishing a book that blamed immigrants for dumbing down Germany and causing its decline.

Mrs. Merkel’s outburst is interesting because she is clever and because she is German, the leader of Europe’s largest economy and one that has the biggest political stake in preserving the protocol of human rights and decencies. No German politician could easily contemplate the targeting of a large group of illegal immigrants for summary deportation, as did France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, with the mass removal of Roma from squatter camps.

Mrs. Merkel is giving voice in measured tones to a simmering public disquiet about immigration. She hopes, as probably did President Sarkozy, that by letting off her own firecracker, she will distract attention from the firebrands of the Far Right. But there is a more interesting question that Europeans are beginning to find troubling. We were told that immigration was good for us, good for the economy; how is it good?

Immigrants are supposed to fill jobs; their consumption creates economic demand for goods and services, and the cultural exchange stimulates creativity and enterprise. That is the theory. In practice, the experience is messy. Germany has a labour shortage of some 400,000 skilled workers, but immigrants in Germany are twice as likely to be unemployed. The Governor of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer, caused a furore when he said immigration from Turkey and Arabian countries should cease because these mainly Muslim people were unable to integrate.

Today, good ideas don’t need an invasion to take root and that may be why we still have problems with migration. The Flemish, the Lombards and the Jews brought useful skills to Britain centuries ago: weaving, banking and finance. The less pleasant truth is that the real value brought by waves of migrants [now] is labour, cheap and more willing than the local muscle can provide. If the migrants don’t or cannot supply cheap labour because of minimum wage laws or generous welfare benefits, then the immigrant labour is not required and migration becomes a burden.

What about the cultural exchange and the great ideas? They are already here. The brilliant Asians writing novel software? They are not queuing up at Ellis Island, they are already writing doctorates at Stanford University or earning six-figure salaries at Microsoft. The music composed by talented African and Latin American musicians is on the Web. The migration that matters is happening in the ether. The rest is about rates per hour.

SOURCE



18 October, 2010

Thou Shall Not Say "Illegal" and "Immigration" In the Same Sentence

At first, it looked like a glimmer of hope for the beleaguered state of California.

Meg Whitman, an accomplished business executive with the very consumer friendly “Ebay” name attached to her own, was leading slightly in the fight to be California’s next Governor. It was still a tight race, yes, but Democratic gubernatorial nominee (and the guy who was California Governor when I was in 5th grade) Jerry Brown, a perennial government employee, was struggling to find a compelling message amid the anti-Obama backlash.

And then Ms. Whitman (and her entire family) got hit with a very ugly surprise. Nicky Diaz, a former employee of the Whitman family, spoke at a press conference orchestrated by left-winger attorney Gloria Allred to announce that they were suing Meg Whitman for $6, 210.00. Diaz and her attorneys were alleging distress and “damages” from the way Diaz was treated during her term of employment with the Whitmans, and from the fact that Whitman was so insensitive as to have “fired” Ms. Diaz (is employment termination no longer permitted in Obama’s America?).

After this disgraceful press conference, the discussion about who should be California’s next Governor devolved into a TMZ-Perez Hilton – styled gossip fest about Nicky and Meg. While Whitman quickly responded by dismissing the law suit as “Jerry Brown politics,” Jerry Brown insisted he had nothing to do with “it.” Whitman was also forced to abandon her campaign message – at least a little bit, anyway – and to answer questions about her relationship with Nicky Diaz.

Whitman explained that Diaz had been a live-in family housemaid from 2000 to 2009, and earned $23.00 an hour. According to Whitman, Diaz had provided all the appropriate “paperwork” to demonstrate that she was residing in California legally. Whitman apparently did not become aware of Diaz’ “illegal” status until 2009 (the same year that Whitman decided to run for Governor, interestingly enough), whereupon Whitman did the only thing she could do to bring herself into compliance with federal law – she terminated Diaz’ employment.

For her part, Diaz’ story was fascinating. She openly confessed to using somebody else’s Social Security number for the purpose of duping both Whitman, and immigration authorities. And never mind the fact that she held a steady fulltime job for nine years earning $23.00 an hour while living in a plush home the likes of which most Americans will never experience. Being “used” for a time by Meg Whitman and then being callously “discarded” was emotionally painful, and Diaz needed retribution. As she put it, speaking through her broken, Hispanic-tinged English, “I’m doing this for all the other Nicky’s…”

Shortly thereafter when Whitman and Brown met in Fresno for the second of three California gubernatorial debates, Whitman was forced to again tell “her side of the story” – she was given falsified documents that showed Diaz to be “legal,” but when she realized that Diaz was “illegal” she had to fire Diaz. Brown conveniently ignored the legal entanglements, and simply stated that, because she fired Nicky Diaz from her job, Whitman had failed the most basic tests of “decency” and “respect.”

Today, polling data indicates that Brown is leading Whitman by roughly six percentage points. It’s not “over” for Whitman, not by any means, and she could still win. But it is difficult to suggest that she hasn’t been damaged by this embarrassing scenario.

This is an “emotional matter,” to be sure. But let’s step away from the “feelings” for a moment and talk about some facts.

It is a fact that Nicky Diaz has violated U.S. federal law on multiple accounts. She entered into the U.S. illegally; by her own admission she falsified documents for both the Whitman family, and for federal immigration authorities; she stole somebody’s Social Security number (among the citizen class we call this “identity theft,” and many of us spend a lot of money each year trying to protects ourselves from this type of crime); she worked illegally in the U.S.; and so far as we can tell she is still residing illegally in the U.S. today.

Jerry Brown, currently California’s Attorney General and, as such, California’s top law enforcement agent, has had absolutely nothing to say about any of the lawlessness of Nicky Diaz. He has played politics with this matter, and even insisted that Meg Whitman behaved in an “insensitive” and “indecent” fashion by firing the illegal immigrant Diaz.

Yet Meg Whitman hasn’t exactly been forthcoming, either. She has yet to state the obvious about this situation – that Nicky Diaz has violated U.S. federal law, and continues to do so.

It would seem that stating the obvious about crime, and lawlessness, is just too politically “dangerous” – especially when the “obvious” involves illegal immigration.

SOURCE





Immigration Amnesty Pushed Through Back Door In Houston Federal Courts

As voters and candidates debate the issue of illegal immigration and immigration amnesty, a sharply increasing number of illegal immigrants are getting “amnesty” not through Congress but in the courtroom. The Houston Chronicle reports an increase of more than 700 percent in dismissals of immigration violation charges since the Department of Homeland Security started reviewing cases in the Houston federal courts.

According to data provided by the Executive Office for Immigration Review,which oversees the nation’s immigration court system, the number of dismissed immigration cases skyrocketed from 27 in July to 217 in August and 174 in September. The Houston Chronicle reports as follows.

“In early August, federal attorneys in Houston started filing unsolicited motions to dismiss cases involving suspected illegal immigrants who have lived in the country for years without committing serious crimes.

News of the dismissals, first reported in the Houston Chronicle in late August, caused a national controversy amid allegations that the Obama administration was implementing a kind of “backdoor amnesty” — a charge officials strongly denied.

The Houston Chronicle further reports that attorneys in the system are corroborating the story told by the statistics. The Houston Chronicle continues as follows.

In recent weeks, some immigration attorneys reported the dismissals have slowed somewhat, while others reported they now have to ask ICE trial attorneys to exercise prosecutorial discretion in order to have their cases dismissed."

The dismissal of charges against illegal immigration charges does not, however preclude the possibility of the federal government filing charges later.In order to qualify for the dismissal, defendants must not have any record of felony convictions or of certain misdemeanor charges involving DWI, sex crimes or domestic violence.

The de facto amnesty has its defenders. Many immigration lawyers and advocates of immigration reform cite the huge backlog of immigration cases, some of which are already being scheduled to be heard in 2012.

Why is the government effectively jumping over the bench and standing along side the defendants by filing motions for dismissal of charges in these cases? Why is there a sharp increase in dismissals of cases? New guidelines are being quietly circulated and the public has no knowledge of what they might be. Additionally, this lenient treatment in the courts sends a message to others who are contemplating illegal entry into the US that the Americans are not serious about enforcing their laws.

Americans can vote for leaders who share their views on immigration, but there is almost no recourse against judges who overturn or refuse to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. If this is what Americans want, let it be done through the legislature in open debate and not behind the closed doors of judicial chambers.

SOURCE



17 October, 2010

Thirty Reasons You Should Support Illegal Immigration and Amnesty for Illegal Aliens

1. America's emergency rooms and health care system are not crowded enough.

2. The U.S. needs more organized, violent gangs. Currently the U.S. has Salvadoran gangs; Vietnamese gangs, Filipino gangs, Armenian gangs, Russian gangs, Chinese gangs; Cambodian gangs; Bulgarian gangs, Dominican gangs, Mexican gangs, Haitian gangs. Continuing unrestricted immigration will increase this "diversity."

3. The U.S. carbon footprint is not large enough. Millions more immigrants will swell the population to enlarge the country's carbon footprint.

4. U.S. highways are not crowded enough. More traffic is needed.

5. The percentage of U.S. land that is not yet paved over and developed is far too small.

6. Prior to the days of unrestricted immigration the U.S. lacked a sufficient "diversity" of serious diseases. Unrestricted and illegal immigration has remedied that situation by reintroducing diseases formerly wiped out in the US and introducing new ones never before seen here: Leprosy, dengue fever, West Nile virus, treatment resistant TB, polio,

7. The U.S. needs more 9/11 style attacks. The 9/11 mass murderers were able to hide in plain sight among millions of other illegal aliens. In order to help future terrorists we must maintain a massive population of illegals.

8. Immigration lawyers need more business.

9. There is insufficient racial, ethnic, religious strife in the U.S. Immigration will provide a welcome increase.

10. Continuing high levels of immigration from the Mideast and Mexico guarantees that the number of voters who want to abandon Israel to destruction by its Moslem neighbors.

11. The U.S. does not have enough front groups for Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorist organizations. Continued unrestricted immigration will enlarge the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and groups like it to rectify this lack.

12. The demonstrated propensity of Latin-American illegal aliens to drive while drunk will provide the needed increase in DUI's and additional deaths of innocent people

13. The ACLU favors illegal immigration.

14. Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the church to which he belongs (United Church of Christ) favor illegal immigration.

15. The Communist Party and other extreme left wing groups support illegal immigration.

16. Americans who have lived all their lives in the US currently have far too much medical care available to them and their quality of life must be reduced. That reduction can most easily be achieved by legalizing 20 to 30 million illegal aliens so they are eligible for the "free" benefits" of Obama's scheme. See reason 17

17. Obama's appointment of Donald Berwick, supporter of rationing of health care and central planning, will mean that even more of America's health care assets will be diverted from Americans who have paid taxes for decades to newly arrived lawbreakers.

18. America's schools are not crowded enough.

19. Only fifty-five languages are spoken the Los Angeles public school system. The cost and confusion created by this diversity has lowered quality a great deal, but it is possible to do worse.

20. With millions more poor illegals there will be a greater need for social workers, welfare workers, public school teachers and aides, more school lunch programs, more prisons, more police, more government workers of every kind. This will enlarge the number of voters reliant on the government for paychecks and will swell the membership rolls of the National Education Association, AFSCME, SEIU and other Democrat organizations.

21. The Democrat Party needs more voters.

22. The U.S. needs more socialism/Marxism. Adding tens of millions of poor immigrants demanding taxpayer-paid services guarantees the continued descent into loss of individual liberty.

23. The U.S. already produces too much petroleum. A larger population will make us even more dependent on foreign oil.

24. There is not enough urban sprawl in the U.S.

25. The Catholic Church's membership is increased by unrestricted immigration.

26. Not enough of Arizona's citizens have been murdered.

27. The Police Chiefs of Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and other political hacks don't want to pick and choose which laws to enforce. More illegals will give them greater leeway to not enforce laws that adversely affect illegal aliens.

28. Tyson Foods needs more illegal alien employees

29. George Soros, a Nazi collaborator in World War 2 needs more lawbreakers in the U.S. who are beholden to his many open borders front groups.

30. Illegal alien gangs have not yet murdered enough African-Americans in Southern California. This process of ethnic cleansing is best accomplished by unrestricted immigration.

31. The Ford Foundation's thirty year campaign of de-stabilizing the American society has not realized its potential...yet.

SOURCE





No welcome in Canada for U.S. military deserters

Jason Kenney’s most memorable assault on U.S. war deserters seeking refuge in Canada occurred soon after he became immigration minister in October 2008.

Mr. Kenney dismissed them as “bogus refugee claimants,” a phrase that set off loud alarm bells among the deserters’ supporters because it was more loaded than anything said before by his Tory predecessors in the job.

In a memorandum to Mr. Kenney in February, Richard Fadden, his then-deputy minister, provided a thorough review of the issue that, among other things, laid out why all Iraqi war deserters’ claims for refugee status had failed so far with the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Federal Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal.

Mr. Fadden wrote that, whereas the UN High Commission for Refugees Handbook suggests a relevant factor to consider in a refugee claim is whether a deserter was drafted or joined the army voluntarily, deserters now coming to Canada from the U.S. had volunteered for military service.

Mr. Fadden -- recently named the new head of Canadian Security Intelligence Service -- also said the deserters have failed to make the case that the punishment they face back home for desertion could be regarded as persecution.

Other notes say refugee hearing officers have been advised to be “particularly vigilant” about refugee claims from such western democracies as the United States.

Mr. Kenney is the third Tory immigration minister to reject calls to establish a special program to facilitate permanent resident status to those who deserted the U.S. military to escape a war they say they cannot support on moral or religious grounds.

Supporters of the deserters admit they are discouraged, but they vow to keep pressing the government to show some compassion before more get eviction notices.

Two deserters have been forced to leave already and are serving jail sentences on desertion charges.

A handful of others could follow soon as they exhaust their legal options. Among them are Jeremy Hinzman, the first deserter to file for refugee status in Canada in 2004; Kimberly Rivera, the mother of three young children, one of whom was born in Canada; and Phil McDowell, an Iraqi war veteran who fled to Canada in 2006 rather than accept a call to report back to base as a reservist for a 15-month deployment to Iraq.

Michelle Robidoux, a spokeswoman for the War Resisters Support Campaign, says about 50 deserters have applied for refugee status and there are dozens more living below the radar, waiting to see how the legal and political battles play out.

Mr. Kenney accuses his critics of politicizing the process by asking for a political solution rather than trusting Canada’s “fair, internationally recognized” system for providing refuge to those fleeing persecution in their home country.

In an e-mail sent after she talked to Mr. Kenney, Ms. Molloy said she told the minister she applauds the government for finally recognizing Canada’s historical failure to protect Jewish refugees from crimes against humanity but that she can’t understand why it is “failing to protect refugees who refuse to commit crimes against humanity in Iraq.”

Alykhan Velshi, a spokesman for Mr. Kenney, objected to linking the Iraqi deserter issue to the Holocaust. “There is no similarity between the Mackenzie King government’s refusal to accept Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust with our unwillingness to create a special program for American war deserters trying to flee the Obama administration,” he said in an e-mail from Oslo.

More HERE



16 October, 2010

"Community release" -- Australia's new euphemism for allowing illegal immigration

HUNDREDS of asylum seekers will be released from high security detention and allowed to live in the community under a plan being drafted by the Gillard government.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is believed to be preparing to announce the community release to relieve overflowing detention centres on the mainland and on Christmas Island.

Asylum seekers who are not considered a security risk would be eligible for community detention, including family groups, children and unaccompanied minors. The government has been in discussion with charities, church groups and refugee welfare organisations to find accommodation. This would include hostels and houses owned by the groups.

Welfare groups contacted by The Age yesterday said discussions with the government about community detention for asylum seekers predated the August 21 election.

It is understood priority would be given to families with school-age children and that release from detention centres would be staggered as housing becomes available.

According to the Immigration officials, 742 children are detained by authorities, as well as 382 unaccompanied minors. Of the children, 281 are on Christmas Island and 461 are in mainland centres.

All up, 5056 asylum seekers are now in detention, of whom 2769 are on Christmas Island. A record 106 asylum-seeker boats have arrived this year, already 20 more than the previous record of 86 in 1999.

SOURCE





Canada's Immigration Minister praises Chinese community's contribution to the country

The Chinese are a very positive influence in Australia too. Australia is now about 5% Han Chinese and they figure prominently in the professions and in the hospitality industry. Africans, by contrast, figure prominently in crime and welfare dependency. Some migrant groups tend to be more desirable than others and that should be recognized

Jason Kenney, Canada's Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister, Thursday praised the contribution of Canada's Chinese community in helping to build the country over the past 150 years.

Speaking to media Thursday in Vancouver following a roundtable with Chinese community leaders to discuss his recent trip to China, Jason Kenney described Chinese community's contribution as "enormous."

"It's an enormous contribution. The Chinese community is the largest immigrant community in Canada, over 1.2 million strong, but it's not a new community. There's been an important Chinese presence in Canada going back well over a century," he said.

"The most important thing the Chinese community has brought to Canada is a very serious work ethic and a sense of entrepreneurship and personal and family responsibility, because these are the virtues that build and maintain a strong country," he said.

SOURCE



15 October, 2010

Decade-long immigration boom means Britain needs 550,000 extra school places by 2016

Britain will need 550,000 more school places by 2016 to educate the children of immigrants, a study claimed last night. And over the next decade this will rise to one million extra places – at a total cost of about £100billion.

The Migrationwatch report blames the aftermath of Labour’s ‘open door’ immigration policy. Last year, providing schooling to the children of people born overseas cost £4.5billion – the equivalent of almost £13million every day – according to the pressure group. Its analysis is based on figures from the Office for National Statistics, and includes children who have arrived in the UK from overseas, and those born in Britain to migrant parents.

It comes at a time when primary school places are in huge demand, and the Government is attempting to slash between £7 billion and £14 billion from the education budget.

Migrationwatch said that between 1998 and 2009 – the years in which critics say Labour’s open door immigration policy operated – the number of school places required by the children of immigrants was almost 630,000.

By analysing ONS population projections, Migrationwatch also concluded that over the next ten years one million more school places will be needed because of immigration. This is primarily due to children being born to immigrants.

Between now and 2016, 550,000 more places will be required. Based on the cost of providing each school place, the total cost will be £40billion. Educating children of immigrants in state schools would cost around £195billion over a 25-year period, the report adds.

Migrationwatch said the quadrupling in net migration – the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK, and those leaving – was responsible. Many of those coming here were young people, who decided to have children, contributing to a ‘baby boom’. Between 1998 and 2009, total births increased by 11 per cent, Migrationwatch says.

Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman, said: ‘Almost every family in England is being affected by the growing crisis over school places but no one will talk about its causes. ‘These are some of the consequences of one of the most reckless and unpopular policies of any government in generations and they are now coming home to roost.’

Last month, the Mail revealed how hundreds of children had been left with no primary school place at the start of term. Thousands of other children are having to be taught in makeshift classrooms.

The problems were blamed on the surge in the number of young children and recession-fuelled departures from private schools.

The Coalition has acknowledged that the shortage of primary places is ‘critical’. Last night a Government spokesman said: ‘Ministers are clear that dealing with the demand for school places is an immediate priority – that is why we are transforming the school building programme to meet demand where it is most needed. ‘We are fully committed to reducing net migration back down to the tens of thousands [a year] rather than the hundreds of thousands.’

SOURCE




UK resumes Zimbabwe deportations

BRITAIN announced Thursday that it is resuming deportations to Zimbabwe after ministers decided that “the political situation is relatively stable and the humanitarian situation has greatly improved” since President Robert Mugabe agreed to share power with his opposition rivals in February last year.

Immigration lawyers said the announcement came as a surprise given that a tribunal is sitting later this month to set a new country guidance case for Zimbabwe.

The move also came just under a month after a minister told parliament Britain was “not starting enforced returns yet by any means” to Zimbabwe.

“It’s difficult to understand the logic of the ministers in putting the cart before the horse by amending the policy now and putting unnecessary political pressure on the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal judges,” immigration solicitor Yvonne Gwashawanhu said in London.

She added: “The Upper Tier Tribunal has listed before it the Zimbabwean country guidance case for hearing shortly and it is difficult to see how the judges can be expected to ignore this latest development. “Needless to say, there will now be a flurry of activity within the Zimbabwean community in the UK.”

Matthew Coats, the UK Border Agency’s head of immigration said enforced removals would resume after the country guidance case judgement is handed down, which lawyers expect to happen before Christmas.

Coats said: “When we do recommence enforced removals, they will be taken forward in a carefully planned and phased way. “We take our international responsibilities seriously and we will continue to grant protection to those Zimbabweans that need it. However, it is essential that we maintain the principle that each application for protection is considered on its individual merits and that returns are taken forward on a similar basis. “The courts have found that not all Zimbabweans are in need of international protection.”

The UK Border Agency sent a research team to Zimbabwe in August to track down asylum seekers who returned voluntarily and also conduct interviews with human rights groups about potential safety risks for returnees.

The fact finding team released its report two weeks ago, and lawyer Gwashawanhu described its findings as “one-sided” and accused the team of “asking leading questions calculated to produce a desired response.” Human rights groups say an election planned for next year could see a new flare-up of political violence.

Britain suspended forced removals to Zimbabwe in 2005 due to a political crisis engulfing the country at the time.

In 2008, Home Office figures showed there were 7,500 failed asylum seekers living in Britain.

SOURCE



14 October, 2010

Britain has crazy immigration priorities too

Why would ANY country try to keep out highly skilled workers while consciously letting untold numbers of illegals live there?

The government's interim immigration cap has left one of the UK's major research universities able to recruit or keep only 78 "skilled" overseas academics this year - and the permanent cap could bring further reductions.

The UK Border Agency has given each university a quota on recruitment from non-European Union countries under Tier 2 of the points-based immigration system, which covers "skilled workers". The quotas cover new visas - and renewals for existing staff - between 19 July 2010 and 31 March 2011, when the permanent cap will be imposed.

University College London, which has more than 4,000 staff, said it had been allowed just 78 places under the interim cap.

Universities are trying to bridge the gap by recruiting under Tier 1, which covers "highly skilled workers". In this category, however, the skills threshold is higher and the number of visas allocated is subject to a monthly national cap.

The UKBA's consultation on the permanent cap, which closed last month, has caused concern among universities by suggesting that Tier 2 visas could be closed to them.

The consultation document notes that there is a "strong case" for granting Tier 2 visas only to migrants with skills that are in "national shortage". This could have disastrous implications for universities because academics are not currently on the National Shortage Occupation List.

Universities UK voiced the sector's concerns in the consultation.

Many institutions believe that the UKBA has failed to appreciate that academic careers are inherently international and that the lengthy training period for new entrants means universities cannot rapidly switch to a "British-only" policy.

The universities of Oxford and Cambridge would not comment on their exact allocations.

But a Cambridge spokeswoman said: "The government's current visa-quota proposals threaten our ability to recruit both the academic leaders of today and the exceptional young talent from which will grow the Nobel prizewinners of tomorrow."

Source





How to make immigration work in Britain's interests

Irwin Stelzer talks economic sense below. His recipe would apply to other Western countries too

From France (deport Romas), to Germany (preserve national identity), to Sweden (xenophobes win seats), to the Netherlands (no more burqas), an anti-immigration tide is sweeping across Europe. Britain is no exception; permanent restrictions on immigration are inevitable. But it would be a pity if they deny companies the skilled workers they need to remain competitive in a globalised world.

Britain can do little to reduce the flow of immigrants from the other 26 EU member states. In future it will be able to do even less if Bulgaria goes through with its plan to issue 500,000 passports to citizens of non-member countries; and if the new EU rule that guarantees immigrants the right to all welfare benefits accorded to native populations proves a magnet for immigrants.

Work visas for non-EU immigrants are now subject to a temporary cap that has left affected firms threatening to move where the skilled workers are. Employers are right. Restrictions on the numbers of would-be workers cut into their bottom lines, put pressure on them to train British citizens to do these jobs – often costly – and probably reduces national wealth.

Native workers are also right. In many cases immigrants take "their jobs" or, at minimum, place downward pressure on wages.

And residents of towns in which immigrants cluster are also right. Their culture is threatened as strange sounds and smells dominate once-familiar streets, and the burdens on the social services are increased.

The Government is desperate to satisfy all parties. So it has called in the bureaucrats to decide which immigrants should be admitted. It should instead concentrate on how to get the winners to share some of their increased profits with the losers who bear the costs.

Immigrants possess skills that are in short supply here, and add billions of pounds to national output. But a system that calls on bureaucrats to award points to workers with skills the bureaucrats decide are most needed is bound to get things wrong. There is a more efficient and fairer way.

Employers and immigrants strike wage deals that leave out of the equation the costs to society. Schools are more crowded, demands on the NHS increase, in some cases policing costs rise, incentives to train native workers fall. Economists call these "externalities" – costs created but not borne by the parties to a transaction.

The government can put these costs where they belong – on the firms and workers who benefit – and make sure that each visa adds to national wealth. How so? By requiring employers to bid for the limited number of entry permits, the proceeds to be remitted to the communities on which the immigrant imposes costs, or to HM Treasury. The employer will pay the full cost of the immigration, perhaps making up some of that cost by offering the immigrant a lower wage – which will reduce the demand for entry.

Like other market-based solutions, this is adjustable: if bidding for permits gets outrageously high, the government can increase their number.

Of course, other things need doing. Britain could refuse entry to anyone with a passport from Bulgaria, and fight it out before Europe's courts. After all, the EU has merely wrinkled its nose at France flaunting its treaty obligations. Britain can also really, really defend its borders. The government can put any applicant for entry at Heathrow with no papers back on a plane to wherever he had embarked on his journey. It can immediately deport any illegals it rounds up, and if the country of origin refuses to take them back, send them to a willing country, perhaps for a fee. Such a policy would reduce the number of illegals trying to sneak into Britain.

So, a limit on immigrants, border control, auctioning of permits. All are ingredients of a sensible policy that would add to national wealth. Innocent bystanders in communities now bearing the social and economic costs would be compensated, rather than forced to subsidise the large companies that are the major importers of labour.

Imperfect solution? Sure. But before dismissing it, consider this. Economists Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny, in their new book Beside the Golden Door, suggest an initial minimum price, which would fluctuate according to demand, of $10,000 for a high-skill permit to work in the US. If British companies really need those foreign workers, a price anything like that would net the Treasury £350 million for 50,000 permits. And the nation the workers it most needs.

Source



13 October, 2010

CIS roundup

For the blog, see here. The CIS main page is here.

1. Denying License Plates to Illegals, Too (Memorandum)

2. Police must share information on criminal immigrants (Op-ed)

3. Why Can't Immigration Statistics Be More Like Baseball Statistics? (Blog)

4. Another Reverse Nixon: Obama's Heath-Care-Benefits-for-Illegal-Immigrants-Maneuver (Blog)

5. The Rest of the Story … JPMorgan Gets $90 Million a Year from USCIS (Blog)

6. The Washington Post Publishes an Astounding Immigration Admission (Blog)

7. They Love Us in Ghana, or the Visa Lottery, Yet Again (Blog)

8. The Social Security/Migration Fraud That, Perhaps, Never Was (Blog)

9. Blood on the Tracks (Blog)

10. Univision Embraces Hispanic Victim Psychology (Blog)

11. Bloggingheads.tv Debate on the DREAM Act (Blog)

12. The Political Context of Enforcement (Blog)

13. What If? Some Unasked Questions about Immigration Reform (Blog)

14. The Naturalization Process and College Reunions: A Metaphor (Blog)

15. Obama's Immigration Dilemma (Blog)

16. Immigration Audits and the Politics of Appearance (Blog)

17. But We Like Our Criminals! Or, It Depends What the Meaning of 'Patchwork' Is (Blog)

18. ICE Denies Data to University Clearinghouse (Blog)

19. Department of Unhelpful Immigration Metaphors (4): 'Pathway to Citizenship' (Blog)

20. Restrictionists Meet with Population and Environmental Activists in D.C. (Blog)

21. Author Cites Migrant Abuse as Symptom of a Failing State (Blog)



12 October, 2010

A Visa for Job Creators

Spurning immigrant entrepreneurs makes no economic sense

The immigration debate has devolved into a shouting match over allegations of "amnesty" and anti-Hispanic bias, but cooler heads need to keep in mind the economic benefits of attracting human capital to America. Consider the barriers we now put on immigrant entrepreneurs.

Start-ups are responsible for most net new jobs in the U.S., and immigrants are almost 30% more likely than non-immigrants to start a business. None of this is news to economists, writes Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for America Policy in a new paper, but a focus on start-ups "is largely non-existent in the current policy debate over jobs and the economy, most of which centers on how to encourage existing firms to hire more employees."

The U.S. created an immigrant investor visa category (EB-5) in 1990, but steep minimum capital requirements put it out of reach for most potential recipients. The average start-up company in the U.S. begins with about $31,000. Yet to become eligible for an EB-5 visa, an individual must invest at least $500,000. It's no wonder that fewer than 3,700 people received EB-5 visas last year—including spouses and children—and most of them went to immigrant investors looking to expand existing U.S. ventures, not create new businesses.

Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Richard Lugar of Indiana have introduced legislation that would award a conditional green card to immigrant entrepreneurs who receive at least $250,000 from a U.S. venture capitalist. The immigrant would receive permanent residence status if the enterprise employed at least five workers or reached $1 million in revenue within a year. This would improve the status quo, but the capital requirements would still remain needlessly high. In retail and manufacturing, for example, start-up costs average $98,000 and $175,000, respectively.

Mr. Anderson, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service official, says the U.S. would do better to discard capital requirements and welcome any foreign national who can present a business plan that passes muster with the Small Business Administration. As with the EB-5 visa, the individual would receive a green card only if the business created a certain number of jobs for U.S. workers within a set period of time.

"There's already a pool of individuals inside the country who could stay and start companies but are blocked either because they are international students who cannot get an H-1B visa, or scientists and engineers forced to wait 12 years or more if they want a green card," said Mr. Anderson in an interview. "Isn't it better to have the next generation of products and businesses created in the United States?"

Lowering U.S. barriers for foreign-born entrepreneurs can only help the economy. It would also help President Obama begin to fulfill his campaign pledge to address immigration reform. Republicans who claim to know something about job creation should welcome an opportunity to support a pro-growth immigration fix that doesn't involve "amnesty." A visa for job creators is a political and economic winner all around.

Source





135,000 ILLEGALS in Britain TOLD 'YOU CAN STAY'

THOUSANDS of failed asylum seekers will be allowed to stay in Britain to help clear Labour’s massive backlog. More than 135,000 will be told they can remain, with 100,000 cases still ongoing.

Coalition ministers were horrified when they realised the true scale of the problem.

Officials have dealt with two thirds of the 450,000 cases by granting permanent residency to around 2,000 failed applicants each week. Only 35,000 were sent home after assessment, with critics claiming officials have been granting amnesty through the backdoor.

There are fears many cases are being rubber-stamped without proper checks, despite inspectors originally saying the individuals should have been deported. But the Home Office is worried it could face legal challenges under the human rights acts because so many of the cases date back years.

Once applicants have been given indefinite leave to remain, they are one step away from British citizenship which then allows them to claim benefits.

Migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green, 69, said: “This is an appalling legacy from the previous Government and its impact will be to encourage more bogus asylum seekers.”

A spokesman for UK Border Agency said: “All ‘legacy’ cases are considered on their individual merits and we are confident that we will conclude the backlog by summer 2011. “The majority of asylum applications are now being concluded within six months.”

... AS 'BRIT' GETS THE BOOT

A businessman who was raised, schooled, married and got his first job in the UK has been told he can’t live here as he’s not “British”, writes Bill Martin. US-born Stephen Hewitt, 50, can trace his Brit ancestry back to 1410.

His first wife is English and eldest daughter Pamela was born here. Now he wants full residency – but an immigration tribunal turned him down because his UK ties are “not strong enough”.

He said: “I’m bitter. I’m not asking for any special circumstances. My family has a long history in England.”

The Borders Agency declined to comment.

Source



11 October, 2010

New York Times goes to bat for criminal illegal aliens

The New York Times recently editorialized that Secure Communities, a federal program instituted under the Bush administration and being pushed by the Obama administration, “snares innocent immigrants.” The program checks names and fingerprints of anyone arrested against immigration records to determine if the arrestee is an illegal alien. The police then turn the person over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings. So what’s wrong with that? How does it snare innocent immigrants if they are arrested and here illegally?

The New York Times claims that this program is a “source of anxiety and anger for cities, counties and police departments that want to preserve a bright line between local policing and federal immigration enforcement. Their valid concern is that local officers should never be seen by immigrant communities as arms of immigration enforcement.” Then the editor wrote: “Fighting and preventing crime are unrelated to detaining and deporting immigrants and should stay that way” (emphasis added).

How can anyone concerned with “preventing crime” not see that deporting criminal aliens and depriving them of the opportunity to commit other crimes, is directly doing just that? The Times claims that “tens of thousands” of illegal aliens with no criminal record have been deported under the program, and that these people “pose no conceivable danger to their communities.” That’s completely absurd. These people came into the program because they did something to cause their arrest. The police didn’t round them up because they looked like they might be here illegally. They did something criminal to bring themselves to the attention of local law enforcement.

How can a person deserving arrest not pose a conceivable danger to the community? If an illegal alien, without an arrest record, drives drunk and kills someone, is he not a conceivable danger to the community? Of course he is. Because illegal aliens have no ties to this country, they can run amok and then flee back to old Mexico when they feel the heat is on. They often return later when the heat is off to commit another crime. But the Times would like you to believe he’s merely a harmless member of the “immigrant” community.

Secure Communities could be the best crime prevention program ever developed if all cities participate. The only way to improve it is to pass a federal law that mimics Arizona’s SB 1070 illegal immigration law. Police officers who can question the immigration status of individuals they lawfully encounter during normal police business will potentially prevent and reduce future crimes. At a minimum, it will serve aliens with notice that there are consequences to entering this country illegally. The program works so well that the mayor of Juarez, Mexico is complaining that the city’s murder rate is so high because the U.S. is deporting Mexican murderers back to Mexico.

Why are cities such as San Francisco and the District of Columbia attempting to opt out of the Secure Communities program? Mexican and other illegal aliens have formed a powerful political base that has jeopardized the safety and security of these sanctuary cities by blocking any attempts to enforce U.S. immigration laws. This political base wants to continue unsustainable social programs that others pay for. They want the wealth spread to them by the gringos they feel stole their land.

The real reason the New York Times editorial staff hates Secure Communities is because it painlessly and accurately identifies illegal aliens and properly puts them into the immigration system for immediate deportation. It rids American communities of undesirable people, whose mere presence is a crime and an affront to law abiding citizens and worthy permanent resident aliens who had to endure years of paperwork and frustration to get the opportunity to live here. The program maintains the integrity of law, and saves billions of dollars of taxpayer services for undeserving people. There is so much to hate from the newspaper’s perspective.

The program makes perfect sense. Elite liberal New York Times readers who hibernate in Manhattan don’t understand the frustration people across the country have with the illegal alien invasion. I applaud the Obama administration for not caving into newspaper editorial boards and other illegal alien sympathizers who want to remove this effective program and open our borders to anybody with the means to get here.

SOURCE






Four boats in 48 hours!

Arrival of four more "asylum-seeker" boats shows the utter policy failure of Australia's Leftist government. At that rate Australia's sea borders are looking more porous than the U.S./Mexico border. Is Australia ready for 12 million illegals too? At least the Mexicans come to work. The Afghans come only to be supported by the Australian taxpayer

THE arrival of four asylum boats in 48 hours has pushed numbers in the Christmas Island detention centre to an apparent record. The centre has been forced to operate well beyond its carrying capacity.

With Immigration Minister Chris Bowen flying to East Timor today to begin talks on a regional processing centre, his department has revealed 350 asylum-seekers are being housed in tents.

According to the department, there were 2697 detainees on Christmas Island yesterday, with more on the way following the interception of four asylum boats, at least one of which has yet to unload its passengers.

The centre, which was designed to accommodate 400 people, has undergone successive reconfigurations to house the growing number of detainees.

Falling refugee success rates and the Rudd government's freeze on new Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum claims resulted in a blowout in detention numbers. But even at its capacity of about 2500, the centre is over its limit.

A departmental spokeswoman could not say yesterday if Christmas Island was at record capacity.

But in the period leading up to the Rudd government's decision in April to move detainees to the mainland, numbers on Christmas Island were about 2300, suggesting the facility had hit a new high.

Mr Bowen acknowledged yesterday there were "significant strains" on detention centres. "I've announced some short-term measures to deal with that. I'll be announcing some longer-term measures in the not-too-distant future to deal with those pressures," he added.

Mr Bowen will fly to Dili today to discuss the regional proposal with East Timor's President, Jose Ramos-Horta, and senior officials. From there he will fly to Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur for talks aimed at bolstering arrangements for managing the asylum flow.

Despite vocal rejection of the idea by East Timor's opposition parties, Mr Bowen said Canberra had received "encouraging feedback" from Dili about the proposal, announced by Julia Gillard in the lead-up to the federal election. "It's a big issue for East Timor -- it would be a significant development for them, and they obviously have issues they want to work through," Mr Bowen told the Nine Network yesterday. "But, certainly, President Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister (Xanana) Gusmao have indicated they are very interested in talking it through."

Since Friday, authorities have intercepted four boats, two of which were lashed together. Their arrival has edged Australia closer to another record -- the highest number of unauthorised boatpeople in a calendar year. A spokeswoman for Border Protection Command said 4924 passengers and 270 crew had arrived this year, bringing the number of unauthorised arrivals to 5194.

According to the Parliamentary Library, the highest number of illegal boat arrivals on record occurred in 2001, when 43 boats carried 5516 people to Australia, not including the crews.

SOURCE



10 October, 2010

Asylum seekers last in the housing queue: Britain's biggest council decides to put its locals first

The largest council in the country is to stop providing homes for asylum seekers – so it can offer the properties to locals. Birmingham City Council said last night that it had seen a surge in the number of existing residents who found themselves homeless in the aftermath of the economic slump.

Currently, nearly 200 homes are handed to asylum seekers who have been sent to the city while their applications are being processed by the UK Border Agency. But the council is to cancel its contract with UKBA so the homes can instead be given to those who hail from the city.

Councillor John Lines, Birmingham’s cabinet member for housing, said the decision was ‘in the interests of local people’. He explained that the council expects nearly 8,000 applications for homes this year alone.

‘Over the last year, we have seen a sharp increase in the number of homeless people in Birmingham and we must help the citizens of this city first and foremost,’ he said. ‘With a long waiting list for homes, we really need all our properties for our people in these difficult economic times. I believe the UK Border Agency should find somewhere else to carry out their duties.’

Mr Lines said delays within UKBA meant hundreds of asylum seekers were obtaining British citizenship while they waited for their cases to be decided. ‘When they have been given citizenship the city of Birmingham has to treat them as citizens and give them one of our rare homes,’ he added. ‘I’m putting hundreds of Brummies in bed and breakfast, local people who possibly through no fault of their own are homeless.

‘I couldn’t sit here and allow the situation where Birmingham people have had to tolerate that whilst the border agency has got up to 200 of my homes for people who have come here for political asylum.’

Under the five-year contract, the council provided 190 properties to asylum seekers, but with turnover it meant up to 1,000 staying in the city every year. The contract - which also involved Wolverhampton, Dudley and Coventry councils - comes to an end in June next year and will not be renewed, Mr Lines said.

Wolverhampton council is also expected to follow suit and stop housing asylum applicants, he added. Birmingham is run by a joint Liberal Democrat and Tory coalition, and is seen as indicating possible policy directions for the Government.

The UK Border Agency’s Regional Director for the Midlands and East of England, Gail Adams, said: ‘We’re disappointed by Birmingham City Council’s decision to withdraw from the West Midlands Consortium. ‘The Consortium’s existing contract will continue until June next year. UKBA will manage the transition to new accommodation in accordance with the terms of the contract.’

SOURCE





Sarrazin has company: Senior German politician calls to stop Muslim immigration

A German official on Saturday called to stop Muslim immigration into the country, stirring public controversy. Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Democratic Union Party (CSU), which is a member of the coalition government in Germany, said in an interview to Focus magazine, "It is obvious that immigrants from Turkey and Arab countries face more difficulty integrating into German society than other immigrants."

"In any case," Seehofer added," the conclusion is that we don’t need additional immigrants from 'foreign cultures'."

The German politician's remarks rekindled an already heated public discussion over the question of the Muslim minority's integration in Germany.

During the interview, Seehofer also argued that unemployment benefits should be revoked from immigrants who do not seek employment, arguing that immigrants should be forced to share the basic values of Germany, and have command of the language.

Seehofer's remarks come after German President Christian Wulff's speech on the 20th anniversary to the unification of Germany. Wulff, whose speech carried a particularly reconciliatory tone, said that Islam constituted a part of Germany's nature, just as Judaism and Christianity have in the past, and will continue to be a part of the nation in the future.

The speech triggered mixed reactions, as Muslim community leaders lauded it, while Christian-rightist elements, including Seehofer, issued fierce criticism. "I do not understand how the role Christianity has played in Germany can be compared to that of Islam," Seehofer noted during the interview. According to the conservative politician, tolerance and openness to other religions, as cemented in the German constitution, do not grant these religions direct influence over the country's core values.

Seehofer's remarks angered politicians from across Germany's political spectrum, leading some politicians to dub him a "radical-rightist populist."

The heated debate in German society centers on the integration of nearly three million Muslim immigrants living in the country today – a majority of them of Turkish descent.

The public debate was set in motion by Thilo Sarrazin, a former banker who published a book in which he slammed the Muslim immigration in the country, claiming it led to a drop in Germany's intellectual capacity and has diminished it's cultural assets.

Sarrazin was dismissed from his post at the Bundesbank following the publication of his book, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and is expected to become Germany's largest best-seller since the end of the Second World War.

SOURCE



9 October, 2010

The Canadian funnel in action

Funnelling human garbage into the USA

A Somali-born Canadian citizen who admitted he attended Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and lectures by Osama bin Laden is out of U.S. federal prison and has been deported to Canada.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says 37-year-old Mohammed Abdullah Warsame was released from a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., Friday morning. He was immediately turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Customs enforcement officials released him to the Canadian Border Service Agency at about 11:30 a.m.

Canadian officials refused to even confirm whether Warsame was turned over to them or whether or not he was detained or freed.

Warsame pleaded guilty in May 2009 to conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization. As part of a plea deal in federal court in Minnesota, he agreed to be deported to Canada after his sentence.

On Friday, ICE director John Morton said there is no place in the United States for anyone who advocates violence by associating with terrorists.

SOURCE






ICE: No opt-out for program checking legal status

Local governments cannot opt out of a federal program that checks the fingerprints of people who are arrested against a database to determine if they are illegal immigrants, the head of the U.S. immigration agency said Friday. That's because the agreement is between the federal and state governments — not the local governments.

Officials in Virginia's Arlington County, Washington, D.C., and Santa Clara County, Calif., have voted recently to opt out of the program, saying it could lead to racial profiling. San Francisco officials have attempted to get out of the program with no luck, and several other communities are debating whether they want to participate.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website says jurisdictions that do not wish to participate in the Secure Communities program can ask federal immigration officials to remove them from the program.

On Friday, ICE Director John Morton said that the agency would meet with the localities to discuss the issue, but in the end the agreement is with the state.

Suspects who are arrested for anything from a traffic violation to a violent crime have long been fingerprinted, and those fingerprints are run through a federal criminal background database maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With Secure Communities, those fingerprints are automatically checked against immigration records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security to identify those who may be in the country illegally.

Since 2008, the program has been expanded to more than 650 jurisdictions in 32 states, with plans to incorporate every jurisdiction by 2013.

Morton stressed that even though the fingerprints are taken by local authorities, it's up to federal officials to detain or deport suspects. "No one in the Department of Corrections, no one in Arlington County, no one in the other jurisdictions of Virginia is being asked to enforce federal immigration law," Morton said.

One quarter of Arlington County's residents was born in another country and one-third is multiracial, which adds to fears of racial profiling, said J. Walter Trejada, a member of the county's Board of Supervisors. The board voted unanimously last month to opt out of Secure Communities. "The potential for racial profiling and for unscrupulous law enforcement people to utilize the Secure Communities as a way to intimidate people and cause fear is real," Trejada said.

San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey has challenged his city's participation in the program for months, and he likely will meet with ICE officials in November, sheriff's department spokeswoman Eileen Hirst said.

Other officials, such as Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, have welcomed the program. In Virginia, jurisdictions are required by state law to send fingerprints to state police to be run through the FBI database. Because the exchange happens at the federal level, that means localities can't opt out, Cuccinelli said. "It is not a situation where Arlington's fingerprints can be treated differently," Cuccinelli said.

ICE credits the program for the removal of more than 40,000 criminal illegal immigrants, including more than 12,000 convicted of violent crimes such as murder, rape and kidnapping.

SOURCE



8 October, 2010

MA: US pushes state to join security plan

There is no doubt that the Obama administration is correct in giving the removal of criminal illegals high priority but the refusal to remove other illegals that have come to attention is a plain dereliction of duty

Federal officials say they are compelling Massachusetts law enforcement agencies, including the State Police, to join a national program that checks the immigration status of everyone arrested and fingerprinted by 2013, officials said yesterday.

The planned rollout of the federal Secure Communities program has state officials, nonprofits, and local police chiefs scrambling to determine the program’s impact in Massachusetts and whether it conflicts with a policy barring the State Police from enforcing immigration law.

Meanwhile, organizations that work with immigrants launched a series of community meetings last night to alert them to the the new initiative.

The immigration checks would mark a dramatic shift for Massachusetts, where Boston is the only community to participate in the program. Police in other communities have largely avoided helping to enforce federal immigration laws over fears that it would discourage immigrants from coming forward to report crime. In 2007, Governor Deval Patrick reversed a plan by Governor Mitt Romney to have the State Police enforce immigration law, preferring to have the prisons do it instead.

Federal immigration officials have been trying to expand in the state for at least a year and hoped to be in half the state’s counties by now, officials said. In 2009, the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent a letter urging state officials to sign a memorandum to “establish a solid foundation’’ for “bringing counties and police departments online.’’

The document was never signed, a fact that has drawn criticism from Patrick’s rivals in the governor’s race. Republican Charles D. Baker and independent Timothy P. Cahill have accused the administration of delaying expansion of the Secure Communities program.

John Grossman, an undersecretary at the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety, denied that the Patrick administration had delayed the program’s expansion. He said he had viewed ICE’s request to sign an agreement as an unnecessary formality.

“It was our understanding that they didn’t need us to do anything in order to go forward and deploy this program,’’ he said. “They didn’t have us sign anything before they deployed in Boston,’’ which served as a pilot for the program in 2006, two years before it officially became Secure Communities.

Grossman said the state is still waiting for clearer signals from the federal government about the program’s schedule for expansion here.

Brian P. Hale, spokesman for ICE, would not comment on the reasons for the delay in Massachusetts but said they were working with the Patrick administration to take Secure Communities statewide.

“It’s all about . . . making sure the deployment is done in the right way,’’ Hale said. “A lot of that requires some negotiations. We want to make sure the deployment in Massachusetts meets the common goal that we have, which is to take criminals off the streets and protect our communities.’’

Grossman said the administration still has not said whether it supports the Secure Communities program in principle. “We have not taken a position yet because we are defining with ICE what that means,’’ said Grossman. “We do have a position that serious criminals who are in this country illegally ought to be deported. But we also need to understand the parameters of this program.’’

The goal of Secure Communities is to ensure that dangerous criminals are detained and deported, but it is raising concern nationwide that it is also netting minor offenders.

Under the Secure Communities program, in which FBI and immigration databases are linked, the process of booking people who are arrested would automatically determine if they have criminal histories and alert federal immigration officials if they are in the country illegally, Hale said.

Federal officials say that Secure Communities does not require local and state police to enforce immigration law. Only federal immigration officials will decide whether to hold a person for deportation.

But the new program still made some officials uncomfortable. Many police agencies in Massachusetts work with ICE to arrest criminals, but they avoid targeting immigrants without legal papers, typically a civil violation, because they fear it could deter them from reporting crime.

In Chelsea, Police Chief Brian Kyes worried that Secure Communities could erode trust in his city, where nearly 38 percent of the city’s residents are immigrants.

“It would be a huge change from what we’re doing now,’’ said Kyes. “This is something the Chelsea police would not want to be a part of. It’s my belief that it would be counterproductive to the relationships we’ve formed and the trust and confidence between the police and the community in the past few years.’’

But in neighboring Everett, Chief Steven Mazzie praised the program. He said ICE would probably only have the staff to target major criminals.

“We have a large immigrant population over here, but at that point if someone’s under arrest for a criminal matter, I see it only as a tool that we can use to get criminals off the street,’’ Mazzie said. “I see it doing nothing but helping us keep our communities safer by removing people that don’t belong here, people that are committing criminal activity.’’

A concern among immigrant advocates is that the program could be used to identify illegal immigrants whether or not they had committed major crimes.

In Boston, where 27.5 percent of residents are foreign born, Boston police have turned over 526 people to federal immigration officials since 2008; of those, 246, or slightly less than half, were picked up on noncriminal immigration violations, according to federal records. The rest were criminals.

Police Commissioner Edward Davis has said that he was confident that all were involved in criminal activity, though some had records from other states, which he said would not have registered in those statistics.

His assertion could not be independently verified because ICE and police declined to release their names, citing privacy laws or policies.

Last night, Centro Presente, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for immigrants, held a meeting in Somerville to inform immigrants about the program, and another is planned for next week in Boston, said Patricia Montes, executive director of the center. The ACLU of Massachusetts also opposes the program’s expansion. “It really goes back on Massachusetts’ promise not to enforce immigration law locally,’’ said Laura Rótolo, an ACLU attorney.

Other groups praised the program, saying it is wise for local and state and federal police to share information. “It seems it should be a no-controversy item,’’ said Steve Kropper, cochairman of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, a group favoring tougher limits on immigration. “We’re very supportive of these kind of checks.’’

SOURCE







That fabled ‘Big Australia’

By Oliver Marc Hartwich and Jessica Brown

(Dr Hartwich is a German economist with a sense of humour. What next? A German philosopher with a sense of humour? Maybe not. But since Dr Hartwich now lives in Australia, maybe I should refer to him as "Ollie")

Your Most Gracious Majesty,

It is our duty to inform You that the prospects for population growth in Australia are not good. The Royal Commission tasked with planning Australia’s demographic and economic future hath come to the unfortunate conclusion that the obstacles are simply too great. The optimistic vision of a ‘Big Australia’ will never come true.

The noble commissioners have consulted widely and extensively. But, for growth proponents, our conclusion maketh uncomfortable reading.

The challenges are so numerous that it is hard to know where to start. Housing is undeniably a most serious concern. The lack of capacity in the building industry is quite obvious.

The planning profession doth not have the necessary skills and personnel to cope with rapid growth. Uncertain planning guidelines and objectives further complicate the task. It will take years to design and implement a planning system that can deal with the expected population increases.

The acute housing shortage is not the only difficulty. There are severe infrastructure bottlenecks. Port facilities are already overstretched. Developing appropriate mass transport for goods and people will also require minor engineering miracles, given the country’s challenging geography. Just think of Sydney harbour!

Worst of all, the water supply is under threat. It hath become clear that Australia’s climate is unsuited to hosting a larger population. The limits to population growth are well within sight.

The resident population hath been able to cope with these environmental challenges by employing a number of sophisticated water-saving solutions. But simply adding more people to the equation will just not work. If population growth goes on in the fashion that the crazy ‘Big Australia’ advocates suggest, there will simply not be enough food.

The problems of housing, water and transport should be impetus enough to stop the ambitious plans for decades of strong population growth. It is most unfortunate they are only the beginning.

The deeper we dig into the population puzzle, the more daunting the problems we encounter. Schools and universities, hospitals and doctors, sewerage systems and rubbish collection: each poseth an enormous policy challenge, and each requireth gigantic amounts from HM Treasury.

Unfortunately, the commission’s ‘Big Australia’ report alloweth only one conclusion. It is with deepest regret that we commend to order Captain Arthur Phillip to turn back his fleet and set sail for England, our green and pleasant land.

If you don’t like taking policy advice from fables, read our latest report instead: ‘Populate and Perish? Modelling Australia’s Demographic Future’ by Jessica Brown and Oliver Marc Hartwich. You can also watch the authors discuss their research on YouTube.

For non-Australian readers: Captain Arthur Phillip was the commander of the first fleet of English people to arrive in Australia -- in 1788. The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 8 October. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590. Below is the executive summary of the report referred to

Executive Summary

Although population growth has been one of the most hotly debated topics in recent months, public discussions have been driven by populism, not by evidence-based analysis. In the recent federal election, both Labor and the Coalition seemed to suggest that they could—and would—limit population growth, particularly by restricting migration. The Greens went a step further by endorsing a population cap.

But these platitudes overlook a fundamental fact. Under every realistic scenario, Australia’s population is going to keep growing. Australians will also keep getting older—a fact often neglected in the current debate—which will have huge implications for our future policy environment.

Under all but one of the 36 scenarios modelled in this report, Australia’s population will grow. Only with zero net migration and falling fertility—which is practically unachievable and widely regarded as undesirable—would Australia’s population shrink or stabilise. Some degree of population growth is an inevitable reality.

By focussing on cutting migration as a way to limiting population growth, the current public debate has also ignored the role of fertility—which matters as much if not more—in determining population size and age distribution. Anti-growth campaigners suggest that if migration were reduced, we could somehow stabilise population growth. But this is not true. Even if migration were more than halved to 70,000 a year (which we do not advocate), we would still have a population of more than 29 million by 2050 if fertility remained constant.

It is extremely difficult to predict the future of Australian demographics. Changes in the birth rate are hard to predict and even harder to control, yet they will potentially have a bigger impact on population size than migration. Under every scenario, Australia’s population will get older.

However, it is fertility—not migration—that has the biggest impact on population ageing. Increased migration is not the solution to population ageing. If fertility rate drops from its current level of 1.97 to 1.5, the current European Union average, median age will rise from 37 today to nearly 46 in 2050—higher if migration levels are cut.

Under all the most realistic scenarios, more than 20% of Australians will be over 65 by 2050. And regardless of changes in migration and fertility, the number of Australians aged 80 or over will more than double to about 2 million by 2050.

There will be far fewer taxpayers under every scenario. We need to plan for population ageing. There is a trade-off. A faster growing population will require investment in housing and infrastructure; it will also be younger and better able to meet these costs. A more slowly growing population will require fewer investments in housing, roads and schools but will be significantly older, which means the cost of health care and pensions will rise while the tax base falls.

Both population growth and population ageing will happen no matter what, but the degree to which we have to deal with the challenges will depend on the policy choices we make now about migration as well as future changes in the birth rate and life expectancy. No one can know exactly how these variables will change in the future, which means no government can accurately predict what Australia’s population will look like.

Population targets are unrealistic. We cannot plan our demographic future. However, we can be fairly confident in predicting that Australia’s population will both grow and get older—we just don’t know by how much. The best that policymakers can do is make existing institutions more flexible so they can better cope with whichever population scenario emerges.

Politicians should stop pretending that they can control what Australia’s future population will look like. Instead, they should turn their attention to the real policy issues that will be affected by population growth and ageing: housing, roads, pensions and our natural environment.

The debate should not be about whether we will have a ‘big Australia’ or a ‘small Australia’ but about how we can make a growing Australia work and how we can make it a prosperous and liveable place for us all.



7 October, 2010

Raise the H-1B visa cap

Given the sorry state of America's public schools, America needs highly-skilled LEGAL immigrants

Rupert Murdoch’s and Michael Bloomberg’s testimony Thursday on Capitol Hill about immigration reform missed one timely and important mention. October 1st marks the beginning of the term for newly issued H-1B visas. H-1Bs are employer-sponsored visas designed to allow highly skilled workers temporary entry into the United States. It runs for three years and can be renewed for another three years. The problems with the H-1B visa plague the rest of America’s immigration system.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began accepting applications on April 1 for the 85,000 available slots for highly skilled foreigners. In most recent years, all 85,000 spots been filled in one day!

It took longer to reach the quota in 2009 because of the moribund economy. The quota may not be filled in 2010 because new restrictions and regulations that clog the application process have further depressed demand. As of mid-September, only 52,000 applications have been accepted.

But the current number of applications does not obviate the need for reform. Many skilled foreigners and talent-starved companies skipped the H-1B application altogether because of the bureaucratic hoops put in their way, including more than $5,000 in lawyer and regulatory fees per applicant. These burdens should be lifted.

The most persistent argument against allowing more highly skilled foreign workers into the country is that they “take” American jobs. That characterization is wrong. There is no fixed number of jobs to be divided among Americans.

Foreign skilled workers don’t “take” American’s job; they complement them. Foreigners are not substitutes for U.S.-born workers even when they have similar skills and experience. In many situations, H-1B workers push Americans into managerial or other higher positions.

The argument that H-1B workers decrease American wages is also wrong. If cash-strapped businesses could drastically cut wages by hiring more H1-B workers instead of native-born workers, then applications for H-1B visas would increase during recessions as businesses cut costs. The opposite is true. H-1B applications fall dramatically during recessions.

Firms that employ H-1B visa workers do so when they are expanding production and have trouble meeting their labor requirements domestically. Observing this effect, the National Foundation for American Policy reported in 2009 that for every H-1B position requested, U.S. technology firms increase their employment by five workers.

H-1B workers do not put a strain on the public finances. They cannot receive federal welfare payments. H-1B workers are mostly male, young, and healthy. The American welfare state assists mainly the elderly, women, and the sick. Relative to the population and to their own age and demographic group, immigrants and H-1B visa holders under-consume all government social services and pay far more in taxes.

However, H-1B visas are not a long-term solution. There should be an unlimited number of green cards available for highly skilled or educated foreigners. Movement between firms should be free. But in the short term, H-1Bs are a valuable way to augment the nation’s skilled workforce.

Murdoch and Bloomberg neglected mention of H-1Bs and other highly skilled foreigners, preferring to focus on the more politically sensitive issue of undocumented and, on average, lower skilled immigrants. Advocates of immigration reform should not forget that law-abiding foreigners of all skills and education are harmed by our restrictive immigration laws.

Tens of thousands of intelligent, hard-working, and educated foreigners have been denied the opportunity to contribute to our economy due to our Byzantine immigration system. All H-1B visa slots may not be filled this year, but a recovering economy is sure to render the 85,000 cap insufficient again. The quota should be eliminated and the application process streamlined. For firms trying to expand, October 1 should be just another day.

SOURCE





Will Arizona's immigration law motivate Latino voters?

Groups that have been working to increase turnout among Hispanic voters are pondering this question: Are they mad enough?

Polls predict low turnout among Latinos in November, but Hispanic civil rights and civic participation organizations are hoping outrage over "anti-immigrant" rhetoric and the uptick in laws targeting illegal immigrants will counter apathy in the electorate.

The groups are pushing voter turnout with an ad campaign they are calling "Vote for Respect."

The campaign, which was released Wednesday and will air on Spanish-language media, is a stark black-and-white video with the faces of many Latinos saying they "believe in the promise of America."

"We know that Latinos have tended to lag behind other groups, and we are committed to changing that equation," said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, director of immigration and national campaigns for the National Council of La Raza, which has brought together a coalition of Hispanic community groups. "In our conversations at the community level there's a deep sense of urgency about the anti-immigrant, anti-Latino environment, and that could potentially win out."

She and others point to Arizona, where a stringent immigration law passed earlier this year, as a center of what they see as an attack on immigrants. The law, called SB 1070, requires police to check for immigration status in some circumstances. Immigrant rights groups have decried the law as racial profiling, though supporters say it is a necessary measure for curbing illegal immigration.

Ben Monterroso, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, compared the Arizona law to California's Proposition 187 - which sought to prohibit illegal immigrants from using most public services in the state. It was passed in 1994 but was later deemed unconstitutional by a federal court. The debate around that legislation is credited with galvanizing the Latino vote in California.

"Today there is no elected official in California that does not have to have Latino support," Monterroso said. "In Arizona, we are finding Latinos are ready to vote. In the mind of our community it is a real threat. We are ready to ensure we are respected."

His group has registered 21,000 Hispanic voters in Arizona to mail in absentee ballots beginning next week, and Monterroso is predicting between 65,000 and 75,000 more Hispanics will vote in the state's November midterms compared with those in 2006.

Brent Wilkes, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, agreed that the Arizona law is still reverberating with Hispanic voters though it has fallen out of national news. LULAC has had voter registration tables set up at festivals, grocery stores and other locations in 22 states and the Arizona law keeps coming up, he said.

In the state, many have been focused on voter registration, said Ana Valenzuela Estrada, who is a LULAC state director based in Tucson. "We want people that are going to be able to represent us. It's not just about statewide races. It's about the state legislature," she said. "The mood is very, very strong."

SOURCE



6 October, 2010

Immigration and the U.S. Economy

Testimony Prepared for House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration, itizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law

September 30, 2010

Steven A. Camarota, Director of Research. Center for Immigration Studies, sac@cis.org

Introduction

In my very brief comments I will touch on several key issues surrounding immigration and the economy. My goal will be to clear up some of the confusion that often clouds the immigration debate. In particular, I will explain the difference between increasing the overall size of the U.S. economy and increasing the per-capita income of Americans. Finally, I will touch on the issue of immigration’s impact on public coffers.

[...]

Conclusion

When thinking about immigration it is important to recognize that its impact on the size of the economy is not a measure of the benefit to natives. There is no question that U.S. GDP is significantly larger because of immigrant workers. However, a larger economy is entirely irrelevant to the key question of whether the per-capita GDP of natives is higher because of immigration. Efforts to measure the impact of immigration on the per-capita GDP of Americans using the standard economic model show that the benefit is trivial relative to the size of the economy. Perhaps most important, these trivial gains are the result of reduced wages for American workers in competition with immigrants. These workers tend to be the least educated and poorest already. If there is no wage reduction, then there is no economic gain. Finally, the tiny economic gain is probably entirely offset by the fiscal drain immigrants create on taxpayers.

In the end, arguments for or against immigration are as much political and moral as they are economic. The latest research indicates that we can reduce immigration without harming the economy. Doing so makes sense if we are very concerned about low-wage and less-educated workers in the United States. On the other hand, if one places a high priority on helping unskilled workers in other countries, then we should continue to allow in a large number of such workers. Of course, only an infinitesimal proportion of the world's poor could ever come to this country even under the most open immigration policy one might imagine. Those who support the current high level of immigration should at least understand that the American workers harmed by the policies they favor are already the poorest and most vulnerable.

Much more HERE




Recent entries on the CIS blog below

See here. The CIS main page is here.

Department of Unhelpful Immigration Metaphors (3): 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform'

More on Migration, Marriage, and Money

Department of Unhelpful Immigration Metaphors (2): 'Out of the Shadows'

Senator Hatch Drops a Helpful and Thoughtful Border Security Bill

Department of Unhelpful Immigration Metaphors (1): 'The System is Broken'

Whitman's Illegal-Immigrant Maid – A Case Study in Document Fraud and Perjury

New Book Seeks Fewer Family-Based Visas

The Ubiquity of Illegal Immigration, Even unto Puerto Rico

A Reform Proposal with Promise?

Before the Truth Can Get Its Boots on





5 October, 2010

CA: Immigration, Affordable Housing Top Community Concerns

According to results of a survey released by researchers at UC Santa Barbara, immigration and affordable housing top a list of concerns for residents in Santa Barbara County.

The survey of more than 800 English- and Spanish-speaking households was conducted by the Social Science Survey Center at UCSB.

South County residents seem to be more concerned over the lack of affordable housing, while those living in the North County care about immigration related matters.

Those surveyed also believe that their economic conditions have worsened since 2008.

Meanwhile, most residents expressed the importance of environmentalism in both North and South County.

The goal of the survey was to find out what issues they think most affects their quality of life.

SOURCE






Year's 100th boatful of illegals received by Australia

THE 100th boat of asylum seekers to reach Australia this year was intercepted off Christmas Island yesterday, carrying 71 asylum seekers.

The opposition said the government continued to founder on border protection, despite identifying it as a "key reason why Kevin Rudd was dumped". "Despite their failures, Labor continues to refuse to restore the immigration and border protection controls they abolished," opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said. "The consequence of Labor's border protection failures is a detention network in crisis and a budget out of control."

Almost 5000 people have sought asylum in Australia by boat this year and detention centres on the mainland and at Christmas Island have been expanded to cope. Detainees also face longer processing times, pushed out by the recent freeze, and incidents of self-harm are escalating.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen will soon travel to East Timor, Indonesia and Malaysia to discuss people smuggling and gather support for a regional processing centre.

"Rather than engaging in simplistic slogans and reverting to the Coalition's failed policies of the past, the Gillard government is focused on building lasting and long-term solutions to the problem of people smuggling with our regional partners and key international organisations," he said.

The last surge in boat arrivals was in 2001, when conflict overseas drove people to seek asylum in Australia, he said.

SOURCE



4 October, 2010

Menendez eyes lame-duck session of Congress for immigration

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Sunday that he introduced an immigration bill just before Congress’ midterm elections break so he could get “lame-duck movement” on the legislation after Nov. 2.

“A lot of senators are retiring and might be willing to look at the issue,” Menendez said on CNN’s "State of the Union." “We need something to jump off from if we’re going to go into it in the early part of the next Congress.”

He said his bill has Republican proposals in it to entice GOP senators to get on board.

But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who also appeared on the show Sunday, suggested that GOP support will be difficult to get. “I hope to work with Sen. Menendez on immigration reform, but it’s much too important to be treated as a political football or to try to jam through during a lame duck session,” Cornyn said.

SOURCE





Number of foreign workers rises in Britain

British business has continued to hire more foreign workers during the downturn even as the number of UK-born people in jobs has dropped sharply, analysis by the Financial Times shows.

Latest official data show the number of UK-born workers fell by 654,000 between 2008 and 2010, while FT calculations, based on data for the same period, show the number of working migrants has risen by 139,000 – some 100,000 born outside the European Union and the remainder within.

The figures reflect the differing impact of the recession on different parts of the UK economy, with jobs such as those in the service sector, where migrant workers tend to be concentrated, escaping lightly.

However, a wide-ranging FT analysis of the impact of immigration on jobs, wages and public services also highlights the potential economic cost of the attempt by David Cameron, prime minister, to slash net migration to 1990s levels.

One calculation, based on figures from the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, indicated that such a move would cost the UK as much as £33bn in lost output over the next five years if it was introduced in 2011.

Research published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that recent migrant workers from eastern Europe are net contributors to UK public finances, while native Britons are a net drain. The likelihood that workers from outside the EU contribute even more raises further questions about the government’s decision to limit the number of non-EU people who can work in the UK.

The cap has already angered companies, while Vince Cable, business secretary, has said it poses a threat to economic recovery. George Osborne, chancellor, is a firm supporter of the limit but some Treasury officials are worried about any reduction in tax receipts.

The OBR in June produced estimates for trend GDP growth without taking account of the government’s hope to cut immigration to 1990s levels – which would mean a net inflow of 60,000 a year compared with the OBR’s assumption of 140,000.

FT research suggests that, leaving other assumptions unchanged, if the net flow was reduced by that amount next year, GDP would be about 0.8 per cent lower at the end of the parliament, with a cumulative loss in output of about £33bn.

Since Mr Cameron has only promised to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands over the life of the parliament, rather than in a single year, the FT calculation offers only a rough indication of how such a cut might affect GDP. Some economists also argue that GDP is too crude a measure to assess the financial benefits of immigration because it does not take into account the cost of providing public services and housing to new arrivals.

The government has commissioned its own independent report on the expected economic impact of the cap, which will be debated by the cabinet before an annual limit is set for next year.

SOURCE



3 October, 2010

Feisty Dutchman takes his message of opposition to Muslim immigration to Germany

Populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders, known for his strident anti-Islam and anti-immigration views, held a speech in a Berlin hotel on Saturday amid protests outside the venue.

"Germany too needs a political movement that defends the national identity of the country. Germany's political identity, its economic success, is threatened by Islam," Wilders told an audience of some 500 people at a hotel in Berlin's Tiergarten district.

"Islam is a dangerous political ideology for everyone," Wilders, who is facing prosecution in the Netherlands for incitement to hatred, said.

The 47-year-old was invited to Berlin by a party founded in September by Rene Stadtkewitz, a former member of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) who is also a critic of Islam.

The event sparked protests in front of the hotel. Police said some more than 100 demonstrators holding up banners reading "Berlin Against Nazis - it's our Right to Stop Them" and "Send Geert Wilders home" rallied in front of the hotel.

Wilders claims Islam is a totalitarian religion and advocates banning the Koran, the burqa and the construction of mosques.

On Saturday, delegates at a congress of the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) in the Netherlands voted overwhelmingly in favour of entering a center-right governing coalition which would rely on the support of Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV).

June's general election delivered a surge of support for the Freedom Party, which won the third biggest share of the seats. The deal paves the way for a Dutch minority government supported by Wilders' party Earlier this week, the Liberal VVD and Wilders' PVV approved the deal which makes concessions to Wilders such as allowing the Netherlands to ban the full Islamic veil.

German lawmaker Rene Stadtkewitz formed his Freedom party amid a heated national debate over integration, particularly in relation to Muslims. A controversial book by former German Central Bank board member Thilo Sarrazin claiming that Muslims were undermining German society thrust the subject into the spotlight last month.

The German government has distanced itself from Wilders and the invitation by Stadtkewitz to invite him to Berlin. "It is not our style to utterly condemn any religion," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said through her spokesman Steffen Seibert in Berlin.

Merkel had previously told the committee on European affairs of the Bundestag parliament that she regretted the formation of a minority Dutch coalition government which depends on Wilders' party to win key votes. The event comes as fears mounts among German mainstream political parties of the emergence of a new anti-immigration, anti-Islam right wing movement.

SOURCE






Growing opposition to illegal immigration in Nebraska

CRETE, Neb. — Nebraska may appear to be an unlikely setting for swelling anti-immigrant sentiment. This agricultural hub is far removed from any border. It has long been more preoccupied with bolstering its population than keeping people out. And immigrants, legal and otherwise, have been fixtures for years in the fields and meatpacking plants here, helping this state put meat and vegetables on dinner tables around the country.

But even as the state enjoys relative economic health — unemployment, at 4.6 percent, is the third lowest in the nation — illegal immigration has taken a more central and more divisive place in the politics of communities like this one, visibly transformed by an influx of immigrant newcomers.

That shift in political dialogue has been propelled here by Gov. Dave Heineman — even before it was a national issue. Four years ago, Mr. Heineman, a Republican, made his unyielding opposition to illegal immigration a central part of his underdog campaign for governor.

Now, as a popular incumbent heavily favored to win, he recently announced that one of the first acts of his second term would be to press for a law that would make it easier for local police officials to arrest illegal immigrants, which he said would be closely modeled on the controversial law adopted in Arizona that is now being challenged by the Obama administration in court.

“I’m very adamant about this — the federal government has failed to solve the immigration issue,” Mr. Heineman said in a recent interview in his offices in Lincoln, where the shelves are stocked with college football paraphernalia and the ceilings and walls are adorned with murals celebrating cultures from around the world. “Next January I believe in every state in America there will be an Arizona-type law introduced.”

In an election cycle defined by concerns over jobs and mortgages, government spending and debt, the issue of illegal immigration has become a common talking point on the campaign trail.

Candidates running for office in a dozen states have pledged to introduce legislation similar to the Arizona law, according to a count by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, which supports the passage of such laws. But while some of those efforts are given slim chances of passing, such a law is favored by a large majority of Nebraskans.

This summer, Fremont, where Mr. Heineman got his start on the City Council, barred businesses from hiring illegal immigrants and landlords from renting to them — a contentious battle that unnerved Hispanic residents across the state.

Residents here say that Crete, a city of 6,000 that is dominated by the meatpacking plant looming over downtown, does not share the conflicts that have affected other communities with growing Hispanic populations. Still, there is a palpable unease when talking about immigration.

“We’re just getting too many Hispanic people in town,” said Gerry Boller, 78, who works at the counter at New Beginnings Thrift Store on Main Avenue. “It seems like they come in and take over.”

At Super Latina, a grocery store next door, Jose Banos, the 36-year-old owner, said that when he moved here from El Salvador 15 years ago, there were no stores that catered to the Hispanic community. Now his is one of many.

But immigrants are worried by the situation in Fremont and the talk of replicating the Arizona laws, and some are talking about leaving.

“Arizona needs the law more than we do because on the border, problems with immigrants come with other problems, like guns and drugs,” Mr. Banos said. “Here in Nebraska, it’s a whole different story. Immigrants in Nebraska are coming for work.”

Just over a decade ago the state’s two most prominent Republican elected officials — Chuck Hagel, then a senator, and Mike Johanns, a governor who is now in the Senate — banded together to successfully pressure federal authorities not to create a program aimed at cracking down on the hiring of illegal immigrants in the state’s meatpacking plants.

Since that time the number of foreign-born residents — the majority of whom are Hispanic — has increased drastically, more than 40 percent since 2000, according to census estimates. The number of illegal immigrants grew more than 50 percent in that time to 45,000, according to estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.

But even if concern about these new arrivals simmered across the state, it did not become a central part of the political dialogue until 2005, when Mr. Heineman was elevated from lieutenant governor to the top post after Mr. Johanns resigned to be United States agriculture secretary.

Mr. Heineman’s tenure was expected to be short. The next year, in the Republican primary, he faced the University of Nebraska’s much-beloved football coach turned congressman, Tom Osborne. But Mr. Heineman proved a more deft campaigner and lavished attention on the issue of illegal immigration.

“It was the defining issue of his campaign,” said David J. Kramer, a lawyer and former state Republican chairman who also ran for office that year. “It was the issue that made the difference between him winning and losing.”

As governor, Mr. Heineman has emphasized that the state welcomes immigrants, as long as they are legal. He has battled repeatedly, though so far unsuccessfully, to rescind in-state college tuition rates for children who grew up in the state but are in the country illegally.

He put in effect a system to perform mandatory checks of those applying for government benefits to ensure that they are not illegal immigrants. And, more recently, he upset some of his anti-abortion supporters by ending a program that provided prenatal care for pregnant women who are in the country illegally.

But while Mr. Heineman’s previous efforts addressed circumstances that affected dozens if not hundreds of illegal immigrants, an Arizona-style law would be far more sweeping.

More HERE



2 October, 2010

The Governator Terminates Bill That Would Provide In-State Tuition Rates to Illegal Aliens



California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed two bills last night that would have offered in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens. SB1460, the California Dream act, and AB1413 would have allowed any student, regardless of immigration status, who attended a California high school for at least three years to receive the in-state tuition benefit provided to legal California residents.

For the past several days, NumbersUSA activists in California have been sending faxes and making phone calls to the Governor and state legislators, and their hard work paid off with Gov. Schwarzenegger's veto. He issued the following statement after vetoing the bill last night.

I have always wholeheartedly supported the policy of making higher education opportunities as affordable as possible for all California’s students. Our state’s university and community college systems are amongst the finest in the country and should be made accessible to those seeking a better life through higher education. Unfortunately, given the precarious fiscal situation that the state faces, it would not be practical to adopt a new policy that could limit the financial aid available to students that are in California legally, in order to provide that benefit to those students who are not.

Since the beginning of the year, I have committed to provide the highest amount of funding for higher education, including for financial aid to needy students, that I believe is prudent given all of the competing interest for limited resources. Given the difficult decisions that are yet to be made to enact a state budget, I am still hopeful that the funding level that I have proposed for higher education will still be enacted. However, with that uncertainty coupled with the ongoing fiscal liabilities California will continue to face in the coming years, the State needs to be especially cautious in even considering enacting a measure like this.

SOURCE




Breaking Down the Menendez Immigration Bill

Change.org links to a good summary of the 874-page comprehensive immigration reform bill Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced Wednesday. The bill includes paths to legalization for non-criminal illegal immigrants in the country, provided they pay a fine and application fees. But first it focuses on increased enforcement at borders, inside the country and in workplaces.

Although the bill may not go anywhere, it contains some measures that could be aimed at finding bipartisan support, including its first section on border enforcement. Republicans have made a call for border security a central part of their message on immigration reform. From the summary:

* Expands Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) staffing, in line with this review.

* Improves training and accountability for DHS border and immigration officers.

* Enhances cooperation with Canada and Mexico, as well as local law enforcement agencies, to improve border security and coordinate crime fighting.

The bill specifically places immigration in the hands of federal authorities, clarifying the legality of state immigration enforcement efforts such as Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law.

The next section focuses on interior enforcement, attempting to make the system less exploitable and more humane toward legal and illegal immigrants:

* Requires DHS to track the departure of noncitizens to ensure that individuals do not overstay their visas.

* Denies “visa waiver” privileges to countries whose citizens attempt to overstay visas.

* Refines existing law on illegal entry, illegal reentry and voluntary departure of noncitizens to ensure enforcement of those provisions and heighten penalties for those who commit serious offenses. [...]

* Improves detention conditions to meet basic standards; expands secure alternatives to detention.

* Ends the waiting period for refugees and asylees to obtain green cards.

Third is a section on workplace enforcement. Like the blueprint created by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) this spring, the Menendez-Leahy bill calls for a fraud-resistant, tamper resistant Social Security card:

* Mandates the use of an employment verification system for all employers within five years. [...]

* Requires the Social Security Administration to create a reliable and secure way of verifying Social Security numbers and work authorization.

* Adds criminal penalties for fraud and misuse of Social Security numbers.

The remainder of the bill focuses on reforming the legal immigration system, which both sides agree is badly in need of improvement. The fourth section focuses on how visas will be determined and distributed, including the AgJOBS and Uniting American Families Act to improve the process for farm workers and foreign partners of gay and lesbian citizens:

* Creates a Standing Commission on Immigration, Labor Markets, and the National interest to evaluate labor market and economic conditions and recommend quotas for employment‐ based visa programs that Congress and the President would act on. [...]

* Creates the structure for a new nonimmigrant visa program (H‐2C) to address gaps in existing worker programs that have lead to undocumented migration. [...]

* Significantly expands labor protections in current H‐2A, H‐2B, H‐1B, and L‐1 visa programs.

* Ensures that the number of family and employment green cards authorized by Congress do not expire because of processing delays; expands the share of visas that each country can access within existing quotas that limit overall immigration.

* Incorporates the AgJOBS bill, which provides a path to permanent residency for farm workers and revises agricultural employer sponsorship requirements.

* Incorporates the Uniting American Families Act, which allows permanent partners to access the family‐based immigration system.

The next step is legalization for some of the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., which the Obama administration argues is necessary to maintain the economy, communities and families:

* Creates Lawful Prospective Immigrant (LPI) status for non‐criminal undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. since 9/30/10. Requires applicants to submit biometric and biographical data, undergo security and law enforcement checks, and pay a $500 fine plus application fees. LPI status lasts four years and can be extended. It includes work authorization and permission to travel abroad; immediate family members are also eligible for status under the program. [...]

* Incorporates the DREAM Act, which creates a path to legal status for individuals who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, provided they meet age and other criteria and enroll in college or the U.S. military.

In its final section, the bill establishes several programs to better integrate immigrants into American society and provide humanitarian aid to those who cannot enter:

* Enhances programs and policies to help immigrants learn English and U.S. civics, such as: tax credits for teachers of English language learners and businesses who provide such training for their employees; a revamped DHS Office of Citizenship and New Americans to assist with immigrant integration; and grants for states who work to successfully integrate newcomers. [...]

* Evaluates the factors that drive undocumented migration from key sending countries and requires the State Department to develop a strategy to reduce migration pressures.

SOURCE



1 October, 2010

EU announces legal action vs. France on Roma deportation

As France repeatedly defied the bloc’s warnings and calls to end its controversial immigration policy, the European Union on Wednesday announced to take legal actions against the European nation for failing to protect the rights of EU nationals.

The EU’s decision came after a fierce clash between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the executive body of the bloc during last month’s meeting of EU leaders. Director of Belgium’s Open Society Institute Heather Grabbe said that they were on more solid ground doing it this way.

"However, it doesn’t send a signal about discrimination. I applaud it if it is effective, but they need to follow through on rooting out discrimination," Grabbe said referring to European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding’s allegations that France was treating immigrants in a discriminated manner.

The decision will further strain relations between the EC and the Sarkozy administration. Under the EU laws, which France signed in 2004, all member nations must protect ethnic groups.

However, the commission has singled out France by claiming that Paris failed to incorporate minimum EU standards in protecting those groups into national legislation.

It has also threatened to take legal actions against other EU countries like Italy and Spain, which have introduced controversial measures to stop immigrants’ inflow in their countries.

As a first step, the commission has sent a letter asking a series of questions from Paris instead of simply charging it for a discriminatory application of European law. If France fails to give satisfactory answers to the commission, Brussels will take them to the European Court of Justice, which could compel France to bring their laws in accordance with the EU rules. It could also impose fines on French government.

SOURCE





Expulsion from Australia looming for Afghans

Hundreds of Afghans seeking asylum in Australia face an increased chance of being sent home after the Gillard government lifted its controversial freeze on processing their applications.

Announcing the end of the freeze, new Immigration Minister Chris Bowen yesterday flagged an increase in deportations. "The percentage of successful refugee claims is likely to be lower than in the past," he said.

But he refused to release advice the government had received about the situation facing Hazaras, who comprise the majority of Afghans seeking asylum, when they return home.

Refugee advocates questioned whether it had become safer to send people back, saying 2010 had been the most violent year in Afghanistan since 2001.

They also blasted the government for introducing the freeze in the first place, saying it had led to bottlenecks and overcrowding in detention facilities. More than 2000 Afghan asylum seekers are now awaiting decisions, including about 1200 who arrived after the freeze started.

The opposition said yesterday's decision confirmed that the freeze on applications by Afghans had been an "election fix" from the start. "The government's grounds for introducing the freeze in April were bogus then and remain bogus today," immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said. "The decision to lift the freeze is an admission by the government that this was a failed policy that should never have been introduced."

It was former immigration minister Chris Evans who ordered the suspension of processing of new refugee claims from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka on April 9. "What the pause says is that we think conditions are improving," he said at the time.

But a report released by the United Nations in June said violence by insurgents had increased and suicide bombings had tripled from the year before. And in Ghazni, where Mr Bowen said many of the asylum seekers were from, deputy governor Mohammad Kazim Allahyar and his son died in a suicide attack this week.

The move to send more Afghan asylum seekers home also comes after the opposition called on the government to bolster Australia's military commitment in Afghanistan in a bid to provide more protection for troops already on the ground.

Since the freeze on new applications was announced, approval rates for Afghans who arrived in Australia beforehand have fallen from about 90 per cent to 30 per cent. Mr Bowen flagged more rejections to come, and said he was working with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Afghan government to facilitate people's safe return.

Amnesty refugee co-ordinator Graham Thom said the government deserved no congratulations for overturning a ridiculous policy. "The only outcomes of this farcical approach have been negative, including major bottlenecks in the processing system and significant overcrowding in Australia's immigration detention facilities," he said.

Families with children were now likely to spend close to a year in remote detention facilities as a result, he said. "This is manifestly unacceptable."

The Human Rights Commission welcomed the end of the freeze, saying it had created differential treatment of asylum seekers based on race.

Refugee Council of Australia chief executive Paul Power said the freeze had been untenable from the outset. "The fact the government was continuing to process applications from before April 9 on the information they had available undermined any claim that they had insufficient information to process those after," he said.

Said Edmund Rice Centre director Phil Glendenning: "Our concern is that 2010 has been the most violent year in Afghanistan since 2001, and most victims of the increased violence have been civilians, especially women and children. "Our research in Afghanistan has found that a number of returnees from Australia and their children were killed upon return and many today live with the well-founded fear of persecution they sought to escape. We can never do this again."

The Greens said the freeze on applications had magnified anxiety, frustration and trauma in detention facilities.

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.