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30 September, 2009

Obama still too tough, according to some

A clothing maker with a vast garment factory in downtown Los Angeles is firing about 1,800 immigrant employees in the coming days — more than a quarter of its workforce — after a federal investigation turned up irregularities in the identity documents the workers presented when they were hired.

The firings at the company, American Apparel, have become a showcase for the Obama administration’s effort to reduce illegal immigration by forcing employers to dismiss unauthorized workers rather than through workplace raids. The firings, however, have divided opinion in California over the fallout of the new approach, especially at a time of record joblessness in the state and with a major, well-regarded employer as a target.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, called the dismissals “devastating,” and his office has insisted that the federal government should focus on employers that exploit their workers. American Apparel has been lauded by city officials and business leaders for paying well above the garment industry standard, offering health benefits and not long ago giving $18 million in stock to its workers.

But opponents of illegal immigration, including Representative Brian P. Bilbray, a Republican from San Diego who is chairman of a House caucus that opposes efforts to extend legal status to illegal immigrants, back the enforcement effort. They say American Apparel is typical of many companies that have “become addicted to illegal labor,” in Mr. Bilbray’s words.

“Of course it’s a good idea,” Mr. Bilbray said of the crackdown. “They seem to think that somehow the law doesn’t matter, that crossing the line from legal to illegal is not a big deal.”

In July, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, opened audits of employment records similar to the one at American Apparel at 654 companies around the country. John T. Morton, who, as assistant secretary of homeland security, runs ICE, said the audits covered all types of employers with immigrant workers, including many like American Apparel that were not shadowy sweatshops or serial labor code violators.

The investigation at American Apparel was started 17 months ago, under President George W. Bush. Obama administration officials point out that they have not followed the Bush pattern of concluding such investigations with a mass round-up of workers. Those raids drew criticism for damaging businesses and dividing immigrant families.

Immigration officials said they would now focus on employers, primarily wielding the threat of civil complaints and fines, instead of raids and worker deportation. “Now all manner of companies face the very real possibility that the government, using our basic civil powers, is going to come knocking on the door,” Mr. Morton said. The goal, he said, is to create “a truly national deterrent” to hiring unauthorized labor that would “change the practices of American employers as a class.”

The employees being fired from American Apparel could not resolve discrepancies discovered by investigators in documents they presented at hiring and federal social security or immigration records — probably because the documents were fake. Peter Schey, a lawyer for American Apparel, said that ICE had cited deficiencies in its record keeping, but the authorities had not accused the company of knowingly hiring unauthorized workers. A fine threatened by the agency was withdrawn, Mr. Schey said.

After months of discussions with ICE officials, the company moved on its own to terminate the workers because, Mr. Schey said, federal guidelines for such cases are “in a shambles.” The Bush administration proposed rules for employers to follow when workers’ documents do not match, but a federal court halted the effort and the Obama administration decided to abandon it.

With its bright-pink, seven-story sewing plant in the center of Los Angeles, American Apparel is one of the biggest manufacturing employers in the city, and makes a selling point of the “Made in U.S.A.” labels in its racy T-shirts and miniskirts. Dov Charney, the company’s chief executive, has campaigned, in T-shirt logos and eye-catching advertisements, to “legalize L.A.,” by granting legal status to illegal immigrants, a policy President Obama supports.

Since the audit began, Mr. Charney has treaded carefully, eager to show that his publicly traded company is obeying the law, and to reassure investors that the loss of so many workers will not damage the business, since production has slowed already with the recession. But Mr. Charney is also questioning why the authorities made a target of his company. Over the summer he joined his workers in a street protest against the firings. Because the immigration investigation is still underway, Mr. Charney declined to be interviewed for this article but did respond in an e-mail message.

The firings “will not help the economy, will not make us safer,” he said. “No matter how we choose to define or label them,” he said, illegal immigrants “are hard-working, taxpaying workers.” [taxpaying?]

More HERE



Congressional liberals seek health-care access for illegals

Fearful that they're losing ground on immigration and health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access. The Democrats, trying to stiffen their party's spines on the contentious issue, say it's unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, they say, regardless of how long they've been in the United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if they meet the other eligibility requirements.

"Legal permanent residents should be able to purchase their plans, and they should also be eligible for subsidies if they need it. Undocumented, if they can afford it, should be able to buy their own private plans. It keeps them out of the emergency room," said Rep. Michael M. Honda, California Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Mr. Honda was joined by more than 20 of his colleagues in two letters laying out the demands.

Coverage for immigrants is one of the thorniest issues in the health care debate, and one many Democratic leaders would like to avoid. But immigrant rights groups and the Democrats who sent the letters say they have to take a stand now. President Obama has said he does not want health care proposals to cover illegal immigrants. The bill drawn up by Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, excludes illegal immigrants from his proposed health care exchange.

Mr. Honda and his allies, though, say illegal immigrants should be allowed to pay for insurance if they can afford it, even if it comes through a government-established exchange. As a generally young, healthy part of the population, illegal immigrants could help reduce overall costs for those who buy into health exchange plans, the lawmakers said. The Democrats' letters, however, do not issue ultimatums or threaten to withhold support for the bills if their requests aren't met.

The National Council of La Raza launched its own "flood their voice mail" campaign last week to put pressure on Mr. Baucus to expand coverage in his proposal to include all legal immigrants and to drop verification language in the legislation that would prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining coverage.

Mr. Honda told The Washington Times that he's not pushing for illegal immigrants to gain access to taxpayer-subsidized benefits. "That's an argument that's been done already," he said.

Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, said proposals that include government coverage for illegal immigrants leave him incredulous. "If anybody can, with a straight face, advocate that we should provide health insurance for people who broke into our country, broke our law and for the most part are criminals, I don't know where they ever would draw the line," he said. Mr. King, who opposes Democrats' health care plans in general, said illegal immigrant access in legislation "would be a poison pill that would cause health care to go down" to defeat.

Twenty-nine Democrats signed on to the letter on legal immigrants, while 21 signed the letter on covering illegal immigrants. Although the leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus signed the legal-immigrant letter in their capacity as CBC officials, they signed the other letter as individual members of Congress.

Under the 1996 welfare law overhaul, Congress restricted most federal benefits to longtime holders of green cards - those who have been in the country at least five years. But Democrats chipped away at that rule when they reauthorized the State Children's Health Insurance Program earlier this year and allowed states to cover all immigrant children and pregnant women, regardless of how long they've been in the country.

In their letter, the Democrats said health care costs are much lower for legal immigrants than for native citizens. "Immigrants are part of our families, our communities, our economy, and contribute to the fabric of America," they wrote. "It is simply wrong that their taxes would pay for public health insurance programs to which they are not allowed access." [How many pay taxes? Very few]

SOURCE





29 September, 2009

CIS roundup

1. Overstaying Their Welcome

Excerpt: I'm all for border fencing and the like; it's an essential tool of national sovereignty.

But for too many politicians, and even ordinary folks, support for border security is a cop out, a substitute for thinking about the overall immigration problem, only part of which has anything to do with our border with Mexico.

********

2. The Case of Hosam Maher Husein Smadi: Déjà Vu All Over Again

Excerpt: Overshadowed in the extensive national coverage of the Najibullah Zazi terror case is the case of Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian man arrested on Thursday, September 24, in Dallas. Smadi was taken into custody by FBI agents shortly after throwing the switch on what he believed was a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) in an SUV he had parked in the basement of a 60-story Dallas office tower, in an attempt to kill thousands of people timed to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Like several other terrorists before him, Smadi apparently was a student visa overstay.

********

3. The Who's Who of Immigration Policy Making

Excerpt: Immigration policy is usually made by politicians, and not presidential ones.

As the Obama Administration shows signs of tackling the subject, it might be helpful to sketch the players who have strongly influenced the immigration policy scene in recent years, which I do in this the first of several blogs on the subject.

+++

The Who's Who of Immigration Policy Making - the Senate Democrats

Excerpt: There are five Democrats and four Republicans on the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, which is part of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

All five Democrats drew grades of F on the immigration policy votes followed by Numbers USA, the restrictionist organization.

+++

The Who's Who of Immigration Policy Making – the House Democrats

Excerpt: A congressional subcommittee may sound like a minor entity, but when it comes to lawmaking it is where much of the action takes place. Most of the provisions of any bill emerging from a subcommittee are likely to be in place when the parent body, the House or the Senate, takes final action on it.

+++

The Who's Who of Immigration Policy Making - the Senate Republicans

Excerpt: There are four Republicans, compared to five Democrats, on the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, a subset of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

While the Republicans serving on the comparable body in the House of Representatives, according to the nose counts of Numbers USA, are solidly and consistently in the restrictionist camp, there are some major disputes among the Senate subcommittee Republicans. Two of these Senators get solid A+ ratings from Numbers USA, while the other two -– both from border states -- have recent scores of B+ and C-.

+++

The Who's Who of Immigration Policy Making - the House Republicans

Excerpt: The six Republican members of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law can be expected to struggle, probably in vain, to bring some restraint into proposed immigration legislation. The subcommittee is part of the House Judiciary Committee.

********

4. E-Verify and IMAGE – Stimulating the Economy

Excerpt: The federal government has spent huge amounts to stimulate the American economy. The theory is that massive government spending programs will put people back to work and increase consumer spending which is a major driver of economic activity in the United States.

********

5. Virginia Governor’s Race and Immigration Enforcement

Excerpt: Candidates in the race for governor of Virginia differ on the issue of state and local enforcement relating to illegal and criminal aliens. Former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell supports statewide involvement in the 287(g) program. Democratic State Sen. Creigh Deeds is unenthusiastic and vague. Republican McDonnell has endorsed Virginia State Police usage of this proven, useful tool for ferreting out foreign lawbreakers living among us, many of whom threaten public safety.

********

7. Another Warning on Amnesty

Excerpt: There was an important vote on a minor procedural matter Wednesday on the floor of the House. Arizona's Rep. Raul Grijalva, a leftist open-borders guy (and I don't mean liberal — MEChA member, 100% rating from the ACLU, etc.) sponsored a bill to create new national-park area along the border. Republicans in committee smelled a rat and attempted to insert an amendment that stipulated that the Border Patrol would be permitted to operate in the new area, but were rebuffed; the amendment's needed because the Department of Interior has reportedly interfered with efforts to patrol border lands under its jurisdiction. Well, Republicans decided to try to pull a procedural motion in the full House to force the issue, assuming they'd lose but at least be able to make a political point.

********

8. Why Is the U.S. National Soccer Team So 'American?'

Excerpt: If soccer is the world's sport, and America is the world's leading beacon for immigrants around the globe, why aren't immigrants making a bigger impact playing soccer for the Stars and Stripes? Consider the paucity of foreign born players on the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team. The team draws from a player pool of fifty eight men, only three (5%) of whom were born outside the U.S. The women's national team has no foreign born players in its player pool.

The above is a press release dated Sept. 22 from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. For more information, contact Steven Camarota at (202) 466-8185 or sac@cis.org.





28 September, 2009

Stupid play-acting from British border control agency

The unprecedented numbers of foreigners that Brits see among them are no mirage. The agency is not dispelling myths. It is trying to dispel reality. The British government would serve the country better by doing more about the half-a-million "asylum seekers" who have been denied asylum by the courts but who are still in the country. Try to dispel that reality!

At the end of a week in which the government's most senior lawyer, the attorney general Baroness Scotland, was embarrassed by revelations that her Tongan housekeeper was working illegally in the UK, confidence in the country's immigration system could be at rock bottom.

So some may find it reassuring to learn that the government agency charged with protecting the UK's borders has embarked on an extraordinary PR blitz to give the public a taste of what can happen to those who fall foul of fortress Britain.

A series of UK Border Agency roadshows at country fairs around southern England have seen children fingerprinted, pensioners handcuffed and families locked into immigration service "cell vans" as part of a drive to dispel what it says are "myths that surround immigration issues".

The initiative, featured in Interact, the newsletter for UKBA stakeholders, describes events at the Kent and New Forest and Hampshire county shows in which members of the public were briefly locked in "cell vans", placed in handcuffs and dressed up as "arrest officers" by UKBA staff keen to show they mean business. Children made "fingerprint paintings".

The newsletter concedes that "immigration staff knew they would have to overcome initial hesitation from the public" to being confronted by "fully-kitted arrest team officers".

However it concludes the roadshows were a "great opportunity to explain the importance of our work". According to the UKBA, at the end of the shows, 239 visitors had improved their opinion of the work of the service, while 13 said it was the same.

But last night migrant support groups questioned the rationale behind the PR campaign. "We appreciate UK immigration officers do a hard job in difficult circumstances," said a spokesman for Refugee Action. "But we remain to be convinced the way to dispel myths about immigration is to dress members of the immigration service up like extras from The Sweeney whilst running around fingerprinting children, handcuffing pensioners and locking families in arrest vans."

SOURCE



Beware immigration's hidden costs

Comment from Australia by economist ROSS GITTINS below. Most of what he says applies to all developed countries. The focus on GDP per capita rather than on gross GDP is particularly pertinent. British studies have also shown that immigration is of no economic benefit to the average person already in the country

SO YOU think Australia has escaped a ''technical'' recession? Actually, if you look at what's happened to real gross domestic product per person, it has fallen in three of the past five quarters. Over the past 15 months it has contracted by 1.5 per cent. In other words, remarkably rapid growth in Australia's population has been a little-acknowledged factor helping to hold up the economy.

We learnt last week that, during the year to March, our population grew by 2.1 per cent, its fastest in almost 40 years. Although our low birth rate is up a bit, almost two-thirds of that growth came from net immigration. This net inflow of almost 280,000 people is 20 per cent higher than the previous record year. And when Treasury plugged a much higher level of immigration into its projections for 2050, it foresaw a population of 35 million, 6.5 million more than it was expecting just three years ago.

So, is a rapidly growing population just what we need to give us a healthy economy? That's what almost all business people, politicians and economists would tell you, but I wouldn't be so sure of it.

If you believe immigration adds more to the demand for labour than it adds to the supply of labour, then the present rapid growth in immigration is helping to limit the rise in unemployment. That's nice, but we should be wary of the almost universal tendency to focus on the overall growth in GDP rather than the growth in GDP per person. Why? Because it's only when GDP's growing faster than the population that our material standard of living is rising.

You have to ask yourself what's so good about rapid population growth. From a narrow materialistic point of view, immigration-fed growth in the economy is good only if it raises the real average incomes of the pre-existing population. And it's debatable whether it does. If it doesn't, we're running a high immigration policy mainly for the benefit of the immigrants, who are able to earn more in our country than they were in their own. Which is jolly decent of us.

Of course, if you were a business person you wouldn't care whether high immigration led to a rise in income per person. All you're after is a bigger market because you believe it will allow you to make bigger profits. So business and its politicians and economist handmaidens believe in growth for growth's sake. But the other point that tends to be overlooked is that when you use immigration to force the pace of economic growth, it comes with a lot more costs attached than usual.

These costs tend to be underplayed and hidden from view, partly because they're not acknowledged in our standard measure of growth, GDP. Indeed, some costs actually show up as additions to GDP. More growth - you beauty!

GDP ignores the cost of the environmental damage done by immigration. Apart from being morally dubious, poaching skilled workers from developing countries roughly doubles their greenhouse gas emissions, in the process making it all the harder for us to achieve the necessary reduction in our emissions.

But the extra carbon emissions are just one of the environmental costs. A total projected population increase of 13 million over the next 40 years does raise the question of whether we'll exceed our ecosystem's carrying capacity. Is the additional land use sustainable? Here's a country that badly stuffed up its river and underground water systems, and as we speak is demonstrating a serious lack of political will to fix the problem, telling itself an extra 13 million people will be no problem.

And what about the cost of all the roads, hospitals, schools, police stations and other infrastructure we'll need to build to accommodate a 65 per cent increase in the population? All that spending will add to growth as measured by GDP, but that doesn't mean it won't come at considerable cost to taxpayers.

The decision to ramp up immigration levels is made by the ''Feds'', but the responsibility for providing the extra infrastructure will be left to the less-than-competent state governments. Any failure on their part to cough up the money and rise to the challenge will generate real but unacknowledged costs to you and me.

SOURCE. Another current article hostile to Australia's high rate of immigration can be found here. The author writes from a Greenie perspective.





27 September, 2009

The 3 Vans Crashing the San Diego Border Crossing are food for thought

What a horrible image of anarchy we saw at the San Diego border crossing this week when three vans with an estimated 70 illegal aliens tried to crash their way through hundreds of innocent passengers in dozens of vehicles.

Why did they do it? I'm willing to say that a bunch of bishops and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited them. Do you think those 70 illegal aliens would have put themselves into that situation if they knew it would be impossible to get a decent job with decent working conditions and decent benefits in the United States? Do you think they would have taken that risk if they knew that the only work they could find would be minimum wage (or less) jobs with no benefits and no legal protections because the employers are outlaws?

The SAVE Act (H.R. 3308) would require every employer in the country to use E-Verify to ensure that no illegal alien can get a new job or hold an old job. The SAVE Act would easily have passed the U.S. House of Reprentatives last year if Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) had not blocked a vote. Nearly 200 Members of both Parties co-sponsored the bill and signed a discharge petition to force a vote (short of the 218 needed) last year.

If U.S. Representatives had been forced to vote YES or NO on the SAVE Act, I have little doubt that it would have garnered pretty close to the 259 votes we won yesterday on the border security vote on the House floor (with 85 Democrats joining all the Republicans). And that is what would happen now, if Speaker Pelosi would stop blocking it.

People from other countries would stop risking their lives -- and those of others -- to illegally enter this country if we stopped giving away prizes to the people who make it through. Speaker Pelosi refuses to stop the danger on the border by refusing to end the constant supply of illegal foreign labor to unscrupulous employers.

And adding a kind of unholy blessing on all this risk taking, anarchy and violence on the border, we have more and more bishops of the United Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran and Episcopal denominations sending their voices through the international media proclaiming that illegal immigration should be rewarded with U.S. citizenship papers.

I am not calling for a muzzling of the free speech of these misguided clerics. But I do believe that their pro-amnesty rallies, resolutions and testimony create the results on the border of crying fire in a crowded theater.

SOURCE



Greece struggles to cope as immigration tensions soar

The revolt at conditions in overflowing detention centres is causing scenes of chaos in the 'backdoor into Europe'

Greek authorities are desperately trying to cope with a surge of migrants on to the country's islands which has left detention centres overflowing.

Last week, amid chaotic scenes, hundreds of migrants demonstrated against "inhuman conditions" in a detention camp on Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos, in a protest that saw hunger-striking minors setting fire to mattresses and attacking guards. The clashes highlighted the rising anger on island outposts that are being overwhelmed by a double influx of holidaymakers and illegal migrants.

According to senior immigration officials, Greece has now become the frontline of migration to the EU. "Greece is Fortress Europe's weakest link," said one EU official, who added that for traffickers bent on ferrying human cargo to the west, its borders were like a "big open door".

Last week in northern France, police used bulldozers to clear immigrants from the Calais camp known as the "jungle". But the problem there is dwarfed by the unfolding drama in the Greek islands.

Mytilene, off the coast of Turkey, and other tourist magnets can receive up to 500 "illegals" a day, according to authorities, and have become the favoured entry points into Europe for thousands from Afghanistan and Iraq. "They're coming in by the boatload from Turkey at all hours of the night and day," said Nikoloas Zacharis, vice-prefect of Samos, another Aegean island. "It's uncontrollable."

Last week's "uprising," the latest in a series of revolts by immigrants, has provoked a huge row over Greece's treatment of "guests" it does not want. "That children as young as 12 were on hunger strike in Greek detention is a gross indictment of the government's failure to care for them," said Simone Troller at Human Rights Watch.

Greece is not the only southern European country to be targeted by people smugglers. Spain, Italy and Malta have also been hit by an influx of immigrants but Greece and its islands are seen as Europe's easiest "backdoor" entrance. Last year an estimated 150,000 migrants, mostly from Asia but also from Africa, illegally entered Greece, police say. Forced to cope with the country's porous land borders and 18,400 kilometres of unwieldy coastline, immigration officials are overstretched.

Tensions have been exacerbated by the extraordinary risks immigrants appear willing to take to cross the border. Those from war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan have frequently put their lives in danger to make the journey either in rickety rafts or on foot across minefields that still line Greece's northern land frontier with Turkey.

In recent years, an alarming number of pregnant women and parentless children have been among those crossing treacherous mountain passes and rough seas, according to human rights groups. Last year, as many as 3,000 minors – some of them as young as six and mostly from Afghanistan – were dumped by smugglers on remote Aegean isles.

In an attempt to staunch the human tide, Greek coastguard patrols have been equipped with high-speed boats and infrared tracking devices. France and Spain have dispatched helicopters to the area to help.

Acutely aware of the rising social tensions the influx has caused, the centre-right government, which faces an election on 4 October, has stepped up arrests with successive police sweeps in Athens' where rising crime has, increasingly, been blamed on migrants.

The arrests followed the announcement of draconian legislation in July, which included dramatically extending the amount of time undocumented migrants can be detained. And, despite widespread protests from Greeks and migrants groups over the prospect of "migrant concentration camps" being created, the conservatives have also floated the idea of detaining "illegals" in disused military facilities.

"The situation has reached crisis proportions, partly because detention centres are now so overcrowded," said Nikos Koplas, a lawyer who has long assisted refugees seeking asylum. "Locking them up is not the way forward. The answer lies with the EU. It's as if Greece is becoming a depot for illegal entries from all of Asia. It needs to share the burden."

In northern Europe capitals, where most illegal migrants head, the surge in arrivals has also caused growing consternation. Of 278 Afghan minors arrested last week in Calais, most entered Europe through Greece. Improved policing of the western Mediterranean, particularly the Canary Islands and southern Italy, has played a role. "The main effect of more efficient patrols in the western Mediterranean is that we now have more people coming through the eastern Mediterranean," said Martin Baldwin-Edwards who runs the Mediterranean Migration Observatory at Athens' Panteion University.

"But most of the migrants are intent on moving on. When they see that conditions are not what they like or expect, they start heading deeper into Europe. Many prefer the UK because there's a whole mythology about it. They've heard from family and friends who are already there that it is a better democracy, with better conditions, plentiful jobs and fairer treatment of migrants."

Greece's notorious asylum process has the lowest acceptance rate in Europe. Of the 20,000 applicants last year, asylum was accorded to only 379. Immigrants invariably complain that, with a backlog of more than 30,000 cases, they have no choice but to seek asylum elsewhere in Europe. As in France, authorities in Greece have tried to solve the problem by bulldozing makeshift camps, including one in the port city of Patras that, like the "jungle", was inhabited mostly by unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan. [The "unaccompanied minors" are often in fact young adults who claim to be minors to get better treatment]

SOURCE





26 September, 2009

Victory in U.S. House Shows Lots of Democrats Don't Want to be Associated with Party's Open-Borders Positions

By Roy Beck (Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA)

Watching the Democratic vote Wednesday afternoon on the House floor provided many revelations --none of them reassuring to those who hope the Democratic Party has the votes to throw open our borders to more foreign workers and to reward millions of illegal aliens with amnesty.

Our side won in a procedural vote that forced H.R. 324 (the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area Act) to guarantee full border security enforcement in the vast Arizona area. (You can read more about the threat that this act has entailed at other places on our website.)

Frankly, when the voting started late Wednesday afternoon, we assumed we would lose by 10-25 votes. Early voting suggested we were right.

I think Utah's Rep. Bishop (who was pushing pro-enforcement amendment language) and the Republican leadership (which was backing him) primarily hoped to make a statement, not to actually win.

For the last three years the Republicans basically have been winning nothing. To win, they need 40-45 Democrats to join them if they remain nearly unanimous. Fortunately for us, Republicans voted 174-0 in our favor on Wednesday.

But with only about 20 votes (mainly Democratic) still not cast, we had a basically tied vote at around 205-205. At that point, 37 Democrats were voting YES.

It was pretty clear that we were going to lose.

Our experience is that Speaker Pelosi allows as many politically vulnerable Democrats as possible to vote with us but pressures others to either vote the other way or hold their votes until the end and then vote based on what will eek out a one-vote victory for the Speaker. So, we prepared ourselves for the Democratic vote staying just below the 40 it looked like we would need.

Suddenly just before the end of the voting, we saw that two or three Democrats who had voted NO were switching their votes to YES.

* Then, all but three of the rest of the Republicans arrived and cast YES votes.

* The Democratic tally went up to 40.

* And then the dam burst, with the rest of the Democrats finally casting their votes, with most of them voting YES!

* Many more Democrats who had voted NO earlier now saw that the amendment was going to pass anyway and switched to YES because they knew their constituents would prefer a YES.

In those final frenzied minutes of voting, the tally went from around 205-205 to 259-167.

A total of 38 Democrats changed from NO to YES.

The number of Democrats voting for pro-border-enforcement went from 37 to 85.

After our victory in approval of the Motion to Recommit, Rep. Grijalva (the sponsor of the bill) accepted the language to guarantee no prohibitions on border enforcement and to make permanent a key highway checkpoint. After a series of quick parliamentary procedures, the bill came up for a vote and passed quickly, with the strong language intact.

Rep. Gijalva could have avoided the whole controversy by allowing a vote on Rep. Bishop's amendment in committee. Rep. Grijalva claimed that the amendment was not needed and did not change anything about the bill.

Perhaps sponsors of bills in the future will decide that it is just easier to accept our side's language that essentially verifies that what is promised on enforcement actually happens.

WHAT DID WE LEARN AND ACCOMPLISH?

First, we escaped a potential disaster in which much of southern Arizona would be largely off-limits to intense Border Patrol activity -- while becoming more and more ON-limits to drug traffickers and human smugglers.

Second, we sent a clear message to the Pelosi regime that it can't count on its Democratic Members to deliver majorities to the open-borders agenda.

I don't believe for a minute that Pelosi isn't able to continue to arm-twist, threaten and make promises to keep a lot of those 85 Democrats in line. But we learned today that 85 Democrats definitely want their constituents to see them on OUR side.

For those entities trying to force Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid to bring comprehensive amnesty up for a vote, their job got a lot harder today. How does Pelosi get a majority for an amnesty when 85 Democrats wouldn't hold with her on an obscure issue that was getting ZERO media attention today?

SOURCE



The term "illegal immigrant" is hate speech?

Sounds like straight description to me but not to the loony Latina in the excerpt below. According to her, even Obama uses hate speech

"Knowing that words matter, and some more than others, it was disappointing to hear President Obama repeatedly use the term "illegal immigrant" in his recent healthcare speech to the joint session of Congress.

In the past, he has referred to this population by its more accurate description of "undocumented immigrants" and so the prevailing thought among immigrant advocates is that the President's use of the term was a subtle political olive branch to those like "Joe the Congressional Heckler" Wilson.

Yet, as we now know, the usage of the term didn't appease anyone but merely added to the antagonism already felt by some in the room -- not to mention that it elevated a term regarded by many as hate speech as now having White House approval.

Source

The claim that "undocumented immigrants" is more accurate is a laugh. It's not documents they lack but permission to be in the country. And as CIS points out, about half of them do have documents anyway, just not legitimate ones.





25 September, 2009

Nearly 100 "asylum-seekers" on latest boat to Australia

These are nearly always Afghans and the scandal is that the Feds take the "asylum-seeker" claim seriously. They had asylum as soon as they reached Pakistan, where there are now millions of Afghans living. These guys are the rich ones who could afford an airline flight to Indonesia and then pay thousands of dollars to people smugglers. They are no more refugees than my big toe is. They are economic migrants sneaking in the back door. Their low levels of literacy and other skills would not normally qualify them as acceptable migrants

AN Australian navy patrol vessel has intercepted a boat carrying 98 suspected asylum-seekers off Australia's north-west coast. The vessel was initially detected about 2am (AEST) today before it was intercepted after it entered Australian waters.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said HMAS Glenelg, operating under the control of Border Protection Command, intercepted the vessel at 5am (AEST) north-west of Christmas Island. The group will be transferred to Christmas Island where they will undergo security, identity and health checks as well as establish their reasons for travel.

More than 1400 people have arrived on 26 unauthorised boats so far this year, with the latest arrival taking the number of boat arrivals in the past two weeks to seven.

The arrivals have sparked a political row in Canberra, where the Opposition has accused the Government of going soft on border protection.

SOURCE



France to deport failed asylum-seekers

FRANCE will deport Afghan migrants rounded up this week in the port of Calais if they fail to qualify for asylum and refuse to return home voluntarily, the immigration minister said today.

French riot police rounded up 276 people, most of them Afghans, in a raid on Wednesday on the camp known as the "jungle", used by hundreds of migrants as a launching pad to try to illegally cross the Channel to Britain.

Nearly half the migrants identified themselves as minors and were taken to shelters, while the adults were taken to detention centres and were to be offered a chance to apply for asylum or money for a voluntary return home. "There will be forced return for people who are neither covered by asylum law nor by voluntary return procedures," Immigration Minister Eric Besson told France 24 television. "The president says we have to apply this it everywhere, including in countries where it is sensitive, on the condition that people's protection is assured and that they are not in physical danger," Mr Besson said.

Welcoming the raid on the Calais "jungle", President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday that France would work with Britain to "organise the return of people whose situation is unlawful".

According to Pierre Henry, head of the asylum charity France Terre d'Asile, 20 of the adults arrested in Calais have since been released. Forty-three have so far applied for asylum with more expected to follow suit.

SOURCE





24 September, 2009

Illegal, But Not Undocumented

Panel Explores Immigration, Employment, and Document Fraud

Despite the euphemism “undocumented,” illegal immigrants are anything but. About half of all working illegal aliens are on payroll tax forms, meaning they have fraudulently identified themselves in some way. Federal authorities would often use such document crimes to facilitate the arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal aliens. However, a Supreme Court decision earlier this year severely limited federal authorities’ ability to charge illegal aliens with identity theft.

To examine these issues, the Center for Immigration Studies will host a panel discussion on Tuesday, September 29, at 9:30 a.m. in the Murrow Room of the National Press Club, 14th & F streets NW, in Washington, D.C. The starting point for discussion will be a CIS Backgrounder entitled, “Illegal, but Not Undocumented: Identity Theft, Document Fraud, and Illegal Employment,” authored by one of the panelists, Ronald W. Mortensen. Continuing the discussion will be Janice Kephart, who will be reporting on her upcoming paper, “Assuring Adequate Penalties for Identity Theft and Fraud,” which proposes revised statutory language and an analysis of identity theft cases.

Panelists will include:

Ronald W. Mortensen - A retired career U.S. Foreign Service Officer, former senior executive at the Society for Human Resource Management, and author of, “Illegal, but Not Undocumented: Identity Theft, Document Fraud, and Illegal Employment.”

Janice Kephart - Director of National Security Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies and an internationally-recognized border and ID security expert who served as counsel to the 9/11 Commission and co-authored the Commission staff monograph 9/11 and Terrorist Travel.

Stewart A. Baker - Former DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy, now a partner at Steptoe & Johnson. At DHS, he was responsible for policy analysis across the department and all identity-related programs, as well as for the department's international affairs, strategic planning, and relationships with law enforcement and public advisory committees.

Moderator: Mark Krikorian - Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

The above is a press release dated Sept. 24 from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. For more information, contact Bryan Griffith, press@cis.org, (202) 466-8185



At least four shot in Mexico-US border incident

People smugglers got a bit too bold for their own good, by the sound of it. Not a good omen

The San Ysidro Port of Entry on the U.S.-Mexico border in California was temporarily closed Tuesday after four people were wounded by gunfire that erupted from three vans packed with than 70 people headed from Mexico toward the border, officials said.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and a Customs and Border Protection officer also fired their guns, said Angela Decima, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Border Patrol.

Three of the casualties were critically wounded, said San Diego, California, Fire Department Spokesman Maurice Luque. The fourth person wounded was in a separate vehicle, said Decima. The condition of the fourth person was being assessed, and a fifth person — who may have fallen while running — was injured in an incident unrelated to the shootings, Luque said. Four of the five people who were hurt were part of the entourage of cars involved in the shooting, he said. All of the occupants of the three vehicles were taken into custody, said Luque.

The border incident occurred at 3:25 p.m. (6:25 p.m. ET), police said. The crossing point, officially declared a crime scene, will remain closed for several hours while the San Diego Police Department investigates.

SOURCE



Immigrants help to propel Australia's population to nearly 22 million

AUSTRALIA'S population soared by almost half a million people in the year to March - boom not seen since the 1960s, according to the latest statistics. Australian Bureau of Statistics data released yesterday shows the population increased by just over 2 per cent – or 439,000 people – in the year. There are now 21.8 million of us.

Most of the recent increase of almost 300,000 people was due to immigration. But there's also a mini baby boom, with 160,000 babies entering the world during the year.

Recent research showed Australia's population would balloon to 35 million – seven million more than previously thought – during the next 40 years. The government says the population boom is great news because it means the economy will keep growing.

However, some green groups say enough is enough. Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman Charles Berger said the growing population was on a collision course with the environment. She said more people meant more greenhouse pollution, poorer river health and struggling infrastructure. Every extra million people added 25 million tonnes of greenhouse pollution, she said.

The ABS data showed Western Australia was leading the population proliferation, while Tasmania was last.

SOURCE





23 September, 2009

Britain 'won't take Calais migrants'

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has denied that Britain will be forced to take migrants from the "Calais Jungle" camp which has been shut by French police. "Reports that the UK will be forced to take illegal immigrants from the 'Jungle' are wrong," he said. Mr Johnson said refugees should apply for protection in the first EU country that they reach.

Migrant groups say the camp closure will only shift the problem elsewhere in Europe. The makeshift camp has replaced official centres like Sangatte as a gathering point for migrants hoping to cross to Britain.

Mr Johnson welcomed the "swift and decisive" clearance, and said Britain was working closely with France to prevent illegal immigration and people trafficking.

Immigration minister Phil Woolas said the migrants had no right to claim asylum in the UK, and he questioned whether they were genuine asylum seekers. "If they were fleeing persecution they have the right to claim asylum in the first country of entry as they leave their own countries," he told the BBC.

However, Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think-tank, suggested that Britain's immigration policy was part of the problem. "This is a welcome decision but it will not tackle the root cause of the problem, namely that Britain is regarded as a 'soft touch'. "Why else would people be queuing up in Calais?" he added. Sir Andrew said the government should be more serious about removing failed asylum seekers, and rule out absolutely any talk of an amnesty.

Richard Ashworth, Conservative MEP for South East England, said the decision to close the camp was long overdue, but the French government needed to do more if the situation is to be resolved. "It is now incumbent on the French government to deal with illegal immigration at the point of entry into France, and not simply funnel them through creating this sorry bottleneck along the Pas de Calais and Normandy coasts," he says.

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) Euro MP Nigel Farage told the BBC that the government needs to take a tougher stance, and stand up to France.

Refugee campaigners have welcomed the closure of the camp, but warned that the problem will shift elsewhere. "It is quite right that it should be shut down," said Dan Hodges from the charity Refugee Action. "But while it is possible to sweep away the camp, you can't simply sweep away the problem."

Makeshift camps sprang up in Calais following the closure of the Red Cross camp in Sangatte in 2002. Some observers fear that things will be no different this time. "I remember seven years ago when former home secretary, David Blunkett, and the then French minister of the interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, congratulated themselves on the closure," said Keith Best of the Immigration Advisory Service. "But the hundreds of asylum seekers merely moved to the dockside of Calais. The liquidation of the jungle will have the same transitory effect," he suggested. Mr Best said it was very difficult to claim asylum in France, and the French were not playing their part despite obligations under the Geneva Convention.

Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the closure was dealing with symptoms rather than the cause, and the big question was what happened to the migrants now. "We hope that all the people, including the very vulnerable, like women and children on their own who are trying to get to a place of safety, are given access to an asylum system. "This is a European-wide problem which needs a solution at European level," she said.

SOURCE



Congratulations instead of prison for business owners in immigration case. A revealing first test of Obama policy

Two owners of an engine rebuilding company that was raided in January, raising questions about federal policies on illegal immigrants, were sentenced Monday to a year on probation and their business must pay a $100,000 fine

Two owners of a Bellingham engine-rebuilding company that was raided in January, raising questions about federal policies on illegal immigrants, were sentenced Monday to a year on probation and their business must pay a $100,000 fine.

Shafique Amirali Dhanani and Shirin Dhanani Makala, corporate directors, managers and two owners of family-owned Yamato Engine Specialists, were spared prison time, fines and restitution in plea agreements followed to the letter by U.S. District Judge James L. Robart. A guilty plea was entered earlier Monday for Yamato, which agreed to pay half the fine immediately and the balance by Dec. 31. The company also must take out a half-page advertisement in The Bellingham Herald to describe how it got into hot water for hiring undocumented workers.

"These are not the most serious crimes. They are not the most violent crimes. They don't involve guns or drugs," Robart said, "but they are important ... this is a serious matter."

Dhanani and Makala, a brother and sister from a hardworking family that left Uganda decades ago, pleaded guilty in August. They could have faced at least five years in prison and fines of $250,000, and the company could have been fined $500,000.

Robart said the fine and "substantial publicity" were significant punishment for the company and the stigma of felony convictions would be sufficient deterrence against future violations by other business owners as well as by Dhanani, the company's production manager, and Makala, manager of human resources. Both insist they never intended to violate the law.

Yamato was the first company to be raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after President Obama took office calling for more prosecution of businesses that hire undocumented workers. A review was subsequently ordered by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who said she had not been informed of the raid in advance.

Of the 28 workers who were arrested Feb. 24, one is known to have returned to Mexico and the rest received temporary work permits to remain in the country pending the conclusion of the criminal case. With the sentencing, the permits have expired and all 27 now face deportation proceedings that could extend for "upwards of several months," said Lori Dankers, an ICE spokeswoman.

After the proceedings, Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald M. Reno Jr., shook hands with the defendants and the rest of the Yamato owners and wished them good luck. "You represent everything that's great about America," Reno said.

On their lawyers' advice, family members would not comment after the proceedings. Lawrence B. Finegold, a lawyer for Dhanani, said Yamato remains in operation but would not talk about the state of the business.

The case was "a hybrid" in which the investigation was conducted and initial warrants were issued under Bush administration guidelines while the raid in February and subsequent legal proceedings occurred after Obama took office, Finegold said outside the courtroom. He explained that under the new rules, warrants for immigration raids must be sought from the criminal side of U.S. attorneys' offices and show probable cause to believe that violations have occurred, but the Bush administration allowed ICE to obtain civil warrants under a less restrictive standard.

At the same time, Reno said the practical effect was "just a fine line of words, rather than the reality." To charge and convict an employer of knowingly hiring undocumented workers, encouraging illegal entry into the United States and other immigration-related offenses still requires the arrest, confinement and questioning of the employees to obtain evidence, he said. "The most convincing part of that proof comes from illegal aliens," Reno said. "It's going to be just as disruptive ["disruptive"! How awful!] to the illegal aliens," he added. "That's not going to change."

SOURCE

Now we know something we did not know before: Illegal immigrants must not have their lives "disrupted"





22 September, 2009

CIS roundup

1. A Biblical Perspective on Immigration Policy

Excerpt: The immigration issue often highlights fissures between faithful parishioners and denominational clerics. Many Catholic bishops have called for amnesty for illegal immigrants, and their conference’s lobbying arm works continually with open-borders special interests. Catholic and “mainline” Protestant church officials have decried the federal government’s enforcement of immigration laws. Some liberal religious leaders re-initiated a “sanctuary” movement to harbor illegal aliens, including in churches. A Southern Baptist official has sided with amnesty proponents as pragmatism, and the National Association of Evangelicals plans to weigh in, likely on the pro “comprehensive immigration reform” side.

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2. The Immigrant Paradox: The Stalled Progress of Recent Immigrants’ Children

Excerpt: The American tradition, over the years, has been that the first generation of immigrants struggles, the second generation does better, and the third generation does even better in terms of income, education, personal health, and overall achievement. There is much statistical as well as anecdotal evidence of these trends in the past.

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3. 'There is too much international migration'

Excerpt: Immigration is a challenge for both less-developed and advanced societies. The settlement of Nigerians in South Africa, for instance, or Bolivians in Argentina creates many problems familiar to anyone who has explored the history of American immigration a century ago.

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4. President Obama, 'Illegal Immigrants,' and Misinformation

Excerpt: It was bound to be interesting when Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos, in an interview with President Obama that was broadcast Sunday on Univision, asked why the president had used the term 'illegal immigrants' when discussing his health plan in a speech two weeks ago to a joint session of Congress. It was the president's statement that illegal immigrants would not be covered that provoked the infamous 'You lied!' charge from South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson.

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5. Last Week's Other Cheap Political Stunt

Excerpt: The big political dust-up last week was the Congressional Black Caucus's resolution directed at Rep. Joe Wilson, who called President Obama on his inaccuracy during his recent speech before a joint session of Congress. The precipitating event served to spark scrutiny and public discussion of loopholes in health legislation relating to coverage of illegal aliens. But a less prominent political stunt also went on in the nation's capital.

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6. Obama Links Health Insurance Reform and Comprehensive Immigration Reform (Amnesty)

Excerpt: In order to garner the votes of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and to shore up support for his proposed health insurance reform from the National Council of La Raza and other Hispanic groups, President Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute last week that he would make health insurance available to everyone who is legally in the United States and that he would work to legalize illegal aliens by passing comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty).

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7. The New York Times' Ode to Illegal Aliens in the Orchards

Excerpt: The New York Times, in an editorial page item on Sunday, describes the use of illegal workers in the ongoing upstate New York apple harvest from the point of view of a poetic apple farmer.

Exploitation of illegal workers, and the exclusion of unemployed legal residents from the harvest, is described thusly: 'It was the usual harvest race, under constant threat of disruption from bad weather and the Border Patrol...

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8. Jorge Ramos, Disappointed in Obama, Lines Up Sunday Interview

Excerpt: As President Obama makes the rounds of this Sunday's talks shows, he will record an interview for the Univision program 'Al Punto,' with Jorge Ramos. There will likely be an interesting discussion of the president's plans to reform both health care and immigration policy.

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9. Immigration Reform Finally Comes to Saipan

Excerpt: The very worst sliver of America's immigration policy, one that brought both worker exploitation and a population explosion to an outlying set of U.S.-controlled islands, comes to an end on November 28 after more than a decade of controversy.

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10. The Coarsening of Our Political Dialogue

Excerpt: On '60 Minutes' last Sunday, President Obama said Rep. Joe Wilson's 'You lie!' outburst was an example of the 'coarsening of our political dialogue that I've been running against since I got into politics.'

Last night's Univision newscast provided more intemperate outbursts for the president's consideration. They came in the form of condemnations of the 'Hold Their Feet to the Fire 2009 Radio-thon' that wraps up today on Capitol Hill.

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11. Now That I Have Your Attention on Health Reform and Illegals . . .

Excerpt: Most of the news media have worked overtime to deny that health reform legislation covers illegal aliens (it most definitely does). But there are a few exceptions — thank God! One is the Courier out in Iowa. The Waterloo, Iowa, news people actually looked at the bill, H.R. 3200. The editorial also gets that House lawmakers took the cynical approach of using meaningless, fig leaf 'prohibitions,' wink-and-nod presumption of eligibility, and omission of parallel verification requirements contained in 71 other public programs.

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12. Obama Risks Losing Congressional Hispanic Caucus Support

Excerpt: By guaranteeing that illegal aliens will not be included in any health insurance reform, the President risks losing support of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and their allies in the House and Senate.

As has been widely reported, during his recent address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama suddenly stopped talking about the 47 million 'people' who lack health insurance and began talking about the 30 million 'American citizens' who do not have health insurance.

The above is a press release dated Sept. 22 from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076. For more information, contact Steven Camarota at (202) 466-8185 or sac@cis.org.





21 September, 2009

Would-be immigrants forced out of Calais 'Jungle' set up new camps, mayor admits

Immigrants due to be evicted from the notorious "Jungle" shanty town in Calais are setting up alternative camps, the port's mayor has admitted. Natacha Bouchart, a member of France's ruling UMP Party, said: "Hundreds of migrants have already disappeared from the Jungle, but we're aware of a multiplication of squats in the centre of town."

The Jungle, an area of wasteland full of improvised shelters, kitchens and even a mosque close to the town's ferry port, currently houses around 800 men and women who want to claim asylum in Britain or disappear into the black economy. They play a nightly game of cat and mouse with the police as they try to board lorries and trains heading for Dover.

The French government announced last week that the Jungle would be razed to the ground by this coming Friday at the latest as the fist step in a bid to make Calais "watertight" to the 2,000 odd migrants currently in the area who want to get to Britain. Police sources in the town have confirmed that CRS riot control officers, supported by soldiers, would move in to the camp, the largest of many, with batons and flame throwers on Tuesday - the day after Ramadan ends. "Many of those in the camp are Muslims from countries like Afghanistan and Iraq who want to get to Britain," said one senior officer. "We don't want to offend them by approaching the camp during Ramadan."

But the local authorities admitted that the announced closure of the camp would simply move the problem to a different area. William Spindler, spokesman for the Calais office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, said: "The migrants who feel terrorised have fled The Jungle to avoid being arrested." Catholic abbot Jean-Pierre Boutoille, of the immigrant charity C-Sur, added: "All the government is doing is displacing the problem."

More than 50 migrants were arrested close to the Jungle on Thursday alone, just a few hours after French immigration minister Eric Besson announced the destruction of The Jungle on national television. The clearance is expected to take four days, with the site eventually being cordoned off by barbed wire

It came as Europe's Justice Commissioner prepared to demand a change in the law to allow asylum seekers into the UK more quickly. Jacques Barrot, a former French minister, believes the reform will assist all the migrants who are currently sleeping rough around Calais. He said he particularly wants to see a "significant number" of those evicted from The Jungle moving to Britain.

Under current law they are supposed to be returned to the country where they first entered the EU, which in the case of Afghan and Iraqi migrants is usually Greece or Italy. But, referring to a proposal which would allow foreigners to claim asylum in any EU country they want, Mr Barrot said: "I've had a lot of difficulties getting this law passed and this problem comes from the fact that the United Kingdom and other countries have not understood that there should be a solidarity within the EU over asylum. "In order for the closure of the Jungle in Calais to make sense, it is neccessary to share the burden between France and Great Britain, at least when it comes to asylum seekers. "National solutions to the problem are not viable. The people in Calais have crossed Europe and have one obsession - to get to Great Britain."

Mr Barrot's controversial proposal will be discussed by European interior ministers at a meeting in Brussels held to discuss immigration and asylum issues. It follows a call by the United Nations for Britain to accept some migrants from the Jungle when it is burnt to the ground this week. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the British government should be prepared to allow migrants with large families already in the UK to enter the country.

The fact that illegal migrants can only claim asylum in the first EU country they come to has offered huge protection to the UK as it tries to stem the tide of those drawn by generous welfare benefits and jobs in the black economy. But with both the European Commission and United Nations calling for a change in the law, thousands could soon be allowed to make straight for the UK.

Mr Barrot, Brussels commissioner for freedom, security and justice, is a member of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling UMP party. He made his comments about Britain's asylum system to French journalists in Calais prior to Monday's meeting.

Any further influx of asylum seekers under his plan would come at a time when asylum applications to the UK are already rising. Recent Home Office figures show that a total of 25,930 asylum applications to come to Britain - excluding dependents - were made last year, compared with 23,430 in 2007. Around one in seven claimants is granted the right to stay.

SOURCE



New boatload of "asylum-seekers" stretches Australia's border protection facilities

An uncrewed vessel crammed with 54 people intercepted off the West Australian coast at the weekend has raised new concerns about the number of asylum-seekers attempting the treacherous journey to Australia's shores. Over the past fortnight, Australia's border protection authorities have intercepted six boatloads of asylum-seekers, adding to logistical pressures on Christmas Island's detention facilities and political pressures on the Rudd government.

Details of the latest vessel, which was found adrift in international waters on Saturday afternoon, were released yesterday. The 54 people, including one child, were without food and water when first sighted by Border Protection Command P-3 Orion aircraft about 550 nautical miles (1018km) north of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The group, whose nationalities were not disclosed, asked for refuge in Australia and last night were en route to Christmas Island for security, identity and health checks.

Their rescue prompted the opposition to again accuse the government of going soft on border protection. But Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor yesterday pointed to Canberra's $654 million strategy to combat people-smuggling as proof it was taking the problem seriously. "The Australian government is pleased that the group is safe, but it is only through Border Protection Command's and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's vigilance that these people escaped greater harm," he said. However, he said that the illegal voyages were "extremely dangerous". "Drownings at sea are not uncommon," he said.

And while the new arrivals are stretching the resources of the facilities on Christmas Island, the island's nearest Australian neighbours, the Cocos Malays of Home Island, will soon be working at the Howard government's Immigration Detention Centre under a plan by community leaders to reduce chronic unemployment on their tiny homeland. Serco, the contractor that will take over the operation of Christmas Island's Immigration Detention Centre from G4S next month, intends to hire Cocos Malays to work in administration, social care and client services. Their roles could include helping asylum-seekers prepare food or attend a variety of classes, a Serco spokeswoman said.

SOURCE





20 September, 2009

Bishops bearing false witness

The immigration debate often brings out the worst in people, but it still is disappointing to see the sad display by a number of bishops and other religious leaders yesterday outside the Capitol. They used their prayer vigil to spew hatred at their fellow Christians and other Americans working to reduce immigration in order to help the most vulnerable members of our society. The United Methodist, Episcopal and Catholic bishops held the prayer vigil/publicity event to call for "an end to hateful rhetoric in the immigration debate".

But as far as I can see most of the hateful rhetoric this week has come from organizations campaigning for amnesty and higher immigration. All the mud-slinging and name-calling has come from America's Voice, the National Council of La Raza, their close allies in Congress and now from these religious leaders.

I'm not hearing the leaders on our side call immigrants names or demonize them. What I hear from our side is a request for a rational public policy debate about how to set a reasonable number for immigration and how to enforce that law.

I have tried for years to meet with the national religious leaders to discuss the principles involved in the immigration debate -- and maybe even to find some common ground. But I have been continually rebuffed. Most of these national religious bodies have now passed resolutions supporting "comprehensive immigration reform" (amnesty and green card increases) without ever allowing themselves to hear our side of the issue.

And now they have decided to accept the hateful rhetoric and smears of the Southern Poverty Law Center as gospel truth. It is clear that these religious leaders regard all of us immigration-reductionists as their enemy. But while Jesus taught that people should love their enemies, these religious leaders have decided to bear false witness against us.

(I should note that most years I do hours upon hours of guest appearances on the radio shows at the Hold Their Feet to the Fire. I am missing it this year because I am doing business throughout California this week.)

(The references to the FAIR organization, and the reports behind them, are full of distortions. If you ever see anything from the SPLC about NumbersUSA or any other immigration-reduction leader that causes you concern, please contact us before you make any assumptions.)

SOURCE



Immigration not the only way to counter an ageing population

Comment from Australia

THE Rudd government should be wary about using high levels of immigration in coming decades as a means to counteract the decline in productivity resulting from an ageing population because more over-55s are staying on in their jobs, a population expert warns. Monash University demographer Bob Birrell said Treasury's new population estimate for Australia -- 35 million by 2050 -- was based on immigration levels of about 180,000 a year, a rate that may not be necessary to keep the economy running and will be difficult to provide for in terms of urban infrastructure and services.

"The government seems to have bought the argument that business in Australia needs a high amount of labour force growth to keep it going in the future. The rest of us are going to have to bear the consequences of that," Professor Birrell said yesterday. "The government doesn't seem prepared to explore how we need to make social adjustments; rather, they are relying on the prop of bringing in more people of younger ages to essentially put all the older people to bed."

In a speech yesterday to launch the new Australian Institute for Population Ageing Research at the University of NSW, Wayne Swan noted the previous estimate of Australia's future population contained in the last intergenerational report in 2007 -- 28.5 million by 2047 -- was likely to be well short of the mark. "Australia's population is projected to grow by 65per cent to reach over 35 million in 2049, up from around 21.5 million people now," Mr Swan said. "This ... is largely driven by a greater number of women of childbearing age, higher fertility rates and increased net overseas migration."

Mr Swan said while the number of people of working age would grow by 45 per cent over the next 40 years, those aged 65-84 would double and those 85 and older would increase by 4.5 times. "Population ageing will lead to slower economic growth ... and it will lead to increasing levels of Australian government spending per person. Together these factors will contribute to significant ongoing financial pressures," the Treasurer said.

Professor Birrell said research at his Centre for Population and Urban Research earlier this year showed older workers, those aged 55-plus, were tending to stay on in the workforce longer than anticipated. With sustained high levels of immigration added into the workforce mix, the employment prospects of younger Australians were being compromised.

Australian National University demographer Peter McDonald said the recent increase in the birthrate in Australia, up from 1.79 to 1.93 in the past two years, was encouraging. "The lower the birthrate, the more migrants you need," Professor McDonald said. "If we had birthrates like those in Germany or Italy we would need to look at greater numbers of migrants."

SOURCE





19 September, 2009

Obama links immigration to health care battle

An Obama brainwave: Legalize the illegals and there will be no problem of illegals getting subsidized health insurance

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage. He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered - a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, "If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all."

Republicans said that amounts to an amnesty, calling it a backdoor effort to make sure current illegal immigrants get health care. "It is ironic that the president told the American people that illegal immigrants should not be covered by the health care bill, but now just days later he's talking about letting them in the back door," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. "If the American people do not want to provide government health care for illegal immigrants, why would they support giving them citizenship, the highest honor America can bestow?" Mr. Smith said.

But immigrant rights groups see the speech as a signal that Mr. Obama is committed to providing health care coverage for anyone in the United States legally, regardless of their citizenship status. "It's the first time I've certainly heard, publicly, him talking more about legal immigrants," said Eric Rodriguez, vice president for research and advocacy at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). "I think that was certainly positive progress. We were absolutely concerned about not hearing that."

On Wednesday, hours before Mr. Obama's speech, the NCLR had given the administration a public scolding, demanding that Mr. Obama needed to make "a public commitment ... to ensure that those who are here legally are covered."

A White House spokesman did not respond to questions about where the White House would make the cutoff for eligibility, and Mr. Rodriguez said he's still waiting for an answer from the administration. "We don't know where they mean to draw the line," he said. "Our biggest concern is that most people don't realize legal immigrants are currently barred from receiving health care benefits for the first five years in the country."

Under the 1996 welfare overhaul, most federal aid programs are restricted to citizens and legal immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years. Democrats have tried this year to chip away at that rule.

Immigration has dogged Mr. Obama in the health care debate. Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, shouted, "You lie," when the president, in an address to Congress last week, said his plans wouldn't cover illegal immigrants.

Lawmakers - who got an earful from constituents back home during August - have insisted on extra checks to make sure illegal immigrants do not have access to taxpayer-funded programs. Senators have worked on language that would prevent illegal immigrants from buying insurance through a proposed insurance exchange envisioned in the health care reform package. But the NCLR said that could lead to situations where some members of a family would be covered and others, including children of illegal immigrants, wouldn't be.

Mr. Obama said legalizing illegal immigrants is a way to take the sting out of the entire issue. But Republicans said by pushing to legalize illegal immigrants, Mr. Obama is signaling that those here illegally eventually will get access to taxpayer-funded benefits.

Still, the push to pass a legalization bill is beginning to gain steam, even as advocates fret that the White House is moving too slowly. On Thursday, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat and an outspoken advocate for legalization, agreed to take leadership in writing a new, more generous bill. "We simply cannot wait any longer for a bill that keeps our families together, protects our workers and allows a pathway to legalization for those who have earned it," Mr. Gutierrez said. "Saying immigration is a priority for this administration or this Congress is not the same as seeing tangible action, and the longer we wait, the more every single piece of legislation we debate will be obstructed by our failure to pass comprehensive reform."

SOURCE



Australia: Alarm over five "asylum" boats in 14 days

A FIFTH boat of asylum-seekers in a fortnight is emblematic of one of the world's biggest challenges, the Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, said yesterday.

On Wednesday, a boat of 48 asylum-seekers and four crew was spotted sailing west of Darwin. The navy boarded the boat late that night and will transfer asylum-seekers to Christmas Island, taking numbers of detained there to about 750.

Facing growing pressure over the surge in boat arrivals, the Government insisted yesterday Australia's immigration facilities on the island were coping. The island, closer to Indonesia than to the Australian mainland, has a capacity of 1200. Surplus detainees face identity, health and security checks in Darwin, Senator Evans said. ''This will be one of the great issues of the 21st century: people movement,'' he said. ''We've seen record numbers of people moving throughout the world, record numbers of asylum-seekers, and some sort of naive belief that Australia is going to be somehow excused from facing those problems is a nonsense.''

Australia accepts less than 2 per cent of the world's refugees, United Nations figures show. The majority are resettled in developing nations closer to the countries they are fleeing.

People fleeing unrest in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are increasingly making the voyage to Australia. Indonesia and Malaysia are the stopover points.

Yesterday, the Opposition spokeswoman on immigration, Sharman Stone, asked what the Government would do when the Darwin detention centre was full.

But the Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Connor, dismissed her question as ''dog whistling''. The Coalition maintains the rise in boats is linked to the scrapping of temporary protection visas last year.

SOURCE





18 September, 2009

Arpaio ponders new ICE pact

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has until next month to sign a new pact with the federal government allowing his office to arrest illegal immigrants under federal statutes.

Arpaio said he might sign the 287(g) agreement again with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency despite tussles with the agency and the Obama administration. The deadline is Oct. 15, but could be extended.

Arpaio’s disagrees with some elements of the new pact, including efforts to limit public disclosures of immigrant arrests.

Arpaio said he will continue to talk to the media about immigration raids and crime sweeps regardless of such changes. “The people have a right to know,” he said.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has had a 287(g) agreement with the federal government since 2007. Earlier this summer, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced plans to focus such agreements more on apprehending violent criminals rather than raids.

Arpaio said he is optimistic a new accord can be signed but added that if not, he plans to continue enforcing the state’s employer sanctions law — the Legal Arizona Workers Act. The MCSO has arrested 310 workers on raids of 22 businesses since 2008 under the law. The MCSO also has arrested human smugglers and undocumented immigrants via traffic stops and other methods that do not require ICE approval.

SOURCE



New Australian citizenship quiz tests facts, not figures

New citizens will need to know about "mateship" and what it means to get a "fair go", but Don Bradman and billiards champion Walter Lindrum have been left out of the nation's revamped citizenship test. Unveiling details of the new test yesterday, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said it was more important for migrants to know about their rights and responsibilities than "trivial Australiana" such as facts about the late Sir Don. "I want people applying to Australian citizenship to know things such as under Australia's domestic law, domestic violence is illegal, that you're not entitled to hit women in Australia," Senator Evans said. "That seems to me to be much more relevant than understanding whether Don, whether Walter Lindrum, was good at billiards."

But before they pledge their oath of allegiance, prospective citizens will be able to learn about the Don, Dick Smith, Eddie Mabo and even lesser-known figures such as gynaecologist Catherine Hamlin in a "non-testable" section of the new citizenship book. The book explains such helpful phrases as "mateship" -- "When my car broke down, the other drivers helped to push it in the spirit of mateship" -- and "try your luck" -- "Every year, I try my luck and bet $10 on a horse in the Melbourne Cup" -- but skips prime ministerial favourites such as "fair shake of the sauce bottle".

Under changes that passed through parliament yesterday -- the 60th anniversary of Australian citizenship -- people with physical or mental disabilities will not have to sit the test, while others who need help will be able to take a citizenship course.

The new laws will also mean children have to become permanent residents before becoming eligible for citizenship. And the rules have been relaxed to make it easier for elite athletes, pilots and cruise ship crews -- who spend a lot of time outside the country -- to become citizens.

The new citizenship test, to be rolled out from October 19, will contain 20 multiple-choice questions. The pass mark will rise from 60 per cent to 75 per cent. The test is also designed to check whether immigrants have a basic knowledge of English.

To mark the 60th anniversary of Australian citizenship, Senator Evans, who is from Wales, told a rowdy Senate in response to a question from Labor senator Doug Cameron: "It's a great day for Australian democracy and citizenship when a Scotsman can ask a Welshman a question, while being interjected upon by people from Germany, Belgium and New Zealand. It says something about the country."

The government has not released the new test, but has published practice questions, which test facts such as the meaning of Anzac Day, the colours of the Aboriginal flag and the role of the Governor-General.

SOURCE





17 September, 2009

Baucus Health Plan Takes Harder Line On Illegal Immigration

As expected, the plan released Wednesday morning by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus takes a harder line on illegal immigration than the Democratic House bill in two ways.

The first big difference comes in the new citizenship verification requirements, which were not specified in the House bill. The eligibility check under the Baucus plan is described this way:

Name, social security number, and date of birth will be verified with Social Security Administration (SSA) data. For individuals claiming to be U.S. citizens, if the claim of citizenship is consistent with SSA data then the claim will be considered substantiated. For individuals who do not claim to be U.S. citizens but claim to be lawfully present in the United States, if the claim of lawful presence is consistent with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data then the claim will be considered substantiated. Individuals whose claims of citizenship or lawful status cannot be verified with federal data must be allowed substantial opportunity to provide documentation or correct federal data related to their case that supports their contention.

The second big difference is that under the Baucus plan, all people seeking to enter the health care exchanges--which are essentially stores to purchase insurance--must prove their citizenship status. The House bill had barred illegal immigrants from getting subsidies in the exchanges, but not from entering the health exchange with their own money. Here is the Baucus language:

Legal U.S. residents will be able to obtain insurance through the state exchanges. Parents who are in the country illegally will not be able to buy personal insurance coverage through the state exchange but will be able to buy insurance for their U.S. citizen or lawfully present children.

This is consistent with a position announced last week by the White House, in the wake of Obama being accused of lying in a speech to a joint session of Congress.

UPDATE: In the comments below, some have attacked Baucus for ceding to the critique of Joe Wilson. One note in that regard: On Thursday, before Baucus had commented on this, the White House announced that it favored blocking illegal immigrants' access to the exchange. In other words, it's not clear that Baucus led this charge.

As I pointed out before, it is unlikely that large numbers of illegal immigrants would seek out this option. In the current system, many illegal immigrants get health insurance through their employers, a practice that would not change under health reform. Many others lack insurance, and depend heavily on emergency room visits, the costs of which are picked up by hospitals, with the help of government Medicaid funding.

SOURCE



A rather stupid immigration debate in Australia

How can you talk about immigration without specifying WHICH immigrants you are talking about? Should we accept inmates from the prisons of Haiti, for instance? It is certainly true that Australia's large numbers of bright and hard-working Han Chinese (now about 10% of the population) have been very benefical to Australia and Australians but it is equally true that the intake of Lebanese and African Muslims has done little more than push up the crime rate

It was the Herald's IQ2 debate last night at City Recital Hall that got economists, scientists, public opinion leaders - and the audience - speaking on the topic that ''our current immigration rate is too high''.

Professor Tim Flannery, the scientist and 2007 Australian of the Year, kicked off proceedings by arguing that while population growth is in the interests of business and government, it is not in the long-term interests of individuals or humanity because of the strain on the environment.

''Every other species has natural factors which constrain its growth. We have removed them all except for our own volition,'' he said.

The Herald columnist Tanveer Ahmed said migrants have ''driven the economy further, enriched the culture and fabric of our nation, and their children are, by and large, even more successful.''

John Sutton, vice-president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, cited a number of labour-related reasons why migrants numbers should be reduced, including the small Australian labour market being unable to absorb supply.

An economist, Professor Helen Hughes, countered that well-managed migration raises the benefits to all involved.

But for all the talk of the economy, the author Tom Keneally concluded that migration was most importantly a moral and humanitarian concern, bringing discussion back towards the environment with a mention of climate refugees, and the social benefits migrants have brought to Australian culture.

SOURCE





16 September, 2009

CIS roundup (Continued)

17. A Modified Limited Hangout

Excerpt:So I checked the site — http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/ -- and I also couldn't find any reference to the 'myth' that illegal immigrants will get coverage. It looks like the White House is already preparing the ground for its inevitable caving on the issue and agreement to a verification requirement. I can already hear Obama saying 'As I've said before, I oppose coverage for illegal immigrants, which is why we're urging Congress to fix this oversight

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18. Immigration, Population, and the Environment: Experts to Debate Impact of Current Policies

Excerpt: It is well-documented that current U.S. immigration policies will increase Americas population by about 100 million people over the next half-century. Past attempts to restructure the federal immigration program have often included debates on education, assimilation, health care, labor, and many other issues. But the environmental impact of immigration-driven population growth is usually missing from the discussion, despite the fact that environmental concerns are high on the Obama Administrations priority list.

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19. The Elephant in the Room: Panel on Immigration’s Impact on Health Care Reform

Excerpt: While there has been some discussion of whether illegal immigrants should be covered by proposed government insurance plans, the enormous impact of immigration, both legal and illegal, on the health care system has generally not been acknowledged in the current debate. On August 19, the Center for Immigration Studies held a panel discussing the health care issue.

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20. Is the Congressional Research Service Making 'False Claims' Too?

Excerpt: Rep. Lamar Smith quotes from a new report by the Congressional Research Service to debunk President Obama's 'willful misrepresentations,' 'outright distortions,' and 'outrageous myths' on immigration and health care.* Given the political importance of the illegal-alien question, it's worth quoting Smith's press release at length, especially since CRS reports aren't usually released to the public:

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21. Jorge Ramos's Problem with President Obama

Excerpt: Jorge Ramos, the influential Miami-based co-anchor of the nightly newscast on the Spanish-language network Univision, has been broadcasting his disappointment with President Obama for not fulfilling a promise to deliver immigration reform during his first year of office.

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22. Mission Impossible for Secretary Napolitano?

Excerpt: Is it possible to play tough cop and nice cop at the same time? That's roughly the assignment facing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. In addition to leading the agencies responsible for enforcing immigration law, she has been designated by President Obama to work with Congress to forge 'comprehensive immigration reform' legislation that would legalize millions of people who have broken the law.

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23. Does the Health Care Bill Bar Illegal Aliens from Taxpayer Funds? Not Really

Excerpt: As members of Congress get an earful from their constituents on the proposed health care overhaul, one topic is becoming front and center: immigration. How the legislation addresses both legal and illegal immigration will have a significant effect on public support, but as of this writing, the 1,000-page health care bill only includes a few, ambiguous and entirely inadequate clauses on immigration.

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24. Protesting Too Much, or Acknowledging Too Little

Excerpt: As President Obama complains that his critics protest too much about his health care plans for illegal immigrants, he appears to be acknowledging too little. Consider his appearance yesterday with radio talk show host Michael Smerconish, specifically his exasperated response to a caller who raised the issue.

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25. Politicians Do It Comprehensively

Excerpt: Of course, instead of asterisks she had the word 'health-care,' but she identifies the problem with 'comprehensive immigration reform,' as well. Nothing Congress and the administration would come up with under that rubric would be good (in fact it would also require us to surrender our self-determination). Instead, they should 'tackle a few fixable problems with consensus and support from Americans,' like employment verification, Social Security no-match letters, and getting rid of the Visa Lottery.

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26. USA Today Backs REAL ID

Excerpt: In late July, the Senate Homeland Security Committee passed out of committee the PASS ID Act, the 'repeal and replace REAL ID' legislation promised by DHS Secretary Napolitano to the Nationals Governors Association (NGA), the lobbying shop in which she was extremely active during her tenure as Arizona governor. While the NGA's original version of PASS ID has been amended for the better, it remains completely unnecessary, reduces security, and generally permits states to do little to nothing over current secure ID issuance procedures while giving them access to new federal monies.

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27. Nativo Lopez to Census: Count Me Out!

Excerpt: Rejecting as a slap in the face last week's statement by President Obama that immigration reform would not advance until next year, Mexican-American activist Nativo Lopez called on illegal immigrants to boycott the 2010 census.

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. For more information, contact Steven Camarota at (202) 466-8185 or sac@cis.org.





15 September, 2009

CIS roundup

1. Catholics, Immigration, and the Common Good

Excerpt: The following are considerations offered by someone engaged in the complex arena of Christian ministry. They are reflections by a Christian pastor, a minister in the Roman Catholic tradition, prompted by a statement on immigration issued in November 2007 by the three Bishops of Maryland — Edwin F. O’Brien of Baltimore, Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, and Michael A. Saltarelli of Wilmington — entitled “Where All Find a Home: A Catholic Response to Immigration.”

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2. Illegal Immigrants and HR 3200: Estimate of Potential Costs to Taxpayers

Excerpt: Based on our analysis of Census Bureau data, we estimate that there are 6.6 million uninsured illegal immigrants in the United States who could be covered by the new health care reform bill (HR 3200). Even though HR 3200 states that illegal immigrants are not eligible for the proposed taxpayer-funded affordable premium credits, there is nothing in the bill to enforce this. An amendment was defeated in committee that would have required the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, used by almost all other means-tested programs of this kind.

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3. Health Reform Legislation and Immigration

Excerpt: Immigration will affect and be affected by the health reform legislation being crafted in the U.S. House and Senate. There are around 12 million uninsured immigrants. Their presence means every provision designed to extend health coverage to those without insurance will potentially expand taxpayers’ costs by billions of dollars. Many immigrant households have children who are automatically eligible for government health care, even if their parents are here illegally.

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4. Facts on Immigration and Health Insurance

Excerpt: As Congress and the nation debate health care reform, the impact of immigration policy is an important component of that discussion. This Memorandum provides information about immigration’s effect on the nation’s health care system. The analysis is primarily based on data collected by the U.S. government in March 2008 about insurance coverage in the prior calendar year (2007).

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5. Two Staffers Featured on Lou Dobbs

Excerpt: Since Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech on health care, the issue of whether illegal immigrants will be eligible to receive benefits has once again been thrust to the forefront. Steven Camarota, our Director of Research, explains what's needed to verify immigration status in the video below.

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6. Our Borders 8 Years Later

Excerpt: On 9/11, I was in Old Town Alexandria, Va., celebrating the first morning of my son entering preschool. It wasn't long before I noticed the cars coming south from the Pentagon, the smoke billowing into the air into clear blue skies, and the looks of fear and sadness on the faces of the drivers moving past me.

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7. An Irony Within the Immigration Policy Debate

Excerpt: An irony within the immigration policy debate relates to the treatment of incarcerated illegal aliens.

Immigrant advocate groups complain that those being held prior to deportation are sometimes mistreated and sometimes have inadequate medical care.

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8. 'There You Go Again'

Excerpt: Watching President Obama's health care speech before Congress Wednesday night, I was reminded of another President's words.

As the President flatly asserted that illegal aliens are definitely not covered in health reform, I thought of Ronald Reagan's jovial rejoinder when Jimmy Carter played fast and loose with the facts: 'There you go again.'

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9. Immigration/Population Concerns Rise in Britain

Excerpt: The role of immigration as the leading source of population growth is a divisive issue among U.S. environmentalists. The Sierra Club, which once called for immigration policies aimed at stabilizing the population, has backed away from the issue. Others (see here, for instance) make the case that curtailment of immigration is essential to efforts to safeguard the environment.

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10. Education in Mexico: Calderon's Vision Meets Test Results

Excerpt: Elected officials in Mexico often buy radio and TV time or use the Internet to distribute spots in which they describe their efforts to build a better future for their people. President Felipe Calderon has been particularly active with such efforts, including one on education that was released at the end of August and is posted on Youtube here.

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11. Not Much of a Debate

Excerpt: The Economist's website is hosting a 'debate' on the following proposition: 'This house believes there is too much international migration.' Arguing against the proposition is one Dr. Danny Sriskandarajah, Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society, saying all the usual tranzi stuff. But what's curious is the person selected to speak in support of the proposition: Demetri Papademetriou, head of the Migration Policy Institute, which is basically CIS's counterpart on the high-immigration side of the debate. His opening paragraph:

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12. We're Taking Refugees from Where?

Excerpt: Ann Corcoran over at Refugee Resettlement Watch points out that Refugees from Bhutan are the third-largest group of refugees resettled so far this year in the U.S. The perversity of this policy is clear when you learn that they're ethnic Nepalese kicked out by the Bhutanese government and living in refugee camps in — Nepal! I'm sure Nepal's glad to palm them off on us, but coping with their compatriots is their business, not ours. The State Department is using resettlement to serve a transnational human-rights agenda that has nothing to do with promoting our vital national interests. In effect, our foreign-policy elite views the actual United States as a sort of hinterland where they can dump their overseas problems.

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13. Mexico's Twin Tales of Astronaut Jose Hernandez

Excerpt: The story Astronaut Jose Hernandez, the flight engineer on the Space Shuttle Discovery's ongoing mission, is being told two ways in Mexico: one of pride in the accomplishments of the son of poor immigrants and one of pain because of the lack of opportunities in Mexico.

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14. And the Farmers Are Demanding Even More Foreign Labor?!

Excerpt: Talk about a reserve army of labor. And if you don't believe that farmers are still lobbying for amnesty and increased immigration, see here, here, here, here, etc., etc.

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15. Krikorian Discusses Health Care Issue

Excerpt: Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, discussed the issue of health care for illegal aliens on CNBC yesterday morning. Robert Shapiro, a former Undersecretary of Commerce, discussed from the opposing side. Their exchange is available in the video below.

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16. Mexico's Rising Fear of Social Unrest

Excerpt: Hurricane Jimena, now closing in on Baja California, is only the most dramatic of the threats confronting Mexico. Deepening unemployment and poverty, the brutal war between the government and drug cartels, and even looming water shortages all have ratcheted up the country's anxiety and social tension.

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. For more information, contact Steven Camarota at (202) 466-8185 or sac@cis.org.





14 September, 2009

White House stiffens against illegal immigrants

The White House strengthened its stand against health care coverage for illegal immigrants Friday, and a pivotal Senate committee looked ready to follow its lead. The developments reflected a renewed focus on the issue in the days since a Republican congressman's outburst during President Barack Obama's health care speech to Congress on Wednesday night. Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted "You lie!" as Obama said illegal immigrants wouldn't be covered under his health plan.

Democrats had pointed to provisions in House and Senate legislation that prohibited illegal immigrants from getting federal subsidies that would be offered to lower-income Americans to help them buy insurance. That didn't go far enough for Wilson or many other Republicans, who noted the absence of any enforcement mechanism or requirement for verification of legal status. There are some 7 million illegal immigrants in this country who lack health insurance, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

The issue has caused heat on talk radio and at congressional town halls, too. So on Friday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs sketched a new position that goes even further than some conservative critics had demanded: Obama will oppose letting illegal immigrants buy insurance through new purchasing exchanges the government will set up _ even from private companies operating within the exchanges. "Illegal immigrants would not be allowed to access the exchange that is set up," Gibbs said. Verification requirements are "something we'd work out with Congress," he said.

Currently illegal immigrants are barred from government-funded care except in certain emergency cases, but many buy private insurance and there's nothing to prevent them from doing that. That would change under the White House's proposal, which is certain to alarm some on the left.

White House officials contended that the policy didn't represent a change of position for Obama, but it's one he apparently hasn't articulated in the past. In his speech Wednesday, Obama said only that "the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."

The proposed new marketplace, or exchange, would allow consumers and small businesses to shop for insurance and compare prices in a regulated, competitive environment. The exchange has been built into all the health bills moving through the House and Senate. Private companies could offer health coverage through the exchange if they meet certain criteria and if Congress created a new government-run plan that would be offered through the exchange, too.

Illegal immigrants were to be allowed in the exchange and even in the public plan if they used their own money under legislation that passed three committees in the House and one in the Senate. Before Friday, there was little indication that that would change, even in the crucial Senate Finance Committee, which is facing a deadline of early next week to complete a comprehensive health bill.

In explaining its new position, the White House said that illegal immigrants could continue to buy insurance in the private insurance market outside the exchange, which would shrink with the creation of the exchange but still exist.

The issue of illegal immigration also bedeviled the so-called Gang of Six of three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, who met Friday trying to reach elusive bipartisan agreement on that and other contentious issues. One of the negotiators, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that after Obama's speech the group revisited its illegal immigrant provisions to make sure legislative language would enforce requirements for people to have valid Social Security numbers before getting government-subsidized coverage. "What we are trying to prevent is anyone who is here illegally from getting any federal benefit," Conrad told reporters. He didn't specify whether illegal immigrants would be allowed into the exchange, but Friday evening, a Democratic Finance Committee aide said that although nothing was finalized, the committee was expected to follow the White House's lead and bar illegal immigrants from the exchange.

Finance Committee aides will be working through the weekend to finalize language on illegal immigration and other issues, including abortion, medical malpractice and how much states must pay for a Medicaid expansion. It could become clear as early as Monday, when the group next meets, whether Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., gets the bipartisan deal he's been seeking for months.

SOURCE



Australia's Leftist government 'has lost border battle to smugglers'



The Federal Opposition has renewed calls for an inquiry into Australia's border protection laws, after another boat carrying suspected asylum seekers was intercepted off the northwest coast. Border Protection intercepted the vessel, carrying 83 passengers and four crew, at midnight AEST, Friday night about 80 nautical miles south of Ashmore Island. It is the second boat intercepted this week after a vessel carrying seven passengers was found in the same area on Monday.

Fifty-six Afghans trying to travel to Australia in a wooden boat were also detained in Indonesia this week, a navy official said on Friday.

Opposition spokeswoman for Immigration Sharman Stone said the Federal Government has "clearly lost the battle to people smugglers". It is the 30th boat that has been intercepted since the Rudd government "went soft" on border protection last August, she said on Saturday.

"For the sake of those risking their lives and to better protect Australia's orderly immigration program we must have a detailed analysis of what has gone wrong with Labor's strategy," Dr Stone said in a statement. "Again, I call for an urgent inquiry into the relationship between the Rudd government's softened stance on border protection and the surge in people smuggling in Australia."

SOURCE





13 September, 2009

Immigration pressures in Japan and Korea

Like the Japanese, Koreans have long held to the notion ethnicity is the same as nationality. Although both have regional dialects, they cherish homogeneity of language, culture and ethnicity.

But both have walked into a demographic trap, as falling birth rates and low-to-zero immigration mean population decline over coming decades. Japan's starts from a peak of 128 million people in 2005 and is likely to drop sharply to as low as 85 million to 95 million by mid-century.

According to South Korean projections, its population of 48 million will peak at 49.3 million in 2020, then fall to about 42 million in 2050 - about the same as in the late 1980s.

Nothing wrong with that, you might think, as both are extremely crowded. But by 2050, a third of their population will be aged 65 or over, a huge burden on the reduced taxpaying capabilities of the working-age groups. In South Korea, the old-age group is now just 11 per cent.

Japan has tried to fight the trend by turning to robots and automation, but in both countries demographics are forcing changes to the notions of ethnic homogeneity. Both now have substantial populations of foreigners, some legal, others not.

This week in Busan, the big southern port of Korea, I met Tran Thi Ngoc Thuy, 27, one of the increasing number of foreign women marrying Korean men. Such "multicultural" alliances have been between 11 and 13 per cent of all marriages in South Korea for the past several years.

That figure is partly due to young women postponing marriage to pursue their work and individual lives, and partly to an exodus of young women from rural areas. In the Korean countryside, about 40 per cent of marriages involve foreign wives. Most are arranged by agencies. Tran met her husband, a Busan office worker, on a double date when he was travelling through Vietnam. She was 22, he was 45, but she liked him.

Busan now has a network of offices to help wives from overseas, and the government has a media campaign to promote the idea of "multicultural families". "In the past Koreans used to have this obsession with homogeneity, that we are all of the same blood," said Lee Mi-Kyung, the manager of one of these welfare centres. "Now our surveys are showing that younger people are moving away from that idea."

The biggest sources of new wives are China and Vietnam, and some from other parts of South-East Asia, suggesting Koreans want partners who don't look very different and share a Confucian heritage on notions of family.

Both Japan and Korea have been experimenting with foreign temporary workers. Both have used "training schemes" that tended to be widely abused by employers, and used by many "trainees" to jump into the underground economy as illegal over-stayers. These have now changed to temporary work visas, but still with the expectation of eventual return.

In the vast Ansan industrial zone outside Seoul, Tran Van Chien, 31, is one of a dozen foreign workers at a grain-processing factory. He would like to stay in Korea, but is not allowed beyond two three-year stints. The foreign worker scheme makes it hard to change jobs, and thus bargain pay. Tran is aware Koreans doing the same work at the dock are paid substantially more.

Both Japan and South Korea now have substantial populations of illegal workers, perhaps 250,000 in each country, working on building sites and living in communal apartments while trying to avoid the frequent raids by immigration officials.

"The crackdowns are usually at bus stops and supermarkets, so they try to avoid these places," says Lee Miran, who helps run an NGO supporting migrant workers in Busan. "But it's a matter of luck or bad luck whether you get caught. They live with this anxiety every day."

Lee thinks the South Korean Government is showing "two faces" to foreigners: the welcoming face for the foreign wives, the hard face for workers. In Japan, the idea of consanguinity is still hanging on. Aside from the substantial Korean- and Chinese-descended groups, resulting from pre-1945 Japanese occupations, the largest foreign groups are Brazilians and then Filipinos.

But Japan is not loosening up as much as it might seem. The 290,000-odd Brazilians living in Japan qualified for work permits because of a Japanese parent or grandparent.

Still, second- or third-generation Japanese from Latin America come with other racial admixtures exotic to Japanese, bring Latin tastes to their host communities, and require local officials to help out in Portuguese or Spanish.

SOURCE



Afghans in Indonesia 'paid to return'

It looks like Australia's policy of seeking Indonesian co-operation in stopping illegals is paying off. The illegals arrive in Indonesia on regular airline flights from Pakistan and then pay people smugglers thousands of dollars to take them via small boats to Australia. So they are obviously far from destitute and already had refuge in Pakistan. So they are clearly economic migrants, not refugees. Afghans are primitive Muslims who customarily settle disputes with violence and respect no law other than the law of the tribe so are very undesirable as migrants

Hundreds of Afghan asylum seekers detained in Indonesia as they sought to reach Australia have been sent home in recent months after allegedly being offered a financial inducement. The Age newspaper says the asylum seekers desperate to flee their war-torn homeland had also allegedly been told they had next to no chance of being resettled in another country.

Indonesia's director for immigration law enforcement, Muchdor, told the newspaper 376 asylum seekers - almost all of them Afghans - had been repatriated recently, flown to Dubai and then Kabul under a program managed by the Jakarta office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The Age claims a surge in repatriations has prompted criticism from refugee advocates that the policy is endangering lives, and represents a recasting of the Howard government's abandoned Pacific Solution with a similarly inhumane "South-East Asian solution".

It comes as Indonesian authorities said they had detained 56 Afghans off the eastern island of Lombok who were attempting to travel by wooden boat to Australia. Three Indonesian boat crew were also arrested.

Australia provides funding for the IOM in Indonesia, including its repatriation programs. It also funds the detention centres that hold asylum seekers in Indonesia.

The Age reports that asylum seekers say they are placed under extreme pressure and feel they have no choice but to take up the offer to go back to Afghanistan, currently in the grip of its worst violence since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. "The IOM officials come around and they tell us 'don't bother, nothing is going to happen for you'," said one asylum seeker, who asked The Age not to be named. He said the IOM was offering individuals about $2000 in cash payments to return. It is understood that families get more.

Australia allocated $8 million for the IOM in this year's budget. A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Evans rejected the notion that the sharp increase in repatriations had been driven from Canberra.

SOURCE





12 September, 2009

Consensus: No Federal health insurance for illegals

For the moment, I want to step back from questions of lying, sincerity and deception. The big picture for the week is that the President's pledge to Congress that illegal aliens will not benefit from his federal health plan has pretty well established that everybody who is anybody agrees that it would be wrong to include illegal aliens.

That's a victory, folks. And it wasn't just the President. It seemed like nearly every congressional leader and most of the big media treated Mr. Obama's comments approvingly. In other words, they weren't disagreeing with the idea that illegal aliens and the businesses that hire them should NOT be subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.

The open-borders blogosphere is not at all happy about the Democratic Leadership's rush to declare illegal aliens ineligible. Some blogs are even accusing Pres. Obama of pandering to racism Wednesday night because he referred to "illegal immigrants" instead of "undocumented workers."

Your constant hard work the last six weeks in spotlighting this issue has pushed these leaders into pandering to U.S. citizens instead of pandering to illegal aliens!

Just a few months ago, most of those same leaders and media who are backing the President's no-illegal-coverage pledge this week were talking about the need to extend all kinds of benefits to illegal aliens. The whole craze for "comprehensive immigration reform" has been about bringing illegal aliens into every benefit of a U.S. citizen. Now, most of those same leaders are falling over themselves to tacitly acknowledge that would be wrong and to promise that there is no way that would happen on federal health insurance.

After all the pledges of non-coverage this week, isn't it going to be a bit awkward for them to turn around two months from now and say that Congress should pass a legalization law that would give the 12-20 million illegal aliens the full coverage of U.S. citizens under the new health plan?

The cost to taxpayers would be the same whether they are included as illegal aliens or whether their status is changed to legal residents. The Center for Immigration Studies estimated this week that the increase in cost either way would be around $26 billion a year.

Much of the media have been typically frustrating in their unprofessional, non-objective coverage of this issue, with many of them blindly just declaring that the House bill would not cover illegal aliens.

But the public is far more aware of the idea that the bill does not require verification. The verification concept slipped into a lot of the news reports. Solomon Gifford on our staff noted these items from Thursday's websites:

* Factcheck.org is now saying "Republicans have a point here" and talks about the two verification amendments voted down.

* CBSnews.com front page story is actually saying that we should have more debate like Joe Wilson. A second "fact check" article claims Obama is right, but says that Republicans are saying there's not enough verification.

* MSNBC's website (link from homepage) claims Obama is right but admits there is no verification.

* Washington Times (front page story) at least mentions the fact that the Republicans have submitted two bills, voted down by Democrats, that would have required verification.

* CNN's fact check sides with Obama, but at least it quotes Wilson's reasons including the word verification when talking about the two defeated bills.

Friends, we are not getting anything close to balanced and fair coverage, but because of your constant efforts with fax, phone and attendance at meetings, the verification issue is breaking through.

Remember that on just Tuesday of this week, the Obama Administration finally ended its battle to water down a new regulation mandating that federal contractors use E-Verify to keep illegal aliens out of jobs. We won.

Mr. Obama may be under great pressure from the radical wing of his party to prevent verification on health care, but Sen. Baucus (D-Montana) seems to have gotten the message and is promising some kind of verification in the Senate bill. We'll help you keep the pressure on the Senate to do just that.

Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the big media want us to believe that we don't need verification because we can trust illegal aliens not to lie and violate a law that says they shouldn't participate in the federal health plan.

We are supposed to trust illegal aliens who have paid thousands of dollars to participate in a criminal conspiracy to get into the country in the first place -- or they have lied on their tourist, temporary worker and student visa applications and broken their visa promises to go home by a stated date. We are supposed to trust the illegal aliens who have lied on their work application to break the law and obtain jobs. Who have stolen U.S. citizens' identities and have participated in criminal counterfeiting conspiracies to obtain jobs. But somehow, according to Nancy Pelosi, these same people wouldn't think of violating a written paragraph in the health care law that says they are ineligible to participate.

Hahahaha. That Nancy Pelosi is such a kidder!

Verification is the key to everything regarding immigration policies. The American people have learned that unless full-scale verification is mandated in a law, enforcement will NOT happen. The 1986 amnesty proved that. And every other immigration law has, too.

That is why the Rasmussen poll early this week found that more than 80% of Americans say there should be verification procedures to keep illegal aliens out of any health care plan.

SOURCE See the original for links



Controversy over Obama speech underscores cost of health care for illegal immigrants in California

The latest dust-up over President Barack Obama's health-care-for-all mission — the congressman who angrily called Obama a liar during a nationally televised speech — underscored conservatives' fears that illegal immigrants would benefit from efforts to expand coverage. But if immigrant-rich California is any indication, there are already millions of undocumented immigrants on publicly funded health plans — and it comes at a cost to taxpayers.

While the vast majority of federal benefit programs bar those who cannot present proof of citizenship, California has been more generous than other states. Taxpayers here contribute more than $1 billion each year to cover the health care costs of those who are in the country illegally.

The California Department of Health Care Services estimates 768,400 undocumented immigrants will receive coverage this fiscal year through Medi-Cal, the health program funded by state and federal tax money. The cost: $1.2 billion. While people without documentation aren't eligible for the full menu of comprehensive health care other low-income residents receive, those who show up at emergency rooms are covered.

Another state and federally funded program, Access for Infants and Mothers, serves pregnant women whose income is slightly higher than Medi-Cal eligibility allows. That program enrolls 12,000 women statewide at a cost of $123 million, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office. Some participants are presumed to be undocumented, said Lisa Murawski of the analyst's office, although no questions are asked.

According to the most recent estimates by the Public Policy Institute of California, there were 2.8 million illegal immigrants here in 2006 — one-quarter of the nation's total.

Whether the public's investment in health care for illegal immigrants is worth the expense remains the subject of debate.

Immigrant-rights advocates and public health officials argue that providing basic medical care to all prevents more costly emergency services and stems the spread of infectious disease. Critics assert that providing health benefits to illegal immigrants entices them into the country and squanders precious public dollars.

The president made clear in his address to Congress this week that he has no intention of making access for the undocumented any easier. "There are those who claim our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants — this too is false," Obama said, to which Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, shouted: "You lie!"

Republican critics says the proposed legislation does not do enough to ensure government dollars won't flow to those who are here illegally. Wilson said Thursday that GOP efforts to toughen the bill by requiring verification of citizenship were defeated by Democrats in Congress. Indeed in California, some programs ask, and some don't. Emergency rooms here and across the country guarantee care because federal law bars hospitals from refusing service, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.

The number of undocumented immigrants seeking care at emergency rooms is often difficult to tease out, because they aren't tallied separately from other uninsured patients.

More HERE





11 September, 2009

Illegal Immigrants Get U.S. Health Care Even When Nobody Lies

Obama was called a liar over this issue during his recent speech to Congress

Illegal immigrants in the U.S. won’t gain insurance benefits under the proposed health-care overhaul that President Barack Obama described yesterday to Congress.

That may not stop some uninsured and undocumented U.S. residents from getting government help paying for their health care, Republican critics said. Current proposals lack enforcement provisions to ensure that ineligible applicants are kept from programs, causing a gap between law and practice, according to a group seeking curbs on immigration.

Benefits for immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally have been among the most contentious issues in Congress during debates on immigration policy. The dispute spilled into health care during Obama’s address when U.S. Representative Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, shouted “You lie!” after the president said his proposed changes “would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

“President Obama is correct that the legislation that has been proposed in Congress, the legislation that he’s considering, would not provide federal subsidies for the undocumented,” said Leighton Ku, a professor of health policy at George Washington University in Washington, in a telephone interview. “Can some people cheat? Some people can cheat at virtually anything.”

How many ineligible residents may get U.S. help paying for health care is in contention. The Center for Immigration Studies, the Washington-based policy group that advocates for greater immigration controls, estimates that as many as 6.6 million uninsured illegal immigrants could get federal subsidies for health insurance under legislation in the House, at a cost of as much as $30.5 billion a year.

‘Unenforced’ Ban

“As it now stands, the bill has a ban on illegal immigrants, but Congress has chosen to leave that ban unenforced,” Steven Camarota, director of research for the Washington-based group, wrote in the report issued this month.

Ku says the number that may cheat the system is likely to be much lower. “I doubt it would be anywhere in that range,” he said. Providing coverage to illegal immigrants “is not the intent of the legislation.” [Intent is not the issue. Effect is the issue]

While methods of checking eligibility may not have been specified in the proposal, “there are relatively straightforward ways to monitor it that the federal government” has used before, such as requiring and confirming Social Security numbers, Ku said.

There are 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants currently in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center in Washington. Fifty-nine percent of adults illegally in the U.S. had no health insurance in 2007, double the proportion of legal immigrants, and four times that of U.S.-born adults, the organization said in an April report.

SOURCE



British Visa sham as just 29 out of 66,000 applicants from Pakistan interviewed despite supposed 'crackdown'

What a pack of frauds the British Labour Party government are!

Visa checks on immigrants from Pakistan have been condemned as a sham. Figures showed that just 29 out of 66,000 applicants were interviewed by officials since a 'rigorous new system' began operating last October. The Home Office set up the 'hub and spoke' scheme last year to prevent terrorists, extremists, illegals and criminals from entering the UK. The plan was to scrutinise candidates' paper work in the Middle East before they travelled to Britain. But data has revealed that just one in a thousand of those granted visas was quizzed face to face.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has also admitted that not one applicant faced a telephone interview in the first nine months of the scheme.

The Tories said the statistics were proof that Britain's immigration controls are 'wholly inadequate'.

Gordon Brown and MI5 boss Jonathan Evans have stated publicly that militants from Pakistan are the biggest terrorist threat to Britain and the country is classified as a 'high risk' for visas by the Home Office. Under the new arrangements entry requests by Pakistani and Afghan nationals are checked for fraud and forgery in Islamabad and are then passed to a processing centre in Abu Dhabi. The Home Office said the system has raised the visa refusal rate for Pakistani citizens from 32 per cent in 2006 to 44 per cent by the end of last year.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'There are very real concerns that the system is being abused by people who have no right to come to the UK.'

Home Secretary Alan Johnson admitted in June that all passports of Pakistani applicants are checked, but not always their other paperwork. In July it emerged that the 'hubs' employ just 11 entry and clearance officers and two managers, meaning they have on average 11 minutes to examine each application. The Home Office says a further 200 backroom staff process paperwork but the shortage of frontline immigration officers contributes to the small number of applicants quizzed.

Phil Woolas, Minister of State for Borders and Immigration, said: 'Trained officers check 100 per cent of passports submitted with applications in Pakistan.'

SOURCE





10 September, 2009

Israel's illegal Palestinian workforce

Israel has handed out 21,600 work permits to Palestinians. But an estimated 40,000 risk their lives to enter the country and work illegally

Before dawn, a crackling sound breaks up the cool, still air, as boots tread over rocks on a four-mile-long path that leads hundreds of illegal Palestinian workers into Israel each day. None holds an Israeli work permit and as the labourers make their way from the occupied West Bank, they risk a dangerous run-in with Israeli paramilitary border police.

The small Arab village of Beit Iksa , nestled among foothills and surrounded by Jewish settlements, opens out to a dark panorama of Jerusalem studded by twinkling street lights. But it's not the view that beckons Palestinian labourers from every corner of the West Bank. "They all come here because this is the only place without a wall around it," says an undocumented worker who declined to give his real name but identified himself as Abu Omar. Beit Iksa is not enclosed by the Israeli barrier that snakes through the West Bank, making it a transit point for many seeking to enter illegally for work.

Israel, rocked by suicide bombings in its cities during a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, says the network of concrete walls, wire fences and ditches is a security measure that has prevented attacks by militants. Palestinians call it a land grab and the World Court has deemed the barrier illegal because it cuts through territory Israel occupied in a 1967 war.

For Palestinian workers, the barrier means that what was once a simple journey into Israel is now a dangerous commute that can take four hours or more, as they take measures to evade armed border patrols. Many of these Palestinian labourers have worked inside Israel for 15 to 20 years and don't want to lose their jobs.

Around 21,600 Palestinian labourers hold Israeli work permits, but between 35,000 and 40,000 undocumented workers enter illegally, according to the Palestinian Workers' Union. In 2009, the unemployment rate in the occupied West Bank has ranged from 19.5 to 15.9, which the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics says reflects availability in seasonal agricultural work.

"Sometimes I will get in once during the course of a week, and then I'll stay in Jerusalem for the week. And some weeks, I don't get in at all," said one worker. "Each time you do it, you're risking your life," Abu Omar said. "If one of those soldiers is a bad guy, he might shoot at you while you're going through the mountains. No one can do anything about it, that's it."

Workers who get into Israel on a regular basis make about 2,000 to 5,000 shekels (£320 to £800) a month. "I get 4,000 to 5,000 shekels a month now. If I worked in Ramallah (in the West Bank) I'd get 1,400 shekels," said one woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Doesn't that seem worth the risk? Even if it's exhausting, or you have to sneak in, when I come home and I have enough money to take care of my kids, any feeling of guilt disappears. I forget the exhaustion."

Now, even Beit Iksa is being closed in. Israeli border police have installed a checkpoint at its entrance and Palestinians pay 20 shekels to get smuggled through. One smuggler, who takes workers into Israel via a different route, said tactics have to be changed constantly. "We used to just use old Fords for transit," said the smuggler. "Then we started to use nice cars, to try and make it look like a tourism company, but they figured that out. Then we started putting Israeli flags on the cars, and the driver would wear a Jewish skullcap, but they've figured that out too."

The trip can deplete a worker's salary by as much as 50 per cent each month when tallied with other transportation costs. Many undocumented workers say they have been shot at by border police while trying to sneak across the border or beaten after being caught.

Palestinians who smuggle workers into Israel face heavy fines of up to 10,000 shekels and a six-month jail sentence for a first offence. "But we'll keep going," one smuggler said. "One guy gets caught, we just bring in someone else to drive. He gets caught, we bring in the next one."

SOURCE



Mayor Nagin to illegals: You're welcome in New Orleans

Undocumented workers who are victims or witnesses to crimes won’t risk deportation if they come forward, Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Wednesday. The two city leaders have joined a national effort by a group called the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative encouraging comprehensive immigration reform in the US. Undocumented workers have become a large part of the workforce since Katrina.

"We want to say that you're welcome in New Orleans. You're welcome in this country. And we want to make sure from a law enforcement perspective, we want to make sure that whatever happens, you're treated fairly, you're treated as any other citizen of this community,” said Mayor Nagin at an afternoon press conference at Police Headquarters.

Riley said his officers will continue their practice of not asking victims and witnesses their immigration status. “We want them to know, that unless they are the violator or the perpetrator, there is no threat of deportation or arrest as it relates to the New Orleans Police Department,” Riley said. “A person who commits a crime regardless if being a migrant worker or not, they'll face the consequences regardless.”

They joined the former Chief of Sacramento's Police Department, now the leader of a special interest group targeting immigration reform. “We need to figure out, we need to create a legal status for ten to twelve million folks in this country. It is not practical, and anyone who thinks we're gonna get into the mass deportation of ten to twelve million people, they're unrealistic,” said Arturo Venegas, creator of the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative, a group that’s been pushing public support of immigration reform from police chiefs across the United States.

Representatives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans also showed their support. “We know that the issue of comprehensive immigration reform needs to be taken a look at soon. Asap. The sooner the better. The Catholic church stands behind this effort and knows that our immigration laws are broken and need to be repaired,” said Martin Gutierrez, Director of Hispanic Ministries for Catholic Charities.

Post-Katrina, New Orleans' population of undocumented workers has boomed. How much is the great unknown and that has city leaders once again asking for the workers’ help. “We need them to come forward to solve crimes to help them feel like New Orleanians, like our citizens,” Riley said.

The most common crimes that illegal immigrants report are contractors not paying them for their work and robberies, according to Hispanic community activists.

Riley said he has not talked to federal officials recently, either the US Attorney, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders, about his position on deportation and immigration reform.

SOURCE





9 September, 2009

"Town Hall" Heat Follows Congress to Washington

47 Talk Radio Hosts Arrive in Capital to Demand Immigration Reform without Amnesty for Illegal Aliens

Members of Congress returning to Washington after facing irate constituents are likely to get little relief as 47 talk radio hosts follow them to the capital for a two-day national radio-thon on September 15 and 16. For the fourth consecutive year, many of the nation's leading talk radio personalities will be participating in Hold Their Feet to the Fire 2009 to remind Congress and the new administration that rampant illegal immigration and efforts to grant amnesty to millions of law-breakers remain hot button issues for the American public.

Organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Radio America Networks' Roger Hedgecock, the participating talk hosts will hold a two-day dialogue with listeners about critical immigration policy issues. Broadcasting from a single location on Capitol Hill, they will discuss key issues, including the cost and impact of continued illegal immigration on jobs, wages, education, the environment and national security, the loopholes within America's Affordable Health Care Act of 2009 allowing illegal aliens access to tax-payer funded benefits, needed reauthorization of E-Verify, and the Obama Administration's plans for amnesty.

As in previous years at Hold Their Feet to the Fire, talk hosts will interview members of Congress, immigration experts, high profile media personalities, and activists. The event also features the annual We the People awards reception honoring those who have made significant contributions towards true immigration reform.

"While expanding benefits for illegal aliens, this administration is simultaneously dismantling immigration enforcement and systematically laying the groundwork for yet another massive amnesty bill," said Bob Dane, Communications Director of FAIR and Event Manager of Hold Their Feet to the Fire 2009. "Powerful special interests are lobbying to stop immigration enforcement, pass mass amnesty legislation, and import more foreign guest workers with no regard to the plight of the American worker or our national security. Radio talk hosts representing millions of Americans will speak on their behalf, and their collective voice is a voice that roars."

The above is a press release from Federation for American Immigration Reform, 25 Massachusetts Avenue - Suite 330 Washington DC, 20001, Office 202-328-7004 www.fairus.org. Contact Dustin Carnevale at 202-328-7004 for details of the above. Founded in 1979, FAIR is the oldest and largest immigration reform group in America. FAIR fights for immigration policies that enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs and wages and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.



Health Bill Could Benefit 6.6 Million Illegals

Study: Potential Cost to Taxpayers Up to $31 Billion

As President Obama addresses the nation on health care reform, a new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that 6.6 million uninsured illegal immigrants could receive benefits under the House health reform bill (H.R. 3200). While the bill states that illegal immigrants are not eligible for the new taxpayer-funded affordability credits, there is nothing in the bill to enforce this provision. Congress defeated efforts to require the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. More than 70 other programs of this kind use SAVE.

The report is available HERE. Among the findings:

* In 2007, there were an estimated 6.6 million illegal immigrants without health insurance who had incomes below 400 percent of poverty, which is the income ceiling for the new affordability premium credits.

* If all uninsured illegal immigrants with incomes below 400 percent of poverty received the new credits, the estimated cost to the federal government would be $30.5 billion annually.

* The current cost of treating uninsured illegal immigrants at all levels of government is an estimated $4.3 billion a year, primarily at emergency rooms and free clinics.

* On July 16 an amendment by Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV) that would have required the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving the affordability credits was defeated by the House Ways and Means Committee.

* At present 71 other means-tested federal programs require use of the SAVE system to prevent illegal immigrants and other ineligible non-citizens from accessing them.

* Even though there is no mechanism to prevent enrollment, it is likely that many income-eligible illegal immigrants would not enroll out of fear or lack of knowledge of the new programs. Thus the actual costs would be less than the maximum estimate of $30.5 billion. However, if illegal immigrants are legalized and could receive affordability credits, a much larger percentage would be expected to enroll, with a corresponding increase in costs.

* Uninsured illegal immigrants tend to use less in health care on average than others without health insurance because they tend to be young. This fact is incorporated into the current cost estimate of $4.3 billion. However, government-provided affordability credits paid to insurance companies are the same for everyone regardless of age or preexisting conditions. Therefore, the younger age of illegals does not result in lower average costs for taxpayers for this program.

* It is also worth noting that the report estimates that 38 percent of illegal immigrants had health insurance in 2007. Additionally, the report estimates that there are at least 360,000 uninsured illegal immigrants with incomes above 400 percent of poverty who would not qualify for benefits under H.R. 3200.

* It is also possible that illegal immigrants could benefit from the expansion of Medicaid under H.R. 3200. The bill does not require identity verification for those claiming U.S. birth. Of illegal immigrants with incomes under 400 percent of poverty, about half live under 133 percent of poverty, which is the new ceiling for Medicaid eligibility.

* On July 30 an amendment by Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) that would have required identity variation for those claiming U.S. birth was defeated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Methodology: To estimate the number of illegal immigrants in the United States this report uses the March 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS) collected by the Census Bureau. While the CPS does not ask the foreign-born if they are legal residents, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), former INS, and other outside researchers have all used socio-demographic characteristics in Census Bureau data to estimate the size of the illegal alien population; this report follows the same approach. The March CPS also asks about income and health insurance coverage and on this basis the report estimates the share of low-income illegal immigrants who are without health insurance coverage. By design these estimates of the size and characteristics of the illegal-immigrant population match those researchers.

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. For more information, contact Steven Camarota at (202) 466-8185 or sac@cis.org.





8 September, 2009

Big problems in Greece too

Tens of thousands of migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East attempt to cross by boat to Greece's Aegean islands each year, with many ending up in squalid camps. Humanitarian groups have condemned the situation as "shocking".

While the country trades on an image of carefree summer holidays, sun-kissed sandy beaches and being the cradle of Western civilization, its picturesque holiday destinations and historic capital have become tainted by the crisis. Such is the scale of the problem that the country has become Europe's main gateway for illegal immigration, accounting for nearly half of those trying to reach the European Union.

Many migrants try to scrape a living as street hawkers in Greece's big cities before heading to the port of Patras where they seek to smuggle themselves on lorries bound for ferries sailing to Italian ports. Others have crammed into abandoned buildings in central Athens, just a few blocks from the Acropolis, generating fears of a social crisis as Greece teeters on the brink of recession. "The Greek capital has become a landfill of human misery and cannot absorb any more illegal immigrants," said Yannis Sgouros, the prefect of Athens.

While the government has ordered raids on the shanty towns and cleared out some occupied buildings in the capital this summer, Greece's failure to tackle the problem sooner has led to a spate of violent attacks against immigrants by hate groups, and a surge of support for an ultranationalist political party.

Its vulnerability to trafficking, due in part to the difficulty of patrolling the seas around its islands, has made it the soft underbelly of Europe for the traffickers and those seeking to make their way to Britain and other western European nations illegally.

In May, riot police had to break up clashes between far-Right extremists who attacked hundreds of North African immigrant squatters living in an old courthouse in the heart of Athens, a few blocks from one of its main squares. Last month police evicted around 600 immigrants from the courthouse. But a hotel off one of the city's main squares has subsequently been taken over by migrants. The police have admitted that the area had become a nest of drug dealers, prostitutes and petty criminals. In July the authorities also razed a shanty town in the western port of Patras where hundreds of mostly Afghan migrants lived, hoping to travel by ferry to Italy.

Welfare groups condemned the bulldozing of the camp, which had been constructed from scrap metal and wood and even had its own mosque, as "barbaric". But the port remains a key exit point for migrants hoping to continue their journey westwards and the efforts of the Greek authorities have failed to stop the country being a magnet for those seeking entry to other EU countries.

The main route for immigrants is from neighbouring Turkey – in places the two countries are separated by just a mile of open water. Greece says it detained more than 146,000 illegal immigrants in 2008, a 30 per cent increase from the previous year and 54 per cent up on 2006. But it now has the highest number of illegal entries each year in the EU, followed by Italy and Spain.

In an attempt to stop clandestine boats from landing on Greek soil, coast guard patrols use radar, satellite navigation, and sophisticated night-vision equipment, backed up by army observation posts on mountain tops. But even when boat people are detected, they are typically held for several months and then released with a formal order to leave the country in three weeks. Many end up staying, slipping beneath the authorities' radar and taking casual jobs in a desperate attempt to raise enough money to get to other parts of the EU, often Italy.

Last week the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said its staff were "shocked" at the conditions of a detention centre on the island of Lesbos. UNHCR staff said one room housed over 150 women and 50 babies, many suffering from illness related to the cramped and unsanitary conditions. "The situation is indicative of broader problems relating to irregular migration and Greece's asylum system," said a UNHCR spokesman in Geneva.

Conditions in official detention centres and makeshift shanty camps are now so bad that some Afghan refugees believe they are better off back in their war-torn country and have agreed to be flown home, said Asan Sukuri, the president of an Afghan community association.

The Greek government has defended its record, saying it is being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of migrants and cannot cope. With 16,000 miles of coastline, authorities say it is impossible to block migrants reaching Greek soil. Dora Bacoyannis, the foreign minister, said: "The pressure from illegal immigration has become unbearable from the eastern Aegean".

SOURCE



Illegal Alien Commended By Federal Judge

As Director of Government Relations for NumbersUSA, I am used to outrageous statements from Members of Congress. But I was truly shocked recently when I witnessed a federal judge commend an illegal-alien felon in federal court.

A few weeks ago, I was in Federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia supporting a government whistleblower. While we were waiting for the judge to call the whistleblower’s case, we listened to a case that perfectly illustrates the failure of the Federal government to take our immigration laws seriously...

The case involved an illegal alien from El Salvador who was first deported from the United States in 2005. The alien then reentered the United States illegally (a felony that, by itself, carries a penalty of fines, up to two years' imprisonment and a five-year ban on reentry) and was eventually arrested on a theft charge. He pled guilty to the charge (another felony) and was charged with reentry after removal and, once again, put into removal proceedings. By the time his case came before the federal judge in Virginia, he had spent a total of just over four months in detention.

The judge explained the charges against the illegal alien and asked if he understood that he could face a lengthy prison term if he pled guilty. He said he understood. Then the judge asked if he had anything he wanted to say. Since the illegal alien spoke no English, his attorney explained that he had only come here to earn money to send home to his wife and children in El Salvador and he was pleading guilty in the hopes of being released quickly from detention so he could go back to providing for his family.

To my surprise, the judge sentenced the illegal-alien felon to the four months that he had already served. Then, the judge commended him for all he had done (by breaking U.S. laws-both immigration and criminal) to support his family back in El Salvador!

Very little shocks me after spending 20 years in Washington, but I have to admit that I am shocked at a federal judge who thinks it is commendable to violate U.S. law when it serves one's own economic needs.

I would not, however, be shocked to learn that this particular illegal alien is already back in Virginia, perhaps even working at his former job. For him, as for millions of others, it is absolutely worth risking illegal entry to the United States (or illegally overstaying a visa) because even if you commit a crime, the U.S. court system will let you off and sing your praises while they do it. I have no doubt that that federal judge taught him a lesson he will live (here) by for a long time!

SOURCE





7 September, 2009

Most illegal immigrants "cannot" be deported from Sweden

They would soon "volunteer " to be sent back if they were incarcerated under onerous conditions

AN illegal immigrant who scored a big win with a lottery scratch card in Sweden has appeared on television to collect his winnings even though authorities have been trying to deport him. Tesfaldet Tesloy, a 28-year-old Eritrean who has lived in the immigrant-friendly Nordic country for six years, won a tax-free prize of 1.2 million Swedish crown ($166,300).

Sweden's attempts to deport the man have failed due to his country's refusal to take him back. Sweden says it has about 12,000 people awaiting deportation. Of those, Tesloy is one of hundreds living illegally in Sweden who cannot be sent home because their home countries refuse to have them back unless they agree to being deported.

Countries such as Iran, Cuba and the east African nation of Eritrea all ignore or refuse to cooperate with the deportation orders, leaving the immigrants stuck in a legal no-man's land.

One immigration official described the deportation process as "difficult", since few immigrants who come to Sweden seeking political refuge can be convinced to leave voluntarily. "They are not allowed to be here ... and we are unable to deport them, and they won't to leave voluntarily," Leo Garpenhielm at the Stockholm County Border Police said.

While Tesloy's lucky lottery break was deemed entirely legal by the Swedish National Lottery, he is not allowed to work in Sweden. He has now plans to become a licensed physical therapist.

SOURCE



Conversation With a Farmer

Recently, an article in a large newspaper caught my eye with a quote from a farmer in words that were so perfect for the “comprehensive reform” amnesty crowd that it seemed like a lobbyist had coached him on what to say. So, over a 2-week period I tried to contact him, and finally caught up with him a couple of days ago. Our conversation illuminates how decent family farmers have gotten mixed up with the amnesty lobby.

He really is a farmer, a 73 year-old, extremely vigorous and hard-working man. He himself worked in the fields as a picker in the 1950s and early 1960s. He said in 1956 he made as much as $30 for a 12-hour day when he was pitching peas into a viner. I went to the inflation calculator at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It says $30 is like $237 today. Today, the farmer said, a good picker working a 12 hour day can make $120, even $150 per day. So, farmers today are paying pickers $120 to $150 a day for work that earned this farmer the equivalent of $237 in 1956.

He says American kids and American professional pickers (itinerant pickers who went where the growing season took them) used to work in the fields, but that began to stop in 1967 when Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program was enacted. "Well Johnson said, 'You don't have to do that anymore. That's below your dignity. Great Society. Stay home and the government will take care of you.' " He said that since 1970-71, the only people who show up to work are from south of the border.

We talked about the federal budget deficit and $36 trillion national debt and I speculated that the entire Great Society system may collapse and you will see Americans in the fields again. He said something like, "How long will that take? I need workers now. Today, everybody feels entitled."

I asked if he knows about the H-2A program that provides an unlimited number of visas to temporary/seasonal farm workers. I mentioned that the government says that they gave the program a major streamlining in December 2008. He said that the program is so hard to use that farmers need to have independent contractors do the paperwork for them, and that means extra fees they really cannot afford.

This what most farmers around the country say, although the farmers of North Carolina put together a cooperative that takes care of the visas and find the H-2A program to work just fine for them

His wife said that if she hadn’t had a government job for over 20 years, they would have nothing. He said he lost $200,000 last year because the price of Apples plummeted due to the Chinese flooding the market with low cost apple concentrate. He said he is getting killed financially between taxation and the large corporate growers who come in and buy up land, then sell the produce at cost in order to drive the other growers into financial distress so they will sell their land. He said he knows 7 good independent farmers who have recently thrown in the towel. He may have to do so soon.

What this farmer wants is a temporary jobs program that lets workers in, and then lets them return to their countries. He says that farmworkers are bringing their families here because it is so hard to get back across the border when the season is over. So they smuggle in their families so they can be together. He basically wants the farm workers at his door and doesn't want to have to pay the transport costs.

Unfortunately, the media is full of quotes and stories from farmers like this one who are backing an amnesty for all of their illegal workers instead of working to use the legal guestworker program that is available to them.

NumbersUSA agrees that there ought to be some modifications in the H-2A program to make it easier for farmers to use and to ensure rapid response at the last minute if a farmer can't find the workers to bring in a crop. But the amnesty lobby has been holding H-2A reform hostage. The amnesty lobby doesn't want the agriculture problem solved, because they know that if the farmers have their problem solved, they will exit the “comprehensive reform” coalition. They are basically saying that the farmers must support amnesty in order to get their problem solved. But without the amnesty lobby, the farmers’ problems could be solved very quickly. All the talk of “comprehensive reform” means holding up other reforms that could be made now so they can build a coalition for passing an amnesty.

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6 September, 2009

ICE audit leads to mass firing

This may simply force more Hispanics into casual work -- something already common among them. The Bush era raids did lead to deportations but none seem to be contemplated in this case. Interesting that a Jewish employer was a major target under Bush and now also under Obama. A sign of general Jewish dislike of immigration controls?



Hundreds of American Apparel Inc. workers must leave the company because they were unable to prove their immigration status or fix problems with their employment records, the company said Wednesday. The terminations come two months after the Los Angeles manufacturer and retailer announced that a government inspection had found that about 1,600 of its workers didn't appear to be authorized to work in the U.S. About 200 more had been found to have discrepancies in their employment records. Among the infractions found were some employees' use of fake Social Security numbers.

"There are approximately 1,500 workers facing termination during the month of September," said Peter Schey, a lawyer for American Apparel. The company "is very disappointed and disheartened at having to terminate a very large number of workers who by and large have been reliable contributors to the success of the company." All of the affected workers are based at the company's manufacturing facility in downtown Los Angeles, Schey said.

In a letter to employees, founder and Chief Executive Dov Charney said he was "deeply saddened" at having to let workers go. "Many of you have been with me for so many years, and I just cry when I think that so many people will be leaving the company," he wrote. "It is my belief that immigrants bring prosperity to any economy." Charney also told the workers that once they were able to get their immigration papers in order, they would be "given priority treatment" for positions with the company, known for its racy advertising, colorful clothes and support for immigration reform.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to discuss American Apparel specifically, saying the federal agency was "not at liberty to discuss fines levied in work site enforcement cases until the fine amount becomes final." She did say that in general, employers were responsible for dismissing unauthorized workers. "There's no direct order from ICE to terminate an employee," she said. "But if a company continues to employ individuals who are not authorized to work, they understand there may be potential legal consequences."

Kice also declined to speculate on what would happen to illegal workers once they left a company. "The focus is on the employer . . . on ensuring that businesses employ a legal workforce," she said. "Then again, if someone is in this country in violation of immigration laws, they are subject to enforcement action."

Although the dismissals amount to more than 10% of American Apparel's roughly 10,000-employee workforce, the company doesn't expect problems for its business, Schey said. "We do not anticipate that it will have a significant impact on American Apparel's productivity because of the confluence of several factors including the slow economy and high preexisting inventory levels," he said.

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Controversy over Italian policy

This will cement Berlusconi's already high approval ratings in Italy. Berlusconi's activities with the ladies don't bother Italians much but an influx of high-crime immigrants certainly does bother them. There must be many Italians who are breathing a sigh of relief over having a leader who is tough on immigration. Since the Italian Left is much more wishy washy on the issue, Berlusconi probably has his job as long as he wants it

The European Commission last week rejected criticism from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is threatening to block EU business after Brussels questioned Rome's treatment of asylum seekers. "When there are problems which affect a member state, such as Italy, we must ask for a number of explanations, information, that's what we did early this summer," EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot said, adding he was awaiting a reply.

The row centres around reports that Italian coastguards on Sunday turned back a boatload of 75 migrants off the coast of the island of Sicily. The migrants, thought to be Somali, were travelling in a rubber dinghy which was intercepted by coastguards around 44 kilometres (27 miles) from Sicily's shores. The group, which included 15 women and three children, was transferred to an Italian police patrol boat and sent back immediately to Libya.

Berlusconi on Tuesday reacted angrily to the European Commission's enquiries into the incident. The "voice of Europe," he said, must be expressed exclusively by the president of the commission or his immediate spokesperson. If this did not happen, he added, he would "block the functioning of the European Council."

Speaking on the margins of a commemoration of the start of the Second World War 70 years ago, he called on EU commissioners and their spokespeople not to "publicly intervene any more on any issue". Only commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and his spokesman should be allowed to comment, Berlusconi said, speaking in the Polish city of Gdansk. "If commissioners and spokesmen continue as they have done all these years, they should be fired in a definitive manner," he said. Otherwise "we will suspend our vote, blocking the functioning of the European Council."

Barrot defended the functioning of the commission, which is the EU's executive arm and helps draw up legislation and monitor compliance with European Union rules. "We are acting within our role... I don't think this merits dwelling on matters which I believe are irrelevant," he told reporters in Brussels.

Barrot defended a commission spokesman who had been dealing with the justice portfolio temporarily, saying he had only reminded the media that asylum seekers who are vulnerable should not be turned back without having their cases examined. The EU Commissioner stressed that while no one was as yet criticising Italy, the problem with sending boatloads back was that they often had legitimate refugees travelling alongside illegal immigrants.

The EU Commissioner also strongly rejected Italian criticism that the European Commission was not doing enough to help countries such as Italy and Malta which are in the frontline of Europe's immigration problem given their proximity to Africa and the Middle East.

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5 September, 2009

'The Jungle' may be closed by French Immigration Minister within a month

Britain could clear the "jungle" within 24 hours by eliminating the generous welfare payments that "asylum seekers" get as soon as they arrive



The sordid and lawless area of wasteground populated by Afghan and Iraqi migrants near Calais could be razed to the ground this month. French Immigration Minister Eric Besson is quoted as saying that 'The Jungle' will be raised at the end of September or the beginning of October. The minister pledged to evict an estimated 1,000 squatters in what he called ‘an open and first rate operation’.

The squatters, some of whom have been camping in huts and tents for over a year, will be moved on by CRS riot police but openly and in the presence of social workers and interpreters, he said.

Afghans and Iraqis first began living in The Jungle, which is close to the Calais ferry terminal, after the 2002 closure of the Sangatte Red Cross centre by Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then Interior Minister.

M Besson first promised to clear the Jungle in the spring of this year after numerous complaints by residents and businesses in the area of theft, violence and intimidation. The minister said the clean-out would begin 'once all the right conditions have been met'.

Last summer a Canadian journalist was raped by an Afghan people smuggler and recently a young Frenchwoman with a baby was indecently assaulted. Truck drivers are regularly beaten up by gangs of migrants when they attempt to prevent them leaping onto their trailers.

This summer hundreds of squatters were treated for scabies. There have also been isolated cases of tuberculosis amongst the jungle residents. Improved security and cross border controls at Calais have made it increasingly difficult for migrants to stow away on lorries. As a result ever-increasing numbers of migrants congregate at Calais and other cross Channel ferry ports and in an area of Paris known as ‘Little Kabul’.

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Google Censors Illegal Immigration Information On Web

The widely disseminated press release from ALIPAC below is from a couple of weeks back and is now out of date in that Google have now ceased the harassment concerned -- but the fact that it happened at all is troubling

WARNING! Google is now blocking the worlds largest archive of information about the negative impact of illegal immigration on American citizens from view via false warnings of Malware. The ALIPAC site is not infected and is safe for use.

Public access to the extensive information archived by ALIPAC over the last five years has been blocked on Google, by Firefox web browsers, and on Twitter! "Google's own software admits we have no viruses or malware on our site," said William Gheen of ALIPAC. "The readings indicate that Google scanned our site on the 19th and we were clean and now they are arbitrarily blocking us for the second time this week. Our technicians tell us our site is clean and Google will not offer us any explanation or assistance despite mulitple attemps to reach out to them."

ALIPAC is now declaring an emergency and making the claim that the blocking of alipac.us is politically motivated and involves wrongful acts by Google employees or the broader influences within the Google corporation. All other major online virus protection services are declaring that ALIPAC.us is not infected including Norton Antivirus, McAfee, and AVAST.

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt is an active member of President Barack Obama's campaign. Google has also hired the widely discredited left wing progaganda group called the Anti Defamation League to police political content on Google and Youtube. Google employees that are H1B visa holders replacing American workers are regularly seen on pro Amnesty websites plotting against ALIPAC!

"We are seeing a clear and orchestrated pattern of censorship across American emanating from the Obama administration and the Open Borders Lobby that plans to launch new AMNESTY legislation within two weeks," said William Gheen. "If you type in 'illegal immigration' on Google you see large advertisement expenditures from multiple multi million dollar groups that support AMNESTY for illegal aliens. They are trying to silence and Glenn BeckLou Dobbs and have them fired! We support Glenn and Lou and now Google is putting an electronic muzzle on our website without due cause!"

ALIPAC is asking for emergency assistance from talk radio shows and members of the media to warn the public. Activists are asked to share this emergency alert with others via online posts and e-mail forwards.

All Americans that support free speech and are against amnesty for illegal aliens are asked to abandon use of Google or any advertising on Google and switch to another search engine. "We need everyone to fight back and speak out while they can," said William Gheen. "Google is the most powerful site on the web, but they can be bypassed and defeated."

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC plans to seek the assistance of attorneys and members of law enforcement to help restore public access to the world's largest archive of information about illegal immigration prior to the launch of new amnesty legislation.

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4 September, 2009

Canada distances itself from S.African asylum case

The Canadian government is now appealing the case to the Federal court but that court will rely on the same facts presented at the original hearing so is fairly unlikely to reverse the ruling. For anybody who follows South African affairs the matter is an open and shut case. Whites are very often attacked by blacks in South Africa and there have been many deaths -- particularly among white farmers. The topic has been taboo so far in most of the world's media but some reports do leak out and I myself noted the degradation that was well underway when I was last in South Africa. My two trips to South Africa were respectively during and after Apartheid.

"Getting out" is the Holy Grail for most whites in South Africa today but overcoming the immigration restrictions that all English-speaking countries have in place has always been the problem for them. Despite that, many have escaped and there are certainly plenty of them in Australia who will tell you of the frightening experiences that motivated them to leave.

The big problem in this case is POLITICAL. The case could and should open the floodgates to white refugees fleeing the discrimination and violence that they face daily in today's South Africa. That would however have a heavy impact on the myths about "multiculturalism" that have been so zealously nurtured by the Western Left -- JR

Canada's government distanced itself from an independent refugee tribunal's controversial decision granting a white South African man asylum in this country because he was persecuted by blacks. Canada's foreign affairs department said in a statement it "respects the independence" of the Immigration and Refugee Board and its decision to grant the Cape Town born Brandon Huntley, 31, refugee status. It added, "The Immigration and Refugee Board operates at arms' length from the Canadian government and its decision-makers are not subject to outside influence, making decisions solely on the basis of evidence presented at the refugee hearing."

The ruling has caused a race debate in South Africa. South Africa's ruling African National Congress party has described Huntley's claims that he was "attacked seven times by Africans due to his skin colour" as "sensational and alarming." "Canada's reasoning for granting Huntley a refugee status can only serve to perpetuate racism," it added.

Ottawa said it "recognizes the achievements of the government of South Africa in promoting a tolerant, multi-racial society." Canada and South Africa enjoy a "deep and mutually-beneficial relationship" it said, and added that "the tribunal's decisions are independent from the views of the Canadian government."

Huntley told The Star newspaper Wednesday that he had won asylum because he fears that he could face violent persecution for being white. He claims he was attacked seven times, including three stabbings, by black assailants who called him a "white dog" and a "settler" during attempted robberies and muggings.

But he said he never reported the crimes to police, nor had he approached the government about the attacks. "I refuse to talk to the government," he told the paper.

He refused to discuss the details of his case, saying he feared his family still living in South Africa could face reprisals, but claimed he had highlighted the problems of modern South Africa. "I've opened people's eyes," Huntley told The Star.

Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board said privacy laws prevented them from commenting on the case. "We cannot comment on refugee claims. This type of claim is heard in private," spokesman Stephane Malepart told AFP. South Africa, meanwhile, has said it would seek a review of a board's decision granting one of its white citizens asylum in Canada.

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Europe determined to import more problems

This is an elite decision. I doubt that there is any EU country where it would have public support. There is certainly a lot of opposition to it being aired in popular British newspapers

Europe is planning to take more refugees under a common resettlement scheme launched yesterday that aims to end people-trafficking from the world’s conflict zones.

In a step towards a common EU asylum policy, the proposals from the European Commission will see a co-ordinated plan for receiving displaced people who already have refugee status but are often stuck in camps in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The first group to be dealt with is expected to be Iraqi refugees based in Syria and Jordan while future beneficiaries could be Somali refugees in Kenya and Sudanese refugees in Chad.

Governments that take people from the priority area will receive 4,000 euros per person from the EU’s Refugee Fund, raising fears that those not identified as an EU priority could be shunned. The scheme is expected to extend to all 27 member nations and will start with closer co-operation between the ten countries, including Britain, that already have resettlement schemes.

European countries found homes for 4,378 refugees from outside the EU’s borders last year, just 6.7 per cent of the global total of 65,596 resettled persons. The UN’s refugee agency has said that there are 203,000 refugees in urgent need of a permanent home this year.

“This is an example of the EU expressing shared responsibility and also about increasing the international standing of the EU,” said a spokesman for the European Commission. “You have a situation where Canada resettled 10,000 people last year while the EU did just half of that, so we want to improve our situation.

“Currently resettlement is carried out by EU member states without much consultation and co-ordination. The programme provides for closer political and practical co-operation to increase the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of resettlement.”

The common EU priorities will be decided by a new Resettlement Expert Group. The identification of refugees to be resettled and services such as medical screening and visa arrangements will be helped by a new agency, the European Asylum Support Office, which is to be established next year.

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles described the proposal as “a good first step towards a fully-fledged European resettlement programme, which should ultimately lead to an increase of resettlement places in Europe.” But it warned that the setting of priorties should not be used as an excuse to reject non-priority cases.

A spokesman for the British Government said that it had resettled 2,100 refugees since 2004. He added: “We are pleased to see the EU move towards a common system of refugee resettlement, which has the potential to benefit some of the worlds most vulnerable people.

“We will consider and scrutinise the details of these new proposals very carefully prior to agreement and the UK has the ability to opt out of any proposal that is not in our national interest.”

The launch was in danger of being overshadowed yesterday by a row between Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, and the European Commission over Italy’s treatment of migrants. The Commission has asked for details of a reported incident in which a boatful of 75 migrants, thought to be Somali, was intercepted by the Italian coastguard 27 miles (43 km) from Sicily and sent back to Libya without checking if any were legitimate asylum-seekers.

Mr Berlusconi threatened to block decisions at the forthcoming European Council meeting in protest at remarks from a Commission spokesman who stated that Italy was being asked to explain its actions. “If commissioners and spokesmen continue as they have done all these years, they should be fired in a definitive manner,” he said.

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3 September, 2009

New facts undercut old positions on immigration

By: Michael Barone

Before leaving for his vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Barack Obama said the next big item on his legislative agenda -- well, after health care, cap and trade, and maybe labor's bill to effectively abolish secret ballots in union elections -- was immigration reform. What he has in mind, apparently, is something like the comprehensive immigration bills that foundered in the House in 2006 and in the Senate in 2007. These featured guest-worker and enforcement provisions, as well as a path to legalization.

The prospects for such legislation still seem iffy. Immigration bills have typically needed bipartisan support to pass, and the Republicans who took the lead on the Senate bills in 2006 and 2007 aren't interested in doing so again. And some Democratic congressional leaders are wary of a bill that many members' constituents oppose.

But there's another reason why Congress and the administration would be unwise to revive the 2006-07 legislation. The facts on the ground have changed. The surge of illegal immigrants into the United States, which seemed to be unrelenting for most of the last two decades, seems to be over, at least temporarily, and there's a chance it may never resume.

The facts are in some dispute, as is inevitably the case, since available statistics are subject to error. The Pew Hispanic Center reported in July that the flow of immigrants from Mexico -- by far the leading source of illegals -- has declined sharply since mid-decade, and that from spring 2008 to spring 2009 only 175,000 Mexicans entered the United States, only about one-quarter as many in 2004-05. The number of Mexican natives in the United States has declined slightly this year. But, Pew concludes, there is no evidence of an increase in the total returning to Mexico.

The Center for Immigration Studies had a different interpretation in its July report. It tried to distinguish legal and illegal immigrants, and found no decline in legal immigrants. But it estimated that the number of illegals in the United States dropped from 12.5 million in summer 2007 to 10.8 million in spring 2008 -- a decline of 14 percent. It found that the illegal population declined after July 2007 when the immigration bill died in the Senate and then fell off more sharply with the financial crisis in fall 2008. It estimated that 1.2 million illegals returned to Mexico between 2006 and 2009, more than twice as many as in the 2002-05 period.

From this evidence I draw two conclusions. First, stricter enforcement -- the border fence, more Border Patrol agents, more stringent employer verification, state and local laws -- has reduced the number of illegal immigrants. Second, the recession has reduced the number of both legal and illegal immigrants.

CIS explicitly and Pew implicitly conclude that immigration will rise again once the economy revives. I'm not so sure. At least some of the stricter enforcement measures will continue. And the reservoir of potential immigrants may be drying up. Birthrates declined significantly in Mexico and Latin America circa 1990. And as immigration scholars Timothy Hatton and Jeffrey Williamson write, emigration rates from Mexico and Latin America -- the percentage of population leaving those countries -- peaked way back in 1985-94.

Moreover, people immigrate not only to make money but to achieve dreams. And one of those dreams has been shattered for many Hispanic immigrants. Most housing foreclosures have occurred in four states -- California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida -- and about one-third of those who have lost their homes are Hispanic. Immigration is stimulated by the reports of success that immigrants send back home. It may be discouraged by reports of failure.

The apparent sharp decline in immigration and the possible or likely return of masses of illegals to their countries of origin won't necessarily change the stands of supporters and opponents of comprehensive immigration reform. But they should prompt all of us to rethink our positions. As one who has tended to support comprehensive bills, I think we might, at a time when high unemployment means we have less need for unskilled workers, have to consider moving away from family reunification and toward high skill levels in our criteria for legal immigration, as Canada and Australia already do.

That's not likely to be the approach taken by the Obama administration or congressional Democrats. Obama may be eager for action, but we all may be better off taking time to understand the emerging facts that may be redefining the problem before trying to come up with a solution.

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No visas, boys? Welcome to Australia

The Leftist Federal government short-circuits its own already pathetic checks on whether people are genuine refugees or not. "Unskilled economic migrants from third world countries are welcome" is the clear intention and message. Yet Australia needs an influx of brutal Muslim Afghans like a hole in the head

THE Rudd government last night moved to overturn John Howard's controversial policy of processing all asylum-seekers off-shore, allowing a group of detained Afghan youths to leave Christmas Island and arrive on mainland Australia without visas.

In an unprecedented move that coincided with the arrival of yet another boat of asylum-seekers at the Indian Ocean territory last night, the 10 boys boarded a chartered Qantas jet carrying 56 newly recognised Afghan refugees from the island to Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.

The move, confirmed by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship last night, was welcomed by the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre as a "substantial departure from the previous policy of condemning everyone including children to detention on Christmas Island".

The flight departed Christmas Island, which was excised from Australia's migration zone in 2003 by the Howard government, just hours before a further 52 asylum-seekers and three crew landed on the island after being intercepted by HMAS Ararat near Ashmore Reef on Saturday.

There are now 665 people in immigration detention on Christmas Island; 571 of them are single men being kept at the Howard government's $400 million immigration detention centre on the island's northwest point; 62 are living in a converted construction workers' compound; and 32 are in houses on the island in what is termed "community detention".

The 10 boys allowed to leave the island yesterday arrived at the island on May 7 without their parents or guardians. They will now live at a department-owned hostel called Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation, which is usually reserved for people who have just arrived from Christmas Island after being granted protection visas. They are the first group of asylum-seekers permitted by the federal government to come to the mainland from Christmas Island for processing. The decision comes just two months after the department moved a depressed Kurdish man off the island and into community detention in Melbourne on compassionate grounds.

An Immigration Department spokesman said the decision to allow the boys to travel to the mainland with their paid carers would give them access to a range of classes and recreational activities. "This move will enable the department to finalise their cases and ensure support to this particularly vulnerable group," the spokesman said. "The government considers this is a measured approach that strikes the right balance between applying a strong border protection regime while also ensuring the welfare of children is of primary consideration."

The department refused to acknowledge that the move signalled a policy shift, saying decisions about who was allowed to come to the mainland before their claims were assessed would continue to be made on a case-by-case basis.

There are now 67 asylum-seeker children being taught by five specialist teachers at the Christmas Island District High School, or in classrooms not on the school grounds. One classroom for older male students was established in April following complaints that the boys were too old to be taught in a cluster of classrooms for children in Years 3 and 4.

The business of immigration detention has doubled the population of Christmas Island. The isolated Australian territory is now estimated to have as few as 1000 permanent locals, according to recent Attorney-General's Department figures. As well as 665 detainees, there is a related workforce of 300.

Refugee advocates have applauded several Rudd government measures that soften elements of the former Howard government's approach to immigration detention on Christmas Island, such as the government's recent decision to allow detainees out of the detention centre for excursions with locals. There were 148 excursions for detainees between last December and May. Conducted under guard, these included visits to Lily Beach and the local Catholic church. Those living in community detention or at the former construction workers' camp can go to the movies, the beach and take part in other activities, and are sometimes taken on picnics by the Red Cross.

Refugee advocate David Manne said yesterday he was at a loss to understand why minors [who are often in fact adults understating their age] should be detained, whether on Christmas Island or at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation. [All youths should be admitted willy nilly??]

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2 September, 2009

The Catholic church is running away from the reality of immigration

The church would not say that a home invader should be given lodgings in a home he has invaded so why does it support illegal immigration? Can you acquire rights by violating someone else's rights? It is an absurd position. And despite what apologists say, I would like to see where Aquinas argues that -- JR

By Damian Thompson

Here’s an article I’ve written for the new issue of The Catholic Herald.

Last week, over 70 African migrants died on a dinghy that ran out of fuel as it tried to reach Italy from Libya. Some of them perished of thirst and starvation during their time at sea. During that time, apparently, 10 vessels spotted them. Nine sailed on, like the passers-by in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Only one stopped. The Italian bishops’ conference is enraged: its newspaper reckons that the shunning of the migrants was comparable to ignoring the deportation of Jews during the war.

Such comparisons are usually unhelpful, designed to emphasise the moral superiority of the person making them. Not this time, perhaps. If the story is true (and there are disputes over the details) then the bishops have struck the right note.

That is not to say, however, that the Catholic Church should analyse every immigration tragedy - and there have been many - in terms of charity versus cold-hearted indifference. Over the past decade, hundreds of West Africans have died at sea trying to reach EU territory. Thousands more have landed safely - without documents, enabling them to tell lies about which country they come from and therefore claim to be fleeing persecution rather than poverty.

For some commentators, this economic migration is justified by its desperation: a few years ago, the Church in this country incautiously threw its weight behind calls for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, which was based on the premise that if you have successfully managed to dodge the immigration authorities of the country whose laws you have broken, then your position should be “regularised”. Interestingly, many Left-wing politicians - traditionally champions of unrestricted immigration - pointedly failed to endorse this campaign. Even more significantly, many Catholics, including priests, felt that the Church should have thought twice before advocating a further loosening of border controls.

This is a familiar debate in public life; what is unfamiliar is the willingness of Christians committed to feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless - to the corporal works of mercy - to think beyond episcopal slogans. They know that unrestricted immigration makes life harder for the indigenous European poor; by celebrating it, the Church leaders are being selective in their understanding of mercy.

And, besides, the frightening consequences of mass immigration are only now becoming clear. I use the word “frightening” advisedly: for the current social changes are more wide-ranging and unpredictable than any that Europe has witnessed since the Middle Ages.

To understand why, read "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe", by Christopher Caldwell, an American Financial Times journalist. Caldwell is a thoughtful conservative, a Catholic and an admirer of the social teaching of Pope Benedict XVI. Here is a passage from a recent review of the book:

"Where [Caldwell] is right is in underlining the fact that immigration was encouraged by elites who took a ludicrously short-sighted view of its costs and consequences. The idea was to prop up industries already in decline and, later, to staff industries, such as health and tourism, the full cost of which our societies refused (and continue to refuse) to pay. The manning of underpaid and menial positions could be maintained only by a constant influx of new migrants, since people in established migrant communities either got better jobs or chose, like many in the native white population, to depend on the welfare state and to have no jobs at all.

More recently, immigration has been defended as a way of making up for falling birth rates when, as Caldwell points out, it would have to be multiplied an unfeasibly large number of times to have that effect. This inherently unstable and dysfunctional system was set in motion, in other words, for no good reason. Those who started it off did not foresee how big it would become, nor the mechanisms of family reunion and arranged marriages that would drive it on even when restrictions were belatedly imposed. Most of them did not imagine, says Caldwell, that the newcomers would “retain the habits and cultures of southern villages, clans, marketplaces, and mosques”.

Where is that taken from, do you think? The Spectator? No: it was written by Martin Woollacott in The Guardian. Admittedly, the reviewer goes on to suggest that Caldwell’s predictions may be too gloomy. But, in the end, he agrees that massive Muslim immigration to Europe was a “risky experiment to which we need not have subjected ourselves”.

If a Guardian writer can recognise that Europe’s Muslim population is retreating into huge ghettos, and that this poses an unprecedented challenge for civil society, why cannot the Church? Caldwell makes the point that European Muslims tend not to be anti-Christian (as one might assume). But they constitute an “adversary culture” that, in addition to rejecting the sleazy excesses of liberalism, also brushes aside human rights that owe as much to Christianity as to the Enlightenment.

Pope Benedict XVI, unlike Pope John Paul II, understands the adversarial quality of European Muslim culture. Most Catholic bishops, in contrast, take refuge in the dubious concept of the three “Abrahamic faiths” encouraged by the late pontiff. They speak of “faith” as a jolly good thing without bothering to define the term, or acknowledging the ever-widening gulf between the worldviews of Christianity and mainstream Islam, so much greater than that between Christianity and Judaism. [Would the Bishops argue that faith in the Devil is a good thing? Faith in WHAT is surely the question. Might not it be argued that Islam is the Devil's perversion of Judaism? In Matthew 4 and Genesis 3 we see that the Devil can quote God's word if it suits him. The bishops are just ignoring the theology of the matter -- a very strange thing for a Catholic bishop to do, even if it is routine in Anglicanism -- JR]

Catholic advocates of interfaith dialogue have found their heavily subsidised comfort zone and that’s where they want to stay. But sooner or later they will be pushed out of it - by uncontrollable social unrest caused by immigration. And then the Church will have to address questions to which there are no elegant answers, however long you spend poring over the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

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Canada: White South African granted asylum

Some realism under a Conservative immigration minister: A white South African has been granted refugee status in Canada after an immigration board ruled he faced persecution from black people if he returned to his native country. A Left-run agency would be deaf to any mention of bad things done by black people

Brandon Huntley, 31, originally from Cape Town, said he was attacked seven times, including three stabbings, by black South Africans during muggings and robberies before he moved to Canada. He claimed he was called a "white dog" and a "settler" by black people in a reference to South Africa's colonial and apartheid past.

The Ottawa Sun newspaper reported that the immigration board last Thursday granted him refugee status allowing him to stay in Canada. "I find that the claimant would stand out like a 'sore thumb' due to his colour in any part of the country," tribunal panel chair William Davis was quoted as saying.

Mr Huntley first travelled to Canada on a six-month work permit in 2004 to work as a carnival attendant. He returned to South Africa and then went back to work in Canada in 2005 for a year and stayed illegally for an additional year until he made a refugee claim in April 2008.

It is thought to be the first time a white South African man has been granted refugee status in Canada claiming he was the victim of black aggression. Speaking about black on white violence in South Africa, Mr Huntley said: "There's a hatred of what we did to them and it's all about the colour of your skin."

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1 September, 2009

One out of every five killers in Britain is an immigrant

Up to a fifth of killers in England and Wales are foreign, police figures suggest. Out of 371 individuals accused or convicted of murder or manslaughter last year, 79 were from abroad - more than 21 per cent. Foreign immigrants make up only around a tenth of the UK population, meaning they are statistically twice as likely as native Britons to be charged with or found guilty of an illegal killing. In London, almost 40 per cent of those in such cases in the past year were from overseas, or of unknown origin.

Opposition critics said the findings reflected the Government's failure to deport foreign criminals, and the ease with which offenders from abroad can slip through border controls. The most common nationality for foreigners involved in murder and manslaughter cases was Polish, followed by Nepalese, Lithuanian, Somalian and Sri Lankan.

Around half the police forces across England and Wales provided data under the Freedom of Information Act, revealing strong regional differences. The highest figures were in London where in the year to April 2009, 93 of the 233 people accused or convicted of murder and manslaughter were either non-British or from unknown backgrounds. In West Mercia, five out of 22 were foreigners - 23 per cent - from Lithuania, Poland, and the Republic of Ireland. Nottinghamshire showed the same proportion, with three out of 13 cases.

But some forces - including Cheshire, Humberside, Hampshire, and Merseyside - recorded no cases with foreign killers. The figures may be an underestimate as 11 out 30 forces which responded claimed they did not record nationalities of either killers or murder victims, and others had gaps in the information.

As foreign suspects are typically harder to identify and trace, meaning that crimes are less likely to be solved, the real proportion could be significantly higher.

The figures showed foreigners were also more likely to be victims of murder or manslaughter, accounting for 20 per cent of all those killed in England and Wales in 2007-8, and 13 per cent last year.

Concerns about convicted offenders entering Britain were underlined in April by the case of Marek Harcar, 33, who was sentenced to a minimum 25 years in jail for the abduction, rape and murder of businesswoman Moira Jones. Slovakian Harcar was allowed into Britain despite having 13 convictions, four of them involving violence. He abducted the 40-year-old just yards from her home on May 28 last year. Her semi-naked body was found in Queen's Park in Glasgow the next day.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: 'The Government seem to have completely failed to get to grips with foreign nationals' crime in the UK. 'These figures underline the scale of the problem, but we know the Government are simply failing to deport offenders in the way they should be.'

Earlier this year Detective Chief Inspector Murray Duffin, of the Scotland Yard Extradition and Intelligence Unit, warned: 'Britain is becoming a magnet for increasing numbers of criminals from the former Eastern bloc countries which are now members of the EU.'

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Australian immigration rules set for revamp

889,722 people in one year coming into a country with a total population of not much more than 20 million sure is one heck of an influx. No wonder even a Leftist government is beginning to show concern

AUSTRALIA'S immigration policy is set for an overhaul amid concerns that it is failing to meet the nation's long-term needs, with a record influx of more than 600,000 temporary residents adding to the strain of a growing population. In a significant shift, Immigration Minister Chris Evans told The Age that cabinet had approved the development of a five to 10-year plan that would consider the types of migrants that Australia needed, where they should settle, and the extra need for housing, transport, water and other resources to accommodate more people.

New figures to be released today show that Australia's official migration program recorded an intake of 171,318 permanent migrants in 2008-09. When the 13,500 refugees and the 47,780 New Zealanders who settled permanently in Australia are included, the migration program saw 232,598 people arriving in the past year, a 12.8 per cent leap from the previous year's record high of 219,098 people. But according to figures obtained by The Age, a further 657,124 temporary migrants with the right to work arrived in Australia during the past year. The 11 per cent surge in temporary migrants was fuelled by big increases in foreign students (up 15 per cent to 320,368) and working holiday visas (up 22 per cent to 154,148). This compensated for a 9 per cent drop in 457 visas - an employer-sponsored visa for temporary skilled labour introduced in 1995 - to 101,280.

The surge in temporary migrants with a right to work has created an unprecedented, unplanned migration wave. Senator Evans said Australia needed a rational immigration debate, beyond the hysteria about the few hundred boat people who arrive each year. ''The annual figure this year [for skilled permanent migration] was, say, 115,000, but more than 500,000 came into the country. They came in as students, temporary workers, working holidaymakers … but the public still focuses on the 115,000 as if it's got anything to do with reality and my attempts to have a more sophisticated debate about this have totally failed.''

Senator Evans said immigration should be the nation's labour agency, meaning a continued high intake of migrants, especially younger, skilled workers. But the desires of migrants - including overseas students who came in on temporary visas in order to gain permanent residency - should not be driving Australia's immigration policy.

Decisions about who came to Australia would be increasingly left to employers although, conversely, Australia would also be competing for the most highly skilled migrants. Senator Evans said to do that successfully the impacts of record high immigration on our liveability had to be tackled. ''In Australia we've got this sense of, 'Well, we're the lucky country' and … people will naturally come here, and that's still true to an extent. But other countries … are increasingly marketing themselves too.''

He said immigration policy would remain non-discriminatory and that Australia's Muslim communities posed no fundamental threat - despite the arrest of five Melbourne men on terrorism charges, three from Somalia and two from Lebanon. ''I don't want to downplay terrorism … It is a serious public policy challenge that has to be tackled … But there's also been this slightly irrational fear and debate about people who arrive unauthorised as possibly posing some sort of threat.''

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