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30 September, 2012

U.S. immigration to treat same-sex partners as relatives

The Obama administration has directed immigration officials to recognize same-sex partners as family members in deportation cases, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Friday.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Pelosi in a letter that she had ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to notify its field offices "that the interpretation of the phrase ‘family relationships' includes long-term, same-sex partners."

Pelosi welcomed the federal recognition of gay and lesbian couples. At the same time, she called for more to be done to protect undocumented immigrants in long-term relationships with American citizens.

Napolitano's directive "will provide a measure of clarity and confidence to families dealing with separation in immigration cases," Pelosi said in a written statement. "Our nation is served when loving families are kept together."

But she added: "We need to ... relegate DOMA to the dustbin of history." The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act bars the federal government from extending federal benefits, such as Social Security, to married gay and lesbian couples.

DOMA restricts the Obama administration from outright ordering that gay and lesbian couples be treated the same as heterosexual couples.

Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama called DOMA unconstitutional and said they would no longer defend the measure in court. In response, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives stepped in to fund an effort to try to uphold the law.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide next month whether it will review a number of cases questioning the constitutionality of DOMA.

Meanwhile, married couples like Brian Willingham, 38, and Alfonso Garcia, 35, of Orinda, California, have been fighting for the right to be considered related in the eyes of immigration authorities. After a traffic stop, officials began deportation proceedings against Garcia, who came to the United States from Mexico when he was 14.

"We're definitely happy that the Obama administration took this good first step," Willingham told Reuters Friday. "But it's just a Band-Aid. It helps us because we are faced with deportation. But it leaves thousands of couples in exile."

Immigration officials last year said they would consider same-sex partnerships as family relations in deciding whether to deport undocumented immigrants.

But 83 members of Congress led by Pelosi and Jerrold Nadler of New York criticized the government for unevenly applying the directive, and they pressed for written guidelines.

"This is a huge step forward," said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a national gay-rights group. "Until now, LGBT families and their lawyers had nothing to rely on but an oral promise. The administration's written guidance will help families facing separation and the field officers who are reviewing their cases."

SOURCE





Obama's fantasy world on immigrationvarrette: Obama's fantasy world on immigration

By Ruben Navarrette

There was only one acceptable response from President Barack Obama when he was grilled over his immigration policies by Univision's Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas: "Lo siento" (I'm sorry).

Instead of going on the defensive and retreating into the fantasy world where he and his administration do no wrong, and where it's those dastardly Republicans who prevented him from keeping his promise to make immigration reform a top priority, Obama should have offered up a mea culpa.

The president has made a mess of things. He broke campaign promises and, more important, broke up hundreds of thousands of families by deporting parents, and placing their U.S.-born children on this side of the border in foster care so that other people could raise them.

He did all this not -- as some of his supporters argue -- to lay the groundwork for comprehensive immigration reform. He did it to score points with conservatives and win back independents by trying to prove that he heard their concerns about illegal immigration, and that he was tough enough to address them. And he did it to please two vital elements of the Democratic Party's base: African-Americans and organized labor, both of whom claim that illegal immigration takes jobs away from U.S. workers and keeps wages low.

But his immigration policies got away from him. He let the genie out of the bottle by doing on a federal level what Arizona has done on a state level -- namely, rope

thousands of local police officers into the enforcement of federal immigration law. The program, Secure Communities -- which was started under the George W. Bush administration -- was put it into overdrive by Obama with the goal of expanding it nationwide by 2014. By forcing local police to act as surrogates for immigration agents, the administration was able to round up and deport more than 1.5 million people. But it also eliminated police and prosecutorial discretion and ensured that people who years ago might have been left alone -- for instance, victims of domestic violence -- were arrested and deported.

Obama is not a bad person. But when it comes to immigration, and the pain inflicted on the Latino immigrant community in this country, he's been a bad president.

You'll never hear any contrition for this, from Obama or his surrogates. It's not in the president's DNA to accept responsibility for his excesses, mistakes or failures. Harry Truman said that the buck stopped here. Obama seems to think the buck stops down the block.

When pressed by Ramos and Salinas about his failures on immigration, Obama trotted out all the old and familiar excuses, justifications and half-truths that he and his surrogates have used for the last two years to explain away their policy of "broken promises, broken families." This included the assertions that have already been discredited, like the claim that most of those who were deported had criminal convictions. Not so.

But what really was outrageous was when Obama blamed Republicans for the fact that as president, he didn't even propose an immigration reform bill to Congress. These are the same Republicans who were in the minority for the first two years of his tenure, and couldn't have stopped immigration reform if they wanted to.

It's time to exit fantasy world. These are the realities underlying the immigration debate, even if Obama will never admit them.

SOURCE






28 September, 2012

Immigration activists fear demobilization of Latino vote

Leaders of the U.S. immigrant community said they are concerned about the possible demobilization of the Latino vote in the November election.

"If you don't go vote, use your voice in the democracy, it means that you have lost hope and are voluntarily giving up your political power," Joshua Hoyt, co-president of the National Partnership for New Americans, told Efe on Monday.

Hoyt is among some 800 experts, activists and community leaders gathering in Baltimore this week for the National Immigrant Integration Conference 2012.

Among the speakers at the conference there is unanimity in pointing to the responsibility borne by Latinos who are citizens and are eligible to vote.

"You have to go out and vote and you also have to punish the politicians or reward those who are talking about issues that concern you," said Hoyt.

Participants at the conference admit that the fear of demobilization exists.

"There are people who are frustrated by the lack of immigration reform during the term that's ending now, others simply have not voted for a long time," Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA of Maryland, which is hosting the event, told Efe.

Despite that, groups such as his are calling upon activists to make an effort to convince Latinos of the importance of their vote and used current political issues to demonstrate it.

"The best way to integrate immigrants is to pass immigration reform," Torres argued.

He asserted that "if President Obama gets reelected he's going to have an extraordinary political moment, because the Republicans will take notice that they have lost the Latino vote and they will finally want to get moving on the problem of immigration."

Hoyt, who has known Obama since the 1980s, was more emphatic in affirming that if Obama wins the election people will have to demand that he take action on immigration.

"If Obama is elected thanks to the Latino vote, on Nov. 7 we have to be on top of him, beating him like a mule, so that he does what he has to do for the Latino community," he said.

Another issue that is on the table is deferred action, the Obama administration's temporary suspension for thousands of undocumented youths of the risk of being deported.

"If Gov. Romney is elected, we don't know what's going to happen," said Torres.

On the other hand, Hoyt said that the deferred action, which benefits so many undocumented students, has no reverse gear.

"If Romney manages to become president, he will be interested in getting reelected at the end of four years, he will support young Latinos. If not, there would be a revolution, not only in the Latino community, and it would be political suicide for him."

SOURCE





Indonesia foils "asylum seeker" voyage to Australia

Indonesian authorities have arrested more than 120 asylum seekers who were trying to reach Australia.

Water police intercepted them at the mouth of a river in west Java as they attempted to make their way to the ocean and beyond to Australia.

On board were 126 asylum seekers from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but five managed to escape from authorities.

It is understood the remaining asylum seekers are certified as having refugee status, but they will be detained in Indonesia which is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention.

Indonesian immigration authorities are transferring the detainees to the West Java town of Bogor with the involvement of the International Organisation for Migration.

SOURCE



27 September, 2012

Sheriff Joe Arpaio loses narrow appeal on immigration law limit

A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied an Arizona sheriff's request to reverse a lower-court decision barring his deputies from detaining people solely on the suspicion that they're illegal immigrants.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco issued a 23-page ruling after considering the narrow question of a preliminary injunction while a Phoenix trial court considers the merits of the entire lawsuit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The appeals court ruling focused only on the lower court's limit on Arpaio's immigration powers and doesn't confront the case's ultimate question of whether deputies in Arizona's most populous county have racially profiled Latinos on their patrols.

A three-judge panel ruled U.S. District Judge Murray Snow didn't abuse his authority in granting the order and said the ruling didn't impair the sheriff's ability to enforce state and federal criminal laws.

A call to Arpaio's office for reaction to the appeals court ruling wasn't immediately returned Tuesday evening.

A small group of Latinos claim Arpaio's deputies pulled over some vehicles only to make immigration status checks during regular traffic patrols and the sheriff's 20 special immigration patrols.

A federal judge in December ordered Arpaio's department to refrain from conducting such traffic stops while the class action suit was being considered.  Arpaio appealed, arguing his deputies had probable cause to make the stops.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other attorneys filed a federal lawsuit in 2007 against the self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff in America."

The Latino group also accuse Arpaio of ordering some of the patrols not based on reports of crime but rather on letters from Arizonans who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish.

Arpaio has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying his deputies only stop people when they think a crime has been committed and that he wasn't the person who picked the location of the immigration patrols.

Both sides are awaiting Snow's verdict after a seven-day trial without a jury ended Aug. 2. Snow hasn't indicated when he would rule.

The lawsuit marks the first case in which the sheriff's office has been accused of systematically racially profiling Latinos, and will serve as a precursor for a similar yet broader civil rights lawsuit filed against Arpaio in May by the U.S. Department of Justice.

There has never been a finding by a court that Arpaio's office has racially profiled Latinos, though a case that made such an allegation was settled last year for $200,000 without an admission of wrongdoing by the sheriff's office.

Earlier Tuesday, the 9th Circuit turned back the latest effort by a civil rights coalition to bar police from enforcing the most contentious part of Arizona's immigration law.

Opponents of part of the law requiring police to question some people they contact about their immigration status wanted the federal appeals court to block its enforcement.

That provision survived a U.S. Supreme Court review and it went into effect Sept. 18 after a federal judge in Phoenix said it could be enforced.

The 9th Circuit denied the coalition's emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal and their request for certification to the Arizona Supreme Court. An attorney with the National Immigration Law Center said the coalition is assessing its next step.

SOURCE




Migration fuels 4m rise in population of England and Wales over the last 10 years

The number of people living in England and Wales has soared by around four million in only ten years, according to the latest count released yesterday.

The increase, driven by large-scale immigration, pushed up the population at its fastest rate during the past 100 years.

Rapid growth outpaced even the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s, the historic post-war period when record childbirth levels helped fuel long-term economic and social upheaval.

The scale of the population boom that has followed Labour’s decision to ease curbs on immigration after 1997 was revealed by the Office for National Statistics in new estimates for England and Wales in the middle of last year.

The figures showed the population rose by 3.8million, or 7.3 per cent, from 52.4million in 2001 to 56,170,900 last year. And in three months last year – between the day of the 2011 national census at the end of March and the end of June – the population went up by 95,000, the equivalent of a city the size of Worcester.

‘The population of England and Wales increased by approximately 20million during the last 100 years and by approximately four million during the last decade,’ the ONS said.

‘The increase in population between 2001 and 2011 was the largest in percentage terms in the last century.’

The decade between 1941 and 1951 showed a bigger jump, from 38.7million to 43.8million. But these figures were skewed because the 1941 wartime estimate left out millions in the forces.

ONS analysts said last year’s three-month population increase of 95,000 was a result of around 66,600 more births than deaths and net migration of 28,400. Net migration – the number of immigrants minus the number who have emigrated – was at a low level compared with other times of the year.

‘Immigration flows are higher in the later summer and autumn months, for example, when students enter the country to take up courses in higher education,’ the ONS report said. Migration is usually reckoned to be responsible for 70 per cent of new population growth, partly because of higher birth rates among recent immigrants.

Until now the recent population explosion was thought to be similar in scale to the baby boom that peaked 50 years ago. Between 1951 and 1961 the number in England and Wales rose by 2.4million, from 43.8million to 46.2million, while between 1961 and 1971 it increased by a further three million to 49.2million.

Yesterday’s figures show that the post-war increase has been eclipsed, mainly because of the opening of Britain’s borders after 1997 to migrants from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Sir Andrew Green, of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘This is further evidence to show that we must get immigration under control. It is driving the population up and up in numbers that we have never seen before.’

Coalition ministers have pledged to reduce levels of net migration to those of the 1990s – lower than 100,000 a year. But latest indicators show the annual total is still in excess of 200,000.

The population of the UK as a whole is around 63million. Home Secretary Theresa May has dismissed fears that a UK population of 70million – likely to be reached by 2027 – will put too great a strain on housing, transport, education and other state services.

SOURCE







26 September, 2012

Alabama Firms find LEGAL Immigrants to Fill Jobs

The law would seem to have achieved its objectives in reducing the welfare rolls

Esene Manga, an Eritrean refugee living in Atlanta, hadn’t heard of Albertville, Alabama until a recruiter offered him a job there. Now Manga, 22, earns $10.85 an hour cutting chicken breasts on a poultry-plant night shift, an unexpected beneficiary of a year-old law designed to drive out illegal Hispanic immigrants.

This isn’t what the law’s backers said would happen. Republican state Senator Scott Beason, a sponsor, said at a news conference last year that the restrictions on undocumented workers would “put thousands of native Alabamians back in the work force.”

Instead, it caused a labor shortage that resulted in the importation of hundreds of legal African and Haitian refugees, and Puerto Ricans, according to interviews with workers, advocacy organizations and businesses. Most were recruited by the poultry industry, in a segment of the economy that has been a heavy employer of undocumented workers, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington research group.

Alabama is one of five states that last year passed immigration laws modeled on a 2010 Arizona measure largely invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in June. Last month, an appellate court in Atlanta said many of the Alabama law’s requirements also aren’t constitutional. Other provisions, including one allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants, remain in place.

Destination: Albertville

In Albertville, a city of about 21,000 in the northeast corner of the state, Manga, his friend Abrahaley Araya and about 18 other African refugees started at Wayne Farms LLC’s plant in the days after the law took effect a year ago, according to the two men and Albert Mbanfu of Lutheran Services of Georgia, which helps refugees find jobs.

Johnell Rodriguez, 26, said he was among 17 Puerto Ricans who arrived at another Alabama Wayne Farms plant a week after the law took effect. Haitian Saul Jules said he was recruited in Miami to work in Albertville by JBS SA (JBSS3)’s Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. a few months ago.

Plants sought refugees because too few local residents were interested or qualified, said Frank Singleton, a spokesman for Wayne Farms, based in Oakwood, Georgia.

Many legal Hispanic employees left after the immigration law took effect, he said. The company, which operates six plants in the state, spent $5 million to replace and train new workers, he said. Turnover in North Alabama was 50 percent last year, and is now as high as 90 percent in some plants because replacements didn’t stay, he said. The company is “having to use alternative methods and sourcing,” including recruiting refugees, Singleton said.

Wayne Farms found Eritreans, displaced by war and conflict, and other Africans through East Coast Labor Solutions LLC, a Fairlea, West Virginia-based labor broker. East Coast has about 200 workers in Alabama, owner Ray Wiley said in an interview.

“Our jobs are often in states where immigration laws have hit the hardest, and mostly in the poultry industry,” he said.

East Coast began calling Atlanta refugee agencies several months ago looking for legal immigrants to come to Alabama for a year, said Mbanfu, refugee employment director for Lutheran Services in Atlanta. He said the company would have taken as many refugees as he could refer.

The agency connected East Coast with refugees who had been in the country three to five years, he said.

Chris Gaddis, head of human resources for Greeley, Colorado-based Pilgrim’s Pride, which has four plants in Alabama, said the law didn’t affect its workforce. Worth Sparkman, a spokesman for Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN), which has two plants in Alabama, also said there was no effect.

Alabama doesn’t track the number of refugees who come to fill jobs. The state had an estimated 120,000 illegal Hispanic immigrants in 2010, of whom 95,000 were in the labor force, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. They were 2.5 percent of the population and 4.2 percent of the workforce.

Changing demographics are reflected on store shelves. Albertville’s main Hispanic grocery, Tienda El Sol, added coconut milk, new varieties of hot peppers and other items to appeal to newcomers, manager Marjorie Centeno said.

The Alabama law’s intent was to attack “every aspect of an illegal alien’s life,” and “make it difficult for them to live here so they will deport themselves,” Republican House sponsor Micky Hammon said during legislative debate, according to a Birmingham News report.

More HERE



 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

Publications

1. Visa Mills, Diploma Mills, and Other For-Profit Colleges.  Sorting Out Some of the Controversies in Higher Education

Blogs

2. No Hezbollah in Mexico?

3. GAO Report: State Dept. Has Good Tools but Lacks Coordinated Approach to Address Rampant Visa Fraud

4. More Proof that Visa Abuse Is Instinctive at IBM

5. Are Non-Hispanics Really that Negative Toward Hispanics, Really?

6. How Many Murders Is Enough? Slain Teen's Father Implores Calif. Gov. to Veto Sanctuary Bill

7. Bad Dreams About "Free" Health Care

8. Could It Happen Here? Probably Not, but It Did in Canada!

9. On the Notion of Risk Management at DHS

10. USCIS Does Right Thing on EB-5 Issue — and Gets Sued

11. Is Visa Abuse Instinctive at IBM?

12. Tech Immigration and the Visa Lottery

13. USCIS Annual Fee Waiver Loss Soars to $198 Million

14. When You've Lost NPR Listeners. . .

15. Reaping What We've Sown




25 September, 2012

Arizona: No 'dreamer' driver's licenses

After conducting a review, the Arizona Department of Transportation has concluded that the state will not issue driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants granted work permits under President Barack Obama's deferred-action program.

The decision, confirmed Friday in response to an inquiry by The Arizona Republic, is consistent with Gov. Jan Brewer's Aug. 15 executive order telling state agencies to take steps to make sure undocumented immigrants who receive deferred action on deportation do not get driver's licenses or public benefits.

Many other states are grappling with the same issue.

The decision angered advocates who believe undocumented immigrants granted deferred action should be able to get driver's licenses.

Without them, the immigrants cannot legally drive to work or school.

The state may face a lawsuit from civil-rights groups who say preventing undocumented immigrants granted deferred action from getting driver's licenses violates state law.

At issue is whether federal employment-authorization documents, or work permits, that will be given to undocumented immigrants approved under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program should be accepted by the state to establish legal presence.

California has said the state will issue driver's licenses to such immigrants because it already accepts the documents for other reasons.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials, however, have repeatedly stated that undocumented immigrants granted deferred action do not have any legal status in the U.S.

The action simply allows them to stay temporarily in the U.S. for two years without the threat of deportation and to receive a work permit, they said.

In a written statement, Timothy Tait, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Transportation, cited those statements to justify not issuing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants granted work permits under the program. The agency already accepts work permits issued to undocumented immigrants for other reasons, including because they are crime victims or witnesses.

Arizona law requires that only people living in the country legally can be issued a driver's license or identification card, Tait said in the statement.

Because the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has said deferred action does not give undocumented immigrants legal status, their work permits "are insufficient for the purpose of obtaining an Arizona driver license or identification card," he said.

The state Motor Vehicle Division's website includes three types of employment-authorization documents on a list of primary documents already accepted to get driver's licenses. Those documents have federal identification numbers, including I-688A, I-688B and I-766.

After Brewer issued the executive order, ADOT officials said they would review that policy.

Since then, the MVD has added a sentence on its website next to the list of accepted work-authorization documents: "An employment authorization document resulting from a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival is not acceptable."

Tait's statement did not say how MVD officials will distinguish work permits granted to deferred-action recipients under Obama's program from those granted to undocumented immigrants for other reasons.

However, the work permits issued under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals will have a different number: I-765.

As many as 1.7 million undocumented immigrants, including 80,000 in Arizona, may be eligible for the deferred-action program. It targets undocumented immigrants under age 31 who were brought to the U.S. before the age of 16 and have lived continuously in this country for five years.

So far, more than 82,000 undocumented immigrants nationally have applied for deferred action, and 29 have been granted deferred-action status, according to theUSCIS.

Regina Jefferies, a Phoenix lawyer who chairs the Arizona chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the state will likely face a lawsuit over the decision to deny driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants who receive work permits under the new program.

"Their policy violates state law. Very clearly, state law allows people with a work permit and a Social Security number to get a driver's license," she said. "They can be sued, and I am sure that is what will happen."

Carmen Cornejo of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, an advocacy group that has been helping undocumented immigrants apply for deferred action, said not issuing driver's licenses to successful applicants unjustly creates hardship for them.

"It's a necessity for them to go to work," she said. "They cannot not drive to work. They cannot not drive to school.

"It puts them in danger with the authorities," who can ticket or arrest them, she said.

Last week, officials from Maricopa Community Colleges announced that undocumented immigrants granted deferred action would be able to use the work permits to receive in-state tuition.

Under state law, undocumented immigrants are normally barred from receiving in-state tuition and must pay more costly out-of-state tuition.

The Arizona Board of Regents is considering whether to allow undocumented immigrants granted deferred action to receive in-state tuition at the state's three universities.

SOURCE



Australian conservative politician casts doubt on validity of Sri Lankan asylum seekers after 16 chose to return home

THE Opposition has questioned the motives of 5000 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who have arrived in Australia, as new figures show boat arrivals from the country have overtaken those from war-torn Afghanistan.

As 16 Sri Lankan asylum seekers agreed at the weekend to return home instead of facing detention on Nauru, Opposition Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said the move "calls into question" the processing of every application since the country's 25-year civil war ended in 2009.

"As asylum seekers, I assume that they were seeking to flee from persecution," Ms Bishop told the ABC.

She questioned why the group would therefore choose to return home, rather than go to the "safe haven" of Nauru.

The number of Sri Lankans arriving has soared this year to 3536, up from just 211 arrivals last year, and exceeding the 2996 Afghan arrivals.

It's the biggest number of arrivals ever recorded by Sri Lankans, including during the years in which a violent civil war killed more than 70,000 people and hugely damaged the economy.

Government figures show just 163 Sri Lankans arriving by boat have been granted humanitarian visas this year, but it is understood many of the arrivals are still being assessed.

It follows Opposition suggestions earlier this month the Government strike a deal with Sri Lanka to send asylum seekers intercepted at sea back to their home country "before they set foot on Australian soil" as most were economic refugees.

The Government said such a move would break international responsibilities.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Nick Riemer said the civil war may be officially over, but conditions for Tamils were still "very dire".  "There are reports of disappearances ... there are reports of torture by the Sri Lankan authorities," he said.

"The fact that there are 16 people who have consented, or who have been pressured, into returning doesn't tell us anything about the overall situation of all of the other Sri Lankans who are still in the Australian system, who are still coming here, and who are still evidently desperate to get out of the country."

Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said more boats have arrived in the first quarter of the financial year than the Government budgeted for 12 months.

Mr Morrison said boats continued to arrive daily, in spite of the new offshore processing regime, including 25 boats in the first 23 days of this month.

SOURCE


24 September, 2012

Why a rare bipartisan consensus on immigration totally fell apart

Because Democrats believe that immigrants should be selected by lottery!

President Obama supports the idea. So does Mitt Romney. In fact, it’s one of the few major points of consensus on immigration policy between Democrats and Republicans. So what doomed a proposal to give more green cards to immigrants who get science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduate degrees in the United States?

The short answer: House Republicans decided to attach the STEM visa expansion to the elimination of another long-standing visa program — a condition that House Democrats soundly rejected.

The longer story is that, before the August recess, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other legislators had been engaged in seemingly promising bipartisan talks to bring forward an immigration overhaul that included the STEM visa proposal. “We had barely gotten back a consensus on immigration — that some increase on immigration is good,” says Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute’s Office at New York University, who describes the talks as the first genuinely bipartisan immigration effort that went beyond border security since 2006.

When Congress came back from recess, however, the bipartisan talks disintegrated because legislators couldn’t come up with a compromise on family reunification, a Schumer aide told the National Journal. So both Smith and Schumer came up with separate partisan bills.

Smith made the addition of STEM visas contingent upon the elimination of a diversity visa program that uses a green card lottery to let in immigrants from underrepresented countries, who only have to have a high-school education. The net number of green cards issues—55,000—would remain the same. Schumer, together with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), introduced a separate STEM bill that didn’t eliminate the diversity visa lottery.

That’s why House Democrats overwhelmingly rejected Smith’s bill on Thursday, which failed 257-158, with just 30 Democrats voting to support it. Their main argument was that one group of immigrants shouldn’t be disadvantaged for another group to be let in. “We strongly oppose a zero-sum game that trades one legal immigration program for another,” said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), according to the New York Times. Republicans accused Democrats of trying to sabotage the U.S. economy and spurning the tech companies that supported the bill to avoid handing the GOP a legislative victory.

Others, however, blame Republicans of playing politics by setting up the bill to fail so they could pin the blame on Democrats: The House GOP leadership put Smith’s bill on what’s known as the suspension calendar, which requires bills to have two-thirds instead of a simple majority to pass. Typically, the procedure is used to pass noncontroversial bills that are highly like to pass. But it can also be used “to create a difficult vote for whatever party isn’t in control,” says Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center.

But even if you put the politics aside, there’s still a major policy difference between Republican and Democratic proposals: Do we try to maintain the same overall numbers for legal immigration as we had in the 1990s, or should we look beyond quotas and encourage higher levels of legal immigration to stimulate the economy?

“If you’re unwilling to let go of the numbers from the 1990s, you’re always going to be looking to replace any new category,” says Giovagnoli. “The diversity visa has become a relatively easy target — it’s one of the few visas that’s available to someone with no basic relationship to the U.S.”

Republicans maintain that higher-skill immigration should take priority. But Democrats cast the elimination of the program as “an attack on the poorer segments of the immigration stream,” Giovagnoli explains, pointing out that nearly half of the diversity green cards go to immigrants from African countries who might not have another way to get to the United States.

Pro-immigration advocates don’t expect Congress to make another go at STEM visas until after the elections and were disheartened by the partisanship bickering on display this week. But some are heartened by the fact that legislators made even a preliminary effort to negotiate in good faith. “At least since 2008, the consensus in congress was ‘no, no, no’ on any immigration measure,” says Chisti. “Now we have seen an immigration thaw: There’s clearly a space for pro-immigration bills, and pro-migration bills.”

SOURCE




Immigration Minister Jason Kenney defends the transformation of Canada’s immigration system

Since the Conservatives won their majority in May 2011, Canada's Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism has embarked upon a strategic and systematic transformation of Canada's immigration system.

He has announced moratoriums or suspensions of the immigrant investor program, federal entrepreneur program, federal skill worker program and immigration applications from parents and grandparents. He's replaced those programs with others which, he hopes, will lead to quicker processing times and greater economic prosperity for newcomers while filling our domestic labour gaps.

His department has also put a greater emphasis on immigrants speaking either English or French:  in 2010, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) overhauled the citizenship test, requiring a higher score to pass and a higher language proficiency. More recently, the department proposed a revamp of the immigration point grid which will put more weight on a prospective immigrant's age and language ability.

And he's cracked-down on fraudsters — boy has he cracked down on fraudsters.

Earlier this year, Kenney introduced a new regulatory body for immigration consultants that actually has some teeth to punish crooked-consultants.  To the protest of doctors and refugee advocates, CIC has restricted refugee claimants' health benefits and proposed tougher spousal sponsor rules in order to reduce marriage fraud. It is also now strictly enforcing residency requirements for permanent residents.

"[Fraud] has been a very significant problem," Kenney told Yahoo! Canada News in a telephone interview last week.

"I wouldn't over-state it...but unfortunately a significant minority have used crooked immigration agents overseas and in Canada to try to beat the system...We've seen a number of significant problems which were undermining public confidence in our immigration system."

[ More Political Points: Consulate in Toronto forced to drop ‘diaspora tax’ ]

Critics argue that Kenney is merely using fraud as guise to push forward his changes. Liberal immigration critic Kevin Lamoureux has even called some of Kenney's immigration bills "anti-immigrant."

"I certainly do believe that the changes the Minister and the Conservative government have been implementing are unfair, unprecedented and, ultimately, harmful to Canada's immigration system," Lamoureux told Yahoo! Canada News in an email.

"There has always been a sense of compassion in Canada's immigration system whether it's refugee policies or family reunification."

But Kenney insists that the fast pace of changes is necessary.  And he says the public, especially immigrants already in Canada, support his government's initiatives.

"Our system had been terribly mismanaged, to the point where we had over a million people waiting up to nine years for decisions on their immigration applications," he says.

"We are moving towards a fast immigration system which will allow us to do [a] much better job of selecting people likely to succeed in Canada's economy [and] likely to integrate quickly and successfully."

In 2011, Canada accepted about 240,000 permanent residents and 8,000 refugees  — numbers that are among the highest per-capita level in the developed world.

Kenney says that's a level of immigration that he'd like to maintain in the years ahead.

"Most employers would like to see bigger [immigration] numbers but only about 10 or 15 per cent of Canadians want us to raise immigration levels," he said.

"They're already very high and our focus is on improving the outcome [and] the experience of immigrants before increasing the numbers."

SOURCE




23 September, 2012

Immigrants Are Not Miracle Workers Who Can Fix Any Broken Economy

Lessons from Detroit, Baltimore, and other struggling cities

Many U.S. cities caught in a spiral of economic decline think they have a rescue plan: an influx of immigrants. Officials are carrying out policies aimed at attracting foreigners in hopes that their energy and drive will reverse decades of population losses and set the stage for a revival.

Such thinking is a breath of fresh air—and the polar opposite—of the restrictionist rage that has led Arizona and other states to adopt draconian tactics to chase away such people. But immigrants aren’t miracle workers who can fix any broken economy. Their absence often signals that cities have taken a wrong turn. But that doesn't mean that rolling out the welcome mat will get a place back on track without fundamental reform.

The notion that immigrants can revive dying cities isn’t new. Cleveland started trying to get its “fair share” of the foreign-born from traditional immigrant magnets such as Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Houston about a decade ago.

Its efforts petered out, but other struggling cities have recently jumped on the immigrant bandwagon.

In Baltimore, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake wants to attract 10,000 new families, including foreigners, within 10 years. To this end, she has barred authorities from asking city residents about their immigration status. The mayor, a Democrat, is also offering nutrition and exercise programs in Spanish, an overture that was anathema to her predecessor.

Dayton, Ohio, is also courting immigrants, offering legal services to people with visa-related questions and connecting them with local businesses and community groups interested in hiring or helping them.

In Michigan, a former Democratic state representative, Steve Tobocman, runs a nonprofit group, Global Detroit, that has raised $4 million to investigate ways to attract and retain immigrants. The group is experimenting with programs to connect low-income immigrant and minority entrepreneurs with lenders who offer loans without collateral. Tobocman is also seeking ways to keep foreign students in local universities from moving away.

“No one strategy will, by itself, revitalize the Detroit regional economy,” he says. “However, nothing is more powerful to remaking Detroit as a center of innovation, entrepreneurship and population growth, than embracing and increasing immigrant populations.”

The problem with this thinking is that it misunderstands the role that immigrants play in an economic revival. They aren’t the engine for growth. They are only the fuel, albeit a high-octane one. The difference is crucial.

But the stories of an immigrant-led renewal—the Korean store owners in blighted New York neighborhoods and wig manufacturers who created the vibrant Koreatown in Los Angeles starting in the 1970s—overestimate the economic collapse of the cities that the newcomers are credited with restoring, says Sanda Kaufman, a professor of planning, policy and public administration at Cleveland State University. She conducted a study in 2003, at the behest of Cleveland’s mayor, that examined using immigration for urban renewal. Kaufman found that much of the research in the U.S. linking immigration with growth came either from large cities with thriving economies, or ones that were never completely down and out.

Even New York in the 1970s wasn’t quite as desolate a place as Detroit is today. Its population losses were not as severe. The financial industry had not retrenched as badly as Detroit’s auto industry has. And its government wasn’t as badly broken. New York got a federal loan to avoid bankruptcy, to be sure -- but not until President Gerald Ford was convinced it was serious about dealing with its structural fiscal imbalances, not to mention crime and crumbling schools. That is when the city became a magnet for immigrants who speeded up its turnaround.

The newcomers are very good at finding and seizing openings in an economy that the native-born residents don’t see or don’t want. This is one reason cities should remove the barriers keeping immigrants away. But first these opportunities have to exist.

When they do, a city’s population loss is reversed rather quickly as immigrants move in to capture the openings left by departing residents. A 2003 Brookings Institution study found that five of six metropolitan areas, including New York, with the biggest exodus of residents in the 1990s also had the largest influx of foreigners. By contrast, Rust Belt cities such as Detroit have experienced only outflows since the 1960s.

Why? New Yorkers were mostly leaving for greener pastures elsewhere, while Detroit’s residents are mostly fleeing to escape a lack of opportunities.

Kaufman argues that a relevant experience for Detroit and Baltimore isn’t in New York, but in Israel’s development-town experiment in the 1950s and 1960s. The Israeli government tried to settle newcomers from North Africa, Yemen and Romania in Galilee and the southern part of the country to ease crowding in the cities and coastal regions. It offered big incentives to the new residents in hopes that they would stay and flourish. But the efforts mostly didn’t pan out, and the immigrants left to join their communities elsewhere.

It turns out, immigrants aren’t pioneers whose survival depends on conquering an inhospitable frontier. Yes, they can put up with far greater hardship than the native-born, but they aren’t clueless ingenues who are easily seduced. They have word- of-mouth networks that alert them to places that offer them the best economic and social fit, making it difficult to plunk them anywhere and expect results.

So what should Detroit, Baltimore, and other struggling cities do to become more attractive to immigrants? Offer them a decent quality of life at an affordable price. This means improving schools, tackling crime, creating an entrepreneur- friendly climate and keeping taxes reasonable.

In short, fix the economic engine first.

SOURCE




Sri Lankan illegals sent home voluntarily from Australia rather than face long detention

So much for their need of "asylum"

SRI LANKAN male asylum seekers have been sent home after refusing to be transferred to the offshore processing centre on Nauru, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said today.

Mr Bowen says the 18 Sri Lankans left Christmas Island for Colombo today after asking to be sent home instead of being sent to the Pacific island for the processing of their claims as asylum seekers.

The first group to be sent for offshore processing since new asylum seeker laws were enacted were transferred from Christmas Island to Nauru on September 14.

Australia has reopened the processing centre at Nauru and is soon to reopen Papua New Guinea's Manus Island as part of the federal government's policy to stem the number of boat arrivals.

Mr Bowen also said the government would introduce a recommendation from the Houston independent panel to bar people arriving by boat from sponsoring family under the Special Humanitarian Program.

The Houston report on asylum seeker policy, handed to the government on August 13, recommended 22 key measures to stem the boat arrivals to Australia.

Mr Bowen said the plane carrying the 18 men left Christmas Island at 0815 (11.15am AEST) today bound for the Sri Lankan capital.

He said 16 of the 18 men arrived in Australia after August 13, when the government announced its new border protection policies.

"They have asked not be transferred to Nauru, but instead to be returned to their homeland of Sri Lanka," Mr Bowen told reporters in Sydney on Saturday.

"That has been arranged and facilitated."
The minister said the changes to the concessions under the special humanitarian program would ensure family reunions occurred only through the normal channels.

"There will be no special concessions," Mr Bowen said.

"Up until now it had been possible for people who arrive in Australia by boat to sponsor family members and not to show that the other requirements under the special humanitarian program were met."

Mr Bowen said the government had also accepted the recommendation to increase the numbers of people accepted under the family reunion program by 4000.

SOURCE





21 September, 2012

Kobach defends Texas city in immigration suit

A Dallas suburb asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to uphold an ordinance that would ban illegal immigrants from renting homes in the town.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a national advocate for tougher illegal immigration laws who is also representing Farmers Branch, said that one of the provisions of an Arizona law upheld by the Supreme Court ruling closely mirrors a key portion of the Texas town’s ordinance.

“The problem with the plaintiffs’ argument is that they cannot identify a single federal statute that the Farmers Branch ordinance conflicts with,” he said.

The full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to rehear the case after a three-judge panel from the court ruled in March that Farmers Branch’s ordinance is unconstitutional and impermissibly interferes with the federal immigration system.

The court’s 15 judges didn’t indicate when they would rule after hearing arguments Wednesday from attorneys for the town and a group of landlords and tenants who sued to block the ordinance’s enforcement.

Arguments largely focused on how the case is affected by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June on Arizona’s tough immigration law. That ruling rejected major parts of the law, but upheld the so-called “show me your papers” requirement, which gives law enforcement authority to check a person’s legal status if officers have reasonable suspicion he or she is in the U.S. illegally.

The ordinance, which replaced an earlier 2006 version, would require all renters to obtain a $5 city license and fill out an application that asks about their legal status. Then, the city’s building inspector would have to check whether any immigrant applying for a license was in the United States legally. Illegal immigrants would be denied a permit, and landlords who knowingly allow illegal immigrants to stay as tenants could be fined or have their renters’ license barred.

Kobach said the ordinance explicitly bars the town from making its own determination about whether someone is “lawfully present” in the U.S.  “It must always be done by the federal government,” he said.

“It’s a yes or no from the federal government, correct?” asked Judge Jennifer Elrod, who heard the case last year but issued a dissenting opinion.  “Correct,” Kobach responded.

But plaintiffs’ attorney Nina Perales said the information federal officials provide the building inspector is “very complex and varied” and doesn’t explicitly state whether an applicant is “lawfully present” in the country.

“That’s something that the building inspector is going to have to figure out for himself,” Perales said.

Fellow plaintiffs’ attorney Dunham Biles added: “No one other than the federal government has the authority to classify aliens.”

Perales said the city’s ordinance goes far beyond the Arizona law, forcibly removing illegal immigrants from rental housing instead of merely detaining them and letting the federal government decide whether to remove them from the country.

“This is a complete divergence from the federal system,” she said.

A federal district judge ruled against the city in 2010 before the three-judge panel at the 5th Circuit upheld it earlier this year.

The full 5th Circuit is generally considered to be one of the nation’s most conservative federal courts. Its decision to hear the Farmers Branch case is rare — fewer than 5 percent of petitions for a full court hearing are granted — though the court rehearing a case doesn’t necessarily mean judges intend to reverse an earlier decision.

SOURCE




'Hateful' Islam critic Geert Wilders wants visa to speak in Australia

If the views of Mr Wilders are "hateful and divisive", what do we call the views of the violent Muslim demonstrators in Sydney recently?  If Mr Wilders is not fit to be here, what of the demonstrators?

A DUTCH MP who is a outspoken critic of Islam is seeking a visa to visit Australia for a speaking tour next month.

Geert Wilders, who has compared the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf, has been invited by the Q Society to give speeches in Melbourne and Sydney.

The Federal Government has not yet made a decision but Multicultural Affairs Minister Kate Lundy described Mr Wilders as "an extreme-right politician promulgating views that are out of step with mainstream Australia".

Mr Wilders, who calls Islam "a retarded culture" is on an international immigration movement red-alert list. The Immigration Department is still considering the case and has not yet presented it to Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.

Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, who is Tony Abbott's parliamentary secretary, has previously supported a bid by Mr Wilders to visit on the grounds of free speech. He said he was not involved in organising any proposed visit but asked on what grounds should a democratically elected member of a foreign parliament be denied a visa.

Victorian Greens Senator Richard Di Natale criticised Mr Wilders. "His hateful and divisive views are not welcome in Australia, but to deny him a visa risks giving him more oxygen and publicity," he said.

Mr Wilders was refused a visa to enter the UK, but appealed and won.

Q Society vice president of community relations Andrew Horwood said his organisation was not political or religious and sought to educate people about Islam and uphold Australian values. Critics call it anti-Muslim.

Mr Horwood said after last weekend's Islamic riot in Sydney it was timely for Mr Wilders to "offer advice about Islam and we need to listen and take note".

He said Mr Wilders had been waiting three weeks for a visa and asked why the government was able to "process visas for Islamic hot heads in a hurry, but leave MPs from friendly European nations hang out to dry".

He sent a letter to supporters calling on them to urge Mr Bowen to approve the visa.

Mr Bowen defended granting a visa to British Muslim leader Taji Mustafa saying he was not on any alert list, not a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation and had no criminal convictions. He said the Howard government had not banned his organisation Hizb ut Tahrir despite the Opposition now calling him a hate preacher.

SOURCE





20 September, 2012

British birth rate has soared to one of highest in Europe thanks to increase in migrants

Migrants have helped push Britain’s birth rate up to one of the highest levels in Europe.

Women here are now likely to have an average of just under two children – a level exceeded only in two of the other 27 European Union countries.

A decade ago, before large-scale immigration had a major impact on birth rates, Britain was firmly in the middle of the European table.

Since then, high fertility levels among migrants and a rapid rise in birth rates among women born here have helped push up the population faster than almost everywhere else in Europe. Only women in France, with a birth rate just ahead of ours at 2.03, and Ireland, at 2.07, have more children.

Just over 723,000 babies were born in England and Wales in 2010, up from fewer than 600,000 in 2000. The average number of children each woman is likely to have has gone up from 1.64.

The main reason for the increase was immigration, with many migrants of child-bearing age, and with many from cultures where larger families are more common.

The rising birth rate is also partially attributed to those born here in the 1960s and 70s having children later because they have been focusing on careers.

Having children has for many also been delayed by the need for a couple to maintain two incomes to cover mortgage and other costs.

Other European countries where birthrates have fallen have accepted fewer numbers of migrants than Britain and have not so far shown the same resurgence in baby numbers among women who in recent years have been delaying childbirth.

France has had higher birth rates than Britain since the 1990s and its fertility levels are also pushed upwards by the arrival of high numbers of immigrants.

Most recent figures show British birthrates have remained steady since 2010.

The Office for National Statistics said this may be because of ‘Government policy and the economic climate indirectly influencing individuals’ decisions around childbearing and therefore affecting the number of births.’

However it added: ‘The combined effect of multiple government policies and the changing economic climate does not have a clear impact on fertility in a particular direction.’

High birth rates in Britain are generally reckoned to be responsible for around 30 per cent of population increase.

The growing population, especially in the south, has made England the most crowded country in Europe, except for tiny Malta.

SOURCE




Arizona Can Start Immigrant Status Checks, Judge Rules

An Arizona requirement for local law enforcement to conduct immigration-status checks, left standing by the U.S. Supreme Court, can take effect, a judge said.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix lifted a preliminary injunction today on what civil rights groups call the “show me your papers” provision. The judge permanently barred Arizona from enforcing three other provisions of the state’s first-of-its-kind crackdown on illegal immigration that the Supreme Court found were preempted by federal law.

The June 25 ruling by the Supreme Court was an election- year victory for President Barack Obama, whose administration had challenged the Arizona law and who is vying with Republican candidate Mitt Romney for Hispanic votes. Supporters of the law say the federal government isn’t doing enough to crack down on an estimated 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

“Today is the day we have awaited for more than two years: the injunction against the heart of SB 1070 has been lifted,” Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said in a statement. “With SB 1070 in effect, state and local officers will be empowered to inquire about an individual’s immigration status, but only as part of a legal stop or detention and when the officer has reasonable suspicion.”

‘Reasonable Suspicion’

The measure left standing by the Supreme Court requires local police to check the immigration status of a person they stop if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the individual is an illegal alien. The Supreme Court left open the possibility of future legal challenges to the provision.

“It’s good the three provisions are permanently enjoined,” Linton Joaquin, general counsel with the National Immigration Law Center, said in a phone interview. “We’ll continue to fight to have this provision blocked as well.”

Bolton on Sept. 5 rejected a request by a group of civil rights organizations, including the National Immigration Law Center, to temporarily prevent Arizona from enforcing the provision until the courts have ruled whether it violates the U.S. Constitution.

The judge said she wouldn’t ignore the “clear direction” of the U.S. Supreme Court that the provision “cannot be challenged further on its face before the law takes effect.”

The civil rights groups on Sept. 13 filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco to prevent Arizona from implementing the law while they are appealing Bolton’s decision.

SOURCE







19 September, 2012

Non-Citizen Voters Diluting the Rights and Privileges of U.S. Citizenship

Recommendations to Ensure the Integrity of Elections Outlined

WASHINGTON, DC (September 18, 2012) – A new Center for Immigration Studies’ (CIS) Backgrounder examines efforts by state electoral officials to verify the accuracy of voter registration lists and the federal government to deny state access to information allowing ineligible non-citizen voters to be identified. The report emphasizes the need for federal-state cooperation in ensuring the integrity of voter enrollment. By not actively working with the states, the federal government blurs the distinction between citizens and aliens, thus diluting the value of citizenship as defined by the US Constitution.

The report is online here

The Backgrounder discusses evidence of voter lists containing the names of non-citizens, citing the Government Accountability Office’s discovery that 3 percent of the potential jurors on the voter list in one federal court district were non-citizens, and evidence from states like Colorado and Florida of non-citizens appearing on their voter lists. The document notes that states moved forward with their obligation to verify voter eligibility with the overwhelming consent of the public. A June Quinnipiac University poll found that three-fifths of Floridians approved of state officials' investigations.

The federal government attempted to deny states access to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) database for vetting voter lists in violation of federal law which unambiguously requires immigration authorities to respond to queries from state officials seeking information relating to an individual's citizenship or immigration status.

“How many fraudulent voters are too many? The integrity of our elections must be upheld, and the federal government must support the states in ensuring non-citizens are not registered or permitted to vote when they are not eligible,” commented Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s Director of Policy Studies. “Surely we do not want to allow non-citizens to become a factor in any election. In addition, state and federal officials must prevent the registration of ineligible voters and clean up the voting lists to prevent fraudulent voting, either by non-citizens or imposters.”

Voter registration efforts are essential, and the Backgrounder provides recommendations for ensuring the integrity of voter lists. The report urges systemic vetting efforts including front-end voter registration screening, use of technology like biometrics to complement the more error-prone biographic screening, reinstitution of the issuance of ID Cards to newly naturalized and derivative citizens to facilitate registering and voting, distribution of a pamphlet for registrars to aid in identifying various forms of citizenship and naturalization, and USCIS assistance for state and local elections’ officials in identifying an individual's status as an alien versus a derivative or naturalized citizen.

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

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States.  The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization




Australia:  End the boatpeople-Welfare cycle

Judith Sloan

FREE-market economists support free trade in goods and services. Free-market economists also support the free movement of capital and labour. But free-market economists warn against the corrosive and adverse effects of government-provided income support and welfare services on people's incentives to participate in the labour market and to improve their economic lot through their own efforts.

I fit comfortably into the category of free-market economist. Not surprisingly, I find the following comment of one of the doyens of free-market economics, Nobel Prize winner Professor Gary Becker, very persuasive.

"Since I am a free-trader, readers might expect my preferred alternative to the present system (of controlled migration to the US) to be 19th-century-style unlimited immigration. I would support that if we lived in the 19th-century world where government spending was tiny. But governments now spend huge amounts on medical care, retirement, education and other benefits and entitlements. Experience demonstrates that, in our political system, it is impossible to prevent immigrants gaining access to these benefits."

This comment applies no less to Australia. Immigrants, particularly those entering under the humanitarian visa (refugee) category, are attracted to Australia in part because of the generous safety net provided by governments. Free health care, free education, income support - these sorts of luxuries are potent magnets for refugees when seeking another country in which to live. It is a form of welfare arbitrage - safety from persecution with the additional advantage of a raft of government-provided benefits.

No doubt, I will be accused at this point of being heartless and ignorant. Surely refugees bring all sorts of economic benefits to Australia and these should form part of the equation when devising the size of the humanitarian quota. After all, refugees have shown determination to leave their homelands and, in the case of those who arrive by boat, to hand over money to people-smugglers to expedite their permanent entry to Australia. Does this sort of energetic resolve not correlate with subsequent economic success in Australia?

Sadly, the figures point to the exact opposite. They show that refugees have very low rates of labour force participation and extremely high rates of welfare dependence, even years after being granted permanent residence. And these figures are the official ones - admittedly released without fanfare - of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

The report, Settlement Outcomes of New Arrivals: Report of findings, was released last year by the department. The report's bland title is a give-away - vacuous, alliterative titles for government reports are virtually de rigueur these days. (Think: Smarter Manufacturing for a Smarter Australia.) The results on settlement outcomes are ugly.

Using the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia, the research describes the position of the three key groups of migrants five years after settlement: skilled, family and humanitarian.

In keeping with the findings of previous research, it is absolutely clear that refugees fare very badly in terms of employment and financial self-sufficiency. And note that this study was conducted during a period of low overall unemployment.

For example, the employment rate of humanitarian migrants from Afghanistan was recorded at only 9 per cent - note this is not the unemployment rate - five years after settlement and nearly 94 per cent of households from Afghanistan received Centrelink payments.

According to the report, "Afghans have a different settlement experience compared with most other cultural groups, such as having poorer English skills and lower qualifications levels. Yet they are more likely to borrow money, obtain mortgages and experience difficulties in paying them."

Those from Iraq did little better, with 12 per cent employed and 93 per cent of households in receipt of Centrelink payments. Interestingly, those who did best in the humanitarian group were from Central and West African countries such as Sierra Leone.

Note that these refugees are the least likely to have arrived by boat.

For the sake of typical bureaucratic "balance", the report notes that "given that we are exploring only the first five years of settlement in this study, [The low proportion in employment] is not a surprising result as many humanitarian entrants are strongly focused on creating a new life, and studying for a qualification is an important step in this journey".

But the comparisons with those entering under the other visa categories - and who are also focused on creating a new life - are stark.

Whereas the overall proportion of humanitarian migrant households in receipt of Centrelink payment was 85 per cent, the figure for the family group was 38 per cent and 28 per cent for the skilled group.

In other words, humanitarian migrant households were three times more likely to receive Centrelink payments than skilled migrant households, five years after settlement. (Note that skilled migrants are not entitled to receive Centrelink payments for the first two years of their residence.) Moreover, skilled migrants were more than five times likely to be in employment than refugees.

So how should policy-makers interpret these results?

The first point to note is that there must be a strict limit to the numbers allowed to enter under the humanitarian visa category given the drain on public finances.

The fact that the numbers were kept at about 13,750 for so long probably is a reflection of this reality. The recent increase in the quota to 20,000 is likely to cause an additional strain on both the federal and state budgets.

The second point is to open the debate about whether a portion of the humanitarian intake should be reserved for those prepared to pay a bond to obtain permanent residence.

Indeed, this has been suggested by Gary Becker. "Given these realities of free immigration, the best alternative to the present system is charging a price that clears the market. That is why I believe countries should sell the right to immigrate."

We have clear evidence that some refugees are prepared to pay people-smugglers to facilitate a speedy entry to Australia.

It therefore seems an obvious policy alternative to allocate a certain number of humanitarian places to proven refugees who are prepared to pay and/or forgo welfare benefits for a period of time.

There is clearly not a particularly strong correlation between refugee status and ability to pay, given the numbers of refugees who have paid people-smugglers to reach Australia.

Surely it would be preferable that this money is paid to the Australian government, rather than to people-smugglers offering travel on rickety boats.

The money raised could be used to benefit refugees who cannot pay.

In the light of the arrival of over 2000 asylum-seekers by boat since the government announced the change of policy to deter boat arrivals - a policy which looks set to fail - there is a clear and urgent case for some lateral thinking.

SOURCE




18 September, 2012

The Australian Labor Party's  'Pacific Solution' now relocating illegals to Nauru

A PLANELOAD of Sri Lankan boat people is expected to land on Nauru today as the Labor Party’s reinvigoration of the so-called "Pacific Solution" gathers pace.

The new arrivals, the second group to go to Nauru since Labor reopened the John Howard-era detention centre on the tiny Pacific island, were expected to touch down shortly after 7am (5am Australian time).

Like the 30 Tamils who arrived on Friday, they will be  taken by bus to the 500-person capacity tent city in the sweltering middle of the island, where they will be hemmed in by thick jungle, the island’s rubbish tip and a rock quarry.

With the Australian Army almost finished building the tent city and with the Christmas Island detention centre already exceeding its capacity due to an influx of boats  this year, today’s arrivals will soon be followed by more. Indeed a boat carrying 10 people was detected off West Australia’s coast last night.

Another planeload of several dozen Tamils are expected later this week, and the first group of Afghan Hazaras early next week. By then the camp will house more than 150 asylum seekers.
Some of those 150 may also turn out to be women, children or whole families, as Immigration Minister Chris Bowenlast week told a press conference that "you can expect to see a broad cross-section of people transferred to Nauru next week and in coming weeks".

Despite promises by Mr Bowen that Labor’s system on Nauru would involve a processing centre, not a detention camp, the site’s inhabitants are forbidden from leaving.

A Nauruan government spokesman, Rod Henshaw, said on ABC radio that the situation was a "period of settling in".

"I know the Nauru government is anxious to have them settled and, over a period of time, to give them the privileges of wandering around."

He said he hoped the asylum seekers would be free to leave the camp in weeks or a month. "I couldn’t put a time on it ... but that is the objective, [to give the asylum seekers] the freedom of the island to some degree."

Questions also continue to be asked about the decision to process the refugee claims under Nauruan law. Last week the regional head of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, Rick Towle, said that Australia was handing over legal responsibility for people seeking asylum in that country.

Some  have  expressed concern that Australia may disagree with a refugee approval made under Nauruan law and refuse to take the person, meaning they can’t be returned to their country or resettled in Australia.

SOURCE




 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

Publication

1. Non-Citizen Voters Diluting the Rights and Privileges of Citizenship (Backgrounder)

Blogs

2. ICE Does Exactly the Right Thing to a Pair of Third-Rate Hotels (Blog)

3. What Should Be Done with Those Granted DACA Amnesty? (Blog)

4. Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen — Or, Early Returns for the DACA Amnesty (Blog)

5. Report Dings DHS for Data Problems That Undermine Critical US-VISIT Screening Process (Blog)

6. U.S. Further Softens Its Position on Birth Tourism — But a Remedy Lurks (Blog)

7. The Cost of Responding to Faux Analysis, Part 2: Ignoring Inconvenient Truths That Detract from Your Hypothesis(Blog)

8. Mixed Reviews as ICE Breaks Up a Mass Marriage Fraud Ring in Florida (Blog)






17 September, 2012

Should high-skilled immigrants get special treatment?

Some in Congress want to give special visas to foreign-born graduates of American universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math. But critics say it could come at the expense of diversity in legal immigration

Tucked into Congress’s scramble to get back on the campaign trail is an interesting debate about America’s immigration priorities. It’s in the form of a GOP-sponsored bill that would offer high-skilled advanced graduates of American universities a special visa option at the expense of the green card “lottery” system that aims to diversify the immigrant population to the US.

House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R) of Texas unveiled a bill Friday that would grant 55,000 visas a year to foreign-born graduates of American universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

“These students have the ability to start a company that creates jobs or come up with an invention that could jump-start a whole new industry,” said Rep. Smith, a frequent critic of the administration’s immigration policy, in a statement. “In a global economy, we cannot afford to educate these foreign graduates in the U.S. and then send them back home to work for our competitors.”

The bill prioritizes PhD recipients who will work in the US for five years and who come from 217 universities that are qualified as top research institutions by the Carnegie Foundation. The bill attempts to protect US workers from foreign competition by excluding biological and biomedical advanced graduates from the program and requiring companies that want to hire applicants for the special visa to post the job on the site of state workforce agencies.

The provocative question is not whether the US should have more STEM immigrants. From 165 university presidents who sent a letter to President Obama and congressional leaders arguing for STEM visas to bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for similar STEM-boosting legislation in the past to polls showing three in four Americans (including six in ten conservatives) support such measures, support for more STEM immigration is widespread.

The thorny issue is that public support for more STEM visas has not been previously linked to reducing another form of immigration; can Congress and the President stomach more STEM visas if they come at the expense of the diversity green card program?

“I would like to improve the STEM visa program without doing damage to other parts of our legal immigration system,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) of Illinois in a statement. “The President has made this a priority and I am prepared to support a clean STEM increase because it will help our economy and create jobs. Republicans are only willing to increase legal immigration for immigrants they want by eliminating legal immigration for immigrants they don't want.”

The value of the visa program Smith’s bill would eliminate is a broadening and deepening of the foreign-born that America makes its own. The diversity program, although only about 5 percent of the US’s typical total annual immigration, specifically targets nations that have had low rates of immigration to the US in the previous five years – Bangladesh and Poland, for example.

“The beauty of our immigration system is that it allows for diverse streams of people, family unification, low wage, high wage, refugee,” says Muzzafar Chisti, the director of the Migration Policy Institute’s office at the New York University law school. “The diversity visas had provided another stream of balancing the ethnic and racial composition of our immigration stream and that itself is a value.”

Why might diversity visas be on the chopping block? Chisti says there is no strong, single group advocating for their continuance – while many groups are loaded up on the side of STEM grads.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D) of California, the ranking member of the House Immigration Policy and Enforcement subcommittee, proposed competing legislation Friday that offers the same number of STEM visas without cutting back on other visa programs. Representative Lofgren’s bill would sunset the new visas after two years to force Congress to reexamine how effective the program had been.

Smith’s bill, however, is the only one with a slot on the House floor. It will be offered under special voting procedures this coming Wednesday that require a two-thirds majority of the House to pass. The bill faces an uncertain path in the Senate, although members in that chamber have supported similar legislation in the past.

"There should be bipartisan support for efforts to retain the world's best and brightest after they've received STEM training at American universities. It makes no sense that we require these graduates to return home so they can compete against us,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D) of Virginia, an advocate for previous measures like the JOBS Act 2.0 that created a special visa for STEM graduates, in a statement.

"I am hopeful this commonsense proposal – which could do so much to promote U.S. innovation and competitiveness – receives quick action by Congress,” he said.

However, the Senate is likely to join the House in leaving Washington after next week. Any negotiations over differences in bills passed between the two houses, then, would have to be resolved either in two short days as lawmakers skedaddle from D.C. or in a lame duck session after the election.

SOURCE




Boat-borne Hispanic illegals

The Pacific Ocean is the latest frontier in human smuggling, shifting the battle over illegal immigration to California's coast.

As the federal government tightens patrol of land routes once popular with immigrants sneaking from Mexico into California and Arizona, the sea has become the latest method for people trying to cross illegally into the United States from Mexico. Apprehensions along California's coastline have nearly tripled since officials first tracked the phenomenon in 2008.

Orange County Register reporter Cindy Carcamo traveled to Mexico and Guatemala, asking people who have become part of the sometimes deadly phenomenon how and why they do it or, in some cases, why their loved ones were willing to risk their lives.

The project was sponsored by an International Reporting Fellowship administered by The International Center for Journalists and funded by the Ford Foundation.

In recent years, the United States has tightened land routes long used by people trying to get into California and Arizona illegally from Mexico. Patrols increased. Fencing expanded. As a result, fewer have made successful trips by land from Mexico into the U.S.

But as land routes have tightened, the unexpected result has been a spike of illegal immigration by sea.

These sea journeys, starting in Baja and ending somewhere on the Southern California coast, generally cost more than land crossings. People pay up to $9,000 to make the trips. The voyages are fraught with danger, with people crammed into tiny boats designed for day fishing trips. Life jackets are rare. Communication is scarce. Night landings are typical.

While land travel still accounts for the majority of illegal immigration from Mexico, apprehensions along the Pacific Ocean have tripled since 2008 along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to federal estimates.

Apprehensions along the California coastline are on pace to break records.

In the first 10 months of this fiscal year – starting in October – U.S. immigration agents picked up 558 people in connection with 156 smuggling incidents along the coastline from San Diego to San Luis Obispo counties, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data. The numbers include drug and human smuggling.

It's unclear how many boats go undetected. Some make it to California beaches. Others may disappear in the ocean. What's known is that enough boats reach their target to make it lucrative for smugglers, said Mike Carney, acting special agent in charge of the ICE Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego.

Carney said immigration agents noticed an upturn in sea smuggling soon after President George W. Bush signed the 2006 Secure Fence Act. In the first years after that, immigration enforcement agents saw boats and other watercraft on the shores of San Diego. Some were found empty. In a handful of cases, officials caught people trying to swim from Mexico to San Diego.

As crews raised more fences – some 600 miles added from California to Texas by the end of fiscal 2009 – the ocean became a more popular smuggling route. Smugglers took greater risks and formed new alliances with drug cartels.

In San Diego, ICE officials threw resources and agents at the problem, Carney said.

In response, smugglers pushed farther north. In 2010, at San Onofre State Beach, Dana Point and San Clemente, agents apprehended 63 people on seven incursions. Last year, the number of people detained in sea smuggling events in Orange County nearly doubled, to 119.

Smugglers continue to readjust their routes – taking boats out behind the Mexican Coronado Islands and into international waters before making a beeline north of San Diego – as far as San Luis Obispo County.

The shift in tactics has led to the creation of a regional anti-smuggling maritime task force that would reach all of Southern California.

SOURCE




16 September, 2012

France will continue to kick out gypsies

France will continue to evict gypsies who camp illegally, the French interior minister said while visiting Romania.

Minister Manuel Valls’ comments today came after French police expelled hundreds of Roma from illegal camps in Parisian suburbs in August and in similarly in Lyon and Lille.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, also expressed her concern about Roma rights on Monday.

In Romania, where more than one million Roma live, Mr Valls said: ‘France has a policy of evacuating illegal camps and of escorting them to the border.’

It comes as Romania and France signed a two-year deal to repatriate dozens of Roma families yesterday. Around 80 families will return to Romania under the pilot programme signed by Mr Valls and European Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve during talks with Romanian officials in Bucharest.

An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Roma immigrants live in France

Under the new socialist government, Mr Valls has continued the much criticised repatriation policies of the previous conservative French government and defended the police raids to break up Roma camps on the basis of health grounds.

He said in Romania after meeting Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta: ‘We wish to send a message to the public that... our joint efforts should be focussed on a solution in which the Roma settle in their country of origin, Romania.’

The Roma come mostly from Romania and Bulgaria, fellow European Union member states that human rights groups say discriminate against the minority group.

An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Roma immigrants live in France mainly in squalid camps in city outskirts. The French authorities say they lack the necessary residency permits.

Mr Valls has said in the past that the camps were a ‘challenge’ to ‘people living together’ and that neighbours of the camps often complained about noise and anti-social behaviour, as well as serious crimes.

Humanitarian organisations have also linked the camps to ill health, including serious diseases such as tuberculosis.

The Romanian leader said his country accepted its responsibility to integrate the Roma community, adding that his government needed support from the European Union and France.

Roughly 200 Roma and supporters protested earlier outside the government and president's offices, saying Romanian officials were only pretending to care about the problems facing their minority.

France's actions have come under close scrutiny from U.N. human rights investigators, as well as the European Union, which two years ago criticised a crackdown on illegal Roma camps launched by Nicolas Sarkozy, who lost the presidency in May.

Roma groups accused Mr Sarkozy of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Romania has been a full member of the European Union since 2007 and its citizens can enter France without a visa.  But they must get residency permits if they want to settle long term and work.

SOURCE




Sheriff Arpaio Appeals Court Decision on Racial Profiling

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is not taking the latest decision surrounding his deputies and racial profiling lying down.  After filing to reverse a lower-court ruling barring his deputies from detaining people based solely on the suspicion that they're undocumented immigrants, a federal appeals court is considering the appeal.

On Thursday a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said it would rule later after hearing from lawyers representing the Arizona lawman.

The ACLU and other attorneys filed a federal lawsuit that alleges that Arpaio's deputies pulled over Hispanics without probable cause, making the stops only to inquire about the immigration status of the people in the vehicles.

A federal judge in December barred Arpaio's deputies, who are enforcing Arizona's immigrant smuggling law, from detaining people based solely on the suspicion that they're in the country illegally. In their appeal, Arpaio's attorneys argued the ruling was deeply flawed and that the decision means that the sheriff's office couldn't enforce certain state laws, even though no judge has declared those statutes unconstitutional.

The San Francisco-based court will consider the narrow question of a preliminary injunction while a trial court in Phoenix is considering the merits of the entire lawsuit.

Both sides are awaiting the verdict of U.S. District Judge Murray Snow after a seven-day trial without a jury ended August 2.

The Latino group claims Arpaio's deputies pulled over some vehicles only to make immigration status checks during regular traffic patrols and the sheriff's 20 special immigration patrols.

They also accuse the sheriff of ordering some of the patrols not based on reports of crime but rather on letters from Arizonans who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish.

Arpaio has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying his deputies only stop people when they think a crime has been committed and that he wasn't the person who picked the location of the immigration patrols.

Snow's verdict could render the 9th Circuit's decision unnecessary. Snow hasn't indicated when he would rule.

The lawsuit marks the first case in which the sheriff's office has been accused of systematically racially profiling Latinos and will serve as a precursor for a similar yet broader civil rights lawsuit filed against Arpaio in May by the U.S. Department of Justice.

There has never been a finding by a court that Arpaio's office has racially profiled Latinos, though a case that made such an allegation was settled last year for $200,000 without an admission of wrongdoing by the sheriff's office.

SOURCE


14 September, 2012

Joe Arpaio still standing even as allies against illegal immigration fall

Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio is gearing up for what he expects will be the toughest of his five re-election campaigns.

He is facing a determined effort from immigration rights activists to push him out. A ruling may come any day in a lawsuit that alleges his department violated the civil rights of Hispanics. A second lawsuit filed by the Justice Department is making its way through the courts.

And in TV ads, he doesn’t mention the signature issue that helped bring him to national prominence — a sign, people in both parties say, that illegal immigration is losing its potency.

“Issues in campaigns are like flowers: They bloom, go away and then they bloom again,” GOP lobbyist Stan Barnes said. “The bloom is off illegal immigration.”

Arpaio, who retains a massive $4.2 million campaign treasury, remains the favorite in the November election. In an interview, he was defiant and confident as always, and disagreed that illegal immigration has lost its political punch.

“I get hundreds of people coming up to me and thanking me,” said Arpaio, the sheriff in Maricopa County, the state’s largest, which includes much of the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Whatever the relevancy of the issue at a time when the number of illegal immigrants has declined, the last several tumultuous years has trimmed the cadre of anti-illegal immigration crusaders here.

Two allies — tough-talking former lawman Russell Pearce, who authored many of the state’s strict immigration laws, and Andrew Thomas, a telegenic Harvard law graduate and once the county’s top prosecutor — are out.

Thomas was stripped of his law license by a state court panel. Pearce was recalled, then lost a bid to return to the statehouse last month. “There were three prime movers behind the immigration crackdown” in Arizona, Thomas said. “Two of them have been sidelined, and they’re gunning for the third.”

Arpaio, who usually wins re-election by double-digit margins, allowed he may have a tighter race ahead of him. “It might be a little bigger challenge because I have people coming after me — the Justice Department,” he said, adding that he believed the federal probes were politically motivated.

Both began during the Bush administration. One was closed on Aug. 31, with prosecutors announcing they would not file criminal charges over allegations that the sheriff and Thomas abused their offices’ power.

Barnes noted that Arpaio, 80, was already famous for forcing jail inmates to sleep in tents and wear pink underwear before he signed up in the fight against illegal immigration. “He’s got so many goodwill chips in the bank with voters he can afford to make a few mistakes,” Barnes said. “His brand is solid, not just because of illegal immigration.”

Arpaio’s new national role has been cemented, however, by his stance on illegal immigration. His tactics have been emulated by some law enforcement agencies and shunned by many others. His endorsement is much sought after in Republican primaries -- Arpaio backed Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential one -- and the sheriff often campaigns for other immigration hardliners. He and his state have become a symbol to both sides in the acrimonious debate.

More HERE




UCLA shuts down controversial illegal immigrant college program

 Following scrutiny from a California lawmaker, the University of California is shutting down a controversial college program for illegal immigrants, though the reasons for the closure are not satisfying critics of the so-called National Dream University.

Critics of the plan of the so-called National Dream University (NDU) welcomed the decision to stop the program, though they weren’t satisfied with the reasons given for its closure.

"I believe the procedural issue gave UCLA an out, but it was public pressure and public scrutiny during such difficult economic times that was ultimately turned Dream University into a nightmare for UCLA President and regents," says California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks).

NDU earlier this summer began actively recruiting those seeking a college degree and a career in activism focused on immigration issues. Its website, which has since been taken down,  promoted "an educational opportunity to those who have demonstrated leadership and commitment to the immigrant and/or labor rights movements {with admission} open to everyone, regardless of their immigration status."

Operated by the UCLA Labor Center and the National Labor College, NDU would have offered credit for online courses in immigrant rights and political advocacy. At about $2,500, tuition was thousands less than what legal residents pay to attend UCLA, one of California's premier public universities.

Assemblyman Donnelly was the first lawmaker to publicly express outrage. "Here, you're going to have the taxpayers subsidizing it, so that illegal aliens can go to college, have their own little college, teach their own ideology, and all at taxpayer expense," he said in August.

In an email to Fox News, a university spokesman admitted UCLA was "unaware of the courses to be offered" by NDU. Fox News has repeatedly reached out to the UCLA professors who, on their own, established NDU, with no oversight from university administrators.

When asked for comment, Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, hung up on Fox News several times. He does, however, speak frequently in support of so-called DREAMers.

At one rally, he told an audience of cheering young activists "you will go onto become lawyers and teachers and doctors and members of the U.S. Senate to replace those old white men."

In a response to a query by Donnelly, University of California President Mark Yudof said the two research groups behind NDU did not go through the proper channels, and therefore would not be allowed to continue the program.

The certificate program, he wrote, "was negotiated without the consultation or approval of UCLA's academic and administrative leadership. Therefore, the agreement has been declared void. As a result, UCLA has asked the Labor Center to immediately suspend all work on the National Dream University."

UCLA has not disavowed Kent Wong, however, and the closure of NDU does not mean there could be future activist programs.

"UCLA's actions do not preclude a future agreement between the Labor Center and National Labor College," Yudof wrote. "Any such future agreement will require the completion of a formal proposal process with approval from the appropriate academic and administrative leadership."

Still, Donnelly, who, as a member of the state's appropriations committee approves funding for UC schools, is glad to see NDU disappear.

"I think that given the news coverage of this story by Fox News and others, the inquiry by my office, and the National Labor College's financial difficulties, UC's President decided this is not the way to expend the precious limited resources, which should be available to California citizens rather than illegal aliens, no matter how deserving they may seem."

SOURCE





13 September, 2012

First immigrants OK'd for deportation deferral program

Less than two months before a presidential election in which both parties are fighting for the key Hispanic vote, the Obama administration has approved the first wave of applications from young illegal immigrants hoping to avoid deportation and get a work permit.

The Homeland Security Department is notifying a small group of people this week that they have been approved to stay in the country for two years as part of President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The first approvals come just three weeks after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services started accepting applications for the program Mr. Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano first announced June 15.

In an internal document obtained by The Associated Press, the government had estimated previously that it could take months for each application to be reviewed and approved. So far, about 72,000 people have applied to avoid deportation.

"Following a thorough, individualized case review, USCIS has now begun notifying individuals of the determination on their deferral requests," DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said in a statement Tuesday.

DHS said background checks, including fingerprinting, are being conducted on each immigrant before an application can be approved. The average wait time for approval is expected to be about four months to six months.

Most applications for immigration benefits take several months for USCIS to process. In certain circumstances, people can pay extra fees to speed up the process. There currently is no such option for deferred action applications.

To be eligible for deferred deportation, applicants must have come to the U.S. before they turned 16, be 30 or younger, be high school graduates or in college, or have served in the military. The immigrants could not have a serious criminal record. Successful applicants can avoid deportation for up to two years and get a work permit.

Applicants must pay a $465 paperwork fee that is expected to cover the cost of processing the work permit and fingerprint collection. Homeland Security has estimated that as many as 1.04 million immigrants could apply to avoid being deported in the program's first year, with about 890,000 being immediately eligible. According to the department document, it could cost between $467 million and $585 million to process applications in the first two years of the program, with revenues from fees estimated at $484 million. That means the cost to the government could range from a gain of $17 million to a loss of more than $101 million.

The policy change came just months before what is shaping up to be a tight presidential election. Wooing Hispanic voters has been considered key to helping Mr. Obama win a second term.

The plan to halt deportations for as many as 1.7 million illegal immigrants closely mirrors the failed DREAM Act, a bill that would have provided a path to legalization for many of the same immigrants expected to benefit from the government's deferred action policy. The new policy does not provide legal status for the immigrants.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has not said what he would do with the Obama policy if he is elected. He has previously pledged to veto the DREAM Act should it cross his desk. DREAM stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors.

Republicans have uniformly criticized Mr. Obama's policy, as well as previous DHS decisions to stop deporting many illegal immigrants who do not have criminal records or otherwise pose no threat to national security or public safety.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has derided the policy as "backdoor amnesty."

"It's astounding that the president's administration can move so quickly to grant work authorization to illegal immigrants yet his jobs council hasn't met in over eight months to find solutions to put unemployed Americans back to work," Smith said Tuesday. "Such a quick turnaround for these amnesty applications raises serious concerns about fraud and a lack of thorough background checks. President Obama and his administration continue to put illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of the American people."

"The speed at which the deferrals are being granted continues to raise severe concerns about fraud and the administration's ability to verify items like age of entry, educational status and even current age," Sessions said. "But the bigger issue is that the administration has effectively nullified existing federal law with the stroke of a pen. Moreover, it is a pure fiction that its non-enforcement policy is limited to those theoretically eligible for DREAM."

SOURCE





Feds use new strategy against employers of illegal immigrants

After an Overland Park couple were indicted, accused of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and paying them less than other employees, federal authorities said Tuesday that they would seek to seize the couple’s two hotels.  That would be a first in the state of Kansas — but maybe not the last.

U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said many businesses across Kansas are under similar investigations.

And if found in violation of the law, those employers, in cities including Topeka, Wichita and Dodge City, could end up facing the same tough consequences that Munir Ahmad Chaudary and his wife, Rhonda R. Bridge, could face: years in prison and loss of their personal assets.

The two allegedly employed the undocumented workers at their two Clarion hotels, one at Interstate 435 and Metcalf Avenue in Overland Park and the other near Kansas City International Airport.

“We want to send a very clear message. … We are going to enforce immigration laws, and we are going to enforce them equally,” Grissom said in a news conference in Kansas City, Kan.  “We’re not going to enforce them merely on the backs of (undocumented workers). We are going to go after the people hiring them.”

That symbolizes a switch from years past when employees often were the target. In many cases, authorities would pull up to a worksite, Grissom said, round up dozens of employees and load them on a bus. The next day, though, “they would be replaced by other folks,” he said.

The indictment marks the government’s first attempt to seize a hotel in Kansas in a case involving undocumented workers. That would happen only if Chaudary, 51, and Bridge, 40, are convicted.

The two are charged with one count of conspiracy to harbor undocumented immigrants for personal gain, five counts of harboring undocumented immigrants and four counts of wire fraud.

One of their employees, Syed Naqvy, 34, who worked the front desk, is charged with one count of making a false statement to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and one count of failing to depart from the U.S. as ordered.

Federal authorities served search warrants at the two hotels Tuesday morning. By noon, investigators were in the lobby of the Overland Park Clarion Inn, loading boxes with large, marked envelopes of evidence. The couple’s other hotel is at 11828 N.W. Plaza Circle in Kansas City, North.

When authorities first got to the hotels Tuesday morning, they approached the undocumented workers in what Grissom described as “nonconfrontational” fashion. Ten undocumented employees were interviewed; authorities estimate that three times that many worked at the two hotels.

The workers, who authorities say are primarily from Mexico but also from Pakistan, are not being arrested. Immigration officials will decide what to do about their immigration status after the case has concluded.

“They will be interviewed as victims,” said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of Homeland Security investigations out of Chicago. “We will treat each one independently based on their ability to garner status in the U.S.”

The case started with a tip in December 2011. Someone alerted Homeland Security and the Kansas Department of Revenue that the couple employed several foreign nationals who were not lawfully present in the United States. Investigators spoke with several employees, according to the indictment, and confirmed that roughly half of the employees were undocumented workers.

“They paid them off the books, they paid them by cash,” Grissom said. “And that was done for the sole purpose of enhancing their profit margin. … Their economic motive was to cut their costs and to get an advantage on other hotels that abided by the law.”

And they were paying undocumented workers lower than minium wage, though authorities wouldn’t say Tuesday exactly what they were paid.

In June, an undercover agent applied for a job in housekeeping at the Clarion Inn in Overland Park. He was clear with the owners, Grissom said.  “He said, ‘I’m an illegal alien, I have no papers to support my working here, can you give me a job?’ ” Grissom said.

When the agent learned illegal immigrants made less than other employees, he inquired about that.  “Chaudary told him that nothing was being withheld from wages to employees who were illegal, like the agent, so they were paid less,” the indictment said, “whereas monies were withheld from wages to ‘legal’ employees.”

Adam Mills, president and CEO of the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association, said he was surprised by the indictments.

“In any industry, I think you are going to find people who are bad actors, not doing things on the up and up,” Mills said. “I wouldn’t say that by any means this is a standard operating procedure. We want to be competitive, but we want to have all the documents on our workers. Everybody I talk to is operating within the scope of the law.”

For now, Grissom said, Chaudary and Bridge will be released and allowed to return to their Overland Park hotel, where they live in two rooms on the second floor.

“They will go back and continue to operate the hotels,” he said, “and hopefully they’ll go out and hire some American citizens as opposed to undocumented persons.”

SOURCE




12 September, 2012

Big crackdown in Canada

The RCMP is set to raid an unknown location in Montreal where 1,000 families claim to live, as part of a crackdown on those believed to be cheating the immigration system, CTV News has learned.

The Montreal raid is part of an initiative by the federal government to find and punish those who are abusing the immigration system in their quest to gain Canadian citizenship.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced on Monday that his department has begun the process of revoking citizenship from up to 3,100 individuals, as investigators probe nearly 11,000 people suspected of lying to become citizens of Canada.

Another 5,000 permanent residents have been flagged for living outside of the country.

In a media briefing Monday morning, Kenney said the government is targeting those individuals in order "to protect the value of Canadian citizenship."

Immigration officials are working with the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP, he said, to investigate "nearly 11,000 individuals from more than 100 countries for attempting to cheat."

Nearly 5,000 individuals who are yet to become Canadian citizens have been “flagged for additional security,” Kenney said, explaining that they are either known to be or suspected of trying to defraud the system.

Typically, Kenney said, immigration fraud is perpetrated by unscrupulous consultants who advise would-be Canadians on the best ways to skirt the system.

Some are paid up to $25,000, he said, in order to help clients get around the requirement that permanent residents spend at least three of the four years living in Canada. Similarly, permanent residents must be in Canada for two out of five years in order to maintain their status.

“We want to send a message: “Canadian citizenship is not for sale,” Kenney told CTV’s Power Play Monday.

He stressed that the “vast majority” of Canadian immigrants are “hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding people.”  “It is those law-abiding immigrants who made me aware that some unscrupulous, crooked consultants were giving people pointers, for a fee…to help them basically cheat our citizenship laws,” he said.

Kenney said he took his concerns about fraudulent residency and citizenship applications to the RCMP and the CBSA about three years ago.

Investigators found that some consultants were creating fake addresses and fake receipts for their clients to assist them in obtaining permanent residency status or Canadian citizenship while they lived elsewhere.  In one case, a Montreal “consultant” even had a fake office -- a door that opened to reveal a brick wall, Kenney told Power Play.

In another case, more than 300 people claimed to be living in an office above a Palestinian cultural centre in Mississauga, Ont.  “They never lived at this address,” said executive director of Palestine House Issam Al-Yamani of the suspicious office. “There was a tenant who was an immigration consultant and he uses his office as an address of the immigrants.”

Criminal charges have already been laid against some immigration consultants, and more are pending, Kenney said.

Since the immigration fraud crackdown was launched, the minister said 600 former permanent residents have either been removed or denied admittance to Canada. Another 500 permanent residents have had their citizenship applications denied.

The fact that another 1,800 individuals abandoned the application process after coming under scrutiny is a sure sign, Kenney said, of how widespread the problem is.  “I think this is just the beginning. These investigations are going to go on for years,” he said.

He also suggested that the previous Liberal government dropped the ball on immigration fraud, partly out of fear of being labelled as “politically incorrect.”

“Between 1947, when the Citizenship Act came into law, and 2010, when we started this crackdown, only 70 people had their citizenship revoked for fraud,” Kenney said.

Part of the government initiative includes plans to license immigration consultants. Consultants will also be required to report to a watchdog agency.

Residency fraud is rampant: lawyer.  Toronto immigration lawyer Chantal Desloges said she was surprised by the number of immigration cases under investigation because she believes there are many more.  “There’s so much residency fraud, it would blow your mind,” she told Power Play.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “For some reason, there was always a lack of willpower to tackle the problem.”

Desloges said the main perpetrators of residency fraud are wealthy immigrants who desire, for one reason or another, a Canadian passport.

“What this involves is usually wealthy people who have a good standard of living in their own country and they would like to have immigration to Canada and a Canadian passport simply for the ease of travelling and not needing a visa for other countries,” she said.

Desloges believes that while some would-be Canadians may have been “led down the garden path” by shady immigration consultants, most of those making fraudulent claims knew what they were doing was wrong “at some level.”

Unfortunately, legitimate citizenship applicants may get caught in the dragnet or see their cases delayed because of the government crackdown, she added.

Kenney said the new initiative will send a strong message to those looking to cheat the system.

“By scamming the Canadian immigration system, the gig is up. You can’t do that anymore. You’re running the very high risk of ending up behind bars,” he said.

The minister is encouraging anyone who has information regarding citizenship fraud to call the government’s tip line to report it.

SOURCE



 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

Publications

1. The Career of Vernon Briggs, Jr.: A Liberal Economist's Struggle to Reduce Immigration (Backgrounder)

2. Driver's License Insecurity: A Terrorist's Back Door (Memorandum)

Blogs

3. Uncritical Acceptance of Shoddy Research Reports Damages the Public Interest (Blog)

4. Straws in the Wind Suggest Immigrants Marry More than Natives (Blog)

5. District Court Rules on In-State Tuition, Punts on Birthright Citizenship (Blog)

6. The Executioner's Men, a Review (Blog)

7. It Depends on What the Meaning of 'Deportations' Is (Blog)

8. ID Innovate Conference: Secure ID Technologies You'll Want to Know About (Blog)

9. Open-Borders Democrats Use Republican Thinking on Family Migration (Blog)

10. Leaving a Local Law Enforcement Partner in the Lurch: With
Friends Like ICE, Who Needs Enemies? (Blog)

11. Computer Literacy, Not English Language, Pushed by Immigration System (Blog)



11 September, 2012

U.K. Aims to Slash Red Tape; Entrepreneurs Call for Easier Immigration

A U.K. government drive to scrap red tape has been welcomed by industry, but for digital start-ups, its impact was more restrained, with immigration seen as a bigger obstacle.

The recently appointed U.K. business minister, Michael Fallon, visited White Bear Yard, the  offices of VC Passion Capital, seemingly the venture capitalist of choice for U.K. royalty and politicians, to drive home the government’s commitment to helping small businesses.

Mr. Fallon said of the more than 20,000 regulations covering businesses, only 6,500 “really have impact.” The government has targeted 3,000 regulations to be cut, or reduced, by the end of 2013.

“It is the first time we have ever had a target like that,” he said. “Governments have talked about cutting red tape before; we are serious about this.”

While larger companies may benefit from the elimination of onerous health and safety regulations, which appear to be the focus of the government’s initiative, digital start-ups were less impressed.

Alistair Hill, co-founder of On Device Research, one of the companies in White Bear Yard, said he had struggled to think of what serious red tape he had encountered. “Setting up the company was simple, [I] went online and pushed a few buttons,” he said.

But there was one key area where Mr. Hill, like many entrepreneurs, called for government action: hiring people from outside of the European Union.

“We wanted to hire someone who had an MBA and a stats degree from Brazil. It was utterly stupid. She had the operational experience, the maths and the business acumen to be the ideal employee for us,” he said. “If there was one thing I could change it would be this. It is utterly insane we can’t hire people from non-EU countries easily.”

It was a point made by Dan Crow, chief technology officer of Songkick, who said recently that while new regulations aimed at attracting entrepreneurial talent from outside Europe had made it easier, it was still too difficult.

Mr. Fallon said there was provision to bring people in “but there is an overall government target to get immigration down—and we are committed to that. The business department can’t escape its responsibility—we are all committed to reduce the overall total on immigration.”

SOURCE





Border Patrol halts flights returning illegal immigrants to Mexico

The U.S. government has halted flights home for Mexicans caught entering the country illegally in the deadly summer heat of Arizona's deserts, a money-saving move that ends a seven-year experiment that cost taxpayers nearly $100 million.

More than 125,000 passengers were flown deep into Mexico for free since 2004 in an effort that initially met with skepticism from Mexican government officials and migrants, but was gradually embraced as a way to help people back on their feet and save lives.

The Border Patrol hailed it as a way to discourage people from trying their luck again, and it appears to have kept many away -- at least for a short time.

But with Border Patrol arrests at 40-year lows and fresh evidence suggesting more people may be heading south of the border than north, officials struggled to fill the planes and found the costs increasingly difficult to justify. Flights carrying up to 146 people were cut to once from twice daily last year.

And this summer, there haven't been any.

"Everything comes down to dollars and cents," said George Allen, assistant chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson sector. "We're running into a more budget-conscious society, especially with the government."

He added: "Does it fit within our budget and is there an alternative that is not as effective but still effective?"

In an effort to keep the flights going, American authorities proposed mixing in Mexicans who commit crimes while living in the U.S. The Mexican government balked at seating hardened criminals next to families, elderly and the frail who recently crossed the border in search of work.

"Right off the bat, I can tell you that Mexico was not going to allow, nor will it ever allow, that kind of repatriation, which puts families' safety at risk," said Juan Manuel Calderon, the Mexican consul in Tucson.

U.S. and Mexican negotiators also discussed changing the route from El Paso, Texas, where many Mexicans with criminal records are held, to the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. In the past, the route has been from Tucson to Mexico City.

The flights may resume but not this year, U.S. and Mexican officials say.

They have operated only in the summer and only in Arizona, designed as a humanitarian effort in response to the many migrants who have died over the last decade trekking through remote deserts in debilitating heat.

U.S. Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Mexico Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire said in February that they planned to launch a pilot program April 1 to fly migrants arrested while living in the United States deep into Mexico. The pilot program was partly a response to complaints from Mexican border cities that too many deportees were being dumped on their streets and contributing to crime and unemployment.

"We wanted to maximize the flight and we couldn't come to an agreement," said Allen. "They were close. It may happen next year, but by the time it drug on, we got through July and for a short period of time, it wouldn't have been realistic."

The Mexican Interior Repatriation Program flights carried 125,164 passengers at a cost of $90.6 million since 2004, or an average of $724 each, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The flights ran as few as 38 days in 2009 and as many as 120 days in 2010, when a record 23,384 passengers were flown. Last year, there were 8,893 passengers flown at a cost of $5 million -- an average of $562 each.

The flights became a key piece of Border Patrol enforcement in Arizona as the agency moved to end its decades-old, revolving-door policy of taking migrants to the nearest border crossing to try again hours later.

The agency's new strategy, introduced in Tucson last year and later extended to the entire border, relies on tougher punishments that were rolled out in recent years. One calls for jail for up to six months and another one buses migrants to border cities hundreds of miles away to be deported there.

The one-way flights to Mexico City were aimed at first-time offenders and families. They were always voluntary and Allen said about 70 percent declined when they were introduced. But, as jail time and other punishments became more common, migrants increasingly jumped at the opportunity.

Without the flights, the Border Patrol is relying more on other punishments. It sends 70 people to federal court in downtown Tucson each weekday to face jail time. Deportation buses head east daily to Del Rio, Texas, and, when there are enough people to fill the seats, west to San Diego or Calexico, Calif.

Allen said Border Patrol data shows migrants who took the flights were less likely to be found again crossing the border illegally, though the agency has faced criticism for failing to release evidence of whether its tougher punishments are working.

In 2010, the Government Accountability Office said U.S. authorities had not shown the one-way flights were effective.

In Nogales, Mexico -- about 60 miles south of the cavernous Border Patrol station in Tucson where most migrants arrested in Arizona are taken -- more than a dozen deportees interviewed say they would accept a free flight home.

Juana Hernandez was dreading the two-day bus ride to her home in the central Mexican state of Michoacan and shared none of the Mexican government's objections to being seated alongside hardened criminals on a plane.

The flights appear to have discouraged migrants from crossing immediately after being deported but results over the long term were less clear.

Guillermo Martinez took a flight when he was deported a second time in 2010 but grew restless after an unsuccessful, two-year job search in his central Mexican state of Aguascalientes led to marital problems.

The Border Patrol arrested him in April with a group of 12 that agreed to pay a smuggler $1,500 each and spent nearly four months in county jail in Prescott, Ariz.

Martinez, who had only $17 in his pocket when he was deported last month, said he would accept another flight to Mexico City if it were offered and would try again to find a job back home.

Instead, he planned to stay in Nogales a couple months before trying to cross the border again, hoping to reach Atlanta, where his cousin promised a $12-an-hour job at a furniture factory. He dismissed the prospect of more jail time if he is arrested again.

"It would be lost time (in jail) but what do I have waiting for me if I return to Mexico?" he asked plaintively, sitting on back doorstep of a migrant shelter.

SOURCE




10 September, 2012

Migrant deaths highlights problem with illegal immigration in Turkey, Greece

An overloaded boat carrying more than 100 refugees attempting to illegally cross the Aegean from Turkey to Greece capsised off the coast of Izmir on Thursday (September 6th), killing 61 people – half of them children.

The governor's office said in a statement that among the dead were 12 men, 18 women, 28 children and three infants.

The tragedy marks a low point in the issue of illegal immigration from Turkey into Europe. Greece has long accused Turkey of failing to stop illegal immigrants from crossing into its territory and this summer added 1,800 border guards and more than two dozen floating barriers along a river that divides the countries. A 10km-fence on a portion of the border is also expected to be completed this year.

While the fortified border has been effective, authorities have expressed concern that people determined to illegally cross the border will try more hazardous water routes.

The survivors of Thursday's tragedy, nationals from Syria and the Palestinian Territories, were taken to Ahmetbeyli for health checks, the governor's office said. Turkish media also reported that Iraqis were on the boat.

The boat sunk shortly after leaving Ahmetbeyli, which is near the Greek island of Samos. It was only 100 metres from shore. Six people, including the captain and his assistant, were detained by gendarmerie in connection with the incident.

Turkey is traditionally one of the main destinations for African and Asian refugees seeking to enter European countries, while some Greek islands like Chios and Samos remains under huge migratory pressure with some hundreds of people crossing every day.

Selcuk Unal, spokesperson of Turkish Foreign Ministry, said that Turkey has been taking all possible measures to prevent human smuggling, and is signatory of all relevant international conventions. Becoming a member of International Organization for Migration since 2004, Turkey is also cooperating with this organization in the field of human trafficking.

"[However] given the magnitude of the problem, the solutions are beyond the means of a single country, requiring international burden sharing," Unal told SETimes. "Providing shelter, food, medical treatment as well as bearing the return costs of such high number of illegal immigrants puts heavy financial burden on the already strained resources of Turkey."

Nearly 700,000 illegal migrants were apprehended in Turkey within the period 1995-2007 while the number of apprehended human smugglers in the same period was 1,242.

Readmission agreements are considered as effective instruments in combating illegal migration and encouraging states to take serious measures against this phenomenon. Turkey and the European Commission in June signed a readmission agreement to allow Turkey to take back illegal immigrants from third countries crossing into EU territory from its borders.

"Within this context, it is Turkey's priority to sign readmission agreements with source countries. To this end, Turkey signed Readmission Agreements with Syria, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Ukraine and Greece to fight against illegal migration, and continues negotiations with Pakistan," Unal said.

According to the Frontex 2012 Annual Risk Analysis, published in April, 40 percent of illegal immigration into Europe occurs on the land border between Greece and Turkey.

In figures released on Wednesday, Greek police said that the number of illegal migrants that attempted enter the country by crossing the Evros/Maritsa River, which separates the only Greek-Turkish land border in Thrace, dropped by 84 percent since early August, when the crackdown began in the greater Athens area and in the Evros border region.

Jalil Abdallah of the International Training Centre of International Labour Organization told SETimes that Turkey, as a crossroad between Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe, has a special geopolitical location, making it a major transit hub.

"And all these continents around Turkey have one thing in common: political insecurity, lack of economic opportunities, low standard of living," he said.

SOURCE





Nauru ready for asylum arrivals

THE first asylum-seekers from Christmas Island may be on their way to Nauru as soon as tomorrow.

The Australian has been told Australian Federal Police officers and guards from the private company Serco will escort the asylum-seekers to Darwin tomorrow. From there they are scheduled to be taken to Nauru on Wednesday.

But Australia is yet to decide how long asylum-seekers will be kept on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island to ensure there is "no advantage" for refugees arriving illegally by boat despite a new written agreement with Port Moresby.

As illegal boats continue to come, Australian and PNG definitions of the length of time asylum-seekers will be kept in detention centres remain at odds.

On the weekend Julia Gillard and PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill oversaw a new agreement governing the transfer of asylum-seekers to Manus Island and processing refugees, but the leaders provided different interpretations of how long people would be held there.

After the signing of the agreement, which was designed to head off a High Court challenge similar to the one that sank the Malaysia Solution last year, Mr O'Neill said he hoped asylum-seekers would be moved as soon as possible. Rejecting any suggestion PNG was going to "make money" out of the reopening of the Howard-era centre, he said asylum-seekers would be dealt with as speedily as possible.

But in Vladivostok, before leaving to join her family after her father's death, Ms Gillard said the agreement ensured the principle of "no advantage".

"Even if you are a genuine refugee, you would not get a resettlement opportunity earlier than you would have got it if you hadn't moved by boat," she told the ABC's Australia Network.

"The aim here is so people don't get an advantage if they get on a boat, pay a people-smuggler and risk their lives at sea."

Although Mr O'Neill said PNG wanted people treated humanely and processed as speedily as possible, Ms Gillard said Australia had not yet decided how long a refugee would have to be kept to ensure there was no advantage in coming illegally.

"We will consult with the High Commissioner for Refugees to ascertain what the right amount of time is," she said.

"We want people resettled as quickly as possible, as does the Prime Minister of PNG and the President of Nauru."

In Nauru, there is an expectation the first of the asylum-seekers could be on the island by the end of this week.

An earlier deadline that would have seen between 50 and 100 arrive tomorrow was aborted at the request of the Naurans, who said the ablution blocks and catering services were not ready.

Sources on the island painted a picture of intense activity, with RAAF Hercules transport aircraft arriving daily with supplies and equipment.

The Australian has been told the tents to house the first asylum-seekers are up.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen declined to say if the government would begin transfers this week.

SOURCE




9 September, 2012

Australia: Illegal immigrant arrests are on the rise across Victoria

MORE than 11 illegal immigrants are arrested in Victoria every week and the numbers are expected to continue to rise.  In the past financial year 612 people were arrested - up from 429 the year before.

Few of the illegal workers were likely to be asylum seekers who arrived by boat, with 517 arrested after overstaying their visa.  A further 95 were on the run following their visa being cancelled.

The figure was revealed last month as the Department of Immigration and Citizenship prepared to deport 13 illegal farm workers located in northwestern Victoria.  Nine men and four women, all Malaysian nationals, had been employed on farms as pruners.  They were caught in a 48-hour operation chasing illegal workers in the Mallee.

The detainees were transferred to Melbourne's Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre and nine to the Adelaide Immigration Transit Accommodation facility, pending their removal from Australia.

All had overstayed their visas and were living here unlawfully, according to the department.

Two other foreign nationals were given warnings, including a Malaysian national who was in Australia on a student visa but had not been studying.

The employer faces fines of $13,200 and two years' imprisonment per illegal worker.

In Australia there are an estimated 19,540 people who have overstayed their visa - an increase of 4430 from the 2009-10 financial year.

In response to the growing numbers of people overstaying their visas, last month the Federal Government announced a crackdown.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen promoted the dob-in line and encouraged anyone with information about illegal workers, visa overstayers or visa fraud to call 1800 009 623.

SOURCE



'Heads must come out of the sand': Tory MP warns about scale of immigration as he predicts population will hit 70 million by 2027

A Conservative MP has issued a stark warning on the scale of immigration to Britain, insisting 'heads must come out of the sand' on the issue.  Nicholas Soames, MP for Mid Sussex, warned MPs the 'stakes are indeed very high' with very difficult decisions to take against 'unforgiving' timescales.

The issue of immigration was, he said, of 'fundamental importance to the future of the country'.

He added that a Commons debate had been chosen by the Backbench Business Committee in response to a petition launched by MigrationWatch on the Government’s website last autumn, which received more than 100,000 signatures within a week.

He said: 'This is a clear indicator of the very great public concern about the scale of immigration to this country.'

The motion he added calls on the Government to take all necessary steps to get immigration down to a level that will stabilise the UK’s population as close as possible to its present level, and certainly, significantly below 70 million.

He noted that immigration was a 'natural and essential part of an open economy', but he added: 'We are at the present time experiencing the greatest wave of immigration to our country in nearly 1,000 years.'

Mr Soames, grandson of former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, turned his fire on Labour, who he said had bequeathed the country a 'chaotic, ill-thought-out and deeply irresponsible policy' on immigration, which had 'changed the face of this country'.

He said the 2011 census results showed that in the last ten years, the population increase had been the largest for any period since the records began since 1801.

And if the net migration average of 200,000 a year continued, the country’s population would hit 70 million in 15 years’ time - a 7.7 million increase, with five million new immigrants and their children.

He said: 'In the coming 15 years we will have to build just for new immigrants and their families the equivalent of eight of the largest cities outside the capital.'

Mr Soames urged an overhaul of the points based system, stating: 'Common sense has gone out of the window, bureaucracy has taken over and the Government has got to deal with this urgently and they have got to get it fixed.'

He also called for an expansion in student interviews to ensure bogus ones were refused, a re-look at visitor visas and a strengthening of the removal system.

He said: 'The Prime Minister has given his word that this Government will bring net migration down to tens of thousands. Failure to do so will leave our population rising inexorably, pressure on our already hard pressed public services building up relentlessly and as a result, social tension mounting. We must stop this happening.'

'Common sense has gone out of the window, bureaucracy has taken over and the Government has got to deal with this urgently and they have got to get it fixed.'

Former Labour minister Frank Field spoke about Britain hosting the London 2012 Olympic Games, saying he was 'delighted' by the athletes who had come to make a new life and 'were so committed to us that they actually wanted not only to participate but to win for this country'.

He said he had feared the Games might present the opportunity for a terrorist outrage, but was pleased he had been wrong.

He said: 'We have so many people who come here and are so committed and yet at the same there are some, so far as we know, second generation, who harbour such terrible thoughts in their hearts about us that they actually want to take terrible action against us.'

Labour MP Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) queried that, as a second generation migrant, what possible evidence there was that even a 'tiny fraction of a fraction of second generation migrants harbour terrible thoughts'.

Mr Field went on: 'There is not the case that unlimited migration of the scale that we've seen is such an economic advantage to this country as some of those proponents of open doors would wish us to believe.'

Tory Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) said people had been 'sickened' by the extent of immigration under Labour.

He said: 'The number of migrants allowed into this country was far and away in excess of what we needed for economic growth and many people in all parts of the country were sickened by it.'

Mr Turner added: 'It was the intention of the Labour Party to admit far more immigrants than ever before.

'Their aim was to create a rainbow coalition. What they succeeded in doing was creating ghettos in many parts of the country.'

Labour's Roger Godsiff (Birmingham Hall Green) blamed businesses for the 'myth' that immigration always creates growth, he said.

'This myth is peddled, usually by elements of big business who do not want the responsibility for training young British school leavers and graduates,' he said.

The MP added: 'We have to address the issue of how many people we need in the UK to sustain our standard of living.

'If we don't address that issue then I fear that the community relations that have been built up in my city, in many other cities in this country, the good community relations that exist, will be put at threat.'

Tory Julian Brazier (Canterbury) said some immigrant communities had failed to assimilate, highlighting reports of attacks on British military personnel at the Olympics.

He said birth rates among immigrant communities tended to trend towards the national average of countries they arrived in 'with one very notable exception and that is if those groups don't become absorbed into the wider body'.

'For the first time over the last few years, we have begun to see the very unsettling picture ... of some groups not assimilating,' he said.

The success of British athletes in the Olympics and Paralympics had shown the 'full spectrum of people here', he said.

But he added: 'What was much less widely discussed though, and has only started to come out recently, was a whole string of acts of violence by people living round the area against service personnel - not only service personnel responsible for guarding the area but in one case against naval personnel from a visiting ship - to the extent that towards the end of it I understand instructions were given out not to be seen, if possible, in uniform too far away the site.'

Mr Brazier warned: 'We are now starting to collect some groups who don't feel British.'

The SNP's Pete Wishart (Perth and N Perthshire) said: 'This is a nasty, silly, ridiculous little motion. It's something that could almost be from a shady authoritarian regime.'

He questioned what 'all necessary steps' to reduce immigration could really mean.

SOURCE





7 September, 2012

Federal judge says police can enforce most contentious part of Ariz. immigration law

Arizona authorities can enforce the most contentious section of the state's heavily debated immigration law, according to a federal judge's ruling Wednesday regarding a section of the statute that critics have dubbed the "show me your papers" provision.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton clears the way for police to carry out the requirement that officers, while enforcing other laws, question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer hailed the ruling on what she called "the most critical section" of the state's immigration law.

Critics have assailed the provision as un-American, saying it paves the way for ethnic discrimination and racial profiling, providing officers a justification for stopping people based on how they look.

Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona, said the section of the law is "divisive" and will "lead to rampant racial profiling and prolonged detention for countless Latinos, a majority of whom are U.S. citizens and permanent residents."

Proponents say that's a misinterpretation of a law necessary to stop immigrants from illegally coming into the U.S. and using up scant resources. They say there's nothing wrong with being asked to provide identification proving legal status.

Brewer, a Republican, said the ruling "will empower state and local law enforcement, as part of a legal stop or detention, to inquire about an individual's immigration status when the officer has reasonable suspicion."

The provision has been at the center of a two-year legal battle that resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June upholding the requirement.

After the nation's highest court weighed in, opponents asked Bolton to block the section of the law, arguing that it would cause systematic discrimination and unreasonably long detentions of Latinos if it's enforced.

Brewer's office, however, urged the judge to let the requirement go into effect, saying the law's opponents were merely speculating in their racial profiling claims. The Republican governor's office also said police have received training to avoid discriminatory practices and that officers must have reasonable suspicion that a person is in the country illegally to trigger the requirement.

In her ruling, Bolton said the court will not ignore the clear direction from the Supreme Court that the provision "cannot be challenged further on its face before the law takes effect." She reiterated the high court's interpretation that the law might be able to be challenged as unconstitutional on other grounds.

The Obama administration's case was based on the argument that federal immigration law trumped Arizona law. The challenge didn't confront racial profiling.

The Obama administration declared a measure of victory after the Supreme Court decision, as the court said local police cannot detain anyone on an immigration violation unless federal immigration officials say so.

President Barack Obama said in the aftermath of the ruling that police should not enforce the provision in a way that undermines civil rights.

"No American should ever live under a cloud of suspicion just because of what they look like," he said at the time.

Arizona's law, known as SB1070, was passed in 2010 amid voter frustration with the state's role as the busiest illegal entry point into the country. Five other states - Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah - have adopted variations.

Shortly before the law was to take effect in July 2010, Bolton prevented police from enforcing the questioning requirement and other parts of the statute, ruling the Obama administration would likely succeed in its challenge.

Brewer, who signed the measure, appealed the ruling, lost at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and took her case to the Supreme Court.

Brewer's office said the law is expected to go into effect shortly.

Less controversial sections of the law have been in effect since late July 2010, but have rarely been used.

Lydia Guzman, a civil rights activist in Phoenix and leader of the group Respect Respecto, which tracks instances of racial profiling, said that if a higher court doesn't issue an emergency order stopping the provision from taking effect, her organization and others will be watching carefully.

If legal residents feel they are the victims of discriminatory treatment once the provision kicks in, Guzman said, "we want them to contact us. Those are the cases we are going to be taking to court."

The chief sponsor of SB1070, former state Senate President Russell Pearce, called Bolton's ruling a "huge win."

"The problem isn't the law," he said. "The problem is a broken political system and those that fail to keep their commitment to defend the law."

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the ruling doesn't change what his office already has been doing. The only difference, he said, will be in how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials respond to calls for pickup.

"Right now the only thing we can do is call ICE and see if they can pick them up under circumstances where we don't have a state charge," Arpaio said. "If we have a state charge, we'll book them into jail."

Lyle Mann, executive director of the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, said law enforcement statewide has been trained on how to implement SB1070 and had been awaiting a start date.

Bolton, with her ruling also granted a preliminary injunction against a statute making it illegal to harbor individuals suspected of being in the country illegally.

SOURCE




The 'last chance saloon' for Britain on immigration control: Landmark debate will discuss pressure caused by unprecedented levels

David Cameron will be ‘saying goodbye to the country we inherited’ if he doesn’t get a grip on immigration, MPs will be told today.

Labour’s Frank Field and the Tory backbencher Nicholas Soames will say the UK is in ‘the last chance saloon’ in a landmark debate to discuss the pressure on society caused by unprecedented levels of immigration.

They will urge the Government to slash net migration – the difference between those arriving and those leaving – to 50,000 a year.

The debate was called after more than 143,000 people signed a Downing Street e-petition last year urging Mr Cameron to prevent the UK’s population, currently 62.3million, hitting 70million.

Official forecasts say that, at current rates, that level will be reached in 15 years.

In a joint statement, Mr Field and Mr Soames said: ‘This really is the last chance saloon.

'If the Government were to lose its nerve and fail to press on with reform we would be saying goodbye to the country we inherited’.

The two respected MPs joined forces to form a group campaigning for ‘balanced migration’.

They will table a motion, based on the e-petition, which calls on the Government ‘to take all necessary steps to get immigration down so population is stabilised as close to the present level as possible’.

The e-petition campaign, organised by Migration Watch, smashed the 100,000 signatures barrier required to trigger a Parliamentary debate in less than one week.  At one stage it was being signed by one person every three seconds.

Last week, the Office for National Statistics said net migration in the year to December 2011 was 216,000 – down from 252,000 the previous year.

Immigration minister Mark Harper said: ‘I’m looking forward to this debate where I will be outlining this Government’s commitment to bringing immigration back to sustainable levels.  'Reducing net migration to the tens of thousands is vitally important. 'Recent policies are starting to make a difference.’

SOURCE





6 September, 2012

A Leftist writer  experiences Mexican immigrants next door

Now she knows what the workers often have to put up with and why they are "racist"

I deliberated long and hard about this post. Would I sound racist? Intolerant? Can I even use the term “illegal immigrants”? Then I began to internally rail against a stifling political climate, where it’s difficult to utter one word about racial issues or immigrancy for fear of cold shoulder repercussions and self-righteous indignation.

And this isn’t an unfounded fear. Whenever I spoke to someone about my Mexican neighbors and their legality, people shut down almost immediately. This included public officials and the owner of the house.

But let me back up. Three years ago, a family of Mexican descent moved into the 2-bedroom/1-bath house next door. They were not on the lease. As is often the case here at the Jersey shore, a business owner signed the lease, so one (or many) of his or her employees could live here and still work in that business.

When my brother first told me, I was surprised at my initial thoughts. Would they pack the house with people? Would it be noisy? I knew I was stereotyping…but unfortunately my concerns quickly came to fruition.

The first week, dozens of people came and went, lining the driveway and street with cars. The new renters parked a car on the front lawn that hasn’t budged since. It became noisy. This wasn’t a party-loving family per se, but there were a lot of adults and children in and out.

After a few weeks, the guests died down. But as I’ve come to realize, one problem quickly replaces another. Soon noisy cars were idling outside of my bedroom window as early as 5 am. People moved in during the middle of the night (into the front porch, which the census began calling “Apartment B”!). Cars beeped aggressively throughout the day.

When I asked the woman of the house if she could tell her children to play in their backyard and not next to my window (I work from my home, right next to their driveway, where they congregate), I was treated to one of many mean looks.

I could relay more “horror stories”: The loud music, the men who checked me out when I left the house in the morning, the daycare “business” they tried to pull off. But after about a year, I put the kibosh on most of it. I called the realtor and the owner of the house. I called the police. I even wrote the mayor about the problem of third party leasing, where people live in a house for years and aren’t required to have their names on the lease. I was successful, for the most part. The car horns stopped, the strangers living there for short periods of time, the car idling, the music playing…all stopped.

I wish I could say it’s fine now. It’s not. The tension continues. Because, for me, the bigger issue is their possible illegality in this country.

And this is when everyone fidgets and grumbles. People will often ask, “How do you know they’re illegal?” To which I respond, “How do you know I’m legal?” Fortunately or not, you generally don’t have the right to ask someone about citizenship status. But telltale signs arise: the lack of a driver’s license, under-the-table jobs, questionable license plates on permanently parked cars, moving in the middle of the night, house-stuffing…all signs.

The husband works at a restaurant here. I’m guessing he has some sort of extended work visa. The wife, I’ve surmised, does not. Their children are matriculated into the school system and are picked up in front of their house on a daily basis by a school bus.

The political climate tends to be polarized on this issue. Republicans want stricter reform when it comes to citizenship and deportation. Democrats want more integration and allowance. For the first time in my life, I stand warily by the side of the Republicans.

Many people will say, “But they are good people. I have an illegal clean my house and she’s a real sweetheart.” Or “Nobody wants those low-paying jobs anyway. We benefit from it because we pay 10 cents less for lettuce.” I’ve heard it all. Generally I’ve never heard these statements from someone who lives next door to a family of questionable legal status. Because niceness and a strong work ethic have nothing to do with it.

It’s not that different from living next door to a drug dealer. Covert activity, disruptive behavior, a bucking of local laws and ordinances for their own personal gain, a sense of entitlement.

Yes, a sense of entitlement. And perhaps that’s the most aggravating aspect. My neighbors actively dislike me because I had the audacity to enforce my rights and make them conform to local laws. These changes weren’t made to be neighborly or considerate of me; they were forced to make these changes.

I try to imagine what it would be like if I moved to another country with the goal of staying there permanently and integrating the entirety of my family there. I’d know I was doing something illegal and I would live my life in fear. I’d stay under the radar and adhere to local protocol at all costs. I’d learn the language as soon as possible. Actually, it’s hard for me to imagine it; I wouldn’t do it. But people are doing it, by the millions. A certain shoulder shrugging goes on that I wish applied to me when I broke a law.

One woman said to me, “Well I guess you don’t know what it’s like to go hungry.” No one should ever assume because I’m an American that I’ve never gone hungry. But more than that, her statement highlights a genuine lack of knowledge about this topic.

When it comes to Mexico specifically, most aren’t crawling to the border, starving and homeless, desperate for a good meal. They are moving here because they make more money here. And they can send it back home by the billions to their relatives, where that money is worth more. There are tax loopholes that they can take advantage of, a system to exploit. They move here by strategy and choice, not out of desperation.

Of course, this problem is multi-layered in its complicity. The hiring businesses, the realtors, the owner of the house who lives several states away and mindlessly deposits a check every month, the IRS, consumers, the politicians who enact laws to protect the hiring businesses­–and, of course, the families themselves–are all responsible.

During an economy that most certainly affects me, it’s hard not to wonder about the repercussions of millions of people living here illegally and the impact they have. It seems to be more of a land of opportunity for them, not me. Not just these neighbors but the entire (growing) community of newcomers here seem to be doing pretty darn well: nice cars, latest iPhones and gadgets, new clothes.They appear to be the middle class I once was. Still, some will argue that they have very little impact or actually contribute to the economy. I can’t imagine that to be entirely true.

Regardless, it doesn’t justify millions of people living here illegally simply because they contribute to the economy. (Didn’t the drug dealer?) Whether it’s the Mexican family next door or the Pope or a Lilliputian, if you’re here illegally, you’re committing a crime. That’s not to be downplayed for the sake of cheaper lettuce or a spotless home.

So I continue to receive the dirty looks from the family next door. And their friends. (Their community outnumbers mine at this point.) My belief system includes the importance of “loving your neighbor” and I'm not even close, unfortunately.

And yes, I know. Bad neighbors are bad neighbors, regardless of their origin. But to deny the illegality aspect is missing a critical piece of the problem. And if they are legal, then I’d like to believe that newcomers would be more than willing to adapt to the ways of the host country.

After one episode a while back, where many people were visiting and kids screaming and running in and out of the house into the evening, I asked them, again, to keep it down. (Now I no longer ask; I simply call the cops.) The man of the house, a nice man for whatever that's worth, responded to me: “But this is my way. This is my way.”

And I said, “Yes and that very attitude is the problem.”

He didn't understand me.

SOURCE




Thousands arrested in Greece anti-immigration push

Greek police say they have made more than 3,000 arrests in a month-old campaign to hold and deport illegal immigrants.

A police statement says nearly 17,000 people were temporarily detained in the greater Athens area since the drive started on Aug. 4, with 2,144 of those arrested.

Debt-crippled Greece is the main gateway to the European Union for illegal immigrants, most coming from Asia and Africa. The influx has fueled racist rhetoric and violence.

Hundreds of thousands have entered Greece in recent years, and officials said Wednesday some 400 were illegally crossing the land border with Turkey every day before the clampdown.

The Turkish border influx has dropped 84 percent, the police statement said, with 1,121 illegal immigrants arrested there over the past month, compared to 6,991 a year earlier.

SOURCE




5 September, 2012

Judge: Fla. can’t charge students with undocumented parents higher, out-of-state tuition

 Students at Florida’s public colleges and universities cannot be charged higher out-of-state tuition simply because their parents are in the U.S. illegally, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore determined the policy violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution by forcing those students to unfairly pay three times as much as Florida residents. Children born in this country are citizens whether or not their parents have legal immigration status.

“The state regulations deny a benefit and create unique obstacles to attain public post-secondary public education for U.S. citizen children who would otherwise qualify for in-state tuition,” Moore wrote.

The ruling Friday came in a lawsuit filed by the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of several Florida students who were denied in-state tuition because they could not prove their parents are in this country legally. The center’s deputy legal director, Jerri Katzerman, said Tuesday that Moore’s ruling could give thousands of students greater access to an education.

“He has said in no uncertain terms that these youngsters are citizens and they have been discriminated against,” she said.

State education officials said lawyers were reviewing the ruling and no decision had been made on a possible appeal. There are 28 public two-year colleges and 11 four-year universities in Florida.

Children of illegal immigrants have won similar battles in other states.

Last month in New Jersey, a state appeals court ruled that an American-born student whose parents could not prove legal status was wrongly denied financial aid. The American Civil Liberties Union said that ruling could affect thousands of New Jersey students seeking state assistance to attend college.

In California, a challenge was resolved in favor of the students. Similarly, the Colorado attorney general issued an opinion in 2007 determining that legal state residents were eligible for in-state tuition even if their parents were residing in the country illegally.

The Florida policy, which has been in effect for several years, applies to students under age 24 who are also claimed as dependents by parents. According to a Florida International University law professor’s analysis of U.S Census figures, nearly 9,000 children of illegal immigrant parents are enrolled in Florida public colleges and universities in a given year.

Attorneys for the state argued mainly that classifying children of illegal immigrants as eligible for in-state tuition would cost financially-strapped colleges and universities millions of dollars each year. That argument, however, assumed Florida would be forced to offer in-state tuition to all students who lived out of state.

“This is simply incorrect,” Moore wrote, adding that his ruling “would not prevent the state from continuing to distinguish between in-state residents and out-of-state non-residents.”

SOURCE




 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

1. Projecting the 2012 Hispanic Vote Shares Nationally and in Battleground States (Memorandum)

2. Mark Krikorian on America's immigration DREAM (Op-ed)

3. Mark Krikorian on the Great Recession and a new American DREAM (Op-ed)

4. Statement of Mark Krikorian Before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Testimony)

5. So Much for 'No Path to Citizenship' for DACA DREAMers (Blog)

6. Ted Cruz More Hawkish than Me? (Blog)

7. Good News: Government Nibbles Away, a Bit, at Chain Migration (Blog)

8. D.C. Council Votes to Impede Immigration Enforcement: In Stunning Rebuff, Federal Government Snubs Itself (Blog)

9. California Sheriffs Protest Anti-Secure Communities Bill (Blog)

10. Racing to Expand Entrepreneurial Visas: Sometimes It's Better to Be the Turtle than the Hare (Blog)

11. Need Help Cheating on That DACA Application? Check the Web (Blog)




4 September, 2012

Tiny island creates major migration headache for Spain

Spain lashed out at human traffickers Monday as it grappled with more than 80 immigrants who made their way to a tiny Spanish-owned islet off the coast of Morocco.

The new arrivals landed on the bare, rocky surface of Isla de Tierra, which lies an easy swim off the beach and is the breadth of two football pitches at its widest point.

But it is Spanish sovereign territory, and is therefore an entry point to Europe.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said at a news conference he was convinced their arrival was coordinated by “mafia who traffick human beings”.

The problems for Spain began Wednesday when 19 people landed on the uninhabited rock, part of the Alhucemas archipelago which is near the Spanish territory of Melilla.

Melilla and Ceuta are two tiny Spanish exclaves in Morocco, the only land frontier between Africa and Europe.

“The situation deteriorated at dawn on Sunday with the arrival of 68 more immigrants,” the minister said, bringing the total to 87.

Six women and children needed urgent humanitarian help and were transported to Melilla, he said, but the remaining 81 were left on the island with basic help such as blankets, water and food.

Garcia-Margallo did not say what Spain planned to do with the immigrants but Spanish media said the government was hoping they would give up and return to Morocco, about 30 meters (100 feet) away.

The stakes are high for Spain and the European Union because hundreds of people have gathered on the Moroccan side of Ceuta and Melilla hoping for a chance to escape poverty and conflict.

Madrid wants to avoid the latest arrival sparking further attempts to land on small Spanish-owned islands, the minister said, and it has launched discussions with Morocco and European partners.

Garcia-Margallo said Spain had been in talks with Morocco since the start of the islet affair.

“Our conversations are continuing today and I am sure we will find a formula between the two governments,” he said.

Immigration was a matter of European policy, he said, vowing to seek a common solution with Spain’s partners.

A government official in Morocco confirmed that the two governments were seeking a solution.

“While Moroccan security forces enforce strict control along the fences installed by Spain around Melilla and Ceuta, the sub-Saharan migrants use any means, notably traffickers, to get to the other side,” the official said.

The official stressed that Morocco was no longer simply a transit point for sub-Saharan migrants, thousands of whom were now living in big cities such as Casablanca, Rabat and Tangiers.

Rabat considers Ceuta and Melilla, held by Spain since 1580 and 1496, to be “occupied”. Madrid refuses any discussion on the subject, which regularly poisons relations between the two nations.

SOURCE





Australia: New effort to deter illegals

FOOTAGE of a rickety fishing boat being battered by waves is part of a new multimedia campaign outlining Australia's tough new stance targeted at asylum seekers.

As authorities intercepted a boat carrying 81 suspected asylum seekers off the West Australian coast yesterday - the 10th boat to be intercepted since August 22 - the federal government will today launch its "No Advantage" strategy in countries such as Afghanistan, Sri Lank and Indonesia, telling people that they risk processing in Nauru or PNG, may not be resettled in Australia, and cannot sponsor family members to join them.

Videos show unsafe fishing boats and no-frills offshore processing accommodation while imploring refugees to not deal with people smugglers. It comes after the drowning deaths of up to 100 last week when their wooden boat sank in the Sunda Strait, and the arrival of two boats carrying 145 at the weekend.

The 54 Afghans rescued from the sinking are now in Indonesian immigration detention, along with 50 Sri Lankans whose boat was found floundering on the Sumatran coast.

Brochures, posters and YouTube clips in Farsi, Arabic, Tamil, English and other languages tell people their claims will be heard no faster if they risk their lives and they should instead "do the right thing" and apply for visas, which have been increased to 20,000.

"The people smugglers' trade must be stopped to save people drowning at sea," the video says.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the message was "there is no advantage to risking a dangerous journey in a people smuggler's boat".

"They could be processed in Nauru or on Manus Island, and will wait just as long as they would in a refugee camp.

"They will not be able to sponsor family members under the humanitarian program, and there's no guarantee of resettlement in Australia."

Meanwhile, the Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said Australia should begin sending Sri Lankan asylum seekers home immediately, as most were economic migrants.

SOURCE






3 September, 2012

The GOP’s new immigration solution

The Republican Party achieved two major victories at the GOP convention in Tampa this week that will have a lasting impact on the immigration debate. It passed a temporary guest worker plan in its national platform, and Russell Pearce — the author of the Arizona’s controversial immigration bill — suffered a double-digit election loss in his comeback bid.

Pearce’s decisive defeat means that the hot anti-immigrant rhetoric has proved to be a political loser. Conservatives are instead embracing a market-based approach to immigration

This move is a major victory for the GOP’s new leaders: vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and other forward-looking conservatives who want solutions to the immigration crisis we face.

It also means that the voices of discord and inflammatory rhetoric are losing their grip on the party. The strong support of the temporary worker program, in both the subcommittee and in full committee, shows that anti-immigration reform groups are losing the ability to drive a wedge into the conservative wing of the GOP.

With Rubio’s star rising (he spoke Thursday night at the GOP convention) and Ryan’s support of a guest worker program, Republicans are finally facing and discussing an issue that has been described by so many as a “third-rail political issue” inside our party.

As the economy continues to stagnate, any incentive to boost growth and economic activity should be welcomed. It’s time that we returned to a free-market approach to labor and put an end to our nation’s broken immigration system — which drives honest workers and employers into the underground economy.

Texans, in a border state, are confronted daily with our nation’s failed immigration policies. Texas Republicans decided to step up and lead on the immigration issue at the Republican Party of Texas convention in June. Texas delegates overwhelmingly supported a solution to restore law and order rather than complain about a list of problems.

The Texas Immigration Solution reallocates our law enforcement resources to focus on securing our borders and defeating the drug cartels and human traffickers. The Texas Immigration Solution also proposes a 21st-century temporary worker program.

This temporary worker program addresses the problem at its root. It seeks to first protect U.S. workers by requiring employers to verify that no U.S. worker is available before hiring a person with a temporary worker permit. The program is set up to be self-funded, through fines from and taxes on the temporary workers. The program will also require workers to purchase private health insurance, so they are not dependent on Medicaid. They must also be proficient in English.

More HERE



Obama is accused of inflating his deportation numbers. What’s really happening?

By the Department of Homeland Security’s official count, President Obama is deporting more illegal immigrants each month than President Bush averaged over the course of his presidency. But Republicans say those official figures are misleading:

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is accusing Obama and his administration of having “fabricated” and “falsified their record to achieve their so-called historic deportation numbers…illegitimately adding over 100,000 removals to their deportation figures for the past two years.”

Smith, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, points out the Obama administration has decided to include removals under a new border security program called the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP) in the official deportation statistics beginning in 2011, citing internal documents his committee has recently obtained. He believes this practice is illegitimate because “there are no penalties or bars attached when illegal immigrants are sent back via ATEP and they can simply attempt re-entry,” according to his Aug. 24 statement. The ATEP removals accounted for about 37,000 of the approximately 397,000 immigrants who were deported in 2011, Smith continues. Without them, the deportation numbers for 2011 would actually by lower than 2008′s numbers under Bush.

What’s the real story behind ATEP? It’s a program that started under Bush in 2008 but was ramped up significantly under the Obama administration. The program repatriates certain Mexicans who are caught by border agents “to border ports hundreds of miles away, typically moving people from Arizona to Texas or California,” according to a 2012 Congressional Research Service report. It’s meant to break the “smuggling cycle” in which border-crossers were simply turned around the the spot where they were caught,” allowing them “to easily reconnect with smugglers who would try to bring them across again, sometimes within hours,” as the Los Angeles Times wrote in 2011.

By deporting immigrants 1,200 miles or even 2,000 miles away from where they crossed, ATEP is intended to be a deterrent to discourage multiple attempts to cross the border. The border-crossers are also fingerprinted, so if they’re caught again trying to cross, the “consequences go up”—they can be repatriated even farther away, to the interior of Mexico, and face “increasingly severe penalties,” says Doris Meissner, who was President Clinton’s commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and is now a senior fellow at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute.

So there are more potential consequences than Smith suggests for border-crossers who attempt re-entry after being removed through ATEP. The program is part of a larger effort by the Department of Homeland Security “to ensure that virtually everyone who is apprehended faces ‘some type of consequence,’ including criminal charges, formal removal, or one of the remote repatriation programs,” according to the 2012 CRS report.

That’s among the reasons why Meissner believes that it’s legitimate for the administration to count the removals under ATEP in the deportation statistics: There is the immediate consequence of being repatriated hundreds of miles away and the threat of further penalties if they try to re-enter, and the program requires far more extensive involvement by immigration officials than the old practice of simply being turned away at the border.

ATEP, however, isn’t the only Obama administration deportation strategy that has raised questions. As the Post explained in 2010, immigration officials have resorted to short-term fixes to break annual deportation records, like temporarily extending repatriation programs to meet year-end targets.

SOURCE



2 September, 2012

California Bill Allows DREAMers to Obtain Driver's Licenses

The California legislature on Thursday passed three bills that would give significant new rights to immigrants, most of them Latinos.

A bill headed to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk for his signature would allow undocumented immigrants who become eligible for work permits under a new Obama administration program to apply for state driver’s licenses.

The landmark measure, passed by the state Assembly Thursday, would allow immigrants to use documents they received through the federal program as proof of legal residence at the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

California’s move comes at a time when officials of several states have moved to deny driver’s licenses to these immigrants, saying that such people will still be in the country illegally despite their eligibility for Obama’s so-called “deferred action” program.

Two other measures that are headed to the governor's desk would give nannies, housekeepers and other domestic workers an array of rights, and impose fines and jail time on agricultural employers who do not provide enough shade and water to their workers.

Both the domestic worker and agricultural industries contain a predominantly Latino workforce.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, allows undocumented immigrants to apply for a work permit and a temporary stay if they were brought to the country as children and have no criminal background.

The program is beginning just months before what promises to be a tight contest for the White House in which the Hispanic vote may play an important role.

Democratic Assemblyman Gil Cedillo of Los Angeles said he wrote AB2189 to make roads safer, and allow young immigrants to drive to school and to work. Several Republicans supported the bill, but others in the party spoke against it, saying the state should leave immigration issues to the federal government.

Earlier this month, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed an executive order denying licenses or other major benefits to undocumented immigrants who qualify for the program. The governors of various other states also moved to do the same.

Among other things, AB889 would give domestic workers the right to overtime, meal breaks, and, in the case of live-in workers, compensation for interrupted sleep.

Republicans questioned the bill's feasibility and the potential for average families to face legal liabilities. Its author, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, said regulatory details would be worked out later by the state Department of Industrial Relations.

The San Francisco Democrat has said the rules recognize the dignity of domestic workers. The bill has attracted nationwide attention and an endorsement from comedian Amy Poehler.

Only New York has similar rules for domestic workers.

The bill says the domestic worker field is dominated by immigrants and women, and it seeks to address their "abuse and exploitation." It says they face a litany of workplace woes, including working long hours for low wages and a lack of job security.

"In the worst cases, domestic workers are verbally and physically abused or sexually assaulted, forced to sleep in conditions unfit for human habitation, and stripped of their privacy and dignity," the bill analysis states.

State Sen. Kevin de Leon, who noted that his mother was a housekeeper, said the bill recognizes the dignity of such workers.

"These women deserve better -- much, much better. ... Decent wages, a safe and healthy workplace and workers' compensation," said the Los Angeles Democrat who carried the bill in the Senate.

The agricultural bill would impose fines and jail time on agricultural employers who do not provide enough shade and water to their workers.

The bill, which passed the Assembly 42-28 Thursday, would strengthen existing regulations requiring growers to protect their workers from extreme heat. Currently, these rules are enforced with civil penalties. AB2676 would make violations misdemeanors.

Democratic Assemblyman Charles Calderon of Whittier said he wrote the bill after he discovered existing law provides greater heat protections for livestock than farmworkers.

Several Republicans from rural districts spoke against the bill, which they said would harm California's agricultural economy by adding unnecessary restrictions.

Earlier in the week, lawmakers sent a related bill to the governor that would allow individual farmworkers to sue employers for heat violations

SOURCE




Immigrants protest loss of free health care in Spain

Hundreds of people protested in downtown Madrid Saturday against a measure that will leave undocumented immigrants without access to free health care, saying the decision by Spain's governing Popular Party amounts to "health apartheid."

The demonstrators cried out against Saturday's enactment of a measure that will strip the more than 150,000 illegal immigrants in Spain of their national health cards.

It was included in a government decree imposing urgent savings measures to safeguard the future of public health care amid a severe financial crisis and an unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent.

Some 30 organizations and civil society groups, immigrant and refugee associations and defenders of human rights, grouped as the Network for the Right to Have Rights, rallied in front of Madrid's Gregorio Maraņon Hospital.

Those taking part, many of them foreigners living in Spain, chanted slogans like "No human being is illegal" and "Popular Party, Ku Klux Klan," while demanding the resignation of Health Minister Ana Mato.

Joining in the protest were opposition politicians including the Socialist Party's executive secretary for cooperation and immigration, Marisol Perez, who demanded that the administration "correct" what it has done and put and end to this "health apartheid," which she described as "cruel, inhuman and ineffectual."

Yoro, 22, an immigrant from Gambia, spoke in the name of his best friend who is suffering from liver cancer and has no papers, out of fear that he will be left without treatment under the new regulation.

"We'll die if they don't treat us; the government has to correct what it did, it can't leave us to our fate because we have no money to pay for treatment," the young man told Efe.

The health minister annulled Saturday the health cards of all foreigners who pay no contributions to Spain's Social Security and of Spaniards who have never worked and have incomes above 100,000 euros ($125,000) a year.

Foreigners without papers will only be eligible for urgent care in the case of accidents, serious illnesses, or pregnancy, birth and puerperium, except in the case of minors under age 18, who will received the same services as other Spaniards.

From Doctors of the World, spokesman Mario Perez asked the government to repeal the decree because, he said, it violates the right to health care and will collapse the urgent care centers because undocumented immigrants will now have nowhere else to go, thus leading to "costs rather than savings."

No official data exist about people living in Spain without a visa, though comparing the number of foreigners in the National Statistics Institute with those who do not figure in the registry of Spain's Employment Ministry shows 569,946 people "without papers."

Of these, some 153,469 are illegal immigrants from Latin America and other non-European Union countries, the hardest hit by this measure, since they belong to a vulnerable group with little money, while the rest are foreigners of irregular status from other EU countries.

Several medical organizations have launched a conscientious objection campaign declaring they will not obey the decree, to which some 1,800 health professionals have joined in.

At the same time, the regional governments of Catalonia, Galicia, the Basque region, Castilla y Leon, Navarra, Andalusia and Asturias have already announced that they will continue treating the undocumented.

SOURCE








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


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

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

2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.

3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.

4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.

5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: You usually CAN buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.

6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.

I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.