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April 30, 2012

Obama's semi-amnesty not always popular with illegals

The federal government last year vowed to review the country's 300,000 pending immigration court cases and exercise so-called prosecutorial discretion to shift its focus to those cases involving convicted criminals wreaking havoc on local neighborhoods. As of mid-April, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had reviewed more than 70 percent of the files and decided to offer to temporarily suspend roughly 7.5 percent of deportation cases, agency officials said.

The agency declined to state how many of the 16,500 immigrants had accepted the deal.  So far, only 2,700 cases actually have been put on hold. In many instances, the process is pending paperwork and background checks, immigration officials said.

In December, ICE attorneys began reviewing their caseloads to see which immigrants should qualify for the program, which mainly consists of administrative closure _ an indefinite suspension of their cases but one that can be lifted at any time. Once the offers have been approved by a supervisor, attorneys have been reaching out to immigration attorneys or raising the issue directly with immigrants who lack lawyers in immigration court.

The government hopes to whittle down its caseload since the agency only has the manpower and resources to deport a finite number of immigrants. In the last fiscal year, ICE deported nearly 400,000 people, an all-time high for the agency.

"We need to get a handle on this exploded docket and figure out a way where ICE can prosecute the cases that really do warrant our resources and skills _ the bad guys," said Jim Stolley, ICE's director of Field Legal Operations.

For some immigrants, prosecutorial discretion is a lifeline. Immigrants waiting in line for a green card after being sponsored by relatives could use the extra time. Others, who may have lived here for years and have clean records but don't qualify for legal residency because they don't have American relatives, may have no other way to stay.

Concepcion Velazquez was sponsored for a green card by her American sister but must wait roughly two more years to get one. The 43-year-old from Fairfield in Northern California also has applied for a visa for crime victims who collaborate with law enforcement after a neighbor fired a gun into their living room.
Those are good prospects for being allowed to stay here, said Kevin Crabtree, her attorney. But Velazquez and her husband have no legal status today, which is why getting their case shelved by the government was such a relief.

"We're less anxious, not having to wait to go to court since we were always appearing in court," said Velazquez, who came here from Mexico more than two decades ago and wound up in deportation proceedings after an unscrupulous immigration attorney offered to get the couple legal papers and failed. "We're a little bit more relaxed in that sense, but we're still in the fight."

For other immigrants, however, getting an offer of prosecutorial discretion can be a double-edged sword. Some attorneys say they'd rather not even be approached by ICE because they'll be forced to choose between accepting a one-time offer to stave off deportation and seeking a more lasting solution in court such as asylum or a green card, both of which let an immigrant work here legally.

But turning down an offer of prosecutorial discretion also carries risks. Some immigration attorneys say they fear ICE attorneys might fight a case more vigorously if their client shuns an offer, or that immigration judges might apply more scrutiny to their clients' cases.

"A strong bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," said Angela Bean, an immigration attorney in Oakland, who has urged her clients to snap up the government's offer. "There is the issue of playing with fire."

It's still too soon to see whether the program will yield a significant improvement in the country's backlogged immigration courts, where it can take up to two years to get a hearing date.
On a recent morning in immigration court in downtown Los Angeles, several judges asked whether immigrants might be interested in seeking prosecutorial discretion. Some said they were eager for the opportunity, but not all _ such as a Mexican woman raising three American children on her own, two of them autistic, who opted to try her chances.

Government attorneys are still reviewing cases in most regions of the country.  Once immigrants are offered discretion, they must undergo background and national security checks before final approval.

SOURCE




Voters Understand the Immigration Debate; Politicians Don't

As the U.S. Supreme Court wrestles with the Obama administration's challenge of Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigration, the overall issue of immigration remains misunderstood by both political parties in Washington.

Many Washington Republicans confuse voter opposition to illegal immigration with opposition to all immigration. Their remarks often contain an ugly tone toward those who want to come to America.

Many Washington Democrats confuse public respect for hardworking immigrants with a belief that borders and immigration laws don't matter. Their remarks often contain an ugly tone toward those who believe the nation's immigration laws should be enforced.

On the issues before the court, most voters tend to side with the state of Arizona rather than the federal government. Fifty-nine percent of voters nationwide, for example, agree with one of the law's most controversial provisions, that police officers should routinely check the immigration status of those they pull over for other violations. Most voters would like to have a law like Arizona's in their own state.

But that says more about voter respect for the law than it does about the immigration issue. Voters figure if there's a law on the books, the government should enforce it.

That's why, among voters who are angry about the immigration issue, 83 percent are angry at the federal government rather than the illegal immigrants themselves. It's also why two-thirds of voters think those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants are a bigger problem than the people they employ. Simply put, most Americans are angry at those who would entice others to break the law. They're not angry at people who are willing to work hard to provide for their families.

It's a little bit like the public desire to go after drug pushers rather than occasional users of illegal drugs.

Still, there's another reason for the disconnect between official Washington and the American people on immigration.

In Washington, the entire focus of the immigration debate is on how to deal with those already living here illegally. For voters, this is a secondary concern. The bigger concern is how to secure the border so future immigrants enter the county according to the rules. Routinely, in surveys for years, 60 percent or more of voters say securing the borders is a higher priority than legalizing the status of the illegal immigrants who are here now.

Once voters are convinced that illegal immigration is a thing of the past, it will be easier to address the status of those in the country already.

But voters don't believe the federal government has any interest in securing the border. In fact, most believe the policies of the federal government are designed to encourage illegal immigration. This offends voters who want to respect the rule of law. If immigration laws -- or any laws -- are routinely ignored, then the government loses credibility.

If the laws are enforced, 61 percent of voters favor a welcoming policy that lets anybody come to America except national security threats, criminals and those who would live off the U.S. welfare system. All who would like to work hard and pursue the American Dream are welcome.

The bottom line is that voters remember what many in Washington often forget: America is a nation of immigrants -- and of laws. The American people want both traditions to be honored.

SOURCE



April 29, 2012

Immigrants bring TB back to London

In the shadows of some of London’s tallest skyscrapers and richest banks lurks a disease borne of the poverty and squalor usually associated with the Victorian era rather than a 21st-century financial capital.

Tuberculosis is staging a comeback in London, where some neighborhoods suffer infection rates found in African countries in which the disease is endemic. The number of cases surged 50 percent in the 10 years to 2009, according to a National Health Service agency.

The airborne bacteria has taken root in a population of recent immigrants, addicts and homeless who live close to affluent business districts and may pose a risk for those they rub elbows with.

“You wouldn’t expect to see that,” says Brian McCloskey, the Health Protection Agency’s regional director for London. “TB is one of the biggest public health problems we have.”

One hotspot is Tower Hamlets, a borough that draws together Canary Wharf, the home of some of Europe’s largest banks, and pockets of poverty that stretch along the Thames’ old docks east of the Tower of London and north past Whitechapel, where Jack the Ripper preyed on prostitutes in 1888.

Tuberculosis, transmitted by coughs and sneezes, doesn’t just strike the needy.

After a worker at a Canary Wharf bank fell ill in 2010, Julian Surey, a nurse at Tower Hamlets Tuberculosis Service in East London, says he was sent with colleagues to her office to screen 14 of her co-workers, a challenge in an open-space environment where employees share keyboards and telephones.
Single Sneeze

“They were hot-desking and it was a nightmare,” Surey says. “People did get concerned.” Some workers demanded to see private doctors rather than be tested and treated by the state- run NHS, the 37-year-old nurse recalled. One person who sat next to the original patient contracted TB, according to Surey. He declined to identify the bank, as did other nurses.

One sneeze can release up to 40,000 droplets and each one can potentially cause infection. An untreated patient can infect up to 15 others a year, the World Health Organization estimates.

The condition, which can remain dormant in the body for decades but spread through the air and require extended courses of antibiotics once it has been roused, is difficult to diagnose, treat and contain.

Drugs are only part of the solution. Tuberculosis is a sensitive subject with social and political ramifications, says Graham Cooke, a senior lecturer in the department of medicine at the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London.

In the U.K. capital, 84 percent of the 3,302 people infected in 2010 were foreign-born, according to the HPA, which means they may be grappling with language barriers, fear of stigmatization or homelessness.

“You don’t just give them tablets,” says Surey, who has worked as a nurse in Calcutta, India and Lima, Peru. “You have to understand the community.”

The disease was as prevalent in London as in some of the world’s poorer nations in 2010. The city had 43 cases per 100,000 overall and rates of 65 or more per 100,000 in hotbeds such as Tower Hamlets, some of them on par with Karonga district in Malawi, says Ali Zumla, a professor at University College London. By contrast, New York reports nine cases per 100,000 people and Berlin eight.
Two Cities

The U.K.’s colonial history, which ties it to countries like India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh where tuberculosis is rife, plays a role.

SOURCE






Your papers, please!

 Jonah Goldberg
 
With the Supreme Court taking up Arizona's "show me your papers" immigration law, we're once again thrust into a useful debate over the role of the government and the obligations of the citizen -- and non-citizen. Rather than come at it from the usual angle, I thought I'd try something different.

If there were one thing I could impress upon people about the nature of the state, it's that governments by their very nature want to make their citizens "legible."

I borrow that word from James C. Scott, whose book "Seeing Like a State" left a lasting impression on me. Scott studied why the state has always seen "people who move around" to be the enemy. Around the world, according to Scott, states have historically seen nomadic peoples, herdsmen, slash-and-burn hill people, Gypsies, hunter-gatherers, vagrants, runaway slaves and serfs as problems to be solved. States have tried to make these people stay in one place.

But as Scott examined "sedentarization" (making mobile people settle down), he realized this practice was simply part of a more fundamental drive of the state: to make the whole population legible to the state. The premodern state was "blind" to its subjects. But the modern state was determined first to see them, and then organize them. This is why so many rulers pushed for the universal usage of last names starting around 1600 (aristocrats had been using family or clan names for centuries already). The same goes with the push for more accurate addresses, the standardization of weights and measures, and of course the use of censuses and surveys. It's much easier to collect taxes, conscript soldiers, fight crime and put down rebellions if you know who people are and where they live.

Perhaps the most obvious means of making the populace legible is the identity card or internal passport. The history of the identity card is a fascinating and shockingly complex one. For instance, did you know that identity cards were seen as a war on bigamy in many countries?

Opponents of the Arizona immigration law like to conjure scenes from Nazi Germany, with the Gestapo asking, "Ihre papiere, bitte" ("Your papers, please"). And it's indisputably true that police states, from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union to Castro's Cuba and the North Korea of the Kims, have a deep relationship with the identity card for obvious reasons. But German officials were saying "Ihre papiere, bitte" long before anyone heard of the Nazis.

The United Kingdom has debated the merits of identity cards several times over the generations. During World War I, Britain's National Registration was hugely controversial because it was seen as too "Prussian." A generation earlier, the Prussians, under Otto von Bismarck, had famously created the first modern administrative state, which included the precursor to America's Social Security system and what today might be called "jobs programs." The Prussians also pioneered the public school system in order to make the people more legible to the state -- imposing common language, political indoctrination and the like.

A system of reliable ID was necessary for conscription and internal security -- government's top concerns -- but it was also necessary to properly allocate the benefits and jobs the state doled out in order to buy popular support, and to enforce school attendance.

And this brings me to our current debate over Arizona's immigration laws. Opponents like to conjure the police-state association of "Ihre papiere, bitte." I think that's wildly exaggerated (and so do several Supreme Court justices, apparently). But as someone who's against a national ID card, I'm sympathetic to the concern nonetheless. The Constitution lists three federal crimes -- treason, piracy and counterfeiting -- but today we have more than 4,500 federal crimes, all because the government in Washington wants to make the American people more legible. I don't want to make that easier with a national ID card.

But what I wish liberal opponents would understand is that in a society where the government "gives" so much to its citizens, it's inevitable that the state will pursue ways to more clearly demarcate the lines between the citizen and the non-citizen.

Most (but by no means all) conservatives I know would have few problems with large-scale immigration if we didn't have a welfare state that bequeaths so many benefits on citizens and non-citizens alike. I myself am a huge fan of legal immigration. But if you try to see things like a state for a second, it's simply unsustainable to have a libertarian immigration policy and a liberal welfare state. Ultimately, if you don't want cops asking for your papers, you need to get rid of one or the other.

SOURCE



April 28, 2012

Border Agent Indicted For Violating Illegal Alien's Rights

In almost total secrecy, the Obama Justice Department has charged a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Luis Fonseca, for depriving the rights of a yet to be identified illegal alien at the Border Patrol station located on Imperial Beach, California, last July. Fonseca, however, was not indicted until a week ago.

Agent Fonseca, 32, allegedly kneed and choked an unidentified alien during his tour near the Mexican border last summer. During his arraignment on Monday April 16, he entered a not guilty plea.

A grand jury had handed down the indictment on April 12, but details were withheld and the DOJ neglected to promulgate why the legal action was taken against the Border Patrol agent, according to an "Inside-the-Beltway" public-interest group that investigates and exposes government corruption and misconduct.

"Border Patrol Agent Fonseca kneed and choked an unidentified alien, depriving him of the right under the Constitution and the laws of the United States to be free from use of unreasonable force by a law enforcement officer," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement. "The indictment also alleges as a result of the use of unreasonable force the individual sustained bodily injury."

According to Department of Justice's records, a federal grand jury indicted Fonseca on a single charge of deprivation of rights under color of law. The charge, a civil rights violation, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.

The case is problematic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the government's secrecy surrounding details. In the one-page indictment the illegal immigrant is identified only as "UA#1." The document also claims that, as a result of the use of "unreasonable force" the undocumented alien sustained some kind of "bodily injury" yet no further details are provided, according to Judicial Watch's Corruption Chronicles.

"The grand jury indictment is dated April 12, 2012 which means the feds dragged their feet, probably because they knew it was a weak case," stated the Judicial Watch's entry.

Fonseca was arrested on Friday during a shift at the Border Patrol's Imperial Beach station and is currently on paid leave. He pleaded not guilty in federal court this week, according to DOJ records.

Here is why the DOJ is going after the particular agent, according to the federal prosecutor handling the case: "People detained at the border should be treated with human dignity and respect by federal agents. It is important for the public to know that the Department of Justice takes alleged civil rights violations seriously. We have processes in place to investigate and will take action where appropriate to protect those rights."

Many law enforcement professionals are highly suspicious of this latest case of a Border Patrol agent being "dragged into court by the Obama Justice Department.

"It's clear that Obama's sympathies are with the illegal aliens entering the U.S. He's all but told U.S. immigration and border officials to stop enforcing the law. This is just another message from the Obama Administration to Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to not be too zealous in doing their jobs," claims former New York City Detective Jeff Knudson.
On top of the DOJ's actions against Fonseca, -- himself a Latino -- the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General is also investigating the matter.

"Perhaps when that report is finished, more information will be revealed to the public. For instance, the victim's identity and the exact bodily injury that he or she supposedly suffered at the hands of the Border Patrol agent accused of committing the choking and kneeing," states the Judicial Watch posting.

The U.S. government has worked hard to protect illegal immigrants and their "constitutional" rights in the last few years. This has empowered them to file a number of lawsuits against local and federal law enforcement agencies for violating their rights. In Connecticut a group of illegal aliens sued the government for violating their constitutional rights during the operation that led to their apprehension.

In New York an illegal immigrant with a lengthy criminal record got a $145,000 settlement from the state for having his civil rights violated during one of his many arrests. In Maryland an illegal immigrant from El Salvador for unlawfully and unconstitutionally detaining her based on race and in California illegal aliens sued a city for banning them from seeking work on public streets.

The Law Enforcement Examiner has regularly exposed President Barack Obama's illegal-alien relatives, one of whom was arrested for drunk driving in Massachusetts.

SOURCE





Even the French socialist leader is talking tough on immigration

 French presidential frontrunner Francois Hollande vowed Friday to crack down on illegal immigration, as he and incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy battle to win over the public ahead of a second-round vote.

Hollande, of the center-left Socialist party, will hold a rally in the central city of Limoges Friday evening, while Sarkozy addresses supporters in Dijon, to the east.

The pair face a run-off vote for the presidency on May 6. Sarkozy received 27.2% of the vote in the first round of voting last Sunday, just behind Hollande's 28.6%.

Speaking to French radio station RTL Friday morning, Hollande said that the number of legal economic migrants should be limited and that he wants to "fight against" illegal immigration.

Immigration has been a key election issue, alongside the struggling economy and high unemployment figures.

Hollande's comments came hours after the two rivals were quizzed on television channel France 2 Thursday night, taking turns to answer journalists' questions.

Hollande, who was first to be put on the spot, said he feels "confident" and the political left's results had been even better than hoped for.  "Nothing is decided until the people have spoken. I have three duties: to put things right in France, to apply justice where it has been missing, and to bring together the French around a great cause -- the young people."

Sarkozy, who leads the center-right UMP party, defended his record, saying: "I have been president for five years. I've tried to protect France with all my might."  He said predictions of a landslide for the left in the first round had not been borne out, with the far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen coming third, well ahead of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Since Sunday, both Sarkozy and Hollande have sought to reach out to the 6.5 million people who voted for the National Front, giving it 18% of the vote.  "They are not from the extreme right, they are expressing themselves through a vote of crisis or of loyalty," Sarkozy said on France 2.  "I would like to say to them that I respect them. When someone suffers or protests, we must listen to them in order to be able to provide them with responses."

However, Sarkozy rejected any notion of striking a deal with the far-right group in remarks Wednesday.

The National Front's tough line on immigration appears to have struck a chord with many voters.

Responding to a question on Thursday's TV show, Hollande said, "There are too many foreigners" in France. "But that does not mean that we must expel those who are here on our territory."

Hollande, who has previously avoided that question, said those who are in France legally would be able to remain -- but those who do not have the right to live there would be driven out.

Sarkozy said he wanted to cut by half the number of foreigners allowed into the country over the next five years. The reason, he said, is that he wants to welcome them in the right way, "with housing and employment, and that from now on, before all entries onto French national soil ... an exam on the French language and republican values should be passed."

Immigrants should have rights and responsibilities equal to those born in France, he said, even if he is opposed to extending them the right to vote.

SOURCE



April 27, 2012

For first time since Great Depression, more Mexicans leave US than enter (?)

I am pretty skeptical about this report.  How do they know?  Even in recession, the USA is a lot better place to be than Mexico

A four-decade tidal wave of Mexican immigration to the United States has receded, causing a historic shift in migration patterns as more Mexicans appear to be leaving the United States for Mexico than the other way around, according to a report from the Pew Hispanic Center.

It looks to be the first reversal in the trend since the Depression, and experts say that a declining Mexican birthrate and other factors may make it permanent.

“I think the massive boom in Mexican immigration is over and I don’t think it will ever return to the numbers we saw in the 1990s and 2000s,” said Douglas Massey, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and co-director of the Mexican Migration Project, which has been gathering data on the subject for 30 years.

Nearly 1.4 million Mexicans moved from the United States to Mexico between 2005 and 2010, double the number who did so a decade earlier. The number of Mexicans who moved to the United States during that period fell to less than half of the 3 million who came between 1995 and 2000.

The trend could have major political consequences, underscoring the delicate dance by the Republican and Democratic parties as they struggle with immigration policies and court the increasingly important Latino vote.

Illegal immigration has emerged as one of the most emotional political issues in the country — one that dominated much of the Republican presidential contest and has proven complicated for President Obama.

Mitt Romney has courted conservatives with aggressive anti-illegal immigration rhetoric. But the GOP presidential hopeful has said in recent days that he wants to build ties with Hispanics, many of whom have chafed at his statements, and the new immigration trends could offer him a chance to soften his stance.

Obama has been criticized by immigrant advocates for stepped-up deportation policies that analysts have said were partly responsible for the decreasing flow of Mexicans into the United States. The trend could offer the president a political silver lining: the chance to take credit for a policy success that, his aides have said in the past, should persuade Republicans to embrace a broad immigration overhaul plan.

According to the report, the Mexican-born population, which had been increasing since 1970, peaked at 12.6 million in 2007 and has dropped to 12 million since then.

The reversal appears to be a result of tightened border controls, a weak U.S. job and housing construction market, a rise in deportations and a decline in Mexican birthrates, said the study, which used U.S. and Mexican census figures and Mexican government surveys. Arrests of illegal immigrants trying to enter the United States have also dropped precipitously in recent years.

Whether the reversal is temporary or permanent, it could have significant implications for the United States. Many Mexican immigrants work in agriculture and construction.

One in 10 people born in Mexico live in the United States, and more than half entered illegally. Most live in California and Texas; about 120,000 live in the Washington region.

More HERE





Court sympathy for tough US immigration laws

There are signs the United States supreme court is going to side in favour of Arizona's tough immigration law being challenged by the Obama administration.

In a setback for the president, several justices have voiced support for the state's effort to crack down on illegal immigration, appearing to reject arguments it was an encroachment on federal responsibility.

"I felt very confident as I walked out of there that Arizona has a right, and I as governor was somewhat assured that I had a right, to protect the citizens of Arizona," governor Jan Brewer said.

The ruling is likely to set a precedent with Arizona the first of half a dozen states to pass laws allowing police to check the immigration status of anyone they detain and suspect of being illegally in the country.

Mexico and 17 other countries have also filed arguments with the court opposing the law, saying the delegation of authority over such matters to individual states threatens bilateral relations with Washington.

Chief justice John Roberts said the federal government's arguments could not centre on the civil rights issues but rather on its claim under the constitution to exclusive authority in immigration matters.

He then went on to suggest the law's most controversial provisions were not an effort to over-ride federal law, but to support it.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote on the court, said Arizona was "cooperating in implementing federal law".

The court's conservative majority has been strengthened in this case because Justice Elena Kagan, who served as solicitor general under Mr Obama, recused herself, leaving only eight justices to hear the matter.

More than 1,000 protesters outside the court lashed out against provisions of the law they say encourages ethnic profiling.

"God, give us the courage to stand up against draconian immigration laws," Reverend Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said in a prayer.

The court is expected to hand down its decision in June.

SOURCE



April 26, 2012

Majority of voters favor Arizona immigration law

By a more than two-to-one margin, American voters favor the 2010 Arizona immigration law. A Fox News poll released Friday shows 65 percent of voters favor the controversial law, while 31 percent oppose it.

Eighty-four percent of Republicans favor Arizona’s law, while 46 percent of Democrats do. A 51-percent majority of Democrats opposes the law.

Independents favor the law by a 40 percentage-point margin (67-27 percent). That’s good news for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has said he thinks Arizona’s law would be a good model for the rest of the country.

The Arizona law took effect in July 2010. It makes illegal immigration a state crime and allows local law enforcement to question the legal status of anyone stopped on suspicion of a crime and detain anyone who cannot prove his or her immigration status. 

The Justice Department filed suit challenging it, and the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments next Wednesday on whether many of the law’s key provisions are constitutional.

Voters who live in the West (72 percent) and the Midwest (69 percent) are more likely than those living in other regions (61 percent) to approve of the Arizona law.

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 910 randomly-chosen registered voters nationwide and is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from April 9-11.  For the total sample, it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. 


SOURCE




Marine Le Pen is no conservative

Her concern about immigration is realistic but her other policies are simply populist

Are the French getting their Tea Party on? That's what an outsider looking at the country's first-round presidential voting results might have been led to believe. But, as with many things French, the reality is très compliquée.

The weekend vote knocked out all but the two candidates long expected to square off in the May 6 final: Socialist Francois Hollande (28.6 percent) and incumbent center-right President Nicolas Sarkozy (27.2 percent). This isn't the story, though. The most striking news is the 17.9 percent score by Marine Le Pen's National Front party. That's even better than her father Jean-Marie's best showing of 16.9 percent when he shockingly knocked out the Socialist candidate in the first round of the 2002 race to face incumbent President Jacques Chirac in the final.

What's behind Le Pen's surprising showing? What sentiment is she capturing, exactly? Who are her supporters?

It's precisely the attempt to marginalize people who don't adhere to the increasingly prevalent culturally Marxist views that drives them to seek out and support democratic entities (like Le Pen's National Front party) that accord them a proper public voice. That's how it's done in civil societies. Where's the alarmism in that? If dialogue around these issues is quashed or marginalized, the parties championing these concerns will serve as pressure valves and grow in popularity. This partly explains the National Front's record electoral figure -- but it's not the whole story.

It would be a mistake to think that the "far right" in France stands for limited government and a free market. The National Front rails against decentralization, advocates a strong federal government, and complains that European legislation forces competitive trade and prevents the French government from financially assisting companies, thereby inhibiting "economic patriotism."

Sounds more like Russia than the Tea Party, doesn't it? Under the National Front's political tent, one finds a political buffet consisting of far more than just a righteous battle against cultural Marxism and population replacement. There's something for nationalists, socialists, protectionists and anti-elitists -- everything but a significant helping of free market and limited government.

When Le Pen denounces Sarkozy's "ultra-liberalism," she isn't talking about leftism. In Europe, "liberalism" isn't synonymous with "leftism" as it is in America. Rather, it refers to the kind of classical liberalism prevalent in 19th century America and incarnated by the likes of right-libertarian heroes Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. As a free-market, limited-government conservative who once served as a Republican think-tank director, I'm typically considered a "liberal" in France.

So, how many people within Le Pen's party adhere to politics similar enough to mine that they'll vote for Sarkozy in the final round? Based on various analyses, I'd wager no more than about half, with the rest supporting the Socialist. One might even argue that because former Trotskyite Jean Luc Mélenchon did worse than expected and the Socialist scored precisely as expected, Le Pen's "far right" party scooped up some nanny-state Communists in the first round. (Try reading that last sentence again without your brain exploding.)

Blaise Pascal once said, in adapting a famous Montesquieu quote, "Truth on one side of the Pyrenees is error on the other." It's a fitting adage as Americans try to make sense of the politics at play behind this dramatic French electoral spectacle.

SOURCE



April 25, 2012

We only deport a third of illegal migrants we catch: New figures deliver another blow to UK Border Agency

Fewer than one in three of the illegal immigrants caught last year have been deported, according to figures disclosed yesterday. They showed that of 21,298 individuals discovered in Britain unlawfully, only 6,232 were returned to their countries in the same year.

The figures threatened to deepen the troubles at the UK Border Agency, the organisation responsible for policing immigration law.

The agency has already been heavily criticised this month after it was shown that more than one in five foreign criminals supposed to have been deported from the country after release from prison in 2010 were still here.  It was found that 60 per cent of another group of 1,000 foreign criminals mistakenly freed from jail six years ago have not been removed from Britain.

Border officials have also been found to have abandoned checks on arrivals into the country without seeking the clearance of ministers.

The unapproved relaxation of passport controls meant 500,000 passengers who came on Eurostar trains entered the country without being checked against lists of suspected terrorists and criminals.

The failure to deport illegal immigrants detected last year was revealed in figures obtained under Freedom of Information rules.

The biggest group of illegal migrants who have successfully evaded deportation during the year in which they were found to be here are from Pakistan.  Other countries featured in the figures include Iran, India, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Earlier this year, the Mail revealed how authorities are aware of a number of such immigrants sleeping rough under the M4 in London.

Most of the so-called Bridge Men of Little Punjab, living near Heston, West London, are thought to be illegal immigrants, and the police, the UK Border Agency and local authorities are said to have long been aware of them.

The lack of success in rapid deportation of illegal immigrants comes as the stand-off between Home Secretary Theresa May and the European Court of Human Rights over terror suspect Abu Qatada continues.

The failure of Mrs May to deport Qatada to his home country Jordan has given the impression that the Government is unable to deport foreign criminals or terrorists in the face of opposition in the courts and the reluctance of many unwanted migrants to go home.  A spokesman for the UK Border Agency said: ‘Of the 21,298 individuals identified as being an immigration offender, 6,232 were removed during the period January 2011 to December 2011.

‘It should be noted that removals are hindered by barriers such as outstanding appeals, documentation issues, and subjects absconding.’

Alp Mehmet, of the MigrationWatch pressure group, said: ‘If we are going to have confidence in our immigration control system we have got to make greater efforts to deport people who should not be here, and we have to do that quickly.’

SOURCE





Sarkozy the loser doesn't deserve our support, says French anti-immigration leader

Marine Le Pen dealt Nicolas Sarkozy a major blow last night by declaring he had ‘lost’ the election and refusing to tell her supporters to back him.

The French president’s hopes of clinging to power rely on picking up the votes of many of the six million who backed Miss Le Pen’s National Front in record numbers in the first round of the national poll.

The strong showing for the Far Right party triggered alarm around Europe, while the prospect of Mr Sarkozy losing to socialist opponent Francois Hollande in the second round spooked financial markets.

Economists fear Mr Hollande will unpick a Brussels deal on fiscal union and shatter an uneasy consensus on the need for austerity measures across the Continent.

The political uncertainty in France, the world’s fifth largest economy, helped trigger a sell-off on both sides of the Atlantic. The French stock market fell by 2.83 per cent, Germany’s by 3.36 per cent and London’s by 1.85 per cent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday expressed shock that nearly 20 per cent of French voters had gone for the National Front. The alliance between Berlin and Paris is key to the European project.

Miss Le Pen’s party won 18 per cent of the vote, its largest ever share, in Sunday’s first round, but yesterday her party said there would be no deal with the current president.

She said: ‘I don’t expect anything except that the system will implode,’ adding: ‘Sarkozy has already lost the presidential election.’ Bruno Bilde, Miss Le Pen’s senior aide, said: ‘There has to be reorganisation of French political life.

‘It’s therefore out of the question for the National Front candidate to negotiate … or to offer her vote in favour of Nicolas Sarkozy or Francois Hollande. Marine Le Pen is convinced of that.’

A National Front spokesman said: ‘We shall be abstaining, because we do not want to give a green light to any of the two candidates, because they are the same’.

Opinion polls have suggested that up to six in ten Le Pen voters could back Mr Sarkozy in the second round. Mr Hollande won 28.6 per cent and Sarkozy took 27 per cent on Sunday.

Mr Hollande is now the favourite to win. If he does, he would become France’s first socialist leader in 17 years.

Both contenders tried to tack to the right to try to appeal to voters who had backed Miss Le Pen. Speaking at a rally in central France, Mr Sarkozy said he ‘had heard’ Le Pen’s message and vowed to be tough on immigration.

He said: ‘National Front voters must be respected. They voiced their view. It was a vote of suffering, a crisis vote. Why insult them? This anxiety, this suffering, I know them, I understand them.  ‘They concern our borders, outsourcing, control of immigration, work, security, for them and their families. I know that in this fast-moving world, the concern of our patriots to preserve their way of life is the key issue in this election.’

In Brittany, Mr Hollande said: ‘My message? We are a large country and we will recover – we have no need of divisions.’

Pierre Moscovici, his campaign director, said the Socialist candidate would continue to be ‘very open’ to legal immigration, but ‘we must fight with absolute firmness, without concession, against illegal immigration’.

SOURCE



April 24, 2012

Bungling British immigration control

A THREE HOUR wait to get into Britain: Olympic official's fury after he was delayed at passport control  -- and  no sign of an apology from the Border Agency

An Olympic official has complained after he queued for three hours to pass through immigration checks at Heathrow.

The revelation is bound to cause fresh embarrassment for Home Secretary Theresa May after it was recently revealed passengers could be 'left on runways' as airports struggle to cope during the Olympic Games.

Senior MPs warned earlier this month that planes could be forced to circle the airport and tourists made to queue at passport control for several hours.

In a leaked letter to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the MPs claim cuts to UK Border Agency staff and poor contingency plans could be a recipe for disaster during the London 2012 Games.

Heathrow's owner BAA has confirmed that a senior Olympic official made a complaint and said that some passengers had queued for 2.5 hours. The Home Office and BAA both declined to name the official concerned.

A source at the UK Border Agency told The Sunday Times a report explaining the delays at Heathrow's Terminal 5 on Tuesday night was drafted because 'a senior Olympic bigwig was caught in [the queue] who was not impressed and had made a complaint'.

Shashank Nigam, chief executive of Simpliflying, an airline marketing company, said he had also queued for 2 hours and 50 minutes on the same day.  He told the Sunday Times: 'To my horror, the queues were spilling into the overflow area and there weren't enough staff to manage everyone.'  Other people reported seeing passengers sleeping because of such long delays.

As many as 600,000 people are expected to arrive at Heathrow around the time of the Games, which run from July 27 to August 13, causing further chaos and longer queues.

This latest incident has caused airport and airline bosses to accuse the border agency of not being able to cope.

BAA, which owns Heathrow, said immigration does not have enough staff to carry out the checks following the reintroduction of tougher checks after unauthorised relaxation of procedures by Brodie Clark, former head of the UK Border Force.

The Government plans to cut the number of border officer staff from 8,874 in March 2010 to 7,322 by March 2015.  But unions have been told extra staff will be drafted in to ease pressure during the Olympics and will include people from the Home Office and HM Revenue & Customs, some of which have retired.

A BAA spokesman said they are experiencing high levels of arrivals in the airport for which the border force is failing to provide resources.

A Border Agency spokesman said they refuse to compromise security but will aim to keep disruption to a minimum. It said it was inevitable that thorough checks would cause some queuing during peak times.

SOURCE




 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

1. The Alleged Costs of Ending Universal Birthright Citizenship: A Response to the National Foundation for American Policy (Memorandum)

2. Document Fraud in Employment Authorization: How an E-Verify Requirement Can Help (Congressional Testimony)

3. Flushing Out the Extremes on Immigration. The DREAM Act was supposed to, but didn’t. Secure Communities can (Op-ed)

4. Reform Our Visa System for Entrepreneurs or Reform the Economy? (Blog)

5. Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are (Blog)

6. Let's Create American Workers' Desks in Federal Agencies (Blog)

7. Clueless in Cook County (Blog)

8. Dear Reader: Please Encourage USCIS Do the Right Thing! (Blog)

9. 'I Absolutely and Entirely Renounce and Abjure ...' (Blog)

10. A Little Bit of Nationalism, Please: Or Which of Those Are U.S. Firms? (Blog)

11. EB-5's Institutional Allies Give the Program a Hard Time (Blog)



April 23, 2012

Showdown on Arizona immigration law goes to Supreme Court

The Supreme Court and Obama administration are set for another politically charged clash Wednesday as the justices take up Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.

It will be a rematch of the attorneys who argued the health care case a month ago and another chapter in the partisan philosophical struggle over states’ rights and the role of the federal government.

And once again, Obama’s lawyers are likely to face skeptical questions from the Supreme Court. Last year, the court’s five more-conservative justices rebuffed the administration and upheld an earlier Arizona immigration law that targeted employers who hired illegal workers.

To prevail this year, the administration must convince at least one of the five to switch sides and rule the state is going too far and interfering with the federal government’s control over immigration policy.

The election-year legal battle goes to the heart of the dispute between Republicans and Democrats over what to do about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

Arizona and five other Republican-led states seek a stepped-up effort to arrest and deport illegal immigrants. They say the federal system is "broken" and fault Obama for a "relaxed" enforcement policy.

If cleared by the courts, Arizona would tell its police to check the immigration status of people they lawfully stop and suspect of being in the country illegally. If they were unable to show a driver’s license or other "proof of legal presence," they would be arrested and held for federal immigration agents. Arizona also would make it a crime for illegal immigrants to seek work or to fail to carry immigration documents.

For its part, Obama’s administration favors targeted enforcement, not mass arrests of illegal immigrants.

The administration has gone after drug traffickers, smugglers, violent felons, security risks and repeat border crossers. Last year, nearly 400,000 people were deported, a record high. At the same time, the administration says mere "unlawful presence" in this country is not a federal crime, and it opposes state efforts to round up and arrest more illegal immigrants.

Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana and Utah also have adopted tough immigration enforcement laws. But judges have blocked many of their provisions, awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court..

Washington lawyer Paul Clement, President George W. Bush’s solicitor general, will argue for Arizona and Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday; Obama’s solicitor general, Donald B. Verrilli Jr., will argue the Democratic administration’s case.

Clement is arguing for a stronger state role in enforcing the immigration laws, a traditional federal function. Verrilli is contending that Arizona’s "maximum enforcement" policy for immigration goes too far and conflicts with federal policy.

The court’s decision, expected by the end of June, could ignite the immigration issue in the presidential campaign.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he supports laws in Arizona and elsewhere that seek to drive away illegal immigrants. "The answer is self-deportation," he said in one debate.

President Barack Obama, on the other hand, has expressed concern about the effect on millions of normally law-abiding Latinos, including those with U.S. citizenship.

More HERE





Big vote for French anti-immigration candidate in first round of Presidential election

Getting close  to  the two mainstream candidates.  Her voters will decide the final outcome so both mainstream candidates  will be under some pressure to move towards her policies.  Only Sarko is likely to do so, however

Socialist Francois Hollande and President Nicolas Sarkozy progressed to the final round of France's election, with the incumbent's hopes of victory resting on winning supporters from Marine Le Pen's anti-euro National Front.

Hollande won 27.1 percent of the vote against 26.7 percent for Sarkozy, the interior ministry said in Paris late yesterday. The anti-immigrant Le Pen got 19.3 percent, a record for the party that surpassed the predictions of all pollsters. The second round takes place on May 6.

The presidential race was thrown open by Le Pen's performance, which highlighted voters' angst in the face of unemployment at a 12-year high, immigration and a worsening euro region debt crisis. While Hollande's first-round lead was narrower than polls predicted, Sarkozy must now appeal to National Front supporters without alienating more moderate voters.

"He's going to have to hunt right-wing voters," Antonio Barroso, a political analyst at Eurasia Group in London. "That's a bad dynamic for the second round when you normally want to capture the center and unite the country."

Hollande would beat Sarkozy by 56 percent to 44 percent in the final round, said the CSA polling company, citing a survey it conducted after the results. The euro traded at $1.3199 in early Asian trade compared with $1.3219 on April 20.

Siamese Twins

Le Pen's showing surpassed the 16.9 percent that propelled her father into the second round in 2002 and came after a campaign in which she slammed Sarkozy and Hollande as "Siamese twins" who offered no solutions to France's problems.

Her performance channeled voters' concerns about foreign workers taking French jobs, terrorism and the global financial crisis, issues that Sarkozy tried to tap during the campaign.

The risk for investors is that he may now be tempted step up his criticism of the European Central Bank in a bid to boost his pro-growth credentials, said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London.

"The first round may offer a glimmer of hope for Sarkozy," he said. "But it also entails a risk that he could pander to right-wing sentiment on European issues in the next two weeks. Stronger calls for a 'growth mandate for the ECB' and the like may not go down well in Berlin and Frankfurt."

'Elements of Fear'

Hollande, 57, started drawing the battle lines for the second round, highlighting Sarkozy's appeal to anti-immigrant sentiment.

"I have no doubt he will use all the elements of fear," he told reporters at Brive-La-Gaillarde, central France, before flying to Paris. "I am stronger because I came first."

Sarkozy, the first incumbent since 1958 not to win the first round, said the results represent a "vote of crisis."

The French are "suffering faced with the new world that is taking shape," he told supporters in Paris. "These worries, I know and understand. They rest on the respect of our borders, the fight against off-shoring and the crisis of immigration, the recognition of work and security."

About 57 percent of Le Pen voters will back Sarkozy in the second round, while 23 percent will abstain and 20 percent will back Hollande, according to a survey by the BVA polling company.

In yesterday's vote, Communist Party-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon got 10.8 percent and self-styled centrist Francois Bayrou won 9.2 percent, the government said. CSA estimated turnout at 79 percent, below 2007's first-round level of 84 percent.

Sarkozy Defense

Sarkozy's term has been dominated by a financial crisis which started just months after he took office in May 2007 and is still ricocheting through Europe's bond markets.

Sarkozy, 57, argues that he protected France during the financial crisis by saving its banks and is pushing to expand the ECB's mandate to include spurring economic growth rather than just fighting inflation.

Hollande has pounced on his economic record, pointing to an unemployment rate that has now risen to 9.8 percent. France's economy has also been hurt by Europe's debt crisis, which contributed to France losing its AAA credit rating for the first time in January.

While Sarkozy must try to reach out to National Front voters, Hollande must also overcome the relatively poor performance of Melenchon, a potential ally, if he's to become the first Socialist to win the presidency since Francois Mitterrand in 1988.

"The combined score of the left is not as strong as expected," said Vincent Tiberj of the European Research Center at Science Po. in Paris. "Francois Hollande had a good first round but he has fewer reserves than expected. The second round will be a tighter race than expected."

SOURCE



April 22, 2012

TX: Sheriff just doing  his job comes under fire

In thousands of local jails and prisons across the country, federal agents use computer databases to look for possible undocumented immigrants, then file what's known as a detainer a document requesting that local authorities notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement before releasing an alleged immigrant and delay his or her release for up to 48 hours so ICE agents can take custody of them.

In Travis County, where an average of almost three undocumented immigrants have been deported every day since 2009, making it one of the busiest deportation sites in the country, Sheriff Greg Hamilton has said federal regulations require him to comply with those detainers.

But Hamilton has recently come under increasing pressure from critics, including his opponent in the Democratic primary, who contend the detainers aren't mandatory and urge the sheriff to follow the lead of a growing number of other urban areas that have stopped automatically honoring all of them, reducing the number of deportations. Federal officials and Austin's police chief both warn that such a move would come with potentially serious public safety risks.

Austin's Human Rights Commission last month passed a joint resolution with the city's Commission on Immigrant Affairs, urging the Austin City Council to publicly condemn the federal Secure Communities program — the computer information-sharing system that helps ICE agents decide whom to "flag" for possible deportation — and to oppose the jail's "continued honoring of every ‘hold' request."

The March 26 resolution by the two advisory panels claims that Secure Communities has led to the detention and deportation of "thousands of productive Austin residents," wastes taxpayer money by keeping immigrants locked up for longer periods and "creates the perception that all Travis County law enforcement agencies are engaging in immigration enforcement" that makes immigrants less likely to report crimes.

Rebecca Bernhardt, a detainer opponent and policy consultant for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a nonprofit group that advocates for criminal justice reforms, said ICE's operations in the jail "discourages a huge section of our population from interacting with law enforcement, which makes all of us less safe."

The American-Statesman reported last month that Travis County ranks 11th nationally in the number of people deported from its jails since Secure Communities came online here in June 2009. Even though ICE says the program prioritizes dangerous criminals, national security threats and repeat immigration law violators, the paper found that more than 1,000 people in Travis County have had detainers placed on them after arrests for traffic violations and other Class C misdemeanors — offenses that typically result in only a fine.

Hamilton has asked County Attorney David Escamilla for legal advice about whether immigration detainers are mandatory or voluntary, Escamilla said Thursday. Hamilton hasn't said whether he's considering changing his department's approach to detainers.

The sheriff is far from alone: The vast majority of the nearly 2,600 counties and other local jurisdictions where Secure Communities has been activated also routinely honor immigration detainers, which take effect after an immigrant's criminal case is resolved or when the person is set to be released on bail. The government plans to have the program in every U.S. county by next year.

The campaign to persuade Hamilton to change his policy focuses on a small but increasing number of urban areas — including New York, Chicago and San Francisco — that have decided to set their own policies to determine which inmates they will hold for ICE and which detainer requests they'll ignore.

Like Austin, they are cities where local officials have adopted policies barring law enforcement officers from asking about a person's immigration status, in hopes of gaining the trust and cooperation of immigrants in fighting crime.

Officials in those cities say the perception that local police are aiding federal agents undercuts that trust. And they have cited a host of other concerns behind their decision: the deportation of people charged with traffic offenses and other low-level crimes, the cost of housing inmates for longer periods and questions about whether local police are being directly or indirectly used to help enforce federal law, which raises constitutional issues.

SOURCE





Canada slowly upping the pressure on less desirable immigrants

Ottawa could require evidence of French, English language skills

Immigrants hoping to become Canadian citizens may soon have to provide written proof of their language abilities.  Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Friday his latest reform is aimed at requiring citizenship applicants to prove they can speak English or French.

"I’ve met a lot of Canadian citizens who have lived here for many years who can’t express themselves in French or English," Kenney said during a speech Friday to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations.  "It’s not acceptable because it limits their social mobility and their life in Canada."

Kenney announced a change to citizenship rules which would require prospective Canadian citizens to provide what’s called objective evidence of their language ability with their application.

Expanding on language changes he’s already announced for some immigration applicants, Kenney said people will also have to provide new documents to become Canadian citizens.

They will be asked to submit evidence they completed secondary or post-secondary education in English or French; they could also provide results of approved third-party tests, or proof of success in government-funded language training programs.

Kenney explained he wanted the linguistic proof to "ensure that all of those who join us as full members of our Canadian family in the future are able to fully participate in our society."

Adequate knowledge of English or French has already been a requirement since the first Citizenship Act of 1947 — but these new mechanisms are meant to enforce that requirement.  The government also provides language training free of charge to permanent residents.

SOURCE



April 21, 2012

Immigration boom under Labour changed face of Britain faster than any major country except Italy, Oxford experts reveal

The immigration boom under Labour led to the face of Britain changing faster than any major nation except Italy, a study by an Oxford University think tank revealed.

During the five-year peak of the influx, the UK’s migrant population soared by 22 per cent – double the average of G8 countries, figures from the Migration Observatory show.

Over the past two decades, Britain’s foreign-born population has increased from 3.8million – or 7 per cent of the total population - in 1993 to almost 7million, or 12 per cent per cent in 2010.

During the same period, the number of foreign-born residents without British citizenship doubled from just under two million (4 per cent of the population) to over four million (7 per cent).

Net-migration – the number arrivals minus those leaving - increased from 564,000 during the five years from 1996-2000, to 923,000 in 2001-2005 and 1,044,000 during 2006-2010.  In 2010, net-migration reached 252,000, its highest level for a single calendar year on record.

But it is the period between 2000 and 2005 – a period of an open border policy during and rapid  expansion of the EU - that immigration really spiked.

Only Italy, which experienced a 44.6 per cent rise in immigration, saw a higher rate in the developed world.

Figures also show that as the global population has increased considerably in the last two decades, so too has the number of international migrants.  The number has increased from 156million in 1990 to 214million in 2010.

The comparison with G8 countries compares other high-income nations this group, which also includes Russia, Italy, France, Canada, the U.S. Germany and Japan.

For all the G8 countries, with the exception of Japan, migrants are defined as foreign-born residents in the data.  In the data for Japan, migrants are defined as foreign citizens.

Alp Mehmet, of pressure group Migration Watch, told Mail Online: ‘This underlines what we have been saying about Labour’s mass immigration policy.  ‘It also shows why it will be so difficult to get immigration back down to sensible levels’

SOURCE






Uproar in Italy after illegal immigrants are deported gagged with duct tape and bound with plastic bands

An investigation has been launched after two illegal immigrants were deported from Italy gagged with duct tape across their mouths, surgical masks across their faces and their hands tied with plastic bands.

Details of the case emerged after a passenger travelling on the same flight as the two men took a snap of the incident with his mobile phone as he boarded the plane.

He asked police who were accompanying the Algerians why they were being treated in such a way.

Film director Francesco Sperandeo claimed the officers told him: 'Get back to your seat. This is just a routine deportation operation.'

Astonished by what he had heard and the indifference of fellow passengers, he posted the photo on his Facebook site.

Prosecutors opened an investigation into what had happened on the Alitalia flight from Rome to Tunis earlier this week after the story was picked up by the Italian media and splashed across several front pages as well as dominating TV news bulletins and websites.

Police justified their actions saying the men had been biting their lips and tongues and spitting blood at officers and other passengers in an attempt to hold up the deportation.

The incident happened after the men landed in Rome and then refused to board an onward flight they had booked to Istanbul.

On his posting, Sperandeo, from Palermo, wrote: 'Look what happened today on the 9.20 Rome-Tunis Alitalia flight.  'Two Tunisians [he was unaware of their correct nationality] thrown out of Italy and treated in an inhuman manner.

'They had brown packing tape across their mouths and plastic bands on their wrists. This is civility and European democracy.

'But the most serious aspect is that everything took place to the total indifference of the passengers and when I asked for them to be treated more humanely I was told in an arrogant manner to get back to my seat as it was a normal police operation....Normal ????

'Anyway I managed to take a picture. Spread the word and denounce this.'

By late today, more than 5,000 people had shared the posting with hundreds of comments being posted both on his Facebook site and on the web pages of Italian newspapers, with many expressing outrage.

MPs from all parties also called for the government to investigate.

Gianfranco Fini, president of the Italian lower house of parliament, said: 'I ask the government to explain fully the circumstances of what happened.'  He added that he had asked police chief Antonio Manganelli to look into the incident.

Laura Boldrini, Rome-based spokesperson for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, said: 'This is scandalous treatment. It is humiliating and unjustified.  'I am completely speechless. I have never seen people treated like this in Italy.  'Those masks and that tape blocked out any word of protest. Can you imagine how those two people felt?

'It is correct that those who try and and enter the country illegally should be sent back, but this process should be carried out respectfully and under the proper procedures.

In essence the only thing these two people are guilty of is seeking better life.'

Although the majority of comments on Italian news websites were outraged at the treatment of the men, several also said that 'the full facts should be investigated before judgement is passed'.

Another asked: 'Those people who expressing shock may well have had a different view if they were the ones being spat at.'

Last month, a report by the Council of Europe - the human rights watchdog representing 47 European countries blamed failures by the Italian coastguard and NATO for failing to help rescue a boat packed with illegal immigrants which had been spotted in the Mediterranean and later sank with more than 60 people drowning.

SOURCE



April 20, 2012

Alabama House passes immigration law revisions

The House on Thursday passed revisions to the controversial anti-illegal immigration law the Legislature approved in 2011.

After more than five hours of debate and an hour of reading the lengthy bill, the House on a vote of 64-34 passed a new bill that revises House Bill 56, which led to lawsuits, demonstrations, a few misdemeanor arrests and intensive media coverage.

After a federal court struck down parts of the law, Gov. Robert Bentley and others called for revisions.  The revision, House Bill 658, was by Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, author of the original bill that passed largely along party lines — as was the case Thursday.

Hammon said he sponsored the original law because he believes the federal government has failed to prevent illegal immigrants from entering Alabama, taking jobs and using public benefits.

He said revisions contained in his new bill will strengthen the existing law by limiting the number of times identification must be provided by citizens when conducting simple government business such as renewing a driver’s license or vehicle registration.

“This is to make it easier on our law-abiding citizens,” Hammon said. “We have changed some language that deals with some of the judge’s rulings.”

Rep. Blaine Galliher, R-Rainbow City, voted for the bill but believes the revisions did not weaken the immigration law.

“There were some areas (in last year’s bill) that needed clarification in regards to government entities that deal with the general public,” Galliher said. “There were some clarifications that were needed for problems that were creating significant complications for some of the industries. I think what we did was strengthen it in some areas, clarified in some areas and made it simpler to understand and simpler to enforce.

“When you have a complicated piece of legislation, you have to make adjustments, and that’s what we did,” Galliher said.

Rep. Kerry Rich, R-Albertville, one of two Republicans to vote against the bill, said it weakened penalties by giving judges the discretion to suspend licenses. He said the immigration law hasn’t hurt Albertville as much as portrayed with the “self-deportation” of immigrants after last year’s law was passed.

Most of the opposition came from black lawmakers, who said they especially didn’t like a part of the bill that would allow police officers to check identification of vehicle passengers if they ticket a driver during a simple traffic stop.

“This encourages profiling,” said Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa. “I don’t believe my constituents want me here to support a bill that allows them to be arrested for a traffic stop.”

Hammon said the bill aligns with current law on reasonable suspicion involving passengers of a vehicle during a traffic stop. “This language will mirror the other laws we have in the state and fall in line with what law enforcement officers do now,” he said.

Hammon said if a police officer suspects illegal activity, he or she can seek identification from vehicle passengers.

More HERE





Tough proposal in Canada

If you’re on employment insurance, start paying attention to temporary foreign labourers in your community. You might be asked to take over their jobs in the not-too-distant future.

In his visit to Halifax on Thursday, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney stopped short of making what’s sure to be a controversial announcement. On Wednesday, he had told the National Post’s editorial board that Canada’s EI program will be tied to its immigration program.

Unemployed Canadians will be “required” to take local jobs that employers are now filling with foreign labour, the newspaper said.

In Halifax, Kenney did not confirm that workers will be forced to work those jobs or lose their benefits, despite repeated questions from reporters wondering if laid-off professionals will be driven to work as fruit pickers or in low-paying service jobs.

Kenney described the program more as a communication effort linking open jobs with unemployed Canadians. Employers applying for immigrant labour will be turned back to their own communities and told to offer the jobs there first.

But the minister said he’s leaving the details of the announcement to Human Resources Minister Diane Finley.  “She’ll be dealing with the details and the application of this,” he said.

“My understanding is that, in general, the way the EI program works is that beneficiaries are required to look for work, apply for work that’s available, and take it when it’s available. I think that’s always been the case.”

SOURCE



April 19, 2012

The Swiss don't want to be swamped by immigrants from impoverished Eastern Europe

(They're not all that keen on Germans either)

European Union reacted angrily Wednesday to a move by Switzerland to stem a recent wave of immigrants from central and eastern Europe, calling it discriminatory and unjustified.

The Swiss Federal Council announced that it had decided to impose quotas starting May 1 on certain categories of residence permits for citizens of eight E.U. member states: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The government said it was acting to promote better integration and to prevent abuses on the labor market, following a tripling of arrivals from those countries over the past year.

E.U. officials insisted, however, that under its agreement with Switzerland on the free movement of people, all restrictions on those eight countries, which joined the bloc in 2004, were to have ended a year ago and could not be reimposed.

“This measure is neither economically justified by the labor market situation nor by the number of E.U. citizens seeking residence in Switzerland,” Catherine Ashton, the E.U.’s foreign policy chief, said in a statement.

The E.U. said it would raise its concerns directly with the Swiss authorities, most likely at a meeting set for June.

Since May 1, 2011, some 6,000 people from the countries concerned had been granted type B residence permits, compared with an average of 2,075 for the three preceding years, according to the Swiss government.

“So far the population has been quite open, and unemployment is quite low, so there’s no reason to be anxious,” said Agnès Schenker, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police. “The Federal Council wanted to be sure it stays that way.”

Immigration has long been a sensitive issue in Switzerland, where one in five residents is foreign-born. The nationalist Swiss People’s Party, the country’s biggest vote-getter, recently started campaigning for an immigration cap.

In a statement announcing its decision, the Federal Council said the 1.1 million E.U. citizens living in Switzerland, which has a total population of only 7.8 million, “make a crucial contribution to the Swiss economy and to the creation and preservation of jobs.”

But given the “complexity of the immigration theme,” it said additional debate on the impact on the job market and integration were needed. It also ordered up “concrete proposals” on Wednesday for steps to ensure companies comply with minimum wage conditions, for example.

Ms. Schenker said that people arriving from relatively poor countries in Eastern Europe were especially vulnerable to pressure to take black-market jobs, “which naturally puts pressure on wages.”

The quotas on people from those eight countries would last for one year, she said, but could be extended for a maximum of one more.

SOURCE





 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

1. Janice Kephart Discusses Massachusetts Driver's License Issuance to Illegal Aliens (Video)

2. DHS Has Nothing Good to Say About the Border, Again (Blog)

3. Key to the Latino Vote? (Blog)

4. K-12 Education Systems May Be Losing Interest in H-1B (Blog)

5. Removing 'The Righteous Mind' from the Immigration Debate (Blog)

6. More on the Innards of H1-B Program: Indenture Starts in OPT Period (Blog)

7. H-1B Concentrated in a Few High-Wage States

8. H-1B Program, with a Couple of Deserved Black Eyes, Opens Filing Season (Blog)

9. Romney Said What About Immigrants? (Blog)

10. A Savvy Terrorist with a Quality Fake ID Can Breach Airline Security (Blog)

11. A Study in Light and Dark: How ICE Has Implemented the Secure Communities Program, in the Field and at Headquarters (Blog)

12. DHS Report Confirms ICE Officers Use Secure Communities Properly (Blog)

13. Massachusetts Suffering More Crime by Not Complying with REAL ID Legal Status Check (Blog)

14. Religious Groups Oppose Mississippi Immigration Bill (Blog)

15. National Commissions on Immigration, 1907-1997 (Blog)

16. Immigration Issue Playing in Big Blue State (Blog)

17. The Green Card Top 20 for 2011 (Blog)

18. Canada Shows the Way: Closes Files on Backlogged Immigrant Applications (Blog)

19. A 'New IDEA' Whose Time Has Come (Blog)



April 18, 2012

Rubio's immigration push a potential lift for GOP

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's push for a Republican version of immigration legislation looks like the answer to the election-year prayers of the GOP - and Mitt Romney

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's push for a Republican version of immigration legislation looks like the answer to the election-year prayers of the GOP - and Mitt Romney.

Rubio - telegenic son of Cuban exiles and potential vice presidential pick - is pulling together a bill that would allow young illegal immigrants to remain in the United States but denies them citizenship, an initial step in the drawn-out, divisive fight over immigration policy and the fate of the 11 million people here illegally.

The freshman senator calls his evolving legislation a conservative alternative to the DREAM Act - the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors measure. That Democratic-backed bill, which is overwhelmingly popular with Hispanics, would provide a pathway to citizenship to children in the United States illegally if they attend college or join the military. The measure came close to passage in December 2010 but has languished since then.

"We have to come up with an immigration system that honors both our legacy as a nation of laws and also our legacy as a nation of immigrants," Rubio told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

An immigration plan from Rubio, the GOP's best-known Hispanic, could help Republicans make some headway with the fastest growing minority group and its 21 million eligible voters, many concentrated in the contested presidential battleground states of Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado.

Democrats maintain a significant political advantage with Hispanics, numbers that were only strengthened by the harsh rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates in this year's primary. Hispanics overwhelmingly backed Barack Obama over Republican presidential nominee John McCain, 67-31 percent, in the 2008 presidential race and they favored Democratic congressional candidates 60-38 percent in 2010, according to exit polling. A Pew Research Center survey out Tuesday showed Obama with a solid edge over Romney among Hispanic registered voters, 67-27 percent.

It's a reality the likely Republican presidential nominee clearly recognizes.

"We have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party," Romney told a private fundraiser in Florida on Sunday in which he insisted the GOP needs an alternative to the DREAM Act. He warned that a significant number of Hispanics backing Obama "spells doom for us," according to NBC News.

Rubio, who notably called on his party to tone down the anti-immigrant talk earlier this year, is working on a plan that would allow young illegal immigrants who came to the United States with their parents to apply for non-immigrant visas. They would be permitted to stay in the country to study or work, could obtain a driver's license but would not be able to vote. They later could apply for residency, but they would not have a special path to citizenship.

Rubio said he has not talked to the Romney campaign about his plan but definitely would. "He's our nominee and I think it's important for him to feel comfortable with and be supportive of whatever endeavor we pursue," the senator said.

The 40-year-old freshman lawmaker is looking at unveiling his bill in the coming weeks. The early outlines have drawn interest and skepticism from pro-immigration groups. Rubio's political motivation also has been questioned, especially since congressional Republicans and Democrats say legislation as ambitious as immigration is unlikely to be done seven months from the election.

"Is this really a legislative initiative or a political ploy?" asked Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice. "If it's about a political ploy, it's about throwing a lifeline to Romney, rather than throwing a lifeline to the dreamers."

Joaquin Castro, a Democratic member of the Texas legislature and a candidate for the U.S. House, said Rubio must be troubled by the GOP anti-immigrant talk.

"It must be difficult for a Hispanic Republican to sit there and listen to all of the harsh rhetoric coming from the Republican Party about his community," Castro said in an interview.

Rubio insists that Democrats, who controlled the White House, Senate and House for two years and never completed immigration legislation, are "just panicked about the prospects of losing this issue as a campaign tool."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., signaled Tuesday that Rubio's effort has little chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate, telling reporters that he won't accept an alternative that stops short of providing a path to citizenship.

Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said if it's Rubio's bill or nothing, "I think we would have to look pretty hard at the offer because the most important thing for these students, at least initially, is for them to get right with the law and get on with their lives." But Wilkes cautioned against creating an apartheid-like system in the United States with a permanent group of second-class individuals.

President Barack Obama challenged the GOP for opposing changes to immigration while Rubio works on an alternative.

"Somehow Republicans want to have it both ways. That looks like hypocrisy to me," the president said in an interview last week with Telemundo News.

Rubio faces a major obstacle in pushing his measure. The Republican Party and its allies remain fiercely divided over immigration policy, a split even more pronounced in an election year.

Moderates who favor a route to citizenship are pitted against lawmakers who want tough laws cracking down on illegal immigrants. The agriculture industry, which relies heavily on illegal immigrants, and its GOP backers in Congress have challenged Republican legislation in the House requiring employers to use an electronic database to determine whether a new worker is legal, commonly known as e-verify. Businesses fear it will be an unnecessary regulation while tea partyers worry about government intrusion.

Opponents of Rubio's work-in-progress already have appealed to their rank-and-file members to contact the senator and express their opposition.

Numbers USA, which wants to reduce the number of legal and illegal immigrants, provided talking points to their nearly 1 million members.

"It is downright appalling that you are working on a DREAM Act amnesty. There is no difference between giving illegal aliens citizenship and giving them an amnesty. They would still be able to compete against unemployed Americans for jobs! You need to drop this plan presto!" the group said.

Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, said the bill was "just a slower motion amnesty than the DREAM Act that was defeated in December 2010."

"For the pro-amnesty, open borders crowd, the DREAM (Act) is their most compelling case," Beck said in an interview. "So what you've got is some Republicans who feel like somehow they'd like to take that off the table. And frankly if Rubio were to put one of these things out there, and then it's the Democrats that kill it, it could potentially hurt the Democrats."

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who has led the fight for the DREAM Act for the past decade, said Republicans once backed his measure.

"It's really sad," the Illinois senator said. "When I first offered the DREAM Act, we had more than a dozen Republicans support it. In fact, it was a bill I co-sponsored with Sen. (Orrin) Hatch, but it has become so political over the years."

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Skeptical reaction to Obama’s second-term immigration reform promise

One impressive thing about President Obama’s recent pledge that he’d try to get comprehensive immigration reform passed in his second term if reelected, made during a televised interview with the Spanish-language Univision network, is the seemingly bipartisan nature of the unhappy reactions that skeptics have been posting online.

During a network interview Friday, Obama said: “I can promise that I will try to do it in the first year of my second term. I want to try this year. The challenge we’ve got on immigration reform is very simple. I’ve got a majority of Democrats who are prepared to vote for it, and I’ve got no Republicans who are prepared to vote for it.”

A good intention perhaps, but much of the online reaction since has tended to bring up where the road paved with good intentions leads to. During Obama’s first term, immigration reform efforts like the Dream Act have failed while enforcement-based policies like the controversial Secure Communities fingerprint-sharing program have stuck, contributing to record deportations.

The end result, if reaction to Obama’s statement is any indication, is skepticism from voters who had hoped for comprehensive immigration reform by now – and jeers from those who don’t support it. On both right- and left-leaning websites, critics have been recalling similar campaign promises in 2008 and dismissing Obama’s statement as election-year pandering, with reactions ranging from yawns to snark.

SOURCE



April 17, 2012

A rich exodus: Thousands of more affluent Britons expected to leave in next two years over fears about high crime and taxes

And that is setting the mark for being rich quite low.  You could spend all of £250,000  just buying a house in a middle-income suburb in Australia.  Escaping the mess that Britain is in would be worth it though.  It's one of the few countries where the average person gets poorer every year

More than half a million wealthy Britons are expected to move abroad in the next two years amid concerns about crumbling road and rail networks, crime and high taxes, a survey reveals today.

Some 19 per cent of people with savings and investments worth more than £250,000 are considering a new life overseas, which is up from 17 per cent six months ago and 14 per cent a year ago.

The figures suggest that at least 500,000 people with that level of personal wealth may leave the UK in the next two years.

Investing in improving the infrastructure, such as roads, railways and communications networks, is seen as the most important way to make the UK a more attractive place to live, with 61 per cent of wealthy people choosing this option.  But cutting regulatory red tape for businesses, lowering taxes and improving public services such as healthcare, education and the police were all high on the agenda.

Nicholas Boys-Smith, director at Lloyds TSB International Wealth, which carried out the survey, said: ‘While the figures strongly suggest we won’t see a mass exodus, it is clear that a significant and growing minority see opportunity and a better quality of life overseas.’

Crime and anti-social behaviour is the most popular reason for people to contemplate leaving the UK, chosen by 56 per cent.

While the figures do reveal that a minority of wealthy people are discontent about life in the UK, a majority of 62% said they are currently happy with the UK as a place to live.

Some 42% of wealthy Britons think the UK offers a worse quality of life than other developed countries, while 41% think life in Britain is generally more stressful than life overseas.

SOURCE





Revealed: How HALF of all social housing in parts of England goes to people born abroad

British taxpayers should get priority in the social housing queue over new migrants, David Cameron’s poverty tsar has said.  Frank Field called for the shake-up after a study revealed up to half of all social housing lets are given to those born abroad.

At the same time, nearly five million families are languishing on waiting lists for subsidised housing in England.

According to figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government, in 2010/11 8.6 per cent of new social housing tenants were foreign.  But in London – where the waiting list has soared by 60 per cent  to 362,000 in the past decade – up to half of such housing was handed over to immigrants.

In Haringey, North London, 43 per cent of new social housing tenants were foreign while in Ealing, West London, the figure was 45 per cent.

Although some boroughs did not record tenants’ nationality, making it impossible to scrutinise who is at the top of the queue, on average 11 per cent of new social housing lets in London went to foreigners.

Mr Field, former Labour welfare reform minister, described the trend as a ‘scandal’ that ‘must stop’.  ‘For years we have been told that British people on the waiting list for social housing are getting a fair deal,’ Mr Field said.  ‘Yet, when the situation in London is examined, we find that, in reality, nobody has any idea how many new lets are going to foreign nationals and how many to British citizens.’

‘This scandal must stop. I have a bill before parliament that will ensure that those citizens who have made most contribution to society, who have paid their taxes and whose children have not caused trouble, for example, will have first choice of any housing available.  ‘This would be a major change in our welfare state whereby benefits have to be earned rather than automatically allocated on need.’

Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch said, ‘The present situation is a scandal. The records are in chaos. British people who have lived in the area for many years are given little or no priority.’  ‘What is clear is that the proportion of new lets going to foreign nationals in London is far higher than has previously been admitted.’

He added that only British citizens - including those who were foreign born but had taken up citizenship - should be considered for social housing.

He added: ‘Foreign nationals would still get housing allowance but not social housing; there is no reason why they should be entitled to subsidised housing provided by British taxpayers while British citizens spend years in the queue.’

SOURCE



April 16, 2012

Boeing resumes bringing Russian engineers to Wash.

These are  obviously valuable  people so it is good that something has been worked out.  A lot of Russian aircraft design is brilliant  -- as brilliant as Russian maintenance is woeful

The Boeing Co. has resumed bringing Russian contract engineers into Washington state, following an incident last fall when a group of them was denied entry by customs officials at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Documents obtained by The Seattle Times under a public records request (http://is.gd/rTfZVU) show that the 18 contract engineers were turned back last October because they arrived on B-1 visas, which allow for job training but not direct work for a U.S. company. Under questioning, several of the engineers admitted they'd be working at Boeing's plant in Everett. B-1 visas are easier and cheaper to obtain than H1-B nonimmigrant work visas.

When pressed, several admitted to being coached by their bosses in Moscow on what to tell U.S. border officials, the documents show. One design engineer said her company had told her "she would perform the same work in the United States as she did in Russia," but "admitted that she was instructed by her company not to state that she would be working in the United States."

Boeing was embarrassed by the incident and said it would suspend the practice. But in December, Boeing quietly resumed the visits by Russian contract engineers, without further friction at Sea-Tac — and with the apparent blessing of the federal agencies that police immigration.

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British judges still protecting foreign criminals from deportation

Judges have fired a warning shot against Theresa May’s plan to stop foreign criminals abusing human rights laws.

The Home Secretary disclosed last week that immigration rules will be changed by the summer to ensure the “right to private and family life” can only be used to avoid deportation in “rare and exceptional cases”.

But the country’s most senior immigration judge has delivered a ruling in a landmark case which, experts say, reinforces the rights of immigrants who commit serious crimes to avoid deportation.

Mr Justice Blake, the president of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, said a “settled migrant” could not be removed from the country unless there were “very serious reasons” to do so.

Having lived in the UK from a young age, or having a child or partner here, can strengthen a criminal’s claim to stay.

The judge has flagged up his ruling as a “reported determination”, which means that it will used by other judges to decide similar cases.

Meanwhile, a Conservative MP has warned that Mrs May’s plans to amend the rulebook for immigration officials may not go far enough, and new legislation may be required to ensure that foreign criminals can be returned to their homelands.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Dominic Raab says: “Tinkering with guidelines won’t fix this problem, but amending the UK Borders Act 2007 would.”

Officials from 47 European countries will meet in Brighton this week to debate plans put forward by the Government to reform the European Court of Human Rights, in an attempt to limit its interventions in the UK.

Mr Justice Blake’s decision came in the case of a foreign criminal who was convicted of drug dealing and burglary, but who later overturned a bid by the Home Office to deport him to Pakistan.

Shabaz Masih came to Britain in 1998, aged 10, with his family, who claimed asylum as members of the Christian minority in their homeland. By the age of 15 he was using Class A drugs.

In 2009, he was jailed for 50 months at Ipswich Crown Court for possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply and for another crime which involved burgling a house to steal two cars, including one which was driven away at high speed, and crashed.

Masih, from Haringey, north London, was part of a gang known as the “James Business”, distributing heroin and crack cocaine from a flat above an antiques shop in Ipswich.

Just before his arrest for the burglary Masih conceived a child with a British woman, Jade Millard, and their son was born in March 2009.

A report by probation officers at the time of Masih’s sentencing said he presented a high risk of reoffending and a medium risk to the public.

At the end of Masih’s jail term the Home Office began proceedings to remove him from Britain under laws which state that anyone jailed for 12 months or more is liable to automatic deportation.

He appealed and won his case, citing Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which protects the “right to a private and family life”. The Home Office lodged a further appeal.

Hearing the new appeal, Mr Justice Blake ruled: “A first sentence of imprisonment, especially if it is as long as this one was, may have a rehabilitative effect on a young offender whose problems seemed to be linked with his abuse of drugs.”

He heard evidence that Masih, now 25, had “put crime ... behind him” and had been free of drugs since being released.

Mr Justice Blake refused the Home Office’s appeal, and said previous case law showed that a “settled migrant” who had “lawfully spent all or the major part” of their youth in this country could only be deported if there were “very serious reasons” to justify the steps.

The Sunday Telegraph’s End the Human Rights Farce campaign has highlighted cases where criminals have escaped deportation, often by claiming their rights under Article 8.

Mr Justice Blake has faced criticism over previous rulings which permitted foreign criminals to stay in Britain.

In one case, he ruled that deporting Rocky Gurung, a 22-year-old killer, to Nepal would breach his right to a family life, even though he was single, had no children and lived with his parents. The judgment was later quashed by Court of Appeal judges.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Too often Article 8 has been used by criminals to dodge deportation and by this summer the Government will have in place new immigration rules which will end this abuse.”

SOURCE



April 15, 2012

Another empty promise  -- Obama's specialty

In his most specific pledge yet to U.S. Hispanics, President Barack Obama said Saturday he would seek to tackle immigration policy in the first year of a second term. But he cautioned that he would need an amenable Congress to succeed.  "This is something I care deeply about," he told Univision. "It's personal to me."

Obama said in the television interview that he would work on immigration this year, but said he can't get support from Republicans in Congress. Obama also tried to paint his Republican presidential challenger, Mitt Romney, as an extremist on immigration, saying that Romney supports laws that would potentially allow for people to be stopped and asked for citizenship papers based on an assumption that they are illegal.

"So what we need is a change either of Congress or we need Republicans to change their mind, and I think this has to be an important debate during — throughout the country," Obama said.

Romney aides have said that the former Massachusetts governor supports laws that would require employers to verify the legal status of workers they employ.

"President Obama only talks about immigration reform when he's seeking votes," said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul. "Then-candidate Obama promised to tackle immigration reform in his first year. More than three years into his term, America is still waiting for his immigration plan."

Hispanics are an increasingly important voting bloc in presidential elections. Obama won a sizable majority of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 election and his campaign is hoping for similar results this November.

Obama spoke to Univision, a network widely watched by Latinos in the United States, while in Colombia for the Summit of the Americas.

SOURCE





Australia:  Bogus marriages allegedly brokered by immigration agent 'commonplace'

AN investigation has uncovered bogus marriages allegedly brokered by an Queensland-based immigration agent.  Bombay-born Chetan Mashru is also accused of profiteering through applications for refugee and skilled migrant visas students have no prospect of getting, The Courier-Mail exclusively reported.

A happily-married father-of-two said Mr Mashru, 32, offered in January to arrange residency for him "if you divorce your wife".

The man's family in India yesterday received a threatening text warning against pursuit of complaints against Mr Mashru, a day after The Courier-Mail confronted the agent at his Oxley office.

The Federation of Indian Students of Australia called for more criminal prosecutions of agents, saying such complaints were commonplace in an industry "reeking of corruption and nepotism".

A teenage mother of three, who also asked not to be named, said she was paid $3000 by a Punjabi student who she married.

The Inala woman, 19, whose husband has never set foot inside her Housing Commission home, said: "I was struggling money-wise at the time, and a friend suggested it.   "My friend said if I need money, there's this thing I can do - I can just sign some papers saying I'm married and they'll pay me $1000 each month."

The woman said she saw her new "husband" pass Mr Mashru a large sum of cash in August, the month they were married.  While she remains married to the man, she no longer receives payments out of fear she would "get into trouble".

Her husband, 24, who also declined to be named, must now return to India.  He confirmed he had paid $18,000 to Mr Mashru, who sources visa brides through a network of Australian friends.

"Chetan do (sic) only the girls sitting at home and who got children," he said.

A second sham marriage involves an Indian student, 27, who claimed he paid $20,000 to Mr Mashru to be paired with an Acacia Ridge woman of Jamaican descent aged 21.

SOURCE



April 14, 2012

Rubio’s Dream Act Is An “ICAN Act”: Intelligent, Responsible & Republican

By Linda Vega

Now that Republicans have formed a proposal for the young undocumented students in the U.S., the Democrats are crying foul. Democrats, et. al are “infuriated” because it is a plan based on an economic and responsible means that will help the U.S. economy and the plight of the youth living in limbo status. It helps to alleviate the fear of the many who are to become uneducated and who run the risk of living in the shadows of odd jobs, alias identities, and mounting fear of living in between worlds of the U.S. and that of a country that may well be foreign to them, their country of birth.

Liberals further scoff at the idea because it calls for the youth to remain in school, attend the military, or acquiesce to deportation. According to the plan put forth by Senator Marco Rubio, in order to qualify for the school option, students must attend and complete their education which would allow them the opportunity to obtain a student visa in the process. With this, they can obtain legal IDs and be able to travel without the fear that they will be detained and deported.

With the option of the military, they can choose to enlist in the military branch of their choice, Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines and make it their career or serve their time and seek to move on to their adjustment of status. If they choose to stay on this path, they will compete with everyone else who is on the path to Legal Permanent Residency by way of a Non-immigrant Visa. This idea seems unpopular to the liberals because it is intelligent, responsible, and Republican. Other than that, it offers a step forward to fixing the broken system that currently is cranking out results in an antiquated method.

A Non-immigrant Visa is a working Visa. “Nonimmigrants, unlike immigrants, enter the U.S. for a temporary period of time and are restricted to the activity consistent with their visas.” (Immigration Law Sourcebook, 12th Edition, Ira J. Kurzban). A non-immigrant Visa, then, is issued to a Foreign Visitor, who abides to the agreement that they do not intend to make it a permanent setting to seek Residency or Citizenship.

The visa that is issued is done so for work purposes. While the Visa is granted on a discretionary method, it is temporary but can be changed within the current and legal means while in the U.S. For example, in Rubio’s version of the Dream Act, the students can join the workforce and apply for another non-immigrant Visa that will place them on the path to Citizenship. They must, however, compete with other Visa holders who are currently in the labor market.

This may require Congress to add more Visas to be made available since there will be more job applicants vying for the limited number of Visas.

Subsequently, this could prove to be a win/win situation as the Visa applicants will be working and paying taxes, while the U.S. economy will be reaping the benefits of those taxes and an educated work pool.

In the end, the youth would be able to live in the U.S. without having to adjust their status via an embassy or consulate office that would have them leave the U.S. for an unknown period of time.

In hindsight, the act would have been better renamed as the Immigrant Children Adjusting Now, or ICAN Act. This would give it a healthy distance from the rancid feeling that liberals and grotesque militants have given to the Dream Act. In Senator Rubio’s version, undocumented students and Valedictorians like Daniela Pelaez, facing deportation in Miami, would be allowed to stay in the U.S. and would be able to attend school.

Furthermore, the act helps to alleviate the fear of separating families, especially the youth from their parents should they be detained and deported to a country that is now foreign to them. More importantly, the act helps to lead to a more secure America and one that could alleviate the ailing economy.

As the Obama Administration continues to deport 1.2 Million and counting immigrants (including detaining 3500 U.S. Citizens), it also has not offered any form of creative solutions to this complicated issue. Obama has used his Executive Power to “recommend” halting deportations and instead offers Prosecutorial Discretion to those awaiting to appear before an Immigration Judge.

However, this is hardly a solution to those seeking relief for the U.S. and its safety. This continuous state of limbo, prompted Senator Rubio in helping to guide the youth through this labyrinth of Immigration laws.

And if there is to be a reform in immigration in the next five years, let’s say, this is a bold and courageous effort that could finally prompt this Administration to act upon its overdue promises.

SOURCE




Obama attacks 'nominee' Romney on immigration
 
President Obama argued Friday that Mitt Romney has demonstrated "hypocrisy" on immigration reform and again pointed to the other side of the aisle to explain his administration's inaction on the kind of comprehensive immigration reform he'd promised.

"The only reason we do not have a law right now that has provided a citizenship not just for DREAM Act kids but for folks who are here, are law-abiding citizens, is because the Republicans have consistently demogogued the issue and have blocked action in Congress," Obama said in an interview Friday with Telemundo in which he refers to Romney as the Republican presidential nominee.

"This notion that somehow Republicans want to have it both ways, they want to vote against these laws and appeal to anti-immigrant sentiment when we have a nominee who said that Arizona laws -- which allow those same kids with Latino surnames to potentially be picked up [and] asked for their papers -- and then they come and say, 'But we really care about these kids and we want to do something about it.' That looks like hypocrisy to me," Obama said. Romney has voiced support for Arizona's tough immigration laws, as well as for a policy of "self-deportation" to encourage illegal immigrants to leave the country on their own.

SOURCE



April 13, 2012

British PM waters down pledge to  kick out all foreign criminals

David Cameron has abandoned a pledge to deport thousands of foreign criminals, including burglars, violent thugs and thieves.

The Tory leader had promised in Opposition to change immigration rules so prisoners from outside the EU were automatically sent home – even those serving short jail terms.

Currently around 7,000 foreign offenders a year escape deportation because they have been handed a sentence of less than 12 months.

But the Government has admitted it is only tightening the rules so that drug dealers serving less than a year are automatically deported.

It means other offenders, including violent thugs and benefit fraudsters, will still not be kicked out. The revelation comes after MPs criticised the UK Border Agency – responsible for processing foreign criminals and illegal immigrants – for not doing enough to kick out ex-prisoners.

Its report showed just 40 per cent of foreign criminals released from prison in a border scandal six years ago have been sent home.

In 2006, 1,013 foreign nationals were let out without being considered for deportation. By November last year,  just 397 had been deported and more than 50 had still not been found.

Mr Cameron’s pledge came four years ago after a leaked internal  prisons memo showed immigration officials had ‘no interest’ in deporting short sentence prisoners.

In response, a Tory policy document, called Prisons With A Purpose, published in 2007, said: ‘We will accelerate the deportation of foreign national prisoners before the end  of their sentences and extend  automatic deportation to non-EU prisoners serving less than a year.’

The Lib Dems have also pledged in the past to toughen up the rules.

It is estimated extending deportation to ‘all eligible foreign nationals’ would mean an extra 7,000 would face proceedings every year. In 2010, 5,342 foreign criminals were sent home, compared with 5,530 in 2009.

In a Parliamentary written answer, the Home Office said the 12 months or less policy remains in force.

Immigration Minister Damian Green added that an exception is made if a judge recommends an offender for deportation, or if the criminal has a string of convictions within the past five years.

In addition, drug offenders face automatic deportation for any crime other than possession, even for short sentences.

Tory MP Priti Patel, who asked the question, said: ‘The Government should make every effort to ensure all foreign criminals are deported. They are a huge drain on the criminal justice system.’

Ministers recently toughened rules on sending home European Economic Area nationals.  They are deported if they have served a custodial sentence of 12 months or more for drugs, violence or sex crimes and of two years for all other offences.

Home Secretary Theresa May has expressed her determination to stop foreign criminals using human rights laws to remain in the country.  In 2010 nearly 400 won appeals against deportation using Article 8, the right to a private and family life.

In the past decade, the number of foreign nationals in prison in  England and Wales has nearly doubled to 10,866 in last December.

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: ‘Those who come to the UK must abide by our laws. We will always seek to deport any foreign criminal sentenced to more than 12 months as quickly as possible.’

SOURCE





Romney likely best since 'Ike' on illegal immigration

The head of an organization that advocates for reduced immigration believes Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would be far better than recent presidents in dealing with the daunting problem of illegal immigration.

With the recent departure of Rick Santorum from the Republican field, Numbers USA's immigration presidential scorecard is down to President Barack Obama and three GOP candidates. Roy Beck, founder and president of the immigration think tank, says Romney's "B-minus" grade is a stark contrast to Obama's "F-minus" -- and better than Newt Gingrich's "D" and Ron Paul's "D-minus" grades.

"In terms of rating him with any Republican or Democratic nominee for president, Romney's not perfect on this issue," he says, "but I'm going to say [he] would probably be on a par with [Ronald] Reagan [and] better than every other nominee until you go back to Eisenhower."

According to Beck, the former Massachusetts governor is excellent when it comes to opposing amnesty and advocating the need for E-Verify. "Romney is very, very strong on the idea that the number-one thing we have to do is shut off the jobs magnet," he states. "He said the number-one thing is to have mandatory 50 state E-Verify."

The Numbers USA founder says having a president push hard for shutting down the "jobs magnet" would be a tremendous step forward on the immigration front.


SOURCE



April 12, 2012

Hundreds of foreign criminals are still not being deported from Britain

Two-thirds of the foreign prisoners who were mistakenly released back onto the streets are still in Britain, six years after the scandal cost the home secretary Charles Clarke his job.

The much criticised UK Border Agency promised to toughen up its procedures after it was revealed 1,013 immigrants had been released from jail without being considered for deportation in 2006.

But hundreds are still being allowed to remain while thousands more are taking years to process, a House of Commons Home Affairs Committee has discovered.

The report found that only 397 had been removed, 57 had completely gone missing and the rest had been allowed to stay or were still being dealt with.

"Six years is far too long for this situation to be resolved and these cases should have been concluded long ago," the committee concluded.

A year after the debacle, in which Mr Clarke resigned, the UK Borders Act introduced an "automatic deportation" provision for any non-EU citizen who has served a 12-month sentence or more to be receive a removal notice.

Yet the report, the third into the UKBA, also found that 10 per cent of the 5,010 foreign national prisoners released last year were allowed to remain.

More than a 1,000 were still fighting deportation although on what grounds it was not known.

It also found that 2,670 released prisoners were still fighting deportation after being released more than two years ago.

Almost 20,000 asylum cases also remain unresolved and some 120,000 immigration cases are being written off because the applicant can no longer be found, it added.

Keith Vaz, the committee's chairman, said: "The reputation of the Home Office, and by extension, the UK Government, is being tarnished by the inability of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to fulfil its basic functions.

"The foreign national prisoner issue and the asylum backlog were scandals which first broke in 2006, six years ago.

"UKBA appears unable to focus on its key task of tracking and removing illegal immigrants, overstayers or bogus students from the country."

The agency was also criticised for its "bunker mentality" and its confusing and misleading method of recording data.

"The 'agency' must rid itself of its bunker mentality and focus on ensuring that Parliament and the public understands its work," the MPs said.

"Confusion over figures only risks suspicion that the 'agency' is attempting to mislead Parliament and the public over its performance and effectiveness.

"The only way the Home Office can allay and remove these fears is to clean up and clarify all the figures that are used in these reports."

The committee called for the authorities to ensure foreign defendants have the necessary travel documentation as soon as they are sentenced in a bid to see them deported once they have served their jail term.

Immigration minister Damian Green said the UKBA had improved from a state of "complete chaos" when the Government took office two years ago.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Green said: "It is getting better slowly, probably too slowly than most people would want - some areas are getting better faster than other areas.

"The asylum service is immeasurably much better than it was three or four years ago.

"We start deportation action on foreign national prisoners now 18 months before the end of their sentence. As a result of that, last year we removed over 4,500 foreign criminals, and 45% of those were by the end of their sentence."

"In the coming months, we will be changing immigration laws to cut the abuse of the Human Rights Act, which has been used by far too many people to delay the process of removal."

SOURCE





UK lawmakers: Olympics could overwhelm Heathrow

British lawmakers have questioned Heathrow Airport's ability to cope with an influx of passengers during the London Olympics this summer, warning that long lines at immigration could force planes to sit on runways or even circle Europe's busiest airport.

The concerns were expressed in a letter to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt from the chairman of House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee, John Whittingdale. It was published Wednesday.

Whittingdale wrote that lawmakers had met with Heathrow operator BAA on its preparations for Olympic games and "did not leave the briefing confident" that Heathrow was ready to cope with huge numbers of arrivals around the Olympics in a "timely fashion." The games run from July 27 to Aug. 12.

"We understand that significant preparations have been made to accommodate unusual sporting equipment, special lanes for the Olympic family, welcoming arrangements for competitors and additional Olympic ambassadors," Whittingdale wrote. "However, far less thought seems to have been given to the issue of how to deal with long queues at immigration."

Whittingdale said those lines could push terminals over capacity, forcing planes to circle in the air, sit on runways or block gates if they can't unload their passengers.

Last year, even without the crush of the Olympics, Britain's former border chief relaxed some passport checks during the busy summer tourist season just to handle the demand.

Long immigrations waits could deter tourists from returning to Britain, Whittingdale added.

Heathrow typically handles an average of 190,000 passengers arriving and departing each day, with 69.4 million total in 2011.

BAA noted that Whittingdale's concerns related to immigration -- which is the U.K. Border Agency's responsibility -- and criticized the agency.

"Immigration waiting times during peak periods at Heathrow are frequently unacceptable and we have called on Border Force to address the problem as a matter of urgency," BAA said. "There isn't a trade-off between strong border security and a good passenger experience -- Border Force should be delivering both."

The U.K. Border Agency responded to the letter by saying it is "well prepared" for the Olympics and has additional staff available for busy periods.

"We will not compromise on border security," it said.

The day after the closing ceremony -- Monday, Aug. 13 -- is set to be the airport's busiest ever, BAA estimates, more than its previous record of 233,561 passengers on July 31, 2011. Heathrow is forecasting it will handle 35 percent more baggage for departing flights on Aug. 13 than on a normal day, which sees about 150,000 items.

Heathrow is creating a special terminal for Olympic athletes, coaches and sponsor to fly out of Britain after the end of the games. Airport officials say 10,000 athletes and support staff will go through the "Special Games Terminal" in the three days after the closing ceremony to process the exodus.

SOURCE



April 11, 2012

Those most harmed by illegal immigration are the U.S.'s poor

Jeanie Fusaro's response to my commentary on immigration is correct: I am a racist. That's usually the first thing thrown out when anyone disagrees with pointing out the illegal immigration problem.  Now that we have established that, maybe we can talk about facts and my opinion piece.

I wrote the letter from the perspective of someone who has been to the border many times, and seen first-hand the damage caused by illegal immigration.

I am new to Fayette County and can see the stark differences in a state which still (for now) enforces its immigration laws and a state and city which does not.

It's easy for someone who lives in the suburbs to wishfully say let's have an open door policy of let the taxpayers foot the bill, when they do not live in the middle of those who the taxpayer is supporting.

Oh, don't get me wrong, people are people, and generally they go about their everyday lives working, going to school, raising their children, and being decent neighbors.

But in Texas there are "coyotes" that get paid for getting pregnant woman across the border just in time for their child to be born in the U.S. But must this happen on the back of taxpayers?

When I see these everyday examples: our hospitals being used as emergency rooms for pregnancies and healthcare, even for minor instances, I know the taxpayer is footing the bill.

For those going to work and being paid under the table, I know an American worker is not getting hired. When our schools are being overcrowded, and teachers have to slow down the curriculum for those who do not speak English, my child is being left behind and not getting the full attention. Kudos to Fayette County schools for providing the non-English speaking students additional resources for this; but again, with taxpayer money.

Assimilation was a process which occurred much quicker years ago in 1895 and before the entitlement society made taxpayers responsible. This was before the August 2000 Clinton Executive Order requiring all agencies receiving federal funding to provide bilingualism and the 1986 amnesty (Reagan later admitted he regretted this because of a Democratic majority in Congress and due to it creating an even bigger magnet for those coming to the U.S. illegally).

We now have chain migration to go along with the world's most open country for legal immigration, which needs to be streamlined to allow a more balanced country of origin process.

The largest number of legal immigration? Mexico. The largest number of illegal immigrants? Mexico and those passing through it.

Illegal immigration (through deportations/lawsuits) and chain migration has so clogged the immigration process, that legal immigration is more difficult.

In 1895 you did not have mass transportation allowing for ease of illegal drugs, human trafficking and criminal gang members slipping into the country. Yes, I know, not all illegal immigrants are gang members or carrying illegal drugs, but those activities are increasing due TO illegal immigration.

This current President has stopped the enforcement on illegal immigration by directing Homeland Security to ignore the prosecution and deportation of illegal immigrants except the most extreme violent offenders.

Kind of like saying let's just ignore the drunk drivers except for those who actually crash and cause injury to others.

Bush tried to pass an amnesty program, and thank goodness it did not pass. But at least he left enforcement in place.

It would be great if we all had a universal translator. Bilingualism is great for an individual but unless you expect every citizen to learn every language to communicate with every other person, then we as a nation need the one thing that holds us together as a nation (remember E Pluribus Unum). We need a common language.

And no matter how hard ethnic groups try to rewrite history, our country's founding documents are based on the English language and our common language is English.

In Houston, south Florida and California a person cannot even obtain employment without knowing Spanish, because those who come to this country are not required to learn English. If they are not required to learn it, (the entire print media and government documents in Spanish that make English irrelevant) why bother teaching English or becoming proficient?

It's an endless cycle. I know those who have been in this country for years and still make no effort to learn English. I've seen parents scold their children for speaking English instead of Spanish.

Those most harmed by illegal immigration are the poor in this country, regardless of skin color. They have to compete with illegals who will work for slave labor wages; and when businesses take advantage of illegal immigration, it is a form of modern day slavery.

Americans will pay more for a head of lettuce if means not using more taxpayer money for hospitals, jobs and schools.

So, when the conversation about illegal immigration moves beyond "you are a racist," then facts can come out and an intelligent discussion can be made for greater enforcement of our southern border.

Illegal immigration also robs the south of the border countries of their most valuable resource: their people.

SOURCE





Alleged Costs of Ending Universal Birthright Citizenship

A Response to the National Foundation for American Policy

 A high-immigration group called the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) recently released a report on the alleged costs of ending the current application of the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause. The report claims that if the United States were to stop granting automatic citizenship to children born here to foreign tourists and illegal aliens the result would be increased cost to taxpayers, a caste system, a shadow economy and a national ID card, among other things.

A new Memorandum from the Center for Immigration Studies explains why the NFAP report's fears are unfounded. While there may be plausible arguments for maintaining our current citizenship rules, the new CIS paper, "The Alleged Costs of Ending Universal Birthright Citizenship: A Response to the National Foundation for American Policy", addresses and debunks the NFAP's claims. The paper is online  www.cis.org/Alleged-Costs-of-Ending-Universal-Birthright-Citizenship">here

Among the findings:

A costly bureaucratic overhaul would not be necessary as the United States already has most of the means in place to administer tighter citizenship rules.

Ending citizenship at birth to the children of tourists and illegal immigrants would not require Americans to sign up for a national ID card.

A narrower application of the Citizenship Clause would not result in a caste system or stateless children.

Underground economic activity, which exists regardless of citizenship rules, can be curbed through better enforcement of immigration law.

Congress can likely change the current application of the Citizenship Clause through a simple legislative fix.

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

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



April 10, 2012

Immigration chief outlines his priorities

Alejandro Mayorkas, a veteran federal prosecutor, is the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Among other things, Mayorkas’ agency grants immigration and citizenship benefits, manages the process that allows people from other countries to work in the United States and helps administer the E-Verify system, which helps employers verify whether their newly hired employees are eligible to work in the United States.

Mayorkas oversees an agency with a $3 billion annual budget and 18,000 employees and contractors working at more than 200 offices worldwide. He previously served as the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. President Barack Obama nominated him to his current position in April 2009, and the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed him in August of that year.

Mayorkas spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by phone recently about his agency’s processing times for permanent residency applications, Georgia farmers’ concerns with the H-2A guest worker program and E-Verify’s accuracy. His answers were edited for brevity.

Q: Tell me what you view as your top priorities as director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

A: I think my priorities reflect how varied and full our mission is. First and foremost, we have the responsibility of helping safeguard our nation’s security and protecting the immigration system. And so, always looking to enhance and strengthen our fraud detection and national security responsibilities is a key priority of mine and has been since I first started.

Secondly, as I am sure you are aware, we are a paper-based agency. The significant majority of applications and petitions we receive are in paper form, and then we move the paper around throughout our agency and work with a not-the-most-up-to-date set of computer systems. We are under way in transforming from a paper-based agency to an electronic one. That is the future of our agency, and it is a very significant priority as well.

This agency has tried to accomplish that transformation before [and] has not succeeded. And now we have designed a system and are in the last stages of testing the first phase of it, so we are really very excited about that.

Q: What is USCIS’ average turnaround times right now for permanent residency and citizenship applications? And can USCIS do better in these areas? And, if so, how?

A: Right now on the application for permanent residency, our average processing time is four months, which is a dramatic improvement over years past. What we are really focusing on now -- given our low processing times -- is not necessarily accelerating them but rather ensuring the quality of the underlying adjudications, making sure our adjudications are of the utmost quality, that we apply the law consistently and fairly.

Q: In Georgia, farmers here have complained the H-2A guest worker program is too costly and full of red tape. What is USCIS doing to improve this program?

A: I think some of the difficulties that we have heard are with respect to the division of labor amongst different federal agencies that touch the H-2A visa process. Remember, this is a process that we are involved in, that the Department of Labor is involved in, that the Department of State is involved in. I think some of the concerns are more structural with respect to the program and perhaps they can be addressed by legislation, but they are not necessarily -- from what we hear -- concerns with how we adjudicate the cases and process them.

Q: Speaking of legislation, what is your position on Rep. Jack Kingston's proposed Better Agriculture Resources Now Act -- it’s HR 3443. This would overhaul the H-2A program.

A: I’m familiar with the legislation, but I am not in a position to comment on it.

Q: Georgia's new anti-illegal immigration law -- it’s House Bill 87 -- requires many more private businesses to use the E-Verify program. How accurate is E-Verify, and does it have the capacity to accommodate many more businesses from Georgia?

A: The E-Verify program is extremely accurate. When it vets an individual who represents him or herself as work-authorized and that individual is in fact work-authorized, I believe its accuracy rate is over 99 percent. ... It is very accurate in verifying a work-authorized individual as work-authorized.

We are always working to improve the program in capturing efforts to commit identity fraud, something that the program was not really designed to address. But we have made tremendous improvements there.

The program has the capacity to receive more queries than it currently receives on a voluntary basis. Should E-Verify become mandatory nationwide, it would certainly require structural changes

SOURCE




 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

1. The Alleged Costs of Ending Universal Birthright Citizenship: A Response to the National Foundation for American Policy (Memorandum)

2. Janice Kephart Interviewed on National Security and Driver's Licenses (Video)

3. Case History: Judge Shrouds H-1B Case with Secrecy (Blog)

4. American Bilingualism and Globalization (Blog)

5. Indian H-1B Body Shop Called Sexist, Too (Blog)

6. Are Bilinguals Smarter? (Blog)

7. Germany's Apprenticeship Wunder: Highlighted on NPR but Nothing New to Vernon Briggs (Blog)

8. USCIS Seems to Predict 88% Failure Rate in the EB-5 Investor Program (Blog)

9. Reality Check on Operation Cross Check (Blog)

10. New York State's 'Dream Act': Kindly Spare Us the Partisan Hyperbole (Blog)

11. Stopping Illegal Aliens from Stealing Our Children's Identities (Blog)

12. Local Employer Audits Work to Reduce Illegal Hiring (Blog)

13. A Double Whammy: Policy Dump on Administrative Amnesty (Blog)

14. USCIS Modifies Key Form — But the PR Department Blurs the Achievement (Blog)

15. Never Trust Mainstream Pundits Bearing Gifts (Blog)



April 9, 2012

Most Greeks Support Clampdown on Illegal Immigration, Poll Shows

Greece is the gateway to Europe from the Middle East so this is of some importance

Ahead of May elections, more than six in 10 Greeks, or 61.7 percent, agree with recent government moves to clamp down on illegal immigration in the country, a poll showed.

A survey of 1,610 Greeks over the age of 18 by Kapa Research SA for To Vima newspaper published today found that 83.4 percent of interviewees believe illegal immigration is a major problem for Greece while 48.3 percent said that the main priority of any immigration policy should be to gradually remove all immigrants from the country, up from 19.5 percent in a similar poll in 2009.

Greece’s government plans to create 30 detention centers on the mainland to house illegal immigrants, who don’t qualify for asylum, before they are deported, the country’s Citizen Protection Ministry said March 27.

More than half of those surveyed by Kappa, or 54.7 percent, said such centers are necessary while 61.7 percent said recent Greek police actions to carry out widespread identification checks and arrests of illegal immigrants is a move in the right direction to control the problem.

Greece will require immigrants to obtain health certificates before being granted work permits and those with contagious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis will be quarantined in medical facilities, Health Minister Andreas Loverdos said April 1. Nearly 72 percent of those surveyed agree with the requirement, the poll showed.

The land border between Greece and Turkey is the main entry point for immigrants into the European Union from Asia, according to Frontex, the EU’s Warsaw-based agency for external border security. In 2011, about 100,000 people were arrested for crossing Greece’s borders illegally, according to Greek police statistics. Greece is due to hold elections on May 6 or May 13.

SOURCE





Wave of Irish emigration to Australia keeps growing

Despite three very good reasons not to leave his homeland, Kevin Dwyer swapped the economic — and literal — gloom of Ireland for the sunny climes of Australia.

He said financial desperation forced him to part with his partner and two children last October, and travel for an indefinite period to a place where he believed the streets were lined with gold.

Dwyer is part of a modern wave of economic migrants driven from Europe — and from Ireland in particular — by rising rates of unemployment.

America still beckons with promises of high-paying jobs and opportunity, but Australia is growing rapidly as a destination of choice. In particular, an influx of Irish immigrants has arrived.

While not all Australians are welcoming them, most say the immigrants are a boon to the country — especially the Irish, many of whom have found a place in the work force aiding the construction boom.

The numbers are conflicting, as is often the case when illegal immigration is involved. But they speak for themselves.

According to official figures from the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship figures reveal a 68 percent jump in the number of visas granted to Irish workers in the past year — 3095 arrived in 2011, up from 1840 during the corresponding period in 2010. That might not sound like a big number, but adjusting for population it's equivalent to about 45,000 immigrants in US — roughly the size America's fourth biggest immigration group, the Filippinos.

Others see a far bigger influx. A widely cited Economic and Social Research Institute study from 2010 found that 24,000 Irish emigrants had headed to Australia, oustripping those bound for the UK and the US.

Meanwhile, Europe's economic recession has well and truly seized the Celtic Tiger by the tail.

In 2011, Ireland's Central Statistics Office reported that emigration among Irish nationals increased sharply, reaching 76,400 in the year to April 2011, a growth of 11,100 (or 16.9 percent) on the year to April 2010. That means roughly 1,400 people leave Ireland's shores every week.

The Irish have been heading to Australia for centuries. Some Irish immigrants date back to the First Fleet that arrived in 1788 and the earliest convict transports of the late 1700s — a joint venture of sorts with the British. The potato famine of the 1840s and the corresponding Australian gold rush set off new wave of migration to Australia, for those who could afford the fare.

The steady stream of Irish immigrants, any of whom arrive in Australia armed with advanced qualifications, is helping to fill yawning gaps in the work force, particularly in mining and construction industries which are in large part fueling Australia's prolonged economic boom.

The country just capped its 20th consecutive year of growth, and the West Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has forecast that it will need 500,000 extra workers by 2020. Based on recent trends, a shortfall of 150,000 Western Australian workers has been predicted by 2017.

The Irish Independent quoted Western Australia's employment minister Peter Collier as saying last year that his booming state was crying out for skilled workers. Cue the Irish immigrants.

"It's an economic powerhouse," Collier told a recruitment drive in Dublin last July. "With more than [$192 billion] of resource and infrastructure projects planned, Western Australia is on the cusp of a 25-year expansion, which will drive the nation's economy."

Meanwhile, Rob Knight, Northern Territory Minister for Business and Employment, told a recent jobs fair in Dublin that his region of Australia had tens of thousands of jobs to fill and desperately needs skilled workers for the construction, mining and services industry there.

On the other side of the country in the "sunshine state" of Queensland, Des Ryan — owner of a Brisbane-based building company and president of the Irish Australian Support Association — said there was a big demand for Irish workers in the state's mining towns.

After Ireland's own building industry had been decimated in the economic downturn, leaving 300,000 new houses standing vacant, many highly skilled tradespeople joined surveyors, architects, civil engineers and other professionals in transferring their skills Down Under.

"Education has been free in Ireland for a long time, so these are highly skilled people," said Ryan, who emigrated from Ireland 40 years ago. "They're different from the people who went to England and the US in the 1950s."

SOURCE



April 8, 2012

British Judges ordered to end 'right to family life' farce

Judges are to be ordered by ministers to end the “abuse” of human rights laws which allows foreign criminals to claim the right to a “family life” to avoid being deported.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has declared that new immigration rules will be in place by the summer to make it “absolutely clear” that those who have committed a crime, broken immigration rules or cannot support themselves must not be allowed to stay.

The move, which follows a Home Office consultation into Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), represents a victory for The Sunday Telegraph which launched a campaign on the issue last year under the slogan: “End the Human Rights Farce.”

Mrs May said in an interview with this newspaper: “By the summer, I will have changed the immigration rules so that we can end the abuse of the right to a family life.”

She added that she believes the measures will be “widely supported” both by politicians from all sides and the public and adds: “Believe you me, I get as frustrated as anybody when I see somebody who should not be in this country remaining in this country.”

In a wide-ranging interview at the end of a bruising political week for the Home Secretary, she also served notice she would not back down in the row with the Liberal Democrats over plans to give law enforcement agencies new powers to investigate on-line communications including visits to Facebook, eBay and Skype which have been dubbed a “snooper’s charter.”

Despite Lib Dem vows to block the move from appearing in next month’s Queen’s Speech and signs that the planned Bill would only be published in draft, Mrs May vowed swift action.

“Obviously the longer you leave it, the quicker technology can move on,” she says “I would expect us to be able to do this in a Bill in the next session [of parliament].”

Mrs May also signals movement in the case of Abu Qatada, the radical cleric whose deportation to Jordan was blocked by the European Court of Human Rights earlier this year. She discloses a group of British officials went to the country last week, in the wake of her own visit last month, and that the “momentum” is being kept up.

“The public want him to be deported, I want him to be deported,” Mrs May says.

It is the government’s proposed action on the right to a family life, though, that is likely most to please Conservative MPs and supporters looking for some positive policy moves following weeks which have seen the party take a series of political hits over tax changes in the Budget and claims ministers fuelled panic over planned strike by tanker drivers.

By the end of July, ministers will change immigration rules so that Article 8 of the ECHR can only be used as a barrier to deportation in “rare and exceptional cases.” The new rules will come into force within a month of being published.

Judges will be specifically told that the “family life” right will not prevent the removal of a foreign national when they have been convicted of a criminal offence, have breached immigration rules or are unable to maintain themselves and their families without being a drain on the state.

Home Office sources said legislation passed under Labour, the 2007 UK Borders Act, muddied the waters on deportation by creating an exemption if human rights were breached - and that until now judges had “no clear steer on how that exemption should be interpreted.”

Ministers are well aware that their new rules will be immediately challenged in court and are prepared to consider further changes if they are not sufficient. Rewriting UK law - the ultimate step - would have major international consequences and would be unlikely to be done without a government having a specific mandate to do so after a general election.

Mrs May, who last year declared her personal preference was to scrap the Human Rights Act altogether, saaid: “I have every confidence it [her rule changes] will work. If it doesn’t, if it is tested in the courts and we find there’s a problem, we’ll obviously look at other measures, but I’m confident in what we’re proposing to do.”

The Sunday Telegraph’s campaign for change has been supported by leading politicians, including one of Mrs May’s Labour predecessors at the Home Office, Jacqui Smith, and the former Tory shadow home secretary, David Davis.

The newspaper called for action after complaints that a number of British judges were ignoring key provisions built into Article 8 which allow deportations - including “the prevention of disorder or crime.” Criminals who lose their cases in Britain are able to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Cases highlighted in the last few months include:

* Joseph Lissa, who was branded a war criminal by a judge after admitting commanding fighters in a civil war in his homeland of Sierra Leone. The Home Office refused him permission to remain but Lissa, a driving instructor in Huddersfield, won an appeal on the grounds he had married a British woman and fathered a child here.

* Taoufik Didi, a Moroccan bigamist sentenced to three years in jail for selling cocaine to undercover police officers. He was given a deportation order but told immigration judges he had been in a relationship with a British woman for 10 years and that the couple intended to start a family. Didi, based in London, won his appeal.

* Gary Ellis, a violent drug dealer living in North London, who twice avoided being sent home to Jamaica after citing Article 8 in the wake of two separate convictions. On both occasions, he told judges he was entitled to a family life with his girlfriend and young daughter.

SOURCE






Don’t expect immigration enforcement from Republicans

On Tuesday, Florida Republican Senator and much-hyped vice-presidential hopeful Marco Rubio announced that he is crafting his own version of the DREAM Act which would grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

While the announcement has disheartened much of the Republican faithful, it really should come as a surprise to no one…

Over the past several months, the Obama administration through executive order, has been implementing one disastrous move after the next which when completed, will add up to a blanket amnesty for all of those currently inside this country illegally.

While the anger among conservative activists and law abiding Americans has been palpable, the silence coming from the national Republican Party on these lawless policies has been deafening.

-On June 17, 2011, the Obama administration issued a memo announcing immigration officials no longer have to deport illegal aliens if they are enrolled in any type of education program, if their family members have volunteered for U.S. military service, if they have filed a civil rights lawsuit or even if they are pregnant or nursing.

The policy known as 'prosecutorial discretion' was also quietly announced on a Friday afternoon, and completely ignored by the mainstream press.

-In August 2011, the Obama administration announced that they would now only deport illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes in this country, more than likely, that means only those convicted of felonies. Perhaps, even more devastating, the administration will also reportedly distribute work permits to those illegal aliens allowed to stay even as U.S. unemployment remains very high.

-On January 6, 2012, the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the agency’s proposed rule change which will allow illegal alien spouses and children to stay in this country while seeking legal residency status, rather than waiting for a green card back home.

Under the new rule, they will supposedly have to return home to visit a U.S. consulate for an interview. However, this will be but a formality.

The federal government would issue hardship waivers to the illegal aliens so that they can easily re-enter the country.

While Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has never failed to issue a statement condemning each one of Obama’s aforementioned actions, rhetoric is where the GOP leadership begins and ends on the subject of illegal immigration and what to do about the millions of illegal aliens already here (and still coming).

In January 2011, it was announced that Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) would head the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement. The California Congressman was chosen for the top job, even though Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was the ranking member of the subcommittee when Democrats controlled the House.

Rep. King has consistently been the loudest voice in the U.S. Congress, calling for strict border enforcement and at times, seemingly the only one on Capitol Hill who is concerned about the public safety crisis caused by illegal immigration.

In 2006, King released the results of a study which found that 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, and 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers every day.

That same study also determined that eight American children become victims of sexual abuse by illegal aliens every day, translating into 2,920 child victims annually.

King once said: “Members of Congress that vote for a guest-worker plan ... will be supporting an amnesty plan and they should be branded with the scarlet letter 'A' and pay for that amnesty in the ballot box in November [elections].”

In the past, King has introduced legislation which would deny birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.

It seems that it is that same, out-spoken nature, and no-nonsense attitude that sunk him with the Republican elitists, anxious to please their Chamber of Commerce benefactors.

We must not forget that only a few years ago, it was the Republicans who were championing amnesty for illegal aliens. President Bush wanted it, and Sen. John McCain wrote the bill…Of course, Republicans were in control of both houses of Congress at that time.

In the lead-up to the 2010 midterm elections, we heard tough talk on immigration from the Republicans, but that was when they were farther out-of-power than that party had been in nearly a generation.

The chairmanship rightfully belonged to King, but just as in the past, the GOP has placed more importance on pandering to Hispanic voters than on the rule of law—it would appear they may be going down that same destructive path again.

During a recent conversation with my good friend and fellow Examiner, Rick Oltman, we both concluded that Congressional Republicans are more than likely, very relieved by Obama’s actions because now the issue is effectively over and they do not have to risk alienating Hispanic voters by calling for strict enforcement.

If the Republican Party returns to the ways of Bush and McCain and goes back on their word to Americans eager to see our immigration laws enforced, those same Americans will find what they are looking for in a third party and leave the GOP behind forever.

SOURCE



April 7, 2012

Ala. proposes more extensive checking of immigrants' status

Alabama legislators are proposing changes to their law cracking down on illegal immigration, promising to clean up some of the complications that arose after it went into effect last year and to solve some of the legal troubles that led a federal judge to block portions of the law.

But the proposed revisions, which came from deliberations between Alabama's Republican governor and GOP leaders in the state Legislature, break ground in the quest by some lawmakers in some states to force illegal immigrants to leave their states.

Alabama's HB 56 mirrored Arizona's immigration law by requiring local law enforcement officers to question the immigration status of drivers during routine traffic stops. Those portions of the law have been blocked by federal judges and are being appealed.

The proposed changes in Alabama soften that provision somewhat, requiring officers to check the immigration status of drivers only after issuing a traffic citation. Legislators added a requirement that officers question the immigration status of other people in the car if a "reasonable suspicion" exists that they are in the country illegally. That proposal has not been included in other tough immigration laws, including Arizona's SB 1070.

Karen Tumlin, managing attorney of the National Immigration Law Center, which has joined other civil rights groups and the Justice Department in lawsuits against state immigration laws, said it was the first time she'd seen such a provision proposed by any state. She expected the proposed changes in Alabama to scale back some of the harsher measures, but said the state instead is taking an "aggressive step forward" in finding ways to make life difficult for illegal immigrants.

"There's no desire to get in line with what other courts have said, in terms of the legality of this provision," Tumlin said. "Instead, they very stridently decided to expand that provision. We don't view this as a softening — this is an expansion."

Todd Stacy, a spokesman for Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, a Republican, said the new provision was requested by Alabama sheriffs and police chiefs. Stacy said it makes sense that passengers in a vehicle being driven by an illegal immigrant are likely to be illegal immigrants, too.

"Living in the real world, surely it's not just the driver that could be in violation of the law," Stacy said. "So why should the suspicion only apply to the person driving the car when there could be several others in violation of the law?"

The proposed changes were introduced in a bill in the Alabama Legislature that is scheduled for its first committee hearing Wednesday. The bill also:

* Eliminates the requirement that school officials check the immigration status of students enrolling in schools. Instead, the state Department of Education must produce an annual report estimating the cost of educating illegal immigrants, using information gleaned from "reputable scholars, economists or public research institutions."

* Allows non-profit religious organizations to work with illegal immigrants in some areas.

* Makes it easier for legal residents, U.S. citizens and businesses to conduct transactions with the state.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, supports the changes, saying they clarify provisions for police and state officials tasked with implementing the new law.

"The essence of the law will not change: Anyone living and working in Alabama must be here legally," Bentley said. "With these revisions, Alabama's law will be more effective, more fair and more clear as we address the issue of illegal immigration."

Portions of HB 56 were put on hold by a federal judge last year, and Alabama is appealing that ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of Arizona's SB 1070 this summer. The outcome of that case could influence the battles over laws in Alabama and four other states that passed Arizona-style immigration laws.

Stacy said the new proposal to check the immigration status of passengers in cars likely will face new lawsuits, but he said that would happen no matter what changes are made.

"Some activist groups will not be happy unless the law is repealed," Stacy said. "Will groups like that sue? Probably. But they would probably sue, anyway."

SOURCE





GOP should stop DREAMing

As we move towards the general election, winning the votes of Latinos, the nation’s largest minority group, will be important to the hopes of both parties. Not surprisingly, Democrats and Republicans are searching for issues they believe will appeal to these voters.

Democrats have sought to win over Latinos by promising amnesty for illegal aliens, and are renewing efforts to pass the DREAM Act, which they have deceptively packaged as a “compassionate” amnesty for people who were brought or sent illegally to the United States prior to age 16.

The DREAM Act has consistently failed to pass since it was first introduced in 2000 because most Americans recognize it as a broad amnesty that would benefit millions of illegal aliens well into adulthood.

Even with little chance of passage in 2012, Democrats are using it as an election year ploy to force Republicans to block the bill and then cite that as evidence of Republican hostility to Latinos.

Republicans appear to be taking the bait.

Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill are scrambling furiously to come up with their own version of the DREAM Act, aptly described by The Hill newspaper as “Republicans trying to have to both ways by trying to ingratiate themselves with Hispanic voters without offending…conservatives within their base.”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the GOP front man for the DREAM Act 2.0, has been appearing on cable news programs to talk up his unfinished bill, the details of which he refuses to reveal.

Besides Rubio, two other high-profile lame duck senators, Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), are reported to be working on an equally secret version of the DREAM Act.

In the House, Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.) has issued a press release, though not an actual bill, touting his own version of the DREAM Act.

Besides being an inept political stunt that is unlikely to gain them much traction among Latino voters, the DREAM Act 2.0 is based on the same flawed premises that makes the Democrats’ DREAM Act a bad idea.

Americans empathize with people who find themselves in a difficult situation because their parents illegally brought them to this country.  But they also understand that it is the parents who created the situation and that rewarding their actions, by granting legal status to their children, will only encourage more people to violate our immigration laws.

Moreover, the conditions attached to qualifying for all versions of the DREAM Act would heap new burdens on America’s already overburdened public higher education system.

Inevitably, all versions of the DREAM Act would come at great expense to American taxpayers and to Americans seeking to get through college themselves, or upgrade their own skills.

The DREAM Act by its very nature shifts the consequences of breaking the law from the people who broke it, the parents, to those the law was intended to protect – the American people.

Unfortunately, children do suffer from the bad decisions made by their parents.  But in every other circumstance we hold the offending parents responsible for the difficulties their actions cause family members.

Moreover, if we feel morally compelled to grant amnesty to the current cohort of people who were brought here illegally as minors, the inevitable consequence will be millions more people bringing their kids to this country illegally in the expectation that America will feel the same obligation to their children in a few years' time.

Besides being an unjustified amnesty that would harm the interests of law-abiding Americans, pandering on immigration will not help the GOP close the gap with Latino voters.

All polls of Latino voters show that immigration ranks fairly far down on their list of concerns, far below bread and butter economic issues.

Ironically, Rubio himself acknowledged that political reality as he tight-roped his way through an interview with Juan Williams on Fox News Latino.

After 15 minutes of revealing nothing about his version of the DREAM Act, Rubio finally said something that made sense. Rubio noted that most Latinos hail from countries where governments run the economies, and do it poorly. If Republicans want to woo Latino voters, Rubio suggested, the best way to do it is to offer them “economic empowerment.”

Economic empowerment, whether it comes from Republicans or Democrats, is not only a pretty good platform to win Latino votes, but just about everyone else’s vote.

Pandering to Latino voters with the DREAM Act 2.0 not only won’t impress voters who are committed to amnesty for illegal aliens, but would only exacerbate the problem of illegal immigration.

SOURCE



April 6, 2012

AZ: Negotiations between Arpaio, DOJ fall apart



Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday rejected outright the U.S. Justice Department's demand for an independent monitor to oversee his office's operations, saying it would infringe on his authority over the agency.

Arpaio's decision makes it likely that the two sides will face off in federal court in what both parties expect to be a lengthy and expensive court battle to settle government allegations that Arpaio's deputies discriminate against Latino residents.

The Justice Department last December released findings from a three-year investigation into the Sheriff's Office that accused it of rampant discrimination against Latinos in its police and jail operations.

Negotiations on remedies were expected to begin within weeks, with the explicit threat of a federal lawsuit if negotiations were unsuccessful.

This week, a top Justice Department attorney contacted Arpaio's lawyers and told them that agreement on the presence of an independent monitor was among the crucial elements required to continue negotiations and avoid a lawsuit.

Arpaio flatly rejected a monitor Tuesday, however, calling it a political attempt by President Barack Obama's administration to take control of daily operations in the Sheriff's Office.

"None of us agreed to allow a federal monitor to come remove my authority as the elected sheriff of Maricopa County," Arpaio said. "I feel that turning my office over to the federal government would be a dereliction of my duty."

The Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday. But a letter from Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Roy Austin to Arpaio's lawyers indicates Austin believes the Sheriff's Office previously agreed to a court-appointed monitor as part of the government's attempts to remedy alleged profiling that investigators identified in the office.

"DOJ considers the oversight of an independent monitor to be an absolute necessity for meaningful and sustainable reform of MCSO," Austin wrote. "It was disappointing, to say the least, for you to contact us 24 hours before our negotiations were scheduled to continue and raise, for the first time, a precondition that you understood would result in the cancellation of negotiations -- and, by extension, the initiation of a civil lawsuit -- and calls into question whether you were ever interested in settling this matter."

The negotiations were tinged with animosity from the beginning.

Arpaio vowed in January to cooperate with the federal government, but his promise came with an unsuccessful demand that the Justice Department produce detailed records to support its allegations of discrimination.

The two parties put their differences aside for a single day of meetings in Phoenix in early February and released a joint statement that reiterated each agency's promise to negotiate in good faith. The statement said both sides expected to have an agreement by mid-April to resolve profiling allegations.

Based on correspondence released Tuesday, that was the last face-to-face meeting between Arpaio's attorneys and Justice Department lawyers.

The Justice Department sent Arpaio a 128-page draft of a proposed settlement in late February that, according to Arpaio's attorneys, contained the demand for a court-appointed monitor. The two parties were going to begin negotiating that agreement today, but each side's reluctance to budge on the monitor made the meeting moot.

Arpaio's attorneys said even if the sheriff refused to OK a court-ordered agreement and presence of a court-appointed monitor, there were other issues the sides could have resolved in negotiations.

"Tomorrow was supposed to be the day that we started negotiation on all terms in the proposed agreement," said Joseph Popolizio, an Arpaio attorney. "At that point, we were going to discuss the things we may be able to agree on, things we may not be able to agree on. ... They were negotiations to start, nothing was agreed to beforehand."

The issue of a monitor being part of any solution should not have come as a surprise. The findings of the Justice Department's investigation, presented to Arpaio in December, mentioned that a monitor and a consent decree would be necessary.

"Given the systemic nature of the constitutional violations, effective compliance in this case will require federal judicial oversight; a court-enforceable agreement will provide the structure, transparency and accountability necessary to achieve sustained success," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez wrote last December.

The presence of a court-appointed monitor is also frequently an element in the Justice Department's attempts to resolve civil-rights violations in any agency, said William Yeomans, an American University law professor and a 25-year veteran of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. "It's standard practice to request an outside monitor. This is not something they came up with for Sheriff Joe," Yeomans said.

The monitor's background and qualifications are also frequently the subject of negotiations between Justice Department attorneys and representatives of law-enforcement agencies, Yeomans said, with each side suggesting candidates. Agreements can include restrictions on the monitor's powers over the department.

"It's not as if Obama can appoint someone and say, 'Go get Sheriff Joe,'" Yeomans said.

The decision for the Justice Department to file a lawsuit against an uncooperative law-enforcement agency would be a rare one, Yeomans said. Typically, when the Justice Department takes legal action against an agency, the two parties have agreed to settlement terms.

"This one, it sounds like they really are at bitter odds," Yeomans said. "If the county decides that it doesn't want to settle, then this will go to litigation, and it will be long and expensive."

A lawsuit could also bring the parties back to the negotiating table, Yeomans said.

Arpaio and his attorneys said repeatedly Tuesday that they welcome the opportunity to come to an agreement with the Justice Department. But Arpaio and his supporters also believe the civil-rights investigation is a ploy by the Obama administration to curry favor with Hispanic voters.

"If they want to go to court, we'll go to court," Arpaio said. "We'll go to court, which is great. Let the court decide."

SOURCE





Patchwork immigration policy must do for now

Motorcyclist killed in Dartmouth crashDartmouth, Fairhaven residents win big bucks in lottery gamesNew Bedford man stabbed near Cottage and Campbell streetsDartmouth, Fairhaven residents win big bucks in Lottery gamesCourt documents allege Balestracci, indicted in theft of $1.2M, had gambling problemMaria G. RegoNarcotics detectives make five arrests in New Bedford
Part of the puzzle of immigration policy turns on the economic impacts of the presence of an estimated 10.8 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

On the one hand, we have an economy fed by demand for produce and services that, for the most part, cannot be met with a legal labor force at the prices we care to pay. On the other are consumers who bear higher costs for education, health care, infrastructure and entitlements because of the inability to hold the illegal population financially responsible for its demands on those systems.

The social impacts are no less problematic. Policies that separate long-established families, tearing at the cohesion of communities, hurt citizens and the undocumented alike.

Dissatisfaction with president Obama's inability to convince Congress to reform immigration laws has fallen on both sides of the aisle, so with the election cycle turning again, efforts to "soften the effects of immigration," as he told Univision last month, are no surprise in a country with 50 million Hispanics.

Federal policy has evolved to this point to focus on criminal illegal immigrants and steer away from "low-priority" cases. It manifests itself in enforcement programs with limited funding, and in an attempt to consider the impact of forced separations on families.

In SouthCoast, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson has been a staunch advocate of Secure Communities, part of the enforcement piece.

Sen. Scott Brown was in Dartmouth this week to offer support to the sheriff. He said the program that shares fingerprint information with federal officials allows local law enforcement to better protect the public.

Brown's presumptive opponent in this November's race for Massachusetts' junior Senate seat, Elizabeth Warren, counters that the policy creates a barrier between law enforcement and immigrant communities.

Hodgson argues that to leave Secure Communities unenforced is to abet criminal enterprise, hampering not only the police mission, but leaving illegal immigrants themselves more vulnerable: The longer they consider the U.S. a safe haven in the midst of lax laws, the more likely they'll be taken advantage of by unscrupulous document forgers and employment agents, and the muggers and bullies who target those who see no reasonable legal recourse when they find themselves victimized.

It's no surprise that no one seems happy — except the criminals preying on the illegal immigrants — with Obama's inability to lead Congress to take up reform.

In New Bedford, the police have begun to employ the u-visa program, which grants a temporary visa to illegal immigrants who are victims of crimes.

"Anything that encourages people to feel more comfortable reporting crime — that increases public safety," Chief David Provencher said. "If they increase public safety, I don't have a problem with it."

SOURCE



April 5, 2012

DHS To Grant Illegal Aliens “Unlawful Presence Waivers”

In its quest to implement stealth amnesty, the Obama Administration is working behind the scenes to halt the deportation of certain illegal immigrants by granting them “unlawful presence waivers.”

The new measure would apply to illegal aliens who are relatives of American citizens. Here is how it would work, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement posted in today’s Federal Register, the daily journal of the U.S. government; the agency will grant “unlawful presence waivers” to illegal aliens who can prove they have a relative that’s a U.S. citizen.

Currently such aliens must return to their native country and request a waiver of inadmissibility in an existing overseas immigrant visa process. In other words, they must enter the U.S. legally as thousands of foreigners do on a yearly basis. Besides the obvious security issues, changing this would be like rewarding bad behavior in a child. It doesn’t make sense.

But the system often causes U.S. citizens to be separated for extended periods from their immediate relatives,” according to the DHS. The proposed changes, first announced in January, will significantly reduce the length of time U.S. citizens are separated from their loved ones while required to remain outside the United States during the current visa processing system.

The administration also claims that relaxing the rule will also “create efficiencies for both the U.S. government and most applicants.” How exactly is not listed in the Federal Register announcement, which gives the public 60 days to comment. That’s only a formality since the DHS has indicated that the change is pretty much a done deal.

This appears to be part of the Obama Administration’s bigger plan to blow off Congress by using its executive powers to grant illegal immigrants backdoor amnesty. The plan has been in the works for years and in 2010 Texas’s largest newspaper published an exposé about a then-secret DHS initiative that systematically cancelled pending deportations. The remarkable program stunned the legal profession and baffled immigration attorneys who said the government bounced their clients’ deportation even when expulsion was virtually guaranteed.

In late 2011 a mainstream newspaper obtained internal Homeland Security documents outlining “sweeping changes” in immigration enforcement that halt the deportation of illegal aliens with no criminal records. This also includes a nationwide “training program” to assure that enforcement agents and prosecuting attorneys don’t remove illegal immigrants who haven’t been convicted of crimes.

SOURCE






Cut immigration rates during recessions,  says Canadian think-tank

The decision of successive Canadian governments since the early 1990s to maintain high immigration flows during tough economic times has contributed to the poor performance of newcomers over the past 30 years, according to a study released Wednesday.

"During recessions economic outcomes deteriorate more among recent immigrants than among the Canadian-born," wrote Arthur Sweetman and Garnett Picot in a paper published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, a Montreal-based think-tank.

Reducing immigration during recessions probably would improve the overall performance of immigrants and reduce the damage caused when newcomers to the labour market can't find work for lengthy periods of time and become disengaged from the labour force, they argue.

The proposal was one of a number made in the IRPP paper to improve the weak economic performance of immigrants relative to other Canadians over the past three decades, though the authors noted that some of these measures have been initiated already in recent years.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said he agrees with the main thrust of the report but didn't voice any support for the idea of a sharp reduction in immigrant intake during recessions.

He noted that he's trying to maintain a "balance" between critics who say immigration is too high, and demands for an even higher intake from the business community, provincial governments and opposition parties.

"I think the findings confirm what I've been saying" about the struggles of recent immigrants, said Kenney, who has announced a number of initiatives to promote the selection of immigrants who meet the Canadian economy's needs.

"This is why I'm saying we need transformative change."

Canadian immigration flows used to rise and fall based on Canada's economic performance, but that changed in the late 1980s under Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government.

That government's policy of bringing in roughly a quarter-million immigrants and refugees each year continued under subsequent Liberal governments and under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, despite the recession of 2008-09.

In 2007, when the economy was still robust, the total number of immigrants and refugees was 236,753. That figure rose to 247,245 in 2008, 252,174 in 2009, 280,691 in 2010, and 248,660 in 2011.

These figures don't include temporary foreign workers, who numbered 163,543 in 2007, 190,768 in 2008, 176,192 in 2009, 179,192 in 2010, and 190,769 in 2011.

Fraser Institute economist and former Reform MP Herb Grubel, a longtime critic of high immigration levels, said Canada's immigration policy is driven by politics.

"It is time to reduce immigration during recessions and high unemployment, ending the buying of votes of immigrants through high levels regardless of economic conditions that was started by Prime Minister Mulroney in the 1980s and has been continued by all governments since," Grubel said Wednesday.

Among the points in the report

- Canada has one of the highest intakes of immigrants in the world, with a per capita rate double that of the U.S. rate, even after taking into account the flow of illegal migrants from Mexico and Central America.

- Data from the 2006 census shows that immigrants are earning 60 to 70 per cent of the wage earned by the average Canadian-born worker in their first few years in the country, compared to 85-90 per cent in the late 1970s.

- The poor performance is the result of a variety of factors, led by the shift from "traditional" source nations — the U.S. and Western Europe — to Asian, African and Caribbean countries. Language barriers, education issues, discrimination and cultural differences were also factors.

- Despite political rhetoric to the contrary, "the age profile of immigrants has accentuated rather than alleviated the demographic bulge of Canada's baby boom."

- Unlike the Fraser Institute, which argues that immigrants cost Canada billions every year, the IRPP report concluded that "immigration has a very modest impact on measures such as (gross domestic product) per capita and the government's balance sheet, although whether it is positive, negative or zero is open for debate, with most observers favouring 'small positive.'"

SOURCE



April 4, 2012

Romney Attacks Obama on Immigration Ahead of Wisconsin Primary

The former Massachusetts governor attacked Obama’s record on immigration on Monday, blasting the president for failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform or the DREAM Act -which would legalize the status of people brought to the country without proper documents as minors, who enroll in college or enlist in the military- when his party held majorities in both houses of Congress. 

"He campaigned saying he was going to reform immigration laws and simplify and protect the border and so forth, and then he had two years with a Democrat House and Democrat Senate and a super majority in each House, and he did nothing," Romney said Monday at a Wisconsin town hall meeting, according to CBS News. "So let the immigrant community not forget that while he uses this as a political weapon, he does not take responsibility for fixing the problems we have."

Romney’s jab at Obama ahead of Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary came as the increasingly confident GOP frontrunner has begun to look past the Republican nomination and toward the November general election.

The Obama campaign shot back at Romney, characterizing him as an immigration hardliner and countering that the Democrats failed to pass reform because of Republican opposition. 

“(Obama) is committed to passing comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act—proposals that would be the law of the land today if Republicans, who once supported these sensible solutions, were less concerned about pandering to the far right wing of their base,” the Obama campaign said in a statement.

Democrats attempted pass to the DREAM Act in 2010. The bill narrowly passed the House in December by a vote of 216 to 198, with eight Republicans supporting the measure and died in the Senate, where it failed to break a filibuster by five votes. Three Republican senators voted in favor, while five Democrats voted against it. 

But as Romney prepares to take on Obama, some think he will have to boost his standing among Latino voters, many of whom feel passionately about immigration. Advisers to Romney say it will be difficult for him to beat Obama without winning at least 35 percent of the Latino vote, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

A Fox News Latino poll of likely Hispanic voters conducted in February found that Romney mustered only 14 percent of support from respondents in a head-to-head matchup with Obama. The same poll found 90 percent of Latino voters support the DREAM Act, while 85 percent of Latinos favor establishing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Romney opposes the DREAM Act as currently written and providing a large portion of the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants with a path to citizenship, but he has sought to emphasize that he supports measures to encourage legal immigration, such as raising visa quotas and allowing some foreign students to remain in the United States.

During his Wisconsin speech on Tuesday, Romney voiced enthusiastic support for the United States to recruit more students with advanced degrees.

"Staple a green card to their diploma - welcome to the United States of America!" Romney said. "We want those people in our country."

The GOP frontrunner’s comment did not apply to undocumented immigrants who earn advanced degrees in the United States, however. Romney was referring to his previously stated policy goal of awarding green cards to student visa holders who earn advanced degrees in engineering, math or sciences, his campaign said. 

Earlier on the campaign trail, Romney said immigrants who fall out of status should return to their home country before applying for a green card.

"For those who have come here illegally, they might have a transition time to allow them to set their affairs in order. And then go back home and get in line with everybody else,” Romney said in December. “And if they get in line and they apply to become a citizen and get a green card, they will be treated like everybody else," Romney added. "They start in the back of the line, not at the front of the line."

The State Department issued a total of 394,402 student visas for the 2010 fiscal year, the most recent data available. The agency does not break down the visas by category of study, so it was not possible to know how many of those visas were issued to advanced degree seekers.

SOURCE




Immigration Officials Arrest Thousands in Nationwide Sweep

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested over 3,100 convicted criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and immigration violators, including 127 in the New York area, during a six-day national operation.

“The results of this targeted enforcement operation underscore ICE's ongoing commitment and focus on the arrest and removal of convicted criminal aliens and those that game our nation's immigration system,” ICE Director John Morton said in a statement.

The six-day "Cross Check" operation spanned across 50 states, Puerto Rico, three U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. Nearly 50 percent of arrestees had felony convictions, 50 were gang members and 149 were convicted sex offenders, according to ICE.

Among those arrested in New York was Maurice Duhaney, 46, from Brooklyn, who was convicted of manslaughter in 1985, but remained at large until now. He is currently in ICE’s custody pending removal from the country.

This was the third nationwide "Cross Check" operation and the largest up to date, with 3,168 arrests. The first one was conducted in December 2009.

Throughout these past three years ICE has emphasized that, with its limited resources, it was focusing on deporting convicted criminals. Immigration advocates have challenged that, saying a large proportion of those deported have no record or are minor offenders.

The Obama administration has deported a record number of undocumented immigrants for three years in a row. From October 2010 through September 2011, nearly 400,000 individuals were removed from the country.

SOURCE



April 3, 2012

Australia wants skilled American workers

Given U.S. unemployment, this might be a pleasant opportunity.  We do speak English here and you can drink the water.  And the beer is good too

The federal government will allow workers from the United States, such as electricians and plumbers, to get their licence to work in Australia on arrival.

Federal Skills Minister Chris Evans said the measure would link Australian employers with skilled workers in the US to fill skill shortages, especially in the civil engineering areas.

"This is a great opportunity to address skill shortages in Australia by filling shortfalls in particular areas with qualified candidates from the US, with applications expected to open from mid-April," he said in a statement today.

Under existing arrangements such workers need to be assessed onshore which can mean waiting months between entry and starting work.

Under the new skills assessment process, US workers will be assessed against Australian regulatory requirements before entering the country.

Senator Evans told reporters the assessment process was available to other nations and it was only logical that it be extended to the US.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the government was planning to run its overseas Skills Australia Needs expo in the US for the first time to attract skilled workers in the resources, energy and infrastructure sectors.

SOURCE




 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

1. ‘Can We Come In Now?’ Good news and bad news from the Arizona border (Op-ed)

2. Statement of Jessica Vaughan on New Immigration Detention Standard (House Testimony)

3. Jessica Vaughan Discusses Pres. Obama's Uncle on FOX News Boston (Video)

4. Here's the Kind of PR Pitch DHS Should Be Pushing All over Mexico (Blog)

5. Biden on H1B Visas (Blog)

6. Problems with Letting Someone Else Make a Nation's Migration Decisions (Blog)

7. EB-5 Numbers Do Not Compute on Big Hotel Project in L.A. EB-5 Numbers Do Not Compute on Big Hotel Project in L.A. (Blog)

8. California to Supreme Court: Attrition Will Work (Blog)

9. ICE Detention: 'More Like Recess' (Blog)

10. New York State's 'Dream Act': The Real Costs (Blog)

11. Do You Know Who Is Using Your Child's Identity? (Blog)

12. Who's Manning the Shovels? (Blog)

13. Inner Workings of the H-1B Program Parallel Those of Marital Relations (Blog)

14. New York State's 'Dream Act': Dollars and Sense (Blog)

15. Pondering a Sexual Predator's Case (Blog)



April 2, 2012

Lamar Smith: Long On Criticism; Short On Solutions (?)

The Leftist immigration lawyer below accuses the GOP of bad faith  in their approach to a White House regulatory reform

But who is responsible for the bad faith?  When Obama releases tens of thousands of illegals even after they are caught, how can anyone have faith that he is honestly doing his best to enforce the laws he has sworn to uphold?  It is his actions that make all that he proposes automatically untrustworthy and worthy of rejection.  If you play a rough game, you've got to expect the other side to do likewise

If illegal immigration were under control the proposals might be reasonable and acceptable, but it is not under control.  As it is, they are just another way  of weakening the small amount of deterrence that still exists in American immigration practice

If Obama wants co-operation, why doesn't he start deporting ALL illegals who are apprehended and blow a large trumpet declaring that he is doing that?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is chair of the House Judiciary Committee or the head of the "Just Say No To Any Immigration Solution" crowd.

As if on cue, Smith criticized a processing tweak -- proposed Friday by the Obama administration -- which will allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. while the Department of Homeland Security determines whether or not denial of their green card would cause extreme hardship to their U.S. citizen spouse or parent. Smith's predictable knee-jerk reaction included the same old tired claim that the administration was trying to pull an "end around" the immigration law. I expect Smith's restrictionist friends will soon chime in with a hearty chorus of "backdoor amnesty".

Smith should have read the proposed rule change before he opened his mouth. Under the law -- which, contrary to what Smith claims, would not change one bit under the administration's proposal -- undocumented husbands, wives, sons and daughters of U.S. citizens cannot apply for a green card in the U.S. Yet, when they leave the U.S. to get right with the immigration law, they are barred by statute from returning for up to 10 years -- kind of a legal "Catch-22".

Immigrants who face the unlawful presence bar can ask the government for a waiver if they can prove their U.S. citizen spouse or parent will suffer extreme hardship -- a very difficult standard to meet. Unfortunately, due to backlogs, the overseas waiver process takes months, sometimes even years. In the meantime immigrants remain stuck abroad, separated from their loved ones in the U.S. Over the years immigrants have been seriously injured, even murdered, while waiting in dangerous cities like Ciudad Juarez.

Lost in Smith's reflexive denunciation is that the rule change would do little more than allow an immigrant to file a waiver application in the U.S. before going abroad to apply for an immigrant visa. The rigors of the law have not been altered one bit: the applicant still must meet the exacting legal standard of proving his spouse or parent would suffer extreme hardship and, if the waiver is granted, the applicant still must leave the U.S. to apply for the immigrant visa abroad. Smith also fails to note that the administrative change will reduce backlogs at U.S. embassies, leading to more efficient government and smarter enforcement.

If Lamar Smith were truly interested in making the immigration system work for American families he would wholeheartedly support the administration's stateside waiver proposal. The proposal is far from perfect and needs several key adjustments, but it is a welcome step in the right direction. If implemented, it will keep American families safe and together, make visa processing more efficient and secure, and guard the rule of law. The nation deserves Congressional leaders who are committed to fixing America's broken immigration system, not politicians who offer little more than hot air.

SOURCE






Australia: Immigration detention time limits won't work, say conservatives

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says capping the amount of time asylum seekers spend in detention will further complicate the system.

A federal parliamentary committee has urged the Government to put a 90-day limit on detaining asylum seekers.

It says asylum seekers who pass initial health, character and security checks should immediately get a bridging visa or be moved to community detention.

The committee's report says detaining people for longer than 90 days makes them vulnerable to serious mental health problems.

The Government has welcomed the report, but stopped short of making any promises on time limits, saying it is not always possible to process asylum seekers quickly.

And Mr Morrison says the Coalition does not think an arbitrary time limit is the answer.

"We don't have a problem with people being processed quickly," he told Insiders this morning.

"What we have a problem with is creating a regulatory standard or requirement that provides another form of appeal that further frustrates and complicates the system.

"By all means people should be processed in an expeditious manner, but to create further regulation around this I think only makes matters worse."

Mr Morrison says the Government would not have to worry about time limits if it had effective border protection policies.

A recent United Nations study showed the number of asylum seekers coming to Australia dropped by nine per cent over the past year.

In comparison there was a 20 per cent jump for the rest of the world.  But Mr Morrison says that can hardly be called success.

The parliamentary inquiry, which made more than 30 recommendations, has also called for the Immigration Minister to be stripped of their role as guardian of unaccompanied children in detention.

It says the move is needed to remove the perceived conflict of interest that exists in having the same person responsible for detaining asylum seekers.

The committee also wants spy agency ASIO to come under much greater scrutiny, including periodic reviews of adverse ASIO findings.

They recommended laws be amended to allow for the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review ASIO's security assessments of asylum seekers.

The majority of the report was supported by Labor and Greens members of the committee, along with independent MP Rob Oakeshott.

But the Coalition has supported only 16 of the 31 recommendations and has issued a dissenting report.

SOURCE



April 1, 2012

Obama Puts Immigration on Backburner, Promises Reform if Reelected

 Immigration is one of the issues that will be put on the backburner as U.S. President Barack Obama focuses on the campaign trail in the hopes of winning his second term in office.

Obama has been blunt about election-year constraints. At a March 6 news conference, he acknowledged Hispanic supporters' anger over his failure to achieve immigration changes, including paths to legal status for some undocumented  immigrants.

"When I came into office, I said, 'I am going to push to get this done,'" Obama said. "We didn't get it done. And the reason we haven't gotten it done is because what used to be a bipartisan agreement that we should fix this ended up becoming a partisan issue."

Obama said a presidential election can change the policy landscape.

"My hope is that, after this election, the Latino community will have sent a strong message that they want a bipartisan effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform," he told reporters.

Speaking to Russia’s president, Obama added that he will have "more flexibility" to deal with another touchy issue, missile defense, after the Nov. 6 election — if Obama wins, that is. The statement might have raised few eyebrows had Obama made it nonchalantly to a U.S. audience. Instead, it kicked up a fuss because Obama thought the microphones were off when he spoke with Dmitry Medvedev in South Korea, and because Obama seemed to take his re-election for granted.

Will Obama boldly push for big changes in immigration, Social Security or other difficult issues if he wins a second term?

Recent history offers few hints. The last four presidents to win re-election saw their second terms bog down in scandals or controversies: Richard Nixon and Watergate; Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra; Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky; Bush and Hurricane Katrina and the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.

Obama may have "more flexibility" to deal with missile defense, immigration and other issues if he wins a second term. Whether he will have a mandate to do so is another question.

SOURCE







Obama Administration Rejects Amnesty International Charges that its Immigration Enforcement Violates Human Rights

Amnesty are just another Leftist front

A new Amnesty International report criticizes the U.S. government for its treatment of the Hispanic and indegenious communities living along the border, according to gantdaily.com. The report urged the Homeland Security Department to suspend parts of its border enforcement program until the agency's Inspector General can investigate and make recommendations for improvements.

The Homeland Security Department issued a statement denying allegations of human rights abuses.

"Amnesty International's report is based almost entirely on either outdated information or anonymous ancedotes that can be neither investigated nor resolved," the statement said. "Moreover, the report does not offer thoughtful, actionable recommendations for improvement but instead calls for the wholesale suspension of immigration enforcement programs nationwide."

The Amnesty International report claims that Latinos and those that appear to be of Latino origin are disproportionately affected by immigration enforcement measures. 

Homeland Security Department officials say the only program that even comes close to the racial profiling alleged by Amnesty International is the Secure Communities Initiative. 

The Secure Communities program requires that the fingerprints of anyone who gets arrested are checked against the federal immigration and FBI criminal records. A match between the records could indicate the person arrested is an illegal alien who should be deported.

Homeland Security Department officials say ethnic discrimination is not the purpose of the Secure Communities Initiative. Instead, the program reduces "the risk of discrimination or racial profiling because the program applies to all who are arrested and booked for crime, including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents," a Homeland Security Department statement said.

Along with the Homeland Security Department, a denial came from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"The State of Texas does not have immigration laws. However, DPS officers arrest criminal aliens, regardless of country of origin, when they violate state laws," spokesman Tom Vinger said in a statement.

NumbersUSA President Roy Beck praises the Obama Administration for denouncing the Amnesty International report.

"It is gratifying to see the Obama Administration stand up against the too-prevalent nonsense that enforcing immigration laws generally is a violation of human rights," NumbersUSA President Roy Beck said. "We stand behind the Administration and most of the pro-enforcement community in supporting continuing work to ensure that illegal aliens are treated humanely during the arrest, detention and deportation processes. We regret that the Obama Administration at times feeds the perception that immigration enforcement is a bad thing, such as when it argues against various state immigration enforcement laws."

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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.