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31 December, 2010

UK will NOT hit its target to cut immigration in 2011, coalition warned

Immigration to Britain is ‘unlikely’ to fall significantly next year because of the parlous state of the Eurozone, a leading think-tank warns today. Plans to impose a cap and gradually bring down migration levels will falter because there is nothing the Government can do to stop workers from the EU coming to Britain, it says.

The Institute for Public Policy Research adds that the effect will be amplified as restrictions on some eastern European workers end next year. As a result, net migration is unlikely to fall much below 200,000 in 2011 – about the same annual level it has been for much of the last decade, the IPPR concludes. This runs counter to the Government’s pledge to restrict immigration from ‘hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands’.

Since January 2007, workers from the newest EU countries, Bulgaria and Romania, have largely needed to apply for work permits to work in the UK. That restriction is due to be lifted in December 2011, meaning that thousands more could be tempted to move to take advantage of the relatively healthy British economy.

Around 120,000 Irish people are expected to leave the Republic’s crisis-hit economy in 2010 and 2011, with many likely to head to Britain where there is no language barrier or work restrictions.

Migration could even increase if more people from other economically troubled countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece choose to move to Britain. They do not come under the annual cap which will be introduced in April. Meanwhile fewer Britons are moving abroad. The exodus of UK citizens fell sharply to just over 30,000 in the year to March 2010.

This compared with 130,000 in the year to March 2008. Countries favoured by British sun-lovers, such as Spain and the United Arab Emirates, were wiped out economically, making them less attractive destinations for jobseekers. The weak pound has also made it too expensive for many pensioners and students to move abroad.

But universities have been trying to attract higher numbers of foreign students, with the number of study-related visas expected to top 300,000 in 2011. Prime Minister David Cameron even boasted on a recent trip to China that fees for foreign students would come down, even though fees for British students are almost trebling.

Ministers have since said they would stem foreign student numbers for fear that many are overstaying their visas, but the changes are not likely to be in place to make a difference next year.

And workers from eastern Europe are continuing to move to Britain in large numbers. Newcomers from Lithuania and Latvia alone increased from 25,000 to 40,000 in the last year.

Requirements for workers from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia to register will also be scrapped from April 2011.

Home Secretary Theresa May has imposed a cap on non-EU economic migrants. From April, no more than 21,700 will be able to come to Britain. But Nick Pearce, director of the IPPR, said this would barely make a dent on overall immigration levels. He said: ‘IPPR analysis suggests a sharp drop in immigration is unlikely to happen in 2011 on current trends, so ministers must be careful to manage down public expectations.

‘The cap on skilled migration from outside the EU, which the Government has already put in place, could hurt the economic recovery. Other hasty measures to reduce numbers artificially would be even more damaging.’ He added: ‘Bringing down the level of immigration, which has been high in recent years, is a legitimate policy goal. But this should be done by making long-term and sustainable reforms to the structure of our economy and labour market.’

The report comes as a survey showed that immigration topped the list of concerns for British voters. In May 2009, 39 per cent of Britons said that immigration was one of their top three concerns. By September 2010, this had risen to 43 per cent.

In America, just 26 per cent listed immigration as one of their top three concerns, while in Sweden only 10 per cent found it a pressing issue.

Source






Kansas likely to crack down on illegal immigration

Kansas legislators expect next year to join the growing list of states trying to keep illegal immigrants out and to discourage businesses from hiring them. One of the top legal minds in that movement is about to take office as Kansas' secretary of state, and he said he's ready to advise lawmakers.

But strong opposition is expected from the state's business community, particularly the Kansas Chamber of Commerce. Gov.-elect Sam Brownback also is cool to sweeping immigration proposals, preferring to focus on the state's budget woes and creating jobs.

The chamber's resistance creates an odd political dynamic in a Republican-leaning state with large GOP majorities in its Legislature and, soon, no Democrats in statewide elective office. Some legislators advocating the low-tax, small-government agenda favored by the chamber will be fighting the state's largest business group on immigration.

So far, the state chamber has prevailed. But advocates of get-tough measures like those instituted in Arizona believe they're tapping into national frustration with federal inaction and expect pressure to build on the Legislature after it opens its annual session and Brownback is sworn in Jan. 10.

"A few interest groups who are plugged into the legislative process can derail something," said Secretary of State-elect Kris Kobach, a law professor on leave who's gained national attention for working on immigration issues with legislators in other states. "But ultimately, I think you find that, in end, if the people of a state really want a statute, it eventually happens."

The Kansas Chamber has focused its opposition on proposals requiring employers to verify that workers are in the U.S. legally and fining companies or taking away their licenses if they hire illegal immigrants.

Chamber officials argue those laws can impose draconian punishments for unintentional mistakes. Kent Beisner, the Kansas Chamber's president and chief executive officer, also said if Kansas enacts rules and other states don't, Kansas will find it harder to attract and keep businesses. "We want to be as competitive as we can be," Beisner said.

Many legislators saw the chamber as a big reason why Kansas' last attempt to enact a sweeping immigration law that included penalties for employers failed in 2008. The House and Senate were negotiating a final version but couldn't agree.

"There were at least a number of business interests that simply did not want to see any meaningful immigration reform bill that dealt with the employment issue," said state Rep. Lance Kinzer, an Olathe Republican who helped lead the push in 2008.

The nonprofit, Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 65,000 immigrants in Kansas were among the 11.1 million in the U.S. illegally in 2009. The center also estimates that 50,000 Kansas workers, about 3 percent of the total, are illegal immigrants. It says the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has dropped in the past few years.

State legislators nationwide have grown less willing to wait on the federal government to address the issue. The National Conference of State Legislatures said that in the first half of 2010, state lawmakers considered almost 1,400 immigration proposals — four times as many as five years ago.

Kobach helped write this year's law in Arizona empowering police to question anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally, a policy some Kansas lawmakers hope to enact in their state. He also was involved in drafting a 2008 Missouri law that penalizes businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Kinzer said he and other legislators are interested in not only those measures, but also repealing a state law that gives some illegal immigrants a break on tuition at state universities and colleges. And Kobach campaigned successfully on a promise that he'll seek a law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls and proof of citizenship when they register to vote for the first time in a new place.

Groups providing services and advocating for immigrants worry about how such proposals would hurt families with some members in the U.S. legally and others illegally. They argue legislators would do better to provide immigrants with help in gaining citizenship. "We have short-term memories about the contributions of immigrants to this country," said Mary Lou Jaramillo, president and CEO of El Centro Inc., a Kansas City, Kan.-based social service and advocacy group.

Brownback has endorsed Kobach's voter ID and proof-of-citizenship. But he said other immigration measures adopted elsewhere are still being challenged in court. "I don't think we should be going at it — going at those areas that are in the middle of litigation," he said during a recent interview

Meanwhile, the chamber's resistance is important because it's a major player in state politics. The chamber and its political action committee have reported spending more than $1.1 million on lobbying and campaign-related activities in the past six years.

One vice president and lobbyist, Jeff Glendening, is a former member of the state House majority leader's staff. A former lobbyist, Rachelle Colombo, left the House majority leader's staff to join the chamber and then earlier this month became chief of staff to House Speaker Mike O'Neal, a Hutchinson Republican.

And, of course, lawmakers have listened to its arguments in the past. "Immigration should be resolved at the federal level," Beisner said. "It hasn't been addressed there, and I think that's where it needs to be addressed."

Source



30 December, 2010

Nebraska Lawmaker to move ahead with immigration bill

Redistricting and how to close a growing budget gap are getting heavy attention going into Nebraska's new legislative session, but another issue could soon steal the spotlight: an Arizona-style immigration measure. State Sen. Charlie Janssen, of Fremont, plans to introduce the bill in the early weeks of session, which begins next Wednesday.

Arizona's law requires police officers, when enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.

Critics say the Arizona law encourages racial profiling. A federal judge blocked sections of the law in July, including provisions calling for police to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws and requiring immigrants to prove they are in the United States legally.

That has not dissuaded Janssen, who said his bill would vary from the Arizona law. He declined to elaborate, saying he and his staff were still crafting the bill. "I've been working with the attorney general's office on it," Janssen said. "I want to get something out there that will pass and will be upheld."

There has been a steady stream of Hispanics into Nebraska since the early 1990s, with many working in the meatpacking industry. They now account for about 8 percent of the state's population. From 2000 to 2008, Hispanics were responsible for about 64 percent of the state's population growth.

Janssen's district includes Fremont, home of two meatpacking plants and where voters in June approved an ordinance barring landlords from renting to illegal immigrants and businesses from hiring them.

The Fremont law was supposed to take effect in July, but the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund sued to get it thrown out, contending that the ordinance is discriminatory and contrary to state law.

Janssen's bill could find support in the nonpartisan, conservative Legislature. Republican Gov. Dave Heineman, who has taken a hard line against illegal immigration in the past, has said he would support a state measure similar to Arizona's illegal-immigration law.

Janssen's bill must pass through the Legislature's Judiciary Committee before the full Legislature can vote on it, and he already has some support among committee members.

Janssen said committee chairman Brad Ashford, of Omaha, has been receptive. And Sen. Mark Christensen, of Imperial, who is also a Judiciary Committee member, said he would back Janssen's bill. "School aid has been stripped from western Nebraska. Who's paying for illegal immigrants to go to school?" Christensen asked. "The state don't pay for them. You're just shoving more expense at legal residents and taxpayers."

Christensen said that while he wants to crack down on illegal immigrants, he wants to see the federal government simplify the immigration process so that people can more easily — and legally — move to the United States. "The state and feds have dropped the ball," he said. "They make it next to impossible to come here legally. We need a way they can become legal through a defined process."

But several Democrats serving on the committee are likely to oppose Janssen's measure. Said state Sen. Brenda Council, of Omaha: "This is a federal issue, and it should be left to federal officials to take care of it."

Such a contentious measure promises to bring costly legal challenges, no small matter to legislators who will struggle to mend the state's hemorrhaging budget. Some projections say the state will face a $1.4 billion gap over the next two budget years. "I think, in general, this is an idea that doesn't resonate with Nebraskans," said Becky Gould, executive director of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest.

The Arizona law is proving expensive not only in court, but to state revenue as thousands of people boycott the state over the law's passage. "Even from an economic development standpoint, passing these kinds of laws can be really toxic for the business community," Gould said.

Despite those arguments, Janssen said, he believes his proposal has a good chance to pass in 2011. "It's time to get something like this to the legislative floor," Janssen said. "This is something the people in my district — and the state of Nebraska — want to see done."

SOURCE





Kentucky Senator unveils immigration reform bill

Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, on Wednesday unveiled his proposal for immigration reform, which mirrors the Arizona immigration law that is being challenged in a federal appeals court.

Williams, who is running for governor next year, wants to require local law enforcement to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.

A federal judge in July blocked Arizona from enforcing such a provision after the federal government sued the state. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last month heard arguments in the case but has not ruled. The law is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Williams' office released copies of Senate Bill 6 draft late Wednesday and did not respond to requests for comment. As is the case with Arizona's law, Williams' bill would allow police to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and check their status with federal officials.

Proponents of the measure say states must act to enforce immigration laws because the federal government has failed to do so.

Opponents argue it would lead to harassment of Latinos and violate the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Williams said he plans to have the Senate vote on the immigration bill and others when the legislature convenes next week.

SOURCE



29 December, 2010

Rep. Peter King to Ramp Up Immigration Crackdown

Rep. Peter King plans to use his new bully pulpit to target immigration. The New York congressman, who will become the new chairman of the House Homeland Security next week, told the New York Post that he will push for legislation to tighter border security and arrest more immigrants crossing the border illegally.

He said President Obama's immigration policies were failing. "The Obama administration continues to display an obvious lack of urgency when it comes to gaining operational control of the border, which is absolutely critical," King (R-LI) told the newspaper.

King said Obama has "done little" during his term to curb undocumented immigration, adding that the country needs a new game plan "that incorporates the necessary staffing, fencing and technology to do the job."

His proposals will target private companies that employ undocumented immigrants and beefing up local police to give them free range to make immigration arrests.

SOURCE





New arrivals push up immigration levels in Canada to their highest since 1971

Canadian immigration at an all time high. Most of parts of Canada have recorded their highest immigration levels since figures began in their present form in 1971. Data from Statistics Canada for the third quarter of 2010 put Canada’s population at 34,238,000, an increase of 129,300, some 0.4%, since July. During the third quarter, 84,200 immigrants arrived in Canada, 8,800 more than in the same quarter of 2009.

Despite the increase in immigration though, Canada’s third quarter population growth was only slightly higher than what was observed for the same quarter in 2009. The increase in immigration was partly offset by a decline in the net inflow of non-permanent residents.

Quebec’s population grew by 24,800, 0.3%, to 7,932,100 during the third quarter. The province received 16,800 immigrants, the highest level since 1971.

During the third quarter, Quebec’s net interprovincial migration was close to zero, meaning that its number of migrants coming from other parts of the country equalled the number of people leaving the province for another location in Canada. With only a few exceptions, Quebec usually experiences losses in its migration exchanges with the other provinces and territories.

Ontario’s population totalled 13,268,600 on October 1, 2010, an increase of 57,900, 0.4%. Net international migration, the most important factor in the province’s population growth, accounted for nearly 70% of Ontario’s third quarter population increase.

Alberta’s population rose by 14,100. 0.4%, to 3,735,100 in the third quarter. Unlike the situation in other provinces where migration is the key factor of population growth, nearly 60% of Alberta’s growth was due to natural increase, a much higher proportion than in any other province.

British Columbia posted an increase of 20,900, 0.5%, in the third quarter as its population reached 4,551,900. The province received more than 13,200 immigrants in the third quarter, its highest level of immigration since the first quarter of 1997.

More HERE



28 December, 2010

Why the DREAM Act Failed: It is a fraud. It does not do what is claimed of it

Did the Donks actually INTEND to make it unpassable? They appear to have done the USA a favor if they did. Most probably, however it was overreach: They really did intend to make it an open door for any young people from anywhere. Fortunately, that was too much even for some Democrats

As a congressional reporter covering immigration and higher education for a Hispanic magazine, I have been following the numerous variations of the DREAM Act in every Congress for the past seven years. The concept is a compelling one. It can be passed. But not in its present form (H.R. 6497).

The reason the DREAM Act didn’t pass in the 111th Congress was that the bill goes way beyond what advocates claim it to be. Many parts of it are excessive, flawed and often misrepresented.

The bill is only 29 pages long. Everyone who wants to opine about the DREAM Act can and should read it first. It is (rather shockingly) easy to see the many wide disconnects between the rhetoric of the bill’s advocates and the reality of the bill. Here are just a few examples:

ADVOCATES OFTEN SAY: The DREAM act will legalize young undocumented children brought in by their parents.

THE BILL STATES: There is nothing in the bill about the benefitted “aliens” (the term used throughout the bill) having to be brought into the United States by their parents.

ADVOCATES: The children who will qualify have been long-term residents of the United States and (many if not most) have only known life in the United States.

BILL: (Sec.4 (1) (A and F) “The alien must have been physically present in the United States for a continuous period of not less than five years and was younger than 16 years of age on the date the alien initially entered the United States ... and is younger than 30 years old when applying.”

NOTE: In other words, they can be teenagers when they come; in many Central and Latin American countries, the 15th birthday (the quincinera) is considered to be the beginning of adulthood.

ADVOCATES: Qualified students must be of good moral character (ie: law abiding)

BILL: (Sec.4(C)(iv)): Aliens qualify who have not been convicted of any offense punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of more than one year ... or three or more offenses ... each punishable for an aggregate of 90 days or more.

NOTE: In other words, beneficiaries qualify even if they have had several serious convictions for law-breaking.

ADVOCATES: To qualify, beneficiaries must be a high school graduate.

BILL: (Sec.4(D)(ii)) The alien has earned a high school diploma or obtained a general education development (GED) certificate in the United States.

NOTE: A GED may be completed online by anyone, at any age, any time, anywhere and in Spanish or other languages; many educators do not consider a GED to be equivalent to a high school diploma.

ADVOCATES: Beneficiaries are the best and brightest college graduates.

BILL: (Sec.4,(1)(D)(i)): “Alien has been admitted to a U.S. institution of higher education.”

NOTE 1: There is nothing in the bill requiring attendance, completion or graduation from college in order for the illegal alien to obtain a conditional five-year work permit under the DREAM Act.

NOTE 2: However, to qualify for a second five-year work permit/deportation waiver, the alien has to have “completed at least two years in good standing in a bachelor’s or higher degree college program or have served two years in the armed forces.” (Sec.5((1)D) There is nothing in the bill about the alien having to graduate from college even after 10 years on a work permit, at which time the DREAM Act beneficiary can get a green card, (Sec.6(b)(2) — the only permit that leads to citizenship.

Underlying almost every criticism is that the DREAM Act would give extraordinary preferential treatment and benefits to some 1 million illegal immigrants that legal immigrants in the United States do not qualify for. For instance, most children of legal temporary immigrants (doctors, researchers, high-tech workers) often are here six or more years but aren’t allowed to work or get permanent residency. But illegal immigrants who have only been here five years can.

Also, permanent legal immigrants in the United States must risk their lives for three years in military service to get expedited citizenship, when illegal immigrants under the DREAM Act need only serve two years. Illegal immigrants get an adjustment of status to a work visa for a fee of (only) $525 (Sec.4(4), when lawyer costs for legal immigrants to change their limited work status to a green card costs thousands of dollars and is not guaranteed.

Opponents of this DREAM Act often asked “Why now”? Why should an estimated million-plus adult illegal immigrants suddenly be eligible for jobs under the DREAM Act at this time when almost 15 million Americans are unemployed?

But the most serious charge of the DREAM Act as it is presently written is that it will encourage even more illegal immigration. Indeed with the generous age qualifications, the lack of specific document verifications or even an English-language requirement, the easy educational requirements, hardship exceptions, no review for seven years, no enforcement provisions, and only a potential fine for falsehoods (Sec. 9), fraud is not only likely but probably inevitable. After all, why would any clever youthful immigrant from anywhere in the world bother to go through the extremely difficult process of getting a legal work permit to the United States, when the DREAM Act makes it so easy to obtain one by claiming illegal entry before age 16 and getting a GED online?

A DREAM Act that truly reflected the rhetoric of advocates could probably pass in the 112th Congress. Such a DREAM Act would provide probable citizenship for those who really were brought into the country illegally at an early age (under age 8 most likely). They would have attended U.S. elementary and secondary schools continuously, graduated with a high school diploma and no criminal record of any kind, could demonstrate a genuine “natural attachment” to the United States and complete fluency in English. Such requirements could be easily verified. Fraud would be almost impossible. DREAM Act benefits would go to the truly deserving small child illegal immigrant only. The numbers would not overwhelm our colleges, immigration system and legal work force.

Failure of the DREAM Act is a healthy reminder for the passionate advocates of illegal immigrants to always keep two questions in mind: Are their demands fair to legal immigrants and American workers? Will they encourage more illegal immigration?

While almost all Americans are compassionate about the plight of particularly young illegal immigrants, most can not tolerate preferential treatment for illegal immigrants that undermines our respect and enforcement of laws (including immigration law), discriminates against foreign nationals who are trying to come into the country legally, and toughens the opportunities of American workers desperately looking for jobs. December’s DREAM Act failed because it violated all of these principles.

Source







Cruel results of the Australian Labor party's "compassion"

AS the nation was shocked by news of the Christmas Island tragedy, Sarah Hanson-Young issued a statement via Twitter. The Australian Greens' immigration spokeswoman expressed horror at the "terrible tragedy" and said this day was "for expressing sorrow for what has happened, and for providing support and compassion for everyone involved".

A few hours later, while rescue teams would still have been scouring huge seas for survivors, the senator tweeted again: "Sharon Jones at the Gov. [Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, Adelaide] Brilliant!"

That moment crystallised for me the core of the problem with those who argue about border protection from a standpoint of moral superiority and self-declared compassion. It is all care, no responsibility.

The border-protection issue highlights the difference between the emotional self-aggrandisement of the progressives and the hard-headed pragmatism of the conservatives. It's the difference between displaying empathy and attempting to solve a problem.

The Howard government took hard decisions and deliberately designed them to appear even tougher than they were. This sent an unambiguous message to places where the prospective customers of people-smugglers were gathering: if you attempt an unauthorised arrival you may never get to Australia, and if you do make it into the country you may not receive permanent residency.

Cruel, claimed many. But to the extent that it was cruel, it was cruel to be kind. We will never know how many lives it saved by removing the incentive for dangerous voyages.

And here's the rub: while it stopped the people-smuggling trade, it did not reduce the number of refugees who received sanctuary in Australia. We still filled our humanitarian quota; only the refugees were chosen through orderly process, not self-selected by access to a people-smuggler's fare or a willingness to take terrible risks.

When it came to power, Labor set about unravelling this tough regime. It was a way to be popular, to appease the emotive pleadings of people such as Hanson-Young and other potential Greens voters. Labor was warned as it did this that it would restart the people-smuggling business. Then opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said: "The weakening of Australia's strong immigration detention policy will send a clear message to the region that we are relaxing border control. The intelligence we have demonstrates there are still people-smugglers in the region."

Proclaiming the end of the so-called Pacific Solution, Labor shouted to the world that most of the asylum-seekers the previous government had sent to Nauru were resettled in Australia anyway. This, they said, betrayed the futility of the Pacific Solution.

On the contrary, it demonstrated the genius of that arrangement. Refugees eventually and quietly were provided with the new life they sought. But the hardline perception was maintained to dissuade more asylum-seekers.

Since the policy softening in 2008, boat arrivals have accelerated, detention centres have filled and two fatal tragedies have taken more than 50 lives.

Throughout this period, conservative politicians have argued for the reinstatement of a tough regime and warned of lives at risk. For their trouble they have endured constant accusations from Labor, the Greens, activists and the media of being heartless, racist and opportunistic.

Even in the wake of the Christmas Island horror, the abuse continued with claims of "dog whistling" and "demonising" asylum-seekers. Yet the opposition's focus on saving the lives of asylum-seekers is largely ignored by the media.

In November last year, then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull called a press conference to explain how Labor's softening of the border-protection regime would have to be reversed: "We are determined to keep our borders secure, to prevent and discourage asylum-seekers from risking their lives in perilous journeys and to protect the integrity of our generous immigration program."

Almost six months earlier then opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone told Radio National: "What we're worried about, though, is that you actually put your life in the hands of criminals who have no interest in your safety, who are of course interested in getting you in the cheapest boat, one-way route possible."

In October last year, frontbencher Scott Morrison, who has since assumed the immigration role, was asked on Canberra's Radio 2CC why he was creating "hysteria" about small numbers of asylum-seekers.

"Because people can die, literally, by coming by boat," he replied. "It is the most risky and dangerous way to come here. So I have a real serious concern about the wellbeing of these people who are being encouraged to take this massive risk and risk their lives and those of their families in this way."

Even before he became opposition leader, Tony Abbott warned on ABC1's Lateline in October last year that "once the flow starts, who knows how many of them might end up perishing at sea".

A few months later, as leader, he told a news conference: "What endangers lives is contracting out Australia's immigration program to people-smugglers. What endangers lives is doing anything that encourages people to take to the sea in leaky boats." This is just a small sample, but you get the picture.

With stunning audacity, Julia Gillard has now effectively called for a bipartisan truce on this issue. Such calls for calm were not made in 2001 after the tragic loss of 353 lives in the sinking of the SIEV X. Back then, distasteful conspiracy theories accused the Australian defence forces of complicity in the deaths. Labor luminaries, such as senator John Faulkner and even Gillard, fuelled the SIEV X fury, pushing for inquiries and hinting at government cover-ups.

And so, within hours of the Christmas Island disaster, the same conspiracy theorists were at it again, with David Marr and Tony Kevin suggesting Australia could have done more to save these lives. Gillard and Labor were on the receiving end of the madness they once cultivated.

They couldn't stop even the dangerous stupidity of one of the independents who keeps them in power. Rob Oakeshott went into print and on the airwaves repeating malicious rumours about Australian complicity while demanding they be refuted. Such incendiary nonsense from our politicians should not be tolerated.

Apart from anything else, it grossly impugns the quality of our defence force personnel and wildly misjudges our national character. No matter how baseless, such claims trigger distress, resentment and even violence in detention centres and suburbs.

Much vitriol was directed at commentator Andrew Bolt for saying Gillard had "blood on her hands". But his strident language was backed by a clear, important and rational argument: that is, the government was repeatedly warned that softening the border-protection regime would put lives at risk.

Gillard, Marr, Hanson-Young, the ABC, some church leaders and others who trumpet the so-called compassionate approach must recognise that cessation of third-country processing, coupled with limited detention periods and near-guaranteed permanent residency, gave the people-smugglers a plausible product to sell. This product, the promise of a relatively trouble-free passage into Australian suburban life, is what tragically lured the men, women and children into entrusting their lives to people-smugglers on that doomed Christmas Island voyage.

The day after the tragedy Hanson-Young tweeted again: "Compassion, nothing more to say really." In fact, while Morrison, Abbott and Turnbull share the same feelings of compassion and trauma about the deaths, they did have more to say. Despite the vile abuse it often attracts, they continued to argue for a plan to prevent future disasters.

SOURCE



27 December, 2010

In the new Congress, A Harder Line On Illegal Immigrants

But only a requirement for all employers to use E-verify has much chance of making it into law. Hopefully that is what the GOP will focus on. NPR summary below -- JR

The end of the year means a turnover of House control from Democratic to Republican and, with it, Congress' approach to immigration.

In a matter of weeks, Congress will go from trying to help young, illegal immigrants become legal to debating whether children born to parents who are in the country illegally should continue to enjoy automatic U.S. citizenship.

Such a hardened approach — and the rhetoric certain to accompany it — should resonate with the GOP faithful who helped swing the House in Republicans' favor. But it also could further hurt the GOP in its endeavor to grab a large enough share of the growing Latino vote to win the White House and the Senate majority in 2012.

Legislation to test interpretations of the 14th Amendment as granting citizenship to children of illegal immigrants will emerge early next session. That is likely to be followed by attempts to force employers to use a still-developing web system, dubbed E-Verify, to check that all of their employees are in the U.S. legally.

There could be proposed curbs on federal spending in cities that don't do enough to identify people who are in the country illegally and attempts to reduce the numbers of legal immigrants. Democrats ended the year failing for a second time to win passage of the Dream Act, which would have given hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants a chance at legal status.

House Republicans will try to fill the immigration reform vacuum left by Democrats with legislation designed to send illegal immigrants packing and deter others from trying to come to the U.S.

Democrats, who will still control the Senate, will be playing defense against harsh immigration enforcement measures, mindful of their need to keep on good footing with Hispanic voters. But a slimmer majority and an eye on 2012 may prevent Senate Democrats from bringing to the floor any sweeping immigration bill, or even a limited one that hints at providing legal status to people in the country illegally.

President Barack Obama could be a wild card. He'll have at his disposal his veto power should a bill denying citizenship to children of illegal immigrants make it to his desk. But Obama also has made cracking down on employers a key part of his administration's immigration enforcement tactics.

Hispanic voters and their allies will look for Obama to broker a deal on immigration as he did on tax cuts and health care. After the Dream Act failed in the Senate this month, Obama said his administration would not give up on the measure. "At a minimum we should be able to get Dream done. So I'm going to go back at it," he said.

The president has taken heavy hits in Spanish-language and ethnic media for failing to keep his promise to address immigration promptly and taking it off the agenda last summer. His administration's continued deportations of immigrants — a record 393,000 in the 2010 fiscal year — have also made tenuous his relationship with Hispanic voters.

John Morton, who oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a recent conference call that there are no plans to change the agency's enforcement tactics, which are focused on immigrants who commit crimes but also have led to detaining and deporting many immigrants who have not committed crimes.

The agency also will continue to expand Secure Communities, the program that allows immigration officials to check fingerprints of all people booked into jail to see if they are in the country illegally. Both illegal immigrants and residents can end up being deported under the program, which the Homeland Security Department hopes to expand nationwide by 2013.

Many of those attending a recent gathering of conservative Hispanics in Washington warned that another round of tough laws surrounded by ugly anti-immigrant discussions could doom the GOP's 2012 chances.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a possible 2012 candidate, cited Meg Whitman's failed gubernatorial bid in California despite her high spending. When 22 percent of the electorate is Latino, candidates can't win without a vigorous presence in the Hispanic community and a "message that is understandable and involves respect," Gingrich said. Even so, Gingrich was unwilling to call on his fellow Republican senators to drop their opposition to the Dream Act, saying the legislation should not have been considered without giving lawmakers a chance to amend it.

The next Congress will be populated with many newcomers elected on a platform of tougher immigration enforcement. They'll have ready ears in Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, who will chair the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who is expected to chair the committee's immigration subcommittee.

That's a recipe for more measures aimed at immigration enforcement, including requiring businesses to use E-Verify rather than eyeballing paper documents to check workers' citizenship and legal residency status.

"I've already told the business community it's going to happen," said Beto Cardenas, executive counsel to Americans for Immigration Reform, a coalition of business leaders who support overhauling immigration laws. Changes to immigration law contained in appropriations and authorization bills, where immigration enforcement hawks are likely to tuck some measures, would also be tough to reject.

But more controversial measures such as attempts to deny citizenship to children of people who are in the U.S. without permission could be tempered by GOP leaders aware of the need to curry more favor with Hispanic voters.

SOURCE






Christmas Day "asylum" boat will take Australian island's detainee population close to 3000

THE Christmas Island Detention Centre will be one boatload shy of housing 3000 people in coming days after another vessel was intercepted.

A suspected asylum-seeker boat carrying almost 60 passengers is en route to the island after being picked up off Ashmore Island yesterday.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said initial indications suggested there were 57 passengers and three crew on board the boat.

Acting opposition immigration spokesman Michael Keenan said the boat arrival was a poignant reminder that people-smugglers don't take holidays.

"Nothing will stop the people-smugglers; not Christmas Day, not the monsoon season, not life-taking tragedies," Mr Keenan said in a statement.

"It's well past time that the Labor government understood that the only thing that will stop the boats coming and prevent more lives being lost is an urgent change of policy."

The latest arrivals will be transferred to Christmas Island by HMAS Maitland where they will undergo security, identity and health checks.

They will take the number of people being housed at the centre to 2970, despite an official capacity of 2600.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen responded to calls from Christmas Island resident Kane Martin to cap the number of detainees on Christmas Island by acknowledging the system was under strain.

Ten days ago 50 asylum-seekers died when their boat broke up in rough seas on approach to Christmas Island.

The Chief of Navy Russ Crane asserted on Friday that HMAS Pirie mobilised as soon as it received the call for help from the stricken vessel off Christmas Island.

THE Coalition has rejected a push by the Greens to boost the country's refugee intake to 20,000 people a year, arguing it could encourage more asylum-seekers to attempt the dangerous journey to Australia.

SOURCE



26 December, 2010

Outgoing NY Governor Paterson pardons 24 immigrants

There does not seem to be any published info on just who got the pardons but there is no doubt that the governor has good reason to criticize the actions of the U.S. immigration bureaucracy. It is a barely accountable monster. And Paterson does seem to have selected the applicants carefully. So although it may be the only time that I ever agree with one of his decisions, I suspect that this was one exercise of his powers that deserves approval -- JR

Governor David Paterson issued pardons Friday to 24 immigrants with prior criminal convictions to prevent their deportation.

In a statement Friday, Paterson said his administration has reviewed more than 1,100 pardon applications and found that federal immigration laws are often "excessively harsh and in need of modernization."

Paterson said the 24 people he had pardoned committed offenses in the past but had paid their debt to society and are now making positive contributions to their communities.

"With these pardons, I have selected cases that exemplify the values of New York State and any civilized society: atonement, forgiveness, compassion, and the need to achieve justice, and not simply strict adherence to unjust statutes," Paterson said. "I will not turn my back on New Yorkers who enrich our lives and care for those who suffer."

In May 2010, Paterson created an Immigration Pardon Panel to collect information and help deserving individuals avoid deportation. He said the initiative was designed to counter aspects of federal immigration laws that may result in inflexible and unjust decisions to deport legal immigrants.

SOURCE




Illegal Immigration and Terrorism

I first heard the news report about the threat that al Qaeda might attempt to have their operatives poison foods in restaurants and hotels yesterday morning when I was listening to the local CBS Radio station in New York City. That is certainly not the way you want to start your day!

Fox News has been airing news reports about the potential that al Qaeda might attempt to have their terrorists carry out attacks on our soil by poisoning the food at restaurants and hotels.

What is missing from the discussion about the threat of terrorism and what is missing from the strategy of our government to protect our nation and our citizens from the threat of terrorism and transnational criminals either, is the way that the immigration laws could and should be brought to bear to help prevent the entry of terrorists into our country and to prevent them from easily embedding themselves in our country as they prepare to attack us.

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy.

Congress gave the Commission the mandate to study, evaluate, and report on “immigration, nonimmigrant visas and border security” as these areas relate to the events of 9/11. This staff report represents 14 months of such research. It is based on thousands of pages of documents we reviewed from the State Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, approximately 25 briefings on various border security topics, and more than 200 interviews. We are grateful to all who assisted and supported us along the way.

The story begins with “A Factual Overview of the September 11 Border Story.” This introduction summarizes many of the key facts of the hijackers’ entry into the United States. In it, we endeavor to dispel the myth that their entry into the United States was “clean and legal.” It was not. Three hijackers carried passports with indicators of Islamic extremism linked to al Qaeda; two others carried passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner. It is likely that several more hijackers carried passports with similar fraudulent manipulation. Two hijackers lied on their visa applications. Once in the United States, two hijackers violated the terms of their visas. One overstayed his visa. And all but one obtained some form of state identification. We know that six of the hijackers used these state issued identifications to check in for their flights on September 11. Three of them were fraudulently obtained.

Throughout this report and the 9/11 Commission Report itself, there are demonstrated links involving immigration laws, the visa issuing process and other laws and components of the immigration system that deal with the entry of alien terrorists into our country and their ability to acquire lawful status as an embedding tactic. Yet time and time again we have heard our nation's leaders tell us that immigration has nothing to do with the "War on Terror!"

Immigration fraud and visa fraud are all but ignored by our government even though such fraud runs rampantly throughout the immigration system and creates a huge threat to national security. The Visa Waiver Program which enables aliens to enter our country without first applying for visas in order to seek entry into the United States continues to be expanded even though the visa issuing process, if properly implemented can add an effective additional layer of security for our nation and also help keep terrorists from gaining access to airliners.

To provide you with a particularly egregious example of how superficially visa fraud it pursued, consider that on October 14th of this year, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) issued a press release touting the prosecution of a Brazilian couple that had amassed at least 55 million dollars by running a visa fraud scheme that enabled over one thousand aliens to secure visas in order to enter the United States so that they could get jobs in some 190 hotels across our nation.

Admittedly the potential that any of these illegal aliens are engaged in terrorism is small but the point is that the government admits that there are about 5 million such illegal aliens who are present in our country today who did not run our borders but violated the terms of their admission. I have heard from sources that there may actually be twice as many illegal aliens in our country today who violated the terms of their admission. Yet there are reportedly only 272 special agents of ICE who are assigned to attempt to locate and apprehend these millions of illegal aliens! You must also remember that the terrorists who attacked our nation on September 11, 2001 and that other terrorists who have entered our country in order to participate in various terrorist related activities were also visa violators!

More HERE



25 December, 2010

Immigration did not hold back GOP in 2010

Despite their vast electoral success on November 2, many Republicans are finding it hard to swallow the tough Senate race losses to Harry Reid in Nevada and Michael Buck in Colorado. They are also perplexed by the surprisingly close win in Pennsylvania and the very wide margin of victory for Dems in the California Senate and gubernatorial races.

It isn't precisely known why these races went the Democrats' way or, perhaps as frustratingly, why the polls over-predicted for Republicans in most of them. In the months to come, there will be no shortage of explanations for these developments. One particular explanation, though, should be dismissed: the theory that in close races like the one for U.S. Senate in Nevada, it was Hispanic voter umbrage from Republicans' purportedly "anti-immigrant" stance that made the difference. Newsweek, using data from a liberal Hispanic advocacy group, ran an article suggesting that polls underestimated rates of Hispanic turnout and that Hispanics were responsible for unexpected Democratic victories in Nevada, and possibly even California, Colorado, and elsewhere.

It is not yet known whether or not Hispanics were under-polled. But most of the available data suggests that with the exception of California (where both Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina and gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman fled from the immigration issue), Republican candidates did relatively well among Hispanic voters. According to the national exit poll, 38% of Hispanics voted for Republicans in House races this year, compared with only 30% in the last midterm elections in 2006, a year in which high-profile Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham were leading efforts for "comprehensive immigration reform" (i.e., amnesty). The national Hispanic vote for Democrats dropped 9 percentage points, from 69% in 2006 to 60% in 2010, only 1 percentage point behind the 10-point drop in the share of white votes for Democrats, which went from 47% to 37%. By way of comparison, black voters remained at 89% for Democrats in both elections.

There is other evidence refuting the notion that Hispanic voters are motivated primarily by the immigration issue and turn out in large numbers to defeat anti-illegal immigrant candidates. In Florida, Governor-Elect Rick Scott won 50% of the Hispanic vote despite having come out in favor of Arizona's tough anti-illegal immigrant enforcement law and being attacked for doing so by his Democratic opponent, Alex Sink. A survey conducted last February by the pro-restriction but highly regarded,Center for Immigration Studies found that 56% of Hispanics think that immigration to the U.S. is too high, that 61% felt illegal immigration was mostly about poor law enforcement, and that 52% support enforcement to encourage illegals to go home. Only 34% support conditional legalization, or "amnesty." According to a Pew Hispanic Center Study in 2007, 45 percent of Hispanics oppose giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

These data do not exactly support Newsweek's contention that Sharron Angle's "harsh" anti-illegal immigrant attack ads on incumbent Senator Harry Reid "infuriated Hispanics in Nevada and beyond."

Indeed, Hispanic voters don't even seem to have been particularly "furious" at Angle in Nevada. Hispanics made up 12% of the voters in Nevada in the 2006 midterm election and 24.4% of the state's population, according to the CNN exit poll and the U.S. Census. In 2010, Nevada Hispanics made up 15% of the electorate and 26.5% of the population, meaning that more than two-thirds of the increase in the percentage of the electorate made up of Hispanic voters in Nevada between 2006 and 2010 is a function of population increase, not turnout rate jumps spurred by fear of Republican know-nothingism.

Besides, Angle's 30% of the Hispanic vote was a higher percentage than John McCain's share of the Hispanic vote in Nevada during the presidential race of 2008 (22%). McCain was well-known among Hispanics for his effort to push through comprehensive immigration reform, and he proudly refused to make Obama's support for giving driver's licenses to illegals a campaign issue. Partly as a result, whites in Nevada dropped as a percentage of voters to 69% from 77% just two years earlier, and they gave McCain the same 53% of their vote as they gave to Angle. Both McCain and Angle lost Nevada by roughly the same 5- to 7-point margin.

In fact, if any lesson is to be learned from Angle's defeat, it should be that Republicans have to perform strongly among white voters to win in battleground states, but also that Republican candidates need more than an anti-illegal immigration platform to appeal widely to whites. Angle, "a chronically gaffe-prone candidate, who is running as a proud Christian conservative in Sin City," received a much lower percentage of the white vote than Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign received in the midterm election of 2006, which Ensign won handily with a 13% margin. Ensign received 60% of the white vote compared with Angle's 53%. Ensign also received 45% of the Hispanic vote, as opposed to Angle's 30%.

But the white vote was more numerically important. Taking these voting percentages, along with the voting-age population and voter participation rates prepared by George Mason University's United States Election Project, if Angle had managed to keep Ensign's 60% of the white vote, she would have received 47,654 more votes than she did -- possibly enough to put her over the top. On the other hand, if Angle had managed to keep Ensign's 45% of the Hispanic vote, she would have received only 34,216 additional votes.

The point is also illustrated by the powerful contrast between the campaigns of Sharron Angle and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who ran for reelection as the anti-illegal immigrant candidate in a state demographically similar to Nevada. Brewer won her election by a 10-point margin, despite receiving only 28% of the Hispanic vote. The difference between Angle and Brewer was the white vote, 60% of which went to Brewer.

There are other, more convincing reasons why Sharron Angle lost to Harry Reid in Nevada, why Ken Buck lost to Michael Bennet in Colorado, and why two excellent Republican candidates in California lost statewide elections by resounding margins. They have mostly to do with the more effective Democrat "ground game." Byron York reports in the Washington Examiner that "[n]ationally, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees spent $91 million trying to elect Democrats. A good chunk of that went to Reid, mostly for get-out-the-vote operations."

Whatever the case, two things are clear in the wake of the 2010 mid-terms:

1) If immigration law enforcement and border control are promoted with humanity, decency, and -- perhaps most important -- with conviction, Hispanics (and whites, for that matter) won't spurn candidates who support them, and

2) the white middle class is by far the Republicans' most important constituency.

Republicans won whites in 2010 by a 23-percentage point margin (60 to 37 percent) and had their best showing ever. In 2006, Republicans won whites by a mere 4 percentage points and suffered electoral setbacks that led to their monumental defeat in 2008. Appealing to the preferences of white voters was clearly the difference.

SOURCE





Illegality pays

The story of a seeker after asylum in Australia

Hussein knows about 100 people who have taken their chances on smugglers' fishing boats in the past two years. In that time he has relocated to Puncak from another refugee program in Lombok.

All made it safely, as far as he knows. None was caught in the SIEV 221 horror last week. Hardly anyone he knows would be discouraged if they had already decided to go. One of those who went is Hussein's cousin, Ahmad, some are friends, most were just recent acquaintances: "I meet them in the market, it's good to talk to other Arabs, and they say in two days they will go to the boats; it's like hello-goodbye."

Hussein (whose real name has been withheld so not to further diminish his visa prospects) came from Baghdad where he worked as a video news cameraman.

He said he was threatened too often in the course of his work and, apparently, there was also a blood feud between his family and another. He arrived in Jakarta in early 2007 with a proper passport, about $US1000 and the intention of getting to Australia, but through the front door. "We have a saying that if one man knocks on the door and the other answers, both should be happy. I didn't want to sneak in like a thief.

But after almost four years in the UN High Commissioner for Refugee system, Hussein has moved no further than from Lombok to Puncak, a traffic-choked straggle of markets, shabby hotels, high-end resorts and mosques along 25km of the main road from Jakarta into the rain-drenched mountains.

However, the odds were dramatically more favourable, seven chances in 10, when cousin Ahmad arrived on Christmas Island late last year, though without refugee status and very much unwelcomed by the Australian government. Roughly 70 per cent of boat arrivals in the past decade have been granted refugee status and allowed Australian residency.

Hussein says when Ahmad phoned him recently he was already out of detention, living in Sydney and working as a men's hairdresser.

As the odds predicted, Ahmad jumped the queue and was rewarded by the system. Hussein stayed in his place and fell further behind. There couldn't be a better advertisement for the traffickers' service.

Or the mess that Australian refugee policy has now got itself into, with the niggardly distribution of visas in Indonesia - 550 between 2001 and last year - overwhelmed by this year's surge of more than 6230 boatpeople. For the first time this year, boat-borne asylum-seekers in Australia will outnumber those coming by aircraft.

But whereas only about 20 per cent of aircraft arrivals are accepted as refugees, the success rate for boatpeople is 70 per cent or greater.

And when they succeed, asylum-seekers occupy places in the overall humanitarian intake - currently 13,750 annually - that might have been taken by other displaced and victimised people, usually poorer and often more downtrodden.

When Julia Gillard and her ministers talk about "smashing the people-smugglers' business model", they neglect to acknowledge that these perverse consequences of Australia's current system are the key to the traffickers' success.

"The current approach massively disadvantages the people who are playing by the rules, firstly, and, secondly, those who don't have finances to be as mobile as the asylum-seekers," says Mirko Bagaric, a Deakin University law professor who spent five years as a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal.

Writing in The Australian this week, Mr Bagaric argued that boatpeople benefited unfairly at the expense of other refugees because of an undue reverence in legal and political human rights circles for the outdated asylum provisions of the 1951 Convention Relating to the State of Refugees.

However, he said yesterday, modern asylum-seekers claim preferential treatment "by having the temerity to force themselves on us, though you can't blame them for that . . . and having sufficient money to be mobile enough to do so".

Now, however, Mr Bagaric warns, boat arrivals are in such volumes that they threaten to overwhelm the country's whole refugee process.

"By the end of next year, at the current rate of increase, all 13,750 places will be filled by people who have forced themselves on us," says Mr Bagaric. "The whole quota will be filled by people who have self-selected."

He has proposed a dramatic solution: more than doubling the offshore refugee intake to 30,000 annually while at same time permanently refusing refugee status "to any person who arrives on our shores unannounced".

People-smugglers are currently succeeding, Mr Bagaric says, because their clients have the will and financial wherewithal to impose themselves on Australia's refugee system ahead of all the other claimants.

"Fine, but that's not the basis for enhanced moral concern or preferential treatment - in other areas of life, the fact that one person is more pushy than the others shouldn't qualify them for better treatment."

SOURCE



24 December, 2010

Would-be Australians to be sent home to New Guinea

EMERGENCY accommodation was being organised last night for 119 protesters after they made a risky journey in dinghies from Papua New Guinea to the Torres Strait.

Immigration officials are expected to deport the group of PNG nationals today after they were intercepted in Australian waters on Wednesday. The group, which included some children, arrived on 11 boats, all of which have now been confiscated by the Department of Immigration.

The protesters are being housed on Horn Island in a Customs detention centre, with the children accommodated in hotels on the island.

The people belong to an organisation called Papua Australia Plaintiff United Affiliates. They want Australia to recognise that Papuans were not given a choice to remain Australians when PNG gained independence in 1975. They claimed twice as many people could join them within days, although the Department of Immigration vowed to return any more PNG nationals who entered Australia illegally to their homeland.

The Courier-Mail has learned that Immigration and Customs officials had been monitoring the group for days and were aware that they would set out in the dinghies for the hazardous six-hour journey to Australia.

It is understood an advance party left earlier to ensure the journey would be safe for the rest of the group.

Immigration spokesman Sandi Logan labelled the action by the group, which has been demanding Australian citizenship for a decade, as pointless. "Frankly, this is a waste of a lot of people's time – Customs on the water, Queensland police on the water," Mr Logan told ABC Radio. "Immigration officials have much better things to be doing than dealing with this sort of prank that this group is trying on," he said.

A Department of Immigration spokesman yesterday confirmed that nine PNG nationals were intercepted late on Wednesday near Cape York. They were refused entry and detained. "A second group of up to 110 people was intercepted at Warrior Reef and is currently being escorted to Horn Island," the spokesman said.

"The Australian Government's message to these people is clear – they have shown blatant disregard for our laws by trying to enter the country despite being told on numerous occasions the correct procedures to follow when applying for citizenship and we will be resolving this situation expeditiously. "An application for citizenship by a person who does not have lawful authority to enter and remain in Australia poses no barrier to us returning them home."

The protesters would have their boats confiscated while Immigration officials conduct an assessment of their claims. They would then be returned to PNG at the first available opportunity, the Immigration spokesman said.

SOURCE





What's the value of immigration?

By David Frum

Senators are a lot like college students. For months on end, they seem to do no work at all. And then everything gets crammed into the last weekend of the term.

This past weekend, the Senate finished off a huge pile of work at once. Among the items voted on: The DREAM act, a form of amnesty for illegal aliens who entered the country as young children and attended college or served two years in the military. DREAM lost when it failed to clear a filibuster.

The defeat of DREAM follows on the defeat of the McCain-Kennedy "pathway to citizenship" legislation of 2007. Two defeats of two major bills within three years -- that begins to look like a message.

Congress will have to return to the drawing board on immigration. And it should start with this question: What is immigration for? What are we trying to accomplish?

A century ago, the answer seemed obvious. Factories and mines clamored for workers as an underpopulated continent beckoned settlers.

America in the 21st century, however, does not suffer from a generalized labor shortage. If labor were scarce, you'd expect wages to rise. Instead, wages were stagnating even before the recession hit in 2008. The typical hourly job in this country paid no higher wage in 2008 (adjusting for inflation) than in 1974. Add the value of fringe benefits, and you get a 37% increase since 1978.

Nor is 21st-century America underpopulated. While vast parts of the United States remain empty, the areas that attract immigration are as densely populated as Europe. In fact, New Jersey has a higher population density than any country in Europe except the Netherlands.

So why import almost a million people a year legally, plus nearly the same illegally? That's a question that usually goes not only unanswered but unasked.

DREAM invited Americans to tidy up some of the messy consequences of this mass migration. But whether you favored DREAM or opposed it, the question we need to ask now at this time of high and prolonged unemployment is: Why mass migration at all?

You often hear it said that the U.S. needs to create 150,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with population growth. What's seldom mentioned is that almost all of America's net population growth is driven by immigration.

Of course immigration also creates jobs, too. There are benefits as well as costs. In 2007, the President's Council of Economic Advisers tried to balance these gains and losses. They totaled all the gains, subtracted the losses and concluded that our present immigration conferred a net benefit of ... hold your excitement ... somewhere between 0.22% of national income and 0.60% of national income..

(And as economist George Borjas notes, the CEA could reach the higher end number, 0.6%, only by ignoring the economic harm done by new immigration to the immediately prior immigrants.)

Given the immense scale of the immigration we receive, it seems incredible that immigration yields so small a net benefit. Yet the CEA's estimate tallies with previous work by the National Academy of Sciences back in the 1990s. Their work supported the low-end estimate of a net benefit from immigration of about one quarter of 1% of national income.

That seems a poor payoff for the disruption caused by mass migration. Imagine if your kid's classroom went from zero non-English-speakers to 10 in just a couple of years. Then you are told that this turmoil is adding just fractions of a penny to the national income? Surely you'd ask: Why are we doing this?

It does not have to be this way. If we chose our immigrants differently, immigration would upgrade the average skill level of the U.S. population. (As is, 31% of immigrants have not completed high school.) If we chose our immigrants differently, they could contribute more in taxes than they require in benefits. (As is, immigrants are 50% more likely to be poor than the native-born.)

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, immigrants arrived with higher skills and soon gained higher incomes than the native born. That's how immigration still works in Canada and Australia. Their immigration systems are race-neutral and favor prospective immigrants who arrive with language skills, advanced degrees or capital to invest.

Someday, the United States will probably have to double back and do something for the hard cases showcased in the Senate hearings on the DREAM bill. But if we really want to do something useful, we should do more than help the hard cases. We should ask some hard questions.

SOURCE



23 December, 2010

Census: U.S. Population Up 27 Million in Just 10 Years

Immigration Drives Huge Increase; Since 1980, Population Up 82 million, Equal to Calif., Texas & N.Y.

Most of the media coverage of the 2010 Census will likely focus on the country's changing racial composition and the redistribution of seats in Congress. But neither of these is the most important finding. Rather, it is the dramatic increase in the size of the U.S. population itself that has profound implications for our nation's quality of life and environment.

Most of the increase has been, and will continue to be, a result of one federal policy: immigration. Projections into the future from the Census Bureau show we are on track to add 130 million more people to the U.S. population in the just the next 40 years, primarily due to future immigration.

Immigration accounted for three-quarters of population growth during the decade. Census Bureau data found 13.1 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) who arrived in the last 10 years; there were also about 8.2 million births to immigrant women during the decade.1

The numerical increase of 27.3 million this decade is exceeded by only two other decades in American history.

Without a change in immigration policy, the nation is projected to add roughly 30 million new residents each decade for the foreseeable future.

Assuming the current ratio of population to infrastructure, adding roughly 30 each decade will mean:

* building and paying for 8,000 new schools every 10 years;

* developing land to accommodate 11.5 million new housing units every 10 years;

* constructing enough roads to handle 23.6 million more vehicles every 10 years.

While our country obviously can 'fit' more people, and technology and planning can help manage the situation, forcing such high population growth through immigration policy has profound implications for the environment, traffic, congestion, sprawl, water quality, and the loss of open spaces.

Forcing population growth also impacts how our democracy functions. A 27 million increase in the U.S. population increases the number of constituents a member of the US House must serve by 62,000. The effect on the state legislatures and local governments is also considerable.

While immigration is making our population much larger and our country more densely settled, it has only a modest impact on slowing the aging of our society. It must be remembered that native-born Americans, unlike couples in most other developed countries, still have about 2 children on average.2

Census Bureau data collected earlier this year showed that the 13.1 million immigrants who arrived in the last 10 years, plus all of the children they had once in the country, have reduced the average age in the United States slightly, from 37.4 years to 36.8 years.3

As the Census Bureau stated in its population projections published in 2000, immigration is a 'highly inefficient' means for addressing the problem of an aging society in the long run. The updated projections done in 2008 show the same thing.4

End Notes

1 The public use file of the March 2010 Current Population Survey collected by the Census Bureau shows 13.1 million foreign born individuals living in the United States who arrived in 2000 or later. It also shows 8.3 million children born in the United States to immigrant mothers over that same time period.

2 The public use file of the American Community Survey collected by the Census Bureau from 2006 to 2008 shows that the average U.S.-born woman had 2.01 children. The statistic is referred to as the Total Fertility Rate.

3 These figures are based on the public use file of the March 2010 Current Population Survey.

4 See page 21 of the methodology and assumptions for the 2000 Census Bureau projections, Population Division Working Paper No. 38

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: Steven Camarota, (202) 466-8185, sac@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





Canada growing fast through immigration

Canada's population in the third quarter of 2010 was driven forward by the highest immigration rates seen in four decades, Statistics Canada says.

Canada's population was estimated at 34,238,000 as of Oct. 1 — an increase of 129,300 since July. The federal agency said 65 per cent of that growth came from new Canadians during the three-month period, as 84,200 immigrants arrived in the country.

The influx reached most provinces and territories, some of which had their highest quarterly immigration levels since 1971.

Prince Edward Island recorded the highest growth rate, with its population increasing by 0.7 per cent. The increase was largely driven by the 1,200 immigrants who arrived in the province, Statistics Canada said, the highest number since 1971.

Quebec, too, welcomed its highest number of immigrants in the last four decades, with 16,800 people arriving from other countries during the quarter. Manitoba also surpassed records set in 1971, with 4,700 new Canadians arriving in that province.

While not breaking a record, immigrants made up 70 per cent of Ontario's new arrivals during the period.

Alberta was the only province that had third-quarter growth driven by a "natural increase," which made up 60 per cent of the growth.

Newfoundland and Labrador, on the other hand, actually faced a population decline in the third quarter, losing about 500 residents.

Growth driven by immigration is a trend the federal government said it expects to continue — at least through the end of 2010. "In 2010, we should be landing the largest number of permanent residents in 50 years," said Kelli Fraser, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Canada expects to welcome between 240,000 and 265,000 newcomers by the end of this year. Fraser said that number is driven largely by a June announcement that Canada would open its doors to more immigrants, especially those in the economic category.

"The reason the announcement was made was because the post-recession economy is now demanding a high level of legal immigration to keep the workforce strong," she said, adding that there also has been a high number of family reunification immigrants and refugees.

To date, the department said it has already made more decisions, issued more visas and admitted more people to Canada over last year. It expects the numbers to stabilize at 2010 levels in 2011.

Source



22 December, 2010

MA: State cops join Fed push on illegal immigrants

Massachusetts State Police will join a controversial federal program early next year to help the US government detect and deport illegal immigrants arrested for crimes, a sharp departure from Governor Deval Patrick’s 2007 decision barring troopers from enforcing immigration laws.

State officials said they decided to join Boston and scores of other communities in the federal program because its main focus is on detaining and deporting murderers, rapists, and other high-level criminals and because Patrick has supported using immigration laws to help deal with such offenders. They also said the Obama administration forced their decision because the program, known as Secure Communities, will become mandatory nationwide by 2013.

“It has always been the governor’s policy that serious criminals who were in the country illegally ought to be deported,’’ said John Grossman, an undersecretary at the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety. The US government “is rolling this out with or without us,’’ Grossman said. “It’s important that we participate and have a say . . . The alternative is to let it happen to us.’’

Patrick, who is widely viewed as supporting the concerns of immigrants, regardless of their legal status, faced heated criticism during his reelection campaign that he was stalling the Secure Communities program and putting communities at risk. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement formally launched the program in 2008 with a goal of sharing information with state and local law enforcement via computer databases to detect illegal immigrants.

Instead of having State Police actively search for illegal immigrants, the computer will automatically check the fingerprints of all who are arrested against federal immigration databases, in addition to the state and FBI criminal databases that are checked now. Then federal immigration officials decide whether to detain immigrants based on factors such as their criminal records and flight risk.

Ross Feinstein, spokesman for ICE, said that criminals are the agency’s top priority, but that anyone under arrest who is here illegally could be subject to deportation.

“ICE’s focus on those priorities does not amount to an amnesty for other aliens unlawfully present in the United States,’’ he said in a statement. “ICE continues to enforce the immigration law and exercises discretion as appropriate throughout the process.’’

He declined to comment on the state’s decision yesterday, but the issue quickly ignited a debate statewide. Advocates for immigrants said federal statistics show many low-level offenders, such as those caught driving without a license, are being swept up in Boston’s program and nationwide. They also fear the program will deter immigrants from reporting crime.

Others praised the system as a quick way to identify criminals and others here illegally. Backers include state Attorney General Martha Coakley.

It was unclear yesterday when Secure Communities would go online with the State Police and the rest of the state. The expanding program is now in 34 states.

SOURCE






Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. The Illusionary Allure of Immigration “Grand Bargains”: An Analysis of Blue Ribbon Task Forces (Paper)

2. NCLR to Republican Senators: 'Watch Out' (Blog)

3. Illegal Aliens Less Attractive to Senators than Gay Service People (Blog)

4. Requiem for a DREAM (Blog)

5. Defeat of the DREAM Act - A Time for Modified Rapture (Blog)

6. Senate Gives DREAMers a Reality Check (Blog)

7. Adventures in Babysitting (Blog)

8. Border Patrol Agent Terry's Death: Illegal Activity Escalating (Blog)

9. A Comparison of Two Exploitative Migrant Worker Programs, H-1B and L-1 (Blog)

10. Importing Labor the Flip Side of Offshoring (Blog)

11. Labor Department Zaps Newspaper for Abusing Its H-1B Workers (Blog)

12. DREAMs of Sugar Plums Dance in Their Heads (Blog)

13. Immigration System Preserves Archaic Agricultural Labor Practices (Blog)

14. DREAM Advocate: It's All About Race (Blog)

15. DREAM Act Will Shield Some Gang Members from Removal (Blog)

16. The DREAM Political Scheme (Blog)

17. Scary Scenario – China Invests in Bahamas, and Wants to Send Lots of Migrants (Blog)

18. Brits Have a New, Sophisticated Way to Determine Skills Shortages (Blog)



21 December, 2010

Plan bans illegals from public universities

Virginia could join list of states creating off-limits locations for aliens

The "DREAM Act" plan, defeated in Congress today, would have given benefits and rights to illegal aliens who want to go to school in the U.S., but the state of Virginia isn't prepared to depend on what Washington decides - it has its own plan to address the situation: a ban on those students in public colleges and universities.

A leading GOP legislator in the Virginia House of Delegates is poised to introduce a bill which would prohibit illegal aliens from attending public colleges and universities in the commonwealth, and a constitutional scholar tells WND that U.S. Supreme Court case law may well ensure that the proposed law can be enforced.

Delegate Chris Peace, a Republican from the state's 97th House district in suburban Richmond, in an interview with WND said he was "amazed" to learn when researching the bill that some of Virginia's public universities, like Virginia Tech, did not have any policy regarding the admission of illegal aliens.

Others, like the prestigious University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson, told Peace they did not "knowingly" admit or enroll individuals who were illegally present in the U.S.

The result was Peace's bill, House Bill 1465, which he says provides not just cost savings for the state, but also creates a uniform policy for state-supported institutions of higher education. Further, it ensures that bright youngsters from Virginia who have received perfect grades are not shut out of the admissions process because of issues of "space" at the public colleges, he said.

"Should this legislation pass, it is difficult to determine how much savings would accrue to the Commonwealth, since there is no current policy screening applicants," Peace told WND. "But the public policy goal does not center on savings, per se; rather, it is one of principle. If all colleges and universities created policies sua sponte [Law Latin – for on their own initiative] then there would be no need for this legislation. To date, several have been unwilling to do so." Peace noted that higher education is a "privilege," not a "right," and that illegal aliens would still be able to attend private colleges in Virginia.

Straight 'A's' required

Schools like the College of William & Mary, University of Virginia – like University of Maryland and UCLA, considered "public Ivies" – report that the average grade point average of incoming freshman is 4.0 on 4.0 scale – straight A's.

"The bottom line is that there's wide-spread sentiment that public benefit should not be going to those who are here illegally," said Peace. "The opponents of this legislation say it is targeting one group of people, or establishing preferences. But we're not trying to be mean-spirited here. Instead, those who support this legislation are simply trying to open the doors to Virginians."

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina already ban illegal immigrants from some or all public colleges. But the report said 10 other states, including Florida, New York and Texas, give them permission to pay only in-state tuition under many circumstances.

The Chronicle report documented the decision from the California Supreme Court just a few weeks ago that affirmed a law allowing some illegals to pay in-state tuition. Justice Ming Chin concluded that providing that special benefit does not violate federal immigration law. The case might be advanced to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Peace noted that his plan is timely "in light of the proposed amnesty-lite, DREAM Act."

A leading constitutional law expert, Professor Ronald D. Rotunda, at Chapman University School of Law, Orange, Calif., told WND that the U.S. Supreme Court said it was illegal for states to discriminate against legal aliens in "Toll v. Moreno" (1982). The court, what is more, has not allowed states to discriminate against minor illegal aliens attending grades K-12 in "Plyler v. Doe" (1982).

"But Plyler emphasized that these children are minors, not 18 or over, and have little control over what their parents do," Rotunda tells WND. "The court has suggested that states can deny free public education to illegal aliens who want to attend state universities because these aliens are not children and university education is not like K-12."

Immigration attorney Michael Wildes said he does not think the legislation will pass because "a blanket policy of verifying every student's immigration status would be onerous and time-consuming." Further, he said, it would be "wildly discriminatory" to verify the immigration status of individuals based on "presumptions about students' ethnic identities, or the sound of someone's last name."

But Peace waved off those concerns. "Many will try to use emotional arguments for those children brought here without consent by their parents, who access the K-12 system, but then would be ineligible for the public college experience," Peace said.

Peace noted that there is widespread support for the legislation in the House of Delegates, where a different, earlier version of the measure passed overwhelmingly with bi-partisan support, 73-26, in 2008, but failed to get out of committee in the Democrat-dominated Senate. Now the GOP has increased its strength in the Virginia Senate, and elected a Republican governor in 2009.

Peace pre-filed the bill on December 6, and it will be formally offered to the legislature on Jan. 12, 2011. The bill allows the board of visitors or board of governors of every public college in Virginia to establish rules and regulations, and prohibit "an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S." from being admitted to "any public institution of higher education in Virginia."

Wilde says he'd rather have Washington making rules for the states. "It's important to keep in mind that immigration law is within federal jurisdiction and it is not the state's place to enforce federal law," Wildes says. "The proper forum is Washington, D.C."

SOURCE






Beware gurus selling high migration

Article below by Australian economist Ross Gittins, who is normally Left-leaning

The economic case for rapid population growth though immigration is surprisingly weak, but a lot of economists are keen to give you the opposite impression. Fortunately, the Productivity Commission can't bring itself to join in the happy sales job.

I suspect that, since almost all economists are great believers in economic growth as the path to ever higher material living standards, they have a tendency to throw in population growth for good measure. There's no doubt a bigger population leads to a bigger economy; the question is whether it leads to higher real income per person, thereby raising average living standards.

Of course, business people can gain from selling to a bigger market, regardless of whether the punters are better off. So I'd be wary of advice coming from economists employed by business or providing consulting services to business.

In 2006 the Productivity Commission conducted a modelling exercise to assess the effect of a 50 per cent increase in our skilled immigrant intake. It found that, after 20 years, real gross domestic product was only about 4 per cent higher than otherwise.

And the increase in real income per person was minor. What's more, most of the gains accrued to the migrants themselves, with the existing population suffering a tiny net decline in income. Why this lack of benefit? You'd expect the extra skilled labour to raise the proportion of the population participating in the labour force, thus boosting production per person.

But most of the productiveness of workers are achieved by the physical capital they're given to work with. So unless your extra workers are given extra capital equipment - a process known as "capital widening" - their productivity is likely to decline, thus offsetting the gain from having more workers.

Note, too, that we have to increase the housing stock to accommodate the migrant workers and their families, as well as providing the extra public infrastructure for a bigger population. So the migrants are paid to supply their labour, but the rest of us have to provide the extra economic and social capital they need if standards aren't to fall.

Last week Tony Burke, the federal minister responsible for developing a "sustainable population strategy" next year, released an issues paper to encourage discussion. It was accompanied by the reports of three advisory panels, including one on the economic aspects, led by Heather Ridout of the Australian Industry Group.

Ridout's report sets out to talk up the economic case for high migration by dispelling "myths" and pointing to hard-to-quantify benefits "often ignored by low-growth advocates when they skim the literature" (that's what they call a professorial put-down).

The main hard-to-quantify benefits left out of the Productivity Commission's modelling are the economies of scale arising from a bigger market. But why after all these years have economists been unable to produce good empirical evidence of something as straightforward as scale economies?

And why wax lyrical about unmeasurable benefits without mentioning unmeasurable costs? In its recent booklet on population and immigration, the commission acknowledges that as well as economies of scale there could be diseconomies.

The Ridout report objects that the commission's modelling measured the benefit of increased immigration only over 20 years. Sorry, but if you have to wait more than 20 years for the payoff you're not talking about a powerful effect.

A relatively new argument in favour of high immigration is that it could foster economic growth by countering to some extent the decline in labour-force participation caused by the ageing of the population. But, since immigrants age too, all this can do is put off the evil hour (not a course of action usually promoted by economists). To continue postponing the crunch you have to keep upping the dose of immigration.

The Productivity Commission is blunt: "changes in migration flows are unlikely to have a significant and lasting effect on the ageing of Australia's population".

The Ridout report argues that a faster-growing, immigration-fuelled economy would require greater levels of investment by businesses and in public infrastructure. This greater capital spending would generally involve investment in more productive capital equipment, as recent technological improvements will be embedded in the newer stock. In this way, faster growth of the size of the economy would drive the productivity gains that are central to advances in material living standards, we're told.

Huh? The proposition is that by taking on a need for considerable investment in capital widening (to provide the extra workers with the equipment and infrastructure they need to be as productive as the existing workers) we're increasing the scope for capital deepening (giving each worker more and better capital equipment).

Am I missing something? This is a twist on a common economists' argument I've never managed to fathom: we need to grow more and do more damage to the natural environment because when we're richer we'll be able to afford to fix the damage we've done to the environment.

The Ridout report asserts that provided population growth is "balanced and managed well", living standards will rise. It needs to be "matched by greater commitments to education and skills development, more and better investments in infrastructure, greater attention to the development of our cities and regions and to our natural environment".

In other words, to give business the extra population it wants but prevent this from worsening all those things, governments at all levels will really need to lift their game as well as spend a lot more. Turn in a perfect performance and high immigration won't be a problem.

I prefer the commission's way of putting it: "population growth and immigration can magnify existing policy problems and amplify pressures on 'unpriced' entities, such as the environment, and urban and social amenity".

SOURCE



20 December, 2010

Is U.S. Immigration Reform Dead?

The failure of the Senate to achieve cloture on the DREAM act has not ended the immigration debate. Politically, both sides will attempt to capitalize on this vote. Democrats will argue that they are the only ones who care about the Hispanic community, while Republicans will claim that they are the only ones serious about enforcement. But from a policy perspective, where might the debate go during the next Congress with Republicans running the House and a stronger GOP presence in the Senate? Even more importantly for enforcement proponents, is immigration the next policy ripe for triangulation?

FrumForum spoke to Mark Kirkorian of the Center for Immigration studies before the DADT vote to see if proponents of tougher enforcement may expect some progress in the next two years. The policy that Kirkorian was most interested in was making the E-verify system more widespread and possibly even mandatory for employers.

E-verify is an electronic database that employers can use to check the status of their employees. It allows them to verify their social security number and checks if the employee can legally work in the United States. The effect of this is that it decreases the likelihood that illegals will be able to end up on the books of their employers. Kirkorian noted that at least 60% — if not more — of the illegal population lie and use fraudulent or stolen identification to gain employment.

Of course, without the program being mandatory, its efficacy is limited. Some states, such as Arizona, mandate its use but others do not. Some states only mandate its use for public sector employees. There are also obvious competitive disadvantages that occur if one company uses the system, while another company doesn’t and continues to hire lower paying illegal workers.

Surprisingly, Kirkorian suggested that he could see a situation where the push for wider E-verify use actually comes from President Obama and the Democrats. “If the President wanted to triangulate, I could see him backing mandatory E-verify as a step towards a future amnesty debate.” Krikorian said that the proponents of immigration “agree in principle” to E-verify but hold it hostage to amnesty.

While not likely to happen, the strategy behind supporting DREAM to lock up Hispanic support, while also supporting E-verify could show that Democrats are “serious” on immigration. This could help them win independents; a plan that would also appeal to Democratic pollsters looking for ways to help the party rebound in 2012.

Unfortunately, the larger GOP benches in the House and Senate are unlikely to lead to any meaningful reform in legal immigration, despite the desperate need for the U.S. to modernize and set up a system to prioritize and accept high skilled immigrants, and not simply hand out citizenship through a lottery process. Kirkorian remarked that this process “continues through inertia.” Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute also spoke to FrumForum about the difficulties in achieving reform in this part of America’s immigration policy.

Mac Donald suggested that a skills based system of immigration would undercut the vision of America’s “Ellis Island” immigration policies. “It is somehow easier for politicians to oppose illegal immigration than to argue that the U.S. has the right to be more selective in its immigrants and that doing so is in its self-interest.”

SOURCE






Rejected asylum seekers in Australia should go home, says the United Nations

THE UN refugee agency says Australia's immigration detention system is being clogged by growing numbers of rejected asylum seekers who should be sent home.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees regional representative Richard Towle says large numbers of people now coming through the asylum system in Australia are not refugees and "the challenge is how to find fair and humane and effective ways of allowing them to leave this country to go home", Fairfax newspapers report.

The deportation of failed asylum seekers has already been announced as central to the government's efforts to stem the flow of boats.

So far, however, only a handful of asylum seekers have been deported. The government is believed to be examining further incentives for people to return home.

Mr Towle told Fairfax that improved political conditions in Sri Lanka and changed methods for assessing Afghan asylum seeker cases have led to the jump in the number of rejected cases, most "left sitting in the detention centres in Western Australia".

He also called for greater regional co-operation and improved conditions in South-East Asia to prevent asylum seekers from making the perilous voyage from Indonesia. He said the problem has little to do with Australia's border protection policies, but rather a "protection vacuum" throughout the region that has been forcing people to risk their lives on unseaworthy vessels.

SOURCE



19 December, 2010

"Dream Act" failure kills immigration reform hopes

The so-called "Dream Act" giving legal status to illegal immigrants brought to the United States before age 16 was dealt a death blow in the Senate on Saturday by Republicans who said it would reward illegal activity.

Obama and Democratic supporters immediately vowed to push again for the measure. The president pledged that he would not give up on "the important business of fixing our broken immigration system."

But analysts said Saturday's outcome killed prospects of passing a comprehensive immigration bill in the next Congress, where Republicans will have control of the House of Representatives and a stronger hand in the Senate.

"Immigration reform is effectively dead in the water for Obama," said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University. "It will be impossible to get any progressive bill through the House in the next Congress, and it will be virtually impossible in the Senate ... as it won't make sense politically," he said.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama had promised to push for an immigration overhaul, boosting border security and offering steps to legal status for many of the nearly 11 million illegal immigrants living in the shadows.

After Republicans take control of the House next month, immigration measures are likely to focus on tightening enforcement and limiting immigration, said Steven Camarota of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies think tank. "There will be more focus on robust enforcement, more hearings designed to highlight problems in the immigration services ... and efforts to try to limit chain migration" which admits relatives of immigrants already in the United States, he said.

The Dream Act would have provided legal residency to young people who came to the United States illegally before age 16 and who graduated from high school, completed two years of college or military service and had no criminal record.

But Obama's failure to push it through the Senate was unlikely to have damaged his support among key Latino voters as he seeks re-election in 2012, analysts said.

Latinos turned out for Obama by a 2-to-1 margin in 2008, and their support in last month's midterm congressional elections helped Democrats hold on to important Senate seats in the Southwest.

"Obama and the White House fought hard for the Dream Act and won points for doing so" among Hispanics, said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, which advocates for immigration reform.

"If you are a Republican who voted against this, you will be forever known for standing in the schoolhouse door and saying 'no' to the best and brightest," he added. [Typical Leftist misrepresentation. No mention that those who really DID stand in the schoolhouse door were Democrats. And no mention of the difference between denying people their legal entitlements and denying people something to which they are NOT entitled. And since when were Hispanic illegals and their frequently criminal children the "best and brightest"? Their educational attainments and IQ scores tell us that they are in general anything but bright]

SOURCE




Half of All Illegal Entries Into U.S. in 2010 Came Through One Sector of AZ Border

Approximately “half of all illegal entries” into the United States and "half of all of the marijuana smuggled into the United States" in fiscal 2010 occurred in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, which takes up only a part of the Arizona-Mexico border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Commissioner Alan Bersin.

More than two-thirds of the Tucson Sector itself is under "effective control," according to CBP, which by definition means that the government can "reasonably ensure" that illegal entries are intercepted there. That leaves, by CBP's accounting, just a small part of the Tucson sector open to a massive influx of illegal aliens and illegal drugs.

And this bulging gap in border security is in a state that the federal government is currently suing for allegedly usurping the federal government's rightful authority to enforce immigration laws.

CBP divides the almost 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border into 9 sectors. They run from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf Coast in this order: San Diego, El Centro, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, Marfa, Del Rio, Laredo, and Rio Grande.

Arizona's portion of the U.S.-Mexico border is 378 miles long, straddling two of the Border Patrol's sectors: Yuma and Tucson. The Yuma Sector (which includes the easternmost 10 miles of the California-Mexico border) takes up the westernmost 116 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border. The other 262 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border fall in the Tucson Sector. The Border Patrol's El Paso sector begins on the New Mexico side of the Arizona-New Mexico border.

A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told CNSNews.com that as of Sept. 30 (the last day of fiscal year 2010), the federal government believed it had achieved what it calls "effective control" of 293 miles of the 378-mile-long Arizona-Mexico border and that the remaining 85 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border that are not under "effective control" are all in the Tucson Sector.

All 126 miles of the Yuma Sector, including the 10 miles in California and the 116 miles in Arizona, are under "effective control," the spokesperson said.

As defined by the Department of Homeland Security, a mile of the border is under “effective control” when the “appropriate mix of personnel, equipment, technology and tactical infrastructure has been deployed to reasonably ensure” that illegal entries are intercepted. “Border miles under effective control” is a metric the DHS uses in its annual performance reports to measure how well the CBP is performing.

Despite the continuing problems in the Tucson Sector, a CBP spokesperson told CNSNews.com that the agency has been improving its performance there. In fiscal 2009, the spokesperson said, the government considered only 119 miles of this sector under "effective control." In fiscal 2010, the spokesperson said, it considered 177 miles under "effective control."

"Today, the area that remains our greatest challenge is the Tucson Sector," said Bersin. "Approximately half of all illegal entries occur across the 260 miles of border in this Sector, and traffickers believe they can use the inhospitable terrain to evade authorities."

A CBP spokesperson explained to CNSNews.com that what Bersin meant by "illegal entries" in this staement was the actual apprehension of illegal border crossers, which equaled 463,000 nationwide in fiscal 2010.

Two Arizona sheriffs, one from a border county located in the Tucson Sector and another from a county 70 miles north of the border in that sector, rejected the CBP’s claim that the government is able to “reasonably” detect illegal entries along most of the 378-mile long Arizona-Mexico border, except for 85 miles along CBP’s Tucson Sector.

Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, whose jurisdiction includes 80 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in the Tucson Sector, said, “That is an interesting statement, if not particularly believable.” He further said that the Border Patrol is making inaccurate claims about being able to “capture one in every 2.6 illegal crossers” in that sector. (Border Patrol is a division of the CBP.) “By some estimation they catch only one in ten,” said Dever. “I think it would be interesting to see a map that supports that claim.”

In addition, Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, which is about 70 miles north of the border in the Tucson Sector, said he is “not buying” the story that all but 85 miles of the Arizona-Mexico are under “effective control.” Such a claim is “blatantly false,” Babeu said, because by DHS’s own admission all three Arizona counties located in the Tucson Sector “are not under their control.” However, Babeu agreed that Yuma County in the Yuma Sector is under control.

Source



18 December, 2010

U.K. Immigration Cap Ruled Unlawful

The U.K.'s High Court Friday ruled that the coalition government's temporary cap on non-European Union immigrants was unlawful. Judges ruled that ministers had "sidestepped" the law by imposing the cap without sufficient parliamentary scrutiny.

The temporary cap was introduced in June as a stop-gap measure ahead of a broader overview of immigration rules next April. The coalition government had promised to introduce a permanent cap on non-EU immigrants after consulting on the issue. Under the cap, which came into effect in June, a maximum of 24,100 non-EU workers could migrate to the U.K. a month.

The cap has faced criticism from the business community and within the government, with the junior coalition Liberal Democrat party saying it could prevent U.K. companies recruiting the skilled workers they need.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said the government was "disappointed" with the verdict and would study it to say if there were grounds to appeal. "We remain firmly committed to reducing net migration and will be introducing a permanent limit on non-European workers next April," Mr. Green said.

The minister added that the government will do "all in our power to continue to prevent a rush of applications before our more permanent measures are in place."

The opposition Labour party said the government's immigration policy is "in a state of chaos." "Their so-called cap may have sounded good before the election but it wasn't properly thought through and didn't get the scrutiny it deserved. Not only will it do little to control immigration it also risks damaging British businesses," said Ed Balls, Labour's home affairs spokesman.

Source







Christmas Island tragedy forces review of Labor party's asylum stance

LABOR Party national president Anna Bligh has backed a complete review of the government's border protection policies

The call comes as political unity over the Christmas Island asylum boat disaster crumbled. As the frantic search continued for survivors of Wednesday's horror sinking, the opposition said it would not join a proposed bipartisan group announced by Julia Gillard yesterday.

The rebuff came as The Australian learned that Indonesian authorities were searching for an Iranian in the belief he had planned the doomed people-smuggling operation.

It can also be revealed that the two patrol boats that participated in yesterday's rescue, plucking 41 survivors from the sea, were stationed off Christmas Island only because the seas were too rough to resume regular patrols.

The official death toll last night rose to 30, including four children and four babies, after divers recovered the bodies of man in his 20s and a boy about 10 years old, near the sunken hull.

However, the government, which yesterday announced three investigations into the tragedy, said the toll was likely to rise because up to 100 Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds were believed to have been aboard the boat.

Locals said bodies could be trapped for weeks in underwater caves at the site of the boat wreck, 200m from the island's only safe harbour, Flying Fish Cove.

Ms Bligh, the Queensland Premier, speaking in her federal leadership capacity with the ALP, yesterday agreed the "catastrophic tragedy" would raise questions about whether Christmas Island should continue to host the nation's biggest immigration detention camp.

She said the Prime Minister's decision to return to work from holidays demonstrated that she understood the implications for "policy settings in relation particularly to this island".

Asked whether the Indian Ocean territory had become a magnet for people-smuggling, Ms Bligh told The Australian: "I really do think it is premature to be jumping to specific conclusions. All I am saying is that . . . when a shocking incident like this happens, it's incumbent on all of us to have a really good look at all the settings, and we should have the courage to do so.

"This is an absolutely catastrophic tragedy and when we understand better the circumstances that led to it . . . I would expect that we as a nation would have a long, hard look at what it all means."

Inevitably, this would lead to "some questioning" about the viability of the detention facilities on Christmas Island, which was excised from the Australian migration zone by the Howard government. "I think as a nation we are all struggling with how we should protect our borders from illegal entry, how we should ensure we process people who are seeking asylum in a humane way and whether the detention centres are on Australian soil or places like Christmas Island," Ms Bligh said.

The three Indonesian crew members survived the disaster and last night were being held in the island's construction camp, away from the asylum-seeker survivors.

The Prime Minister warned the toll would almost certainly rise. "

Another asylum-seeker vessel arrived in Australian waters yesterday. The boat, with 54 passengers and two crew, was intercepted northwest of Ashmore Island by the patrol boat HMAS Glenelg yesterday afternoon. Those aboard were on their way to Christmas Island last night for security, identity and health checks.

Fending off questions about the role Labor's softened refugee policies might have played in drawing boats here, Ms Gillard called for any policy debate to be "informed by facts". "What we know from past instances in this area is there have been times when there has been a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of debate about the facts," she said.

She said West Australian authorities would conduct a coronial inquest into the incident. There would be a criminal investigation under people-smuggling laws and a review of the incident by Customs and Border Protection.

Mr Abbott said he was loathe to start a "political bunfight" over the issue, particularly while the rescue effort remained under way. "But given the Prime Minister's claim, I think I can make the observation that what Australia needs is a new policy to deal with this problem, not a new committee to investigate," he said.

SOURCE



17 December, 2010

A smaller welcome mat in Canada

Some Canadians are having second thoughts about their traditionally liberal immigration policy. But many still support it

CANADA has long been known as one of the world’s most welcoming countries for immigrants, and thus a good bet for refugees, who are granted most of the same rights and freedoms as citizens. At first, this open-door policy was a product of necessity. The world’s second-biggest country, Canada needed people to fill its wide open spaces and build an economy. But multiculturalism has been a part of the national identity since 1971, when a Liberal government embraced it as official policy. Today 20% of the population is foreign-born. The biggest sources of new arrivals are China, the Philippines and India.

Yet the Conservative minority government of Stephen Harper that took power in 2006 has begun to restrict immigration. It has toughened the citizenship test and doubled the lump sum required to gain quick access as an investor. And it has presented bills to fine and jail people-traffickers and detain their clients, and to penalise unauthorised immigration advisers who charge fees (to be called the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act).

Mr Harper is also changing the profile of immigrants who are accepted, giving priority to the skilled over the needy. His government has cut the refugee intake by 36% and imposed visa requirements on visitors from Mexico and the Czech Republic, some of whom it accuses of exploiting loopholes in the asylum system. The only category of immigrants to have grown significantly since 2005 is temporary workers, who are rarely a drag on the state.

All this adds up to slight tinkering, rather than the kind of retreat from multiculturalism seen in parts of Europe, or America’s harder line against illegal immigration. The number of new permanent residents accepted every year has held steady since 1990, at 0.7-0.8% of the population. But the changes reflect Canadians’ newly ambivalent attitudes. And they go with an increasingly vocal debate about immigration.

A report on national security published last month by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a non-partisan think-tank, listed “uncontrolled immigration” as one of three foreseeable threats to Canada. The federal housing agency pointed to immigration as one reason why renters are having trouble finding accommodation in big cities. A new group called the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, whose backers include a critic of immigration and multiculturalism, has been set up.

There are exceptions. The Conference Board of Canada, a think-tank, recently credited immigrants with driving innovation in the country. The Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the world’s Shia Ismaili Muslims, has praised Canada’s pluralism as an “asset of enormous global value”. But the trend is clear. “If you read the newspapers, the tone is quite negative and sometimes quite racist,” says Hamdi Mohamed, director of an immigrant-settlement organisation in Ottawa.

Public opinion in Canada has been affected by the European backlash and by fears of terrorist attacks (of which Canada has been free in recent years). Recession, though mild, has pushed up unemployment, increasing fears of competition from immigrants. Mr Harper has political reasons to raise the issue. One pollster, Frank Graves of EKOS, says that Conservative voters are twice as likely to believe Canada has too many immigrants as are opposition supporters. And public hostility to immigrants grew after a ship carrying almost 500 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka arrived off the country’s west coast in August.

It is hard to be sure whether this debate heralds a lasting shift in Canada’s openness to immigration. The government’s proposed detention of refugees trafficked by smugglers has been criticised for violating Canadian law and international agreements. Given immigrants’ numbers, bashing them is politically dangerous: they and their children are already a majority in Toronto, the country’s most populous city. Aklilu Wendaferew, who works with the homeless and Ethiopian immigrants in Toronto, says the familiarity that comes from living and working with immigrants daily counteracts fears of foreigners, and that employers are not reluctant to hire them.

That seems borne out by an opinion poll commissioned by the government. Only one respondent in four said there were too many immigrants, whereas half said the current level was about right. Canada may be narrowing the door for immigrants, but it is not about to slam it shut.

SOURCE






Rising tide of boat-borne illegals in Australia

PEOPLE arriving by boat now account for nearly half of the foreigners seeking asylum in Australia.

The Department of Immigration yesterday released figures showing the proportion of boat people jumped from 16 per cent two years ago to 47 per cent of the asylum seekers last year.

The majority of asylum seekers still remains those who arrive by air with a temporary visa and subsequently seek to stay permanently on grounds of persecution if they return to their homeland.

The department revealed the latest trend after WikiLeaks disclosed that the American embassy had criticised Australia's focus on boat people when there were thousands of other non-citizen overstayers already in Australia.

The Immigration Department's latest annual report does not list overstayers in its index, although the department reported in 2005 that there were an estimated 47,800 overstayers in Australia.

According to the department yesterday, non-boat-people asylum seekers totalled 5978 in 2009-10, significantly up from 5,074 in the previous 12 months.

However, that was outstripped by the massive rise in boatpeople, up from 2726 last year to 6232 boat people so far this calendar year.

Overall, asylum seekers appear to have had a better chance of winning refuge in Australia in recent years, although boat people have a lower success rate than those who arrive by air.

The better prospects may reflect the introduction by the Labor government of independent panels to review departmental decisions.

People from Afghanistan were the most like to win asylum, with a success rate of 99 per cent, followed by Iran (98 per cent) and and Iraq (97 per cent).

People from China have applied in the highest numbers for asylum, but have been the least successful. Out of a total 1288 Chinese applications for asylum last financial year, just 31 per cent succeeded.

SOURCE



16 December, 2010

European judges kill off British law that curbed sham marriages

Laws credited with cutting the number of sham marriages by more than 70 per cent were yesterday killed off by European judges because they breach human rights.

The rules, which required some immigrants to apply for a certificate of approval from the Home Office and pay a £295 fee before they could wed, were judged discriminatory and against the right to marry by the European Court of Human Rights.

Judges said they had ‘grave concerns’ about the scheme because many immigrants could not afford the fee.

The scheme, introduced by David Blunkett in 2004, resulted in a huge reduction in the number of ceremonies performed in its first few years. The number of couples tying the knot in register offices in the East London borough of Newham fell by 72 per cent in the first two years. Across the capital, marriages fell by 36 per cent.

The number of reports from registrars about suspicious marriages also dropped spectacularly. A total of 6,652 people were refused a certificate under the scheme. However, a string of court rulings in the UK began to challenge the system.

The final nail in its coffin was hammered home by the European judges yesterday when they ruled in favour of Nigerian asylum seeker Osita Chris Iwu and ordered Britain to pay him £7,200 in compensation and legal costs of £13,600.

Mr Iwu arrived in Northern Ireland in 2004 and claimed asylum in 2006. In the same year, he proposed to his girlfriend, Sinead O’Donoghue, who has dual British and Irish nationality.

The couple were first barred from marrying at all, but after winning a series of UK court rulings, then could not afford the fee. Mr Iwu was banned from working and his fiancee was on benefits and caring for her disabled parents. They finally married after borrowing the money. Yesterday the Strasbourg court ordered the Government to refund the £295 fee.

The judges said the exemption for Anglicans having Church of England weddings also breached religious freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Home Office earlier this year announced that certificates of approval would be scrapped, in anticipation of the ruling.

SOURCE





Death of 27 asylum seekers highlights Australia's immigration problems

Twenty-seven asylum seekers have died and dozens may be missing after heavy waves smashed their timber boat onto rocks on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean off Australia

With rescue efforts still under way on the remote territory of Christmas Island on Wednesday night, 41 people had been plucked from the water and one had swam to shore. Several of the survivors had been taken to hospital and three were in a critical condition.

The incident will reignite the simmering debate in Australia over asylum seekers and border protection.

Every year thousands of asylum seekers attempt to enter the country by making the dangerous 230-mile journey from Indonesia by boat in the hope that once they arrive they will be granted refugee visas and allowed to set up home on the mainland, which is 1,650 miles away.

Most hail from Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and despite efforts to stop the procession of boats by the government, the country's detention centres are at capacity after more than 100 boats delivered 5,000 asylum seekers since January, the highest number for ten years.

There are now more than 2,000 people in detention on Christmas Island, which was originally configured to house 1,900. Three large tents are being used to accommodate the overflow.

On Wednesday, a wooden boat, believed to be carrying about 70 asylum seekers from Iraq and Iran, arrived at Christmas Island in treacherous seas.

Locals, woken at 6am by the screams from the stricken boat, rushed to the cliffs, where they were confronted by desperate scenes. The 130ft boat, which had lost power, was drifting close to the jagged rocks in the rolling surf. Women and children were clinging to the sides of the vessel and screaming.

As the islanders looked on, a huge wave smashed the boat onto the jagged rocks. The vessel disintegrated, sending its passengers and large planks of wood flying into the water.

While islanders frantically threw life jackets and ropes into the water, and some tried to clamber down the cliff to reach the victims, many of whom could not swim, navy boats attempted a rescue using two inflatable dinghies. But the dangerous conditions, brought on by a cyclone in the Indian Ocean to the north, hampered the rescue effort and scores of people, including women, children and babies drowned or were dashed against the rocks.

"There were children in the water. There was one very small child in a life jacket floating face down for a very long time... clearly dead," said Simon Prince, a local shop owner who lives on the cliff and was one of the first on the scene. "It's something I'm not going to forget very quickly."

"We could hear the screaming," a tearful resident, Ingrid Avery, said. "Screaming, screaming and I could hear children screaming." She said the navy boats had been delayed by the arrival of another vessel elsewhere on the island. Until the navy arrived, locals tried to help, she said.

"It was terrible to watch, there was nothing we could do, we were running around trying to send down life jackets but it was useless because the wind just blew them back in our faces."

Julia Gillard, the prime minister, said in a statement that the situation was "tragic" and the government was focusing on the rescue effort.

Earlier this year, Ms Gillard was accused of "going soft" on the issue by supporting policies that did not deter asylum seekers from making the dangerous journey across the Indian Ocean in unsafe vessels. Her party now wants to open a processing centre on East Timor, in the hope that it will move the problem out of Australian jurisdiction. The leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, has vowed simply to "stop the boats" if he gains power, a slogan that won his party strong support at the recent election.

Refugee rights groups have blamed misguided government policy for the disaster. "I do think the fact there isn't a welcome refugee policy, that the government has people smuggling laws in place which make it less likely that people on boats are willing to contact Australian authorities and to rendezvous," Ian Rintoul, head of the Refugee Action Coalition, said.

This is the third deadly incident involving boats trying to reach Christmas Island in the past decade. Last year, five Afghan refugees died when their boat exploded off Ashmore Reef, near Christmas Island, injuring 30 others. In 2001 the Siev X fishing boat sank just south of the Indonesian island of Java with 400 people onboard. A total of 353 people perished.

SOURCE



15 December, 2010

Some advice for Dems on immigration

By RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.

Recently, I gave Republicans some advice about how to talk about the immigration issue - and, just as importantly, how not to talk about it. Now it's the Democrats' turn. They make their share of mistakes in discussing one of the most sensitive and controversial issues on the national agenda, and they need just as much coaching as do Republicans.

To begin with, Democrats need to stop thinking of themselves as inherently more enlightened than the competition when it comes to the immigration debate, and let their actions prove it. Many liberals take for granted that most Republicans are nativists and they're glad they don't have that failing. This fulfills the basic need of many on the left to feel morally superior to the rest of us, and reaffirms the idea that they alone can come up with a reasonable solution to our immigration problem.

I don't know about that. I get angry and racist e-mails from self-described liberal Democrats all the time, usually after I've defended Sarah Palin or praised George W. Bush. Such ugliness isn't limited to one political party. Besides, I'd wager that, once you brush away all the lofty rhetoric, most Democrats ultimately care about the same thing that most Republicans care about - winning elections and maintaining power.

And so, no matter what they promise while campaigning, they will stall or kill any legislation that threatens to cost them votes. That's why, even with Democrats controlling Congress since January 2007 and the White House since January 2009, nothing got done on immigration reform. In fact, it was a Democrat - former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel - who famously referred to the issue as the "third rail" of American politics.

Next, Democrats need to stop pandering to organized labor, which is a group that is always predisposed to view immigration as a problem because it sees immigrants as competition. Many unions have come around to the idea of legalizing illegal immigrants because it means a chance to enlist new members, but not if it means swallowing the GOP's demand to bring in additional batches of temporary guest workers. Organized labor believes that foreign workers of any kind - legal or illegal - threaten U.S. workers. And it contributes enough money to Democrats to get them to believe it too.

The left should make the argument to union workers that a completely legalized work force would benefit them because employers could no longer pay illegal workers less than those with a union card. Democrats might also throw in a dose of tough love by telling those union workers that, if they're suffering the embarrassment of being displaced by unauthorized, low-skilled, largely uneducated workers who often don't speak English, it might be time to acquire more skills or look for another line of work.

Lastly, Democrats should kick the habit of using the immigration issue to manipulate Latinos. They can't resist exploiting how tone-deaf the GOP can be on the immigration issue, perhaps assuming: "What alternative do Hispanic voters have?"

Consider the liberal reader who recently wrote to take issue with my contention that President Barack Obama was wise to support the tax-cut compromise. The reader insisted that Obama was foolish to try to "make people who despise him play nice" and that the GOP was sure to thwart the rest of his agenda. And then the reader threw in this gratuitous item at the end: "Good luck with the Dream Act, btw."

So, in response to a column about tax cuts, a reader makes sure to inform a Mexican-American columnist that Republicans are unlikely to pass a bill that gives undocumented immigrants legal status if they attend college or join the military? What does one have to do with the other?

As a party, Democrats need to show some respect. If those on the left think a piece of legislation makes sense, then pass it. Don't use it a ploy, or hold it out as a carrot to make a donkey pull a cart. When dealing with the immigration issue, Democrats should spend more time resolving obstacles - and less time looking for ways to get mileage out of the impasse.

SOURCE





Australia gets Afghan deal to return asylum seekers

AN arrangement to send failed Afghan asylum seekers back to Kabul will help Australia deal with unauthorised boat arrivals, a Labor frontbencher says. Canberra and Kabul reportedly have agreed on a draft memorandum of understanding that paves the way for involuntary returns. The historic memorandum could be signed within weeks, The Australian said today.

Parliamentary secretary Mark Dreyfus says discussions between the two nations have been underway for some time. "It's an important part of any system for dealing with unauthorised arrivals," he told Sky News today. "We prefer that people went on a voluntary basis after their claims are rejected. "If they don't it's important ... to make sure it's done in an orderly way."

Liberal backbencher Paul Fletcher says reaching agreement would help deal with overcrowding in Australia's detention centres, which currently house about 6000 people. "That (figure) includes a significant number of people (who've) been denied refugee status and ... (are) required to return to their homeland," he said.

Figures from the immigration department show that 4342 Afghans have arrived since late 2008 and only two have voluntarily returned to their home country in that time.

Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says any deal is unlikely to help with the immediate problem of overcrowding in detention centres. "If they do get to a deal no-one will be going home anytime soon because of the ability to pursue ... failed claims in the courts," he told the Macquarie Network.

SOURCE



14 December, 2010

Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. The Party Lines Grow Clearer (Op-Ed)

2. Mark Krikorian debates DREAM Act on News Hour (Video)

3. Mark Krikorian debates DREAM Act on Bloggingheads.tv (Video)

4. While the DREAM Act Dominates the Scene, a Bit of Haitian Action Elsewhere (Blog)

5. Military DREAM Is a Mirage (Blog)

6. DREAM in Uniform (Blog)

7. Potemkin ICE (Blog)





Republicans, Don't Even Think About DREAM!

The so-called DREAM Act partial immigration amnesty—one of the Democratic priorities being pushed in the current lame-duck Congress— isn't dead yet. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's game plan for passing it seems clear: Wait until the big tax bill passes and Republican senators are released from their "no cloture" pledge. Then try to break out enough "yes" votes to get to 60 at the buzzer, right before Congress adjourns.

Majority pundit sentiment says Reid won't be able to do this. But a week is a long time to expect squishy GOP senators to hold out against a wave of criticism from respectable kibbitzers and ethnic-identity politicians (e.g., "If Senate Republicans kill the DREAM Act ... many millions of Hispanics will take it as a slap in the face"). In particular, I'm worried some anti-amnesty Republicans might be tempted by the argument that passing DREAM—which in theory applies only to illegals brought to this country when they were under age 16 who graduate from high school—will make it harder to pass a larger "comprehensive" amnesty in the future.

I used to think that, until I thought about it. After thinking, I suspect President Obama is closer to the truth when he argues that DREAM is in fact a "down payment" on "comprehensive" legalization.

Why? After all, pro-legalization types have traditionally worried that passing DREAM all by itself would kill "comprehensive" reform by cherrypicking the most appealing group of illegals (those who came here "through no fault of their own")—making it that much harder to pass a law legalizing all the less appealing groups.

This sort of thinking is in line with the traditional liberal approach of using heart-tugging victims, especially children, as the tip of the spear for far broader programs. (Even within the class of 1 or 2 million DREAM beneficiaries, we hear mainly about the "the valedictorians in their classes, the presidents, the stars of their sports teams, and the people who win the college bowls.") It's why legalizers resisted until the last minute (i.e. now) making a push for a separate DREAM bill that wasn't part of "comprehensive" package. Once the DREAM kids were taken care of, who would be the poster children for the Big Amnesty?

But were the legalizers right about this? The "think of the children" approach doesn't always work. Marian Wright Edelman led brigades of kids to Capitol Hill to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" when she was defending welfare benefits that went to parents as well as children. That didn't stop Congress from passing the welfare reform she opposed. And it's not at all clear that DREAM was working to produce "comprehensive" amnesty. The DREAM kids were lost in the vast mass of "comprehensive" reform, which would have affected potentially 11 million. Did you even know that DREAM was part of Bush's 2007 plan?

Suppose Congress passes the DREAM Act. Will that use up the supply of poster children for "comprehensive" reform? Of course not. There will be plenty of other appealing cases, including the cases of those who are denied citizenship by DREAM's own rules.

The arbitrriness and complexity of DREAM's requirements and categories is seen as a problem by the left. But maybe it's a dialectical strength, from their point of view. The Act's crazy quilt of deadlines and precondidtions, combined with the massive fraud that will follow its virtually irresistable invitation to false applications, will create a system seemingly doomed to collapse of its own weight.

Penalize a kid who came to the U.S. four years before DREAM, rather than the requisite five? Who spent only a year and a half in college instead of two years because he was busy working? Who went back to Mexico for a year instead of living here "continuously"? Who was too honest to lie on his application--so he stays illegal while hundreds of thousands of his less scrupulous brothers-in-undocumentation get in?

Some of these distinctions will be finessed in practice, as Heather MacDonald notes, through the widespread application of the law's "hardship" exemption. Illegal immigrants who get 10 years to complete the Act's requirements and don't complete them are unlikely to actually be deported. But the press will have a feast with the arbitrary rules, whether they are applied or not.

And some of the rules that are most likely to be applied--such as the GED requirement--are morally unstable. If the DREAM kids are appealing because they didn't choose to come across the border and all they know is America, why should they also have to graduate high school again? Do you have to have an 1100 SAT to be an American these days? The temptation will be to say, "The hell with it. this is crazy. It's simpler to just amnesty everyone."

And that isn't counting the pressure to legalize all the new illegals drawn by the international signal DREAM sends: "Come illegally, bring your kids, and you might be a winner!"

True, the "it's simpler to cover everyone" line doesn't always work either. It didn't work in the late 1960s when the elite consensus favored a "guaranteed income" that would dispense cash across the board, overriding old-fashioned, hard-to-police distinctions between people who worked and people who didn't. The voters, it turned out, liked those old-fashioned distinctions.

But the distinctions created by DREAM don't have a similar moral clarity. The great strength of the anti-amnesty movement, after all, is the clear line it draws between legality and illegality. DREAM replaces that with the line between GED and no GED, between four years and five years, between 29 years old and 31 years old. It will be hard to stop future Congress from busting through these weak moral lines and expanding the amnesty, perhaps "comprehensively."

The drafters of DREAM are almost certainly hoping that this happens, even if they are not actually setting it up to happen. Hence their "down payment" rhetoric. If, like me, you don't want "comprehensive reform"--if you want border enforcement first, amnesty later--it's a down payment you don't want to make

SOURCE (See the original for links)



13 December, 2010

Arizona Regains Footing In Immigration Battle

After suffering a major legal setback in the summer, Arizona regained its footing in court when a federal judge dismissed parts of the US Justice Department's challenge to the state's new immigration law and rejected several claims made by Hispanic activists and Phoenix police officers, FOXNews.com reported Saturday.

US District Judge Susan Bolton's Friday ruling struck down the federal government's challenge to the portion of the law that prohibits the transport of illegal immigrants.

It also rejected a challenge from Phoenix police officers and an advocacy group called Chicanos Por La Causa who argued that the cops could be sued for racial profiling if they enforced the law or lose their jobs if they didn't. Bolton agreed with Arizona that they had no valid claim of immediate harm.

Bolton also dismissed a lawsuit from the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, who were seeking an injunction preventing authorities from enforcing the law because the group argued federal law preempts state regulation of national borders.

"I am pleased with today's decision," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in a statement Friday. "I strongly believe that the citizens of Arizona will ultimately prevail in all of these legal challenges. My defense of the rule of law will continue as vigorously as ever."

Arizona's law has been at the center of an impassioned national debate on illegal immigration ever since it was passed in April. The federal government filed a lawsuit soon after to block the measure -- a battle that is ongoing and is likely to wind up in the Supreme Court.

The law makes illegal immigration a state crime and requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop if they suspect they are in the state unlawfully.

SOURCE





British Labour Party ratbag praises 'hero' immigrants who send welfare handouts home

Harriet Harman has praised ‘heroic’ immigrants who claim welfare payments in Britain and use the cash to support families living abroad. She said the Government should make it easier for them to send the money home and called for tax refunds to encourage more immigrants to follow suit, in particular those who paid for their children to be educated in the Third World.

The Labour Deputy Leader, who is also the party’s spokesman on International Development, derided ‘those who say we should look after our own first’ in the recession and vowed to fight any attempt to cut the £9.4 billion overseas aid budget. But last night the Government challenged her ‘bizarre’ conduct.

Her comments were made at a meeting at Southwark town hall in her South London constituency, called to find ways to increase the flow of money from Britain to other nations in ‘remittances’ – money sent by families who have settled here to those left behind.

The meeting was attended by many local voters with Nigerian, Ugandan and other foreign backgrounds, as well as representatives of aid charities. An eyewitness said: ‘Harriet led a discussion on how to back up what she called the “hidden heroes of development through developing new policies on remittances”.’

Ms Harman said she had conducted a survey of constituents, mainly West Africans, attending her surgeries who were regularly sending money back home to sustain children and other relatives. ‘She said she had been amazed by how many were doing this,’ said a source. ‘Some were themselves in receipt of State benefits here and were still sending what they could abroad.’

Ms Harman said she intended to launch a new international survey to learn how other countries handled remittances to poorer nations to enable Britain to ‘make the procedure easier, even possibly with some sort of tax relief for those who send payments to educate relatives abroad’.

Her radical proposal was supported by some at the meeting. But one member of the audience said Ms Harman would have to be ‘careful’ how she campaigned on the issue. ‘She was told that if it was found the majority of people sending remittances were on benefits, critics would say it proved that they are receiving too much in State handouts if they can still send money abroad,’ according to one person who was present.

Ms Harman said she was also determined to stop the Government doing a U-turn on its promise not to cut the annual overseas aid budget. ‘We have to keep the Government to their promise of spending on 0.7 per cent of gross national income on international aid after 2012,’ she said. And Labour must do so ‘even with the usual howls from media critics who say that we should be looking after our own first and foremost, especially in this time of austerity’.

Last night Ms Harman stood by her remarks. She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There are many people in my constituency who come from Africa and work and study and bring up their families here. Many of them also send money back to their village in their country of origin. We should respect and encourage that. International development is not just something done by governments.

‘Some of these families will be receiving child benefit and tax credits to which they are entitled. Charitable generosity has never been confined to the well-off.’

Tory International Development Minister Alan Duncan said last night: ‘Ms Harman’s comments seem bizarre. She has a duty to explain precisely what she means.’ A Conservative official went much further: ‘The idea that people should come here from Africa, claim welfare benefits and send it all back home is ridiculous and irresponsible.’

SOURCE



12 December, 2010

Tennessee Considers Arizona-style imigration Law

Tennessee’s legislators plan to consider a bill next year styled after Arizona’s SB 1070, even though the state already has strict laws targeting illegal immigrants. State Sen. Bill Ketron and Rep. Joe Carr, both Republicans, are preparing a bill that criminalizes illegal immigrants and authorizes local law enforcement authorities to detain “any person” suspected of being in the country unlawfully.

“You can’t deny how [illegal immigration] is affecting us, from education to healthcare to the judicial system to incarceration, and more importantly the number of jobs it’s taken away,” Ketron said.

Like Tennessee, other nearby states, including North Carolina and South Carolina, have expressed an interest in starting out the new legislative session in 2011 reviewing measures similar to the law in Arizona, the first in the nation to criminalize being in the country unlawfully.

Tennessee, where foreign-born people account for roughly four percent of the total population, already has restrictive measures that will take effect on Jan. 1.

The most controversial is SB 1141/HB 670, which requires local jails -- despite no training, funds, supervision or access to federal immigration databases -- to verify the immigration status of all those detained. There is also a measure that allows businesses to insist that employees speak only English for “security and efficiency.”

During the vehement debate over the implementation of SB 1070 in Arizona, a group of Tennessee legislators sent a letter to that state’s governor, Jan Brewer, praising her for signing the bill into law.

Recently, another Tennessee legislator, Republican Curry Todd, who supports strict immigration measures, gained notoriety when he said that illegal immigrants “multiply like rats.” Todd later apologized for the comment, but maintains his opposition to illegal immigration.

SOURCE




Latino Republicans seeks to shape Colorado immigration debate

A national grassroots organization of Latino Republicans this week announced it is opening a Colorado chapter in order to impact the immigration debate in Colorado.

Somos Republicans (Somos is a Spanish word that transates to “we are” in English) was founded last year in Arizona in response to what its founder sees as hateful and destructive rhetoric and legislation in that state. It has since expanded into 10 additional states, with more coming online soon.

“Our only purpose in the beginning was to try and save the Republican Party’s image with Hispanics,” founder DeeDee Garcia Blase told The Colorado Independent this morning.

She said the group started small and “exploded” when Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070. “People feel they have to take a stand. We have to get in the ring and fight. They want Hispanics to leave the party. They try to discourage us, but we aren’t going to leave the party. We’re going to fight for the party. We are going to return it to the values of Ronald Reagan and Lincoln. They are hijacking the party with people like the Tancredo Club.”

Garcia Blase said she has always been a Republican. She joined the military after seeing pictures in Time magazine of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds. “I joined the military because I wanted to kill Saddam. I wanted to help the underdog. I can’t help it. That’s the way I am.”

She said three-fourths of Latinos in the United States are Catholics or evangelical Christians. “Pro-life, pro-family positions are important to us. A strong national defense is important to us. Most of us want to be Republicans, but Republicans choose to demonize us with talk of anchor babies and English only laws and repealing the 14th Amendment. Let me tell you something, Hispanics speak English and the ones who don’t speak it want to learn. You don’t need to pass a law demonizing us. Calling the children of immigrants anchor babies demonizes us.”

She said Republicans in Colorado think they lost the Senate and Governor’s race because of liberal spending.

“That’s wrong. Democrats won in Colorado because of Tom Tancredo and people like him demonizing us. You’re missing the boat with this English-only crap. Leave us alone,” she said. “Democrats in Colorado are smart. They know Tom Tancredo is the best Christmas present they could ever get. Republicans just don’t get it.”

Even so, she said she and the people in her group are committed Republicans.

In Colorado, Steven Rodriguez is leading the effort with Somos. Rodrigues is a past candidate for the legislature and a fourth generation Pueblo resident. He is currently trying to drum up support for a document called the Colorado Compact, modeled after the Utah Compact, which Somos has had tremendous success with. The Compact is a short statement that Somos hopes will be used as a guideline in any immigration legislation considered in the statehouse this next session.

More HERE



11 December, 2010

England's migrant baby boom leaves schools 500,000 places short

England needs more than half a million extra primary school places before the end of the decade, ministers have admitted. By the Government’s own calculations, 543 new nursery and primary schools are needed within eight years.

The immigrant baby boom has put unprecedented strain on an education system that is already struggling under a surge in pupil numbers. Ministers described the shortfall as a ‘major issue’, and one campaign group claimed it could cost the taxpayer £40billion.

The predictions follow the chaos at the start of this school year which left hundreds of pupils without a place and thousands taught in makeshift classrooms.

The figures are released as the Department of Education is forced to slash its capital budget – the fund for the building of new schools – by 60 per cent by 2014/15. Statisticians put the trend down to the rising population of foreign-born women of childbearing age.

An official count yesterday showed the number of people living in Britain who were born abroad has more than doubled over 30 years. And birth rate figures show the UK population is now increasing in line with the post-war baby boom. It has risen by 10 per cent over the last 25 years and is expected to rise by 16 per cent over the next 25. Despite this, the Labour government closed more than 1,000 primary schools from 1999 while allowing record immigration.

Every region of England will see surging pupil numbers with London, the South East and the Midlands worst hit. The South West will be the least affected.

The Department of Education said the number of primary school pupils, currently 3.96million, will increase to 4.5million in 2018, an increase of 540,000. The number of nursery and primary schools needed to accommodate the surge must rise from today’s 3,986 to 4,529.

Meanwhile, Government spending on school buildings will fall from £7.6billion this year to £4.9billion next year and £3.4billion in 2014/2015. It has launched a capital spending review to assess where the reduced funding should be targeted. Schools minister Lord Hill said: ‘It’s clear that rising pupil numbers are a major issue facing the schools system. ‘We will continue to work very closely with local authorities, particularly in London, to ensure that we meet rising demand for school places effectively over coming years.

‘Our new Free School policy also has a part to play in allowing teachers, parents and charities to set up new schools in areas where there is a shortage of places.’

The immigration baby boom has resulted in doubling in number of pupils who do not speak English as their first language. Currently the figure stands at 16 per cent of students and is set to increase to 23 per cent in 2018. It is most marked in London where in some boroughs, such as Tower Hamlets, youngsters with a different mother tongue make up nearly 80 per cent of primary pupils.

School place shortages caused mayhem at the start of the school year in September. Councils in many parts of the country, including London and Birmingham, were massively oversubscribed. As term started Brent, in North West London, had 210 four-year-olds without a reception class place but only 24 vacancies. Officials in Newham had to put four classes in a church hall and hundreds of other schools used temporary buildings.

The Office for National Statistics population figures show an 11 per cent increase in immigration in Labour years. The foreign-born population includes around 1.3million from the Asian sub-continent and a similar number from Africa. People born in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand together total slightly under 900,000.

Campaign group MigrationWatch put the cost of additional school places at £40billion.

Source





Australia: Immigrant woman thinks she shouldn't have to understand English

ONE of Australia's largest labour hire companies is being sued for racial discrimination, with claims that it demanded that a young Thai migrant with limited English complete a written health and safety exam, and then in effect dismissed her when she failed it.

Wan Phen Promlee says she was looking forward to returning to casual work as a warehouse picker and packer this year after time off with a wrist injury.

But, according to a claim she has filed in the Federal Magistrates Court, her employer, the labour hire firm Integrated, had other ideas. Ms Promlee says that when she returned she was initially told there was no work for her. Then, some weeks later, she received a call. The management of the warehouse company she had been sent to, Ceva Logistics, had been wondering where she was and asked Integrated to send her specifically.

But instead of returning to her duties, Ms Promlee, 26, was told to sit a written exam. "I went there and the woman said, 'You sit and watch the CD and answer the questions'," Ms Promlee said. "I couldn't understand. I just gave the paper back."

Ms Promlee says she was not allowed to have someone with her to read out questions and was not offered any translation assistance. She was not offered any more work.

Integrated said Ms Promlee had the questions read to her and was given the chance to answer them verbally. It said the health and safety test is mandatory for all employees when they register with the company.

But Ms Promlee was not required to sit the exam until six months later. She had already been given a safety orientation by Ceva Logistics, including instruction by a young woman who spoke her language.

"I learnt about how to lift a box without hurting yourself and what boxes are too heavy so you need to ask for help," Ms Promlee said. "I know how to be safe."

This was confirmed by employees at the Lidcombe factory. Integrated refused to comment yesterday.

Ms Promlee's lawyer, Giri Sivaraman, said the case was one of the more blatant examples of racial discrimination he had come across. "I just fail to understand how in modern Australia someone can be forced to sit a written test in English," Mr Sivaraman, from law firm Maurice Blackburn, said.

"I was really surprised at the lack of assistance for someone who really needed it. Taking into account the type of work - they should have done better. I think labour hire firms are scared of injured workers. Over the last 10 years I've repeatedly advised people who couldn't get work with labour hire companies because they were injured."

Ms Promlee is also suing Integrated for breaching the Disability Discrimination Act on the grounds that it had refused her request to undertake limited duties while she was recovering from her injury.

SOURCE



10 December, 2010

Dream Act Senate vote postponed

The U.S. Senate was supposed to vote this morning on the Dream Act. The measure would grant legal status to undocumented students and members of the military. But the vote’s been postponed.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised a vote on the Dream Act and put it on the schedule. Not a vote on the measure itself, just what’s called a “cloture” vote – a test to see if there’s the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.

It’s unlikely that the 60 votes are there. And Republican members don’t want to vote on anything until there is an agreement on tax cuts.

So Senator Reid used parliamentary procedure to postpone. He suggested that since the House had passed its own version of the Dream Act Wednesday night, why not just vote on that rather than tackling the Senate version and having to reconcile the two?

The reason: Reid could reschedule a vote on the Dream Act after the tax cut vote.

It’s still unlikely that Reid can rustle up the 60 votes he needs, but for now, the Dream – Act – lives another day.

SOURCE





Supreme Court to hear Arizona immigration case

Against the backdrop of a fierce national debate over illegal immigration, the Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear a challenge to an Arizona law that revokes the licenses of companies that hire undocumented workers.

The disputed law is not the most controversial of new Arizona immigration measures. Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed a law that requires police to investigate the status of anyone an arresting officer suspects may be in the U.S. illegally. That law, which provoked criticism from the Obama administration and others about potential "racial profiling," is mostly on hold while a constitutional challenge is in lower courts.

Yet, the business case could offer clues to the justices' views related to Arizona's broader crackdown on immigrants. "This case may have important ramifications" for the more controversial Arizona law known as SB 1070, observes Georgia State University law professor Neil Kinkopf, because both measures test the divisions between federal and state authority.

A key question is when states may act on immigration, which has traditionally been the province of Congress. Wednesday's case specifically tests whether the 2007 Arizona employer penalties are overridden by U.S. provisions that "pre-empt any state or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing ...) upon those who employ" illegal immigrants. The question is whether the statute is a "licensing" regulation or a broader measure that usurps federal power.

Another element — potential discrimination — looms in challenges to both Arizona immigration laws.

Washington lawyer Carter Phillips, who represents the Chamber of Commerce and civil rights groups in the employer-sanctions lawsuit, says a "reason not to allow states to disrupt federal uniformity is the very real fear that Congress had — that overenforcement of work authorization laws could lead to discrimination based on national origin. If the enforcement people in Maricopa County, for instance, are making workplace raids, you can be pretty certain that employers are going to start limiting their hiring to people who will not raise any suspicion."

A comprehensive immigration law overhaul has stalled in Congress in recent years. The Senate is scheduled to take up a narrow slice of the debate this week when it considers a bill that would provide a way for illegal immigrants who were brought here as children to obtain citizenship, through military service or college.

As more sweeping federal proposals have languished, hundreds of state immigration bills have been passed in the past five years. The Chamber of Commerce says that has generated a patchwork of complicated and conflicting rules nationwide. The rare alliance of business and civil rights groups that have aligned against the Arizona law say they oppose the hiring of illegal immigrants but insist that such regulation should be controlled uniformly by Congress, not by individual states.

Defending their 2007 law, Arizona officials say they simply want to make sure all workers hired by Arizona companies are legally authorized to work in the U.S. State law requires employers to use an otherwise optional federal verification program. That E-Verify system collects identification and authorization data from the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security.

State lawyers, led by Solicitor General Mary O'Grady, who will argue the case Wednesday, tell the justices that Arizona was responding to an increasing number of people crossing the border illegally.

"By 2005, there were approximately 7.2 million unauthorized workers in the United States, representing about five percent of the labor force," O'Grady wrote in the state's brief. "And by 2007, the number of unauthorized aliens reached an estimated 11.8 to 12.5 million people."

Attorney General Terry Goddard, who will be in the courtroom, stressed that Arizona "feels very strongly that this was a proper exercise of state authority, specifically provided for" under federal immigration law.

Arizona says an initial violation of the hiring law warrants only a 10-day suspension of a business license. A second violation can lead to permanent revocation. It asks the justices to affirm a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that the law is only a licensing regulation.

Lawyer Phillips contends the statute does not reflect "any traditional exercise of licensing authority" and imposes sanctions more severe than under U.S. law.

Joining the challenge are several business groups, including the Arizona Contractors Association, and civil rights organizations, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

SOURCE



9 December, 2010

Amnesty “For the Children”? Dream On

How many times have we heard the Democrats repeat the cliché “Do it for the children” as an excuse to forward the left wing agenda? Big government programs such as SCHIP, Head Start, and No Child Left Behind do nothing to help American’s children, but self righteous liberals will attack conservatives who oppose them as anti-child.

Following this ignoble tradition comes the DREAM Act, an amnesty that is ostensibly “for the children.” According to the DREAM Act’s proponents, it applies only to illegal aliens who were brought here before age 16, have been here for over five years, and are going to college or the military.

However, a closer inspection shows that the amnesty is not just for the children.

Under the DREAM Act illegal aliens up to age 35 may apply for amnesty. To receive provisional legal status, the minimum education level is only a GED. Then the illegal aliens need only say they intend to go to college. There are dozens of loopholes that allow multiple convicted criminals to receive amnesty.

The pro-amnesty Migration Policy Institute estimates that 2.1 million illegal aliens will be eligible for the DREAM Act, but that assumes no fraud or exploitation of the loopholes.

Remember the open borders’ lobby’s favorite euphemism for “illegal” is “undocumented.” Without documents, we have no way to know how long illegal aliens have been in this country, what age they came through, or even how old they are today. The House of Representatives version of the bill does not even include any punishment for lying on the application.

There is no numerical limitation of how many illegal aliens may apply and receive amnesty under the DREAM Act.

On top of this, once an illegal alien receives amnesty, they can sponsor their family members—including those who brought them here in the first place—for legal immigration.

Even if the DREAM Act only dealt with those genuinely brought here as children, it would be a bad idea. I sympathize these people, but with state budgets in crisis, double digit unemployment, and our colleges overcrowded, we cannot give any illegal immigrants special rewards. The Center for Immigration Studies places the cost of the DREAM Act to taxpayers at 6.2 billion dollars.

The DREAM Act even gives these illegal aliens privileges denied to many American citizens. If passed, illegal aliens will be eligible for taxpayer subsidized federal loans, and states would be able to grant in state tuition to illegal aliens.

The vast majority of illegal aliens eligible under the DREAM Act will be Hispanics who are eligible for racial preferences and affirmative action in college admissions in most states.

Congress rejected the DREAM Act in September knowing that the voters would punish pro-amnesty votes, but now the Reid, Pelosi, and Obama are trying to shove this down our throats in the lame duck session.

If Republicans stand united, they can block the amnesty. There are a handful of RINOs who Obama is targeting to vote with the Democrats. At the same time, there are about a dozen Democrats who have suggested they might vote against it.

This will be an incredibly close vote, and Americans should call up their representatives in Congress and let them know where they stand.

Defeating the DREAM Act will send a huge message to Congress: no amnesty, no exceptions, even if it’s “for the children.”

Source







US fails to tackle student visa abuses

Lured by unsupervised, third-party brokers with promises of steady jobs and a chance to sightsee, some foreign college students on summer work programs in the U.S. get a far different taste of life in America.

An Associated Press investigation found students forced to work in strip clubs instead of restaurants. Others take home $1 an hour or even less. Some live in apartments so crowded that they sleep in shifts because there aren't enough beds. Others have to eat on floors.

They are among more than 100,000 college students who come to the U.S. each year on popular J-1 visas, which supply resorts with cheap seasonal labor as part of a program aimed at fostering cultural understanding.

Government auditors have warned about problems in the program for 20 years, but the State Department, which is in charge of it, only now says it is working on new rules. Officials won't say what those rules are or discuss on the record the problems that have plagued J-1 visas.

John Woods, deputy assistant director of national security for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, told the AP there were at least two federal investigations under way into human trafficking related to J-1 visas. He would not provide details.

The AP interviewed students, advocates, local authorities and social service agencies, and reviewed thousands of pages of confidential records, police reports and court cases. Among the findings:

* Many foreign students pay recruiters to help find employment, then don't get work or wind up making little or no money at menial jobs. Labor recruiters charge students exorbitant rent for packing them into filthy, sparsely furnished apartments so crowded that some endure "hotbunking," where they sleep in shifts.

* Students routinely get threatened with deportation or eviction if they quit, or even if they just complain too loudly. Some resort to stealing essentials like food, toothpaste and underwear, according to police.

"The vast majority of participating students in this program find it a rewarding experience and return home safely," the State Department said in an e-mail to the AP.

But it's not hard to find exceptions. Most of the nearly 70 students the AP interviewed in 10 states, hailing from 16 countries, said they were disappointed, and some were angry.

"This is not what I thought when I paid all this money to come here," said Natalia Berlinschi, a Romanian who came to the U.S. on a J-1 visa hoping to save up for dental school but got stuck in South Carolina this summer without a job. She took to begging for work on the Myrtle Beach boardwalk and sharing a three-bedroom house with 30 other exchange students. "I was treated very, very badly," Berlinschi said. "I will never come back."

* The State Department failed to even keep up with the number of student complaints until this year, and has consistently shifted responsibility for policing the program to the 50 or so companies that sponsor students for fees that can run up to several thousand dollars. That has left businesses to monitor their own treatment of participants.

The program generates millions for the sponsor companies and third-party labor recruiters.

Businesses that hire students can save 8 percent by using a foreign worker over an American because they don't have to pay Medicare, Social Security and unemployment taxes. The students are required to have health insurance before they arrive, another cost that employers don't have to bear.

Many businesses say they need the seasonal work force to meet the demand of tourist season.

"There's been a massive failure on the part of the United States to bring any accountability to the temporary work visa programs, and it's especially true for the J-1," said Terry Coonan, a former prosecutor and the executive director of Florida State University's Center for the Advancement of Human Rights.

The issues are serious enough that the former Soviet republic of Belarus told its young people in 2006 to avoid going to the U.S. on a J-1, warning of a "high level of danger" after one of its citizens in the program was murdered, another died in what investigators in the U.S. said was a suicide, and a third was robbed.

* Strip clubs and adult entertainment companies openly solicit J-1 workers, even though government regulations ban students from taking jobs "that might bring the Department of State into notoriety or disrepute."

"If you wish to dance in USA as a J-1 exchange visitor, contact us," ZM Studios, a broker for topless dancers, advertised on its website this year. The ad said ZM Studios is "affiliated with designated visa sponsors" and can get women J-1 visas and jobs at topless clubs in cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

ZM Studios president Julian Andreev denied employing J-1 students in an e-mail to the AP, but the company's site on Friday still guaranteed help getting visas for prospective dancers, noting that they need a J-1 or one of two other types of visas to work legally.

J-1 students have been recruited to smuggle cash that authorities said was stolen from U.S. bank accounts, court records show, and their identities have been used in a million-dollar income tax scam. "It's difficult to prosecute these cases because the workers usually leave the country within a few months. That's why the J-1 is the ideal visa to exploit," Coonan said. In the worst cases, students get funneled into sexual slavery.

The J-1 Summer Work and Travel program, which allows college students to visit for up to four months, is one of the State Department's most popular visas. Participation has boomed from about 20,000 in 1996 to a peak of more than 150,000 in 2008.

The visas are issued year-round, since students come from both hemispheres on their summer breaks. They work all over the country, at theme parks in Florida and California, fish factories in Alaska and upscale ski destinations in Colorado and Montana.

The influx has been especially overwhelming for some resort towns.

In Maryland, the Ocean City Baptist Church served more than 1,700 different J-1 participants from 46 countries who sought free meals this summer, sometimes upward of 500 in one night, said Lynn Davis, who leads the food ministry.

Down the coast in Virginia Beach, Va., a homeless shelter that typically feeds 100 people a day was serving twice that many this summer as the site became overrun with J-1 students. The Judeo-Christian Outreach Center began running out of food on some days and was forced to limit how often the students could eat there, said Tony Zontini, the shelter's assistant director.

Hotels, restaurants and other businesses often hire third-party labor recruiters to supply the J-1 workers. Many of those brokers are people from the students' native countries, often former Soviet bloc nations.

These middlemen commonly dock students' pay so heavily for lodging, transportation and other necessities that the wages work out to $1 an hour or less, according to George Collins, an inspector at the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department in the Florida Panhandle who has worked cases involving J-1 students since 2001. Collins, who once notified the State Department that "J-1 abuse is epidemic here," told the AP the same companies often exploit students year after year despite his reporting them.

For years, the State Department has refused to publicly discuss problems in the program in any kind of detail.

The AP asked the State Department in a Freedom of Information Act request in March 2009 for a full list of complaints related to the program. In May, more than a year later, the department finally responded that it kept no such list, and that it keeps records related to the program for only three years.

Last month, the department said it had finally created a database of complaints. "It turns out that until this year, we did NOT keep a record of complaints. Now, we do," Marthena Cowart, a senior adviser for the department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, said in a Nov. 10 e-mail.

Cowart did not provide a copy of the complaint database to the AP or indicate how many complaints it included. And the department declined to discuss the AP's findings on the record.

"We are deeply concerned by any allegations involving the poor treatment of participants as this potentially undermines our goal of promoting mutual understanding and goodwill between the people of the United States and the people of other countries," the department said Friday in declining an interview request.

For the many J-1 women who end up working in strip clubs, whether by choice or force, the changes can't come soon enough. In Florida, a 19-year-old Russian told the AP she went to work as a cocktail waitress this summer at a topless bar in Fort Walton Beach because the souvenir shop where she worked didn't pay much and the shop owner had her living in a crowded, run-down apartment.

She gave the AP only her first name, Oleysa, because she hadn't told her parents. "My father doesn't know where I work," she said, lowering her gaze to a tray of beers and mixed drinks.

A Ukrainian woman who said she was forced to strip in Detroit asked the AP to identify her only as Katya, because she fears for her life.

Katya, who used the same alias when testifying to Congress in October 2007 about how sex trafficking brought her to the U.S., said she was studying sports medicine in Kiev back in 2004 when her boss told her about the J-1 program.

Instead of waitressing for a summer in Virginia as she'd been promised, however, Katya and another student were forced to strip at a club in Detroit. Their handler confiscated their passports and told them they had to pay $12,000 for the travel arrangements and another $10,000 for work documents, according to court records.

Katya said he eventually demanded she come up with $35,000 somehow, by dancing or other means. "I said, 'That's not what I signed here for. That's not right.' He said, 'Well, you owe me the money. I don't care how I get it from you. If I have to sell you, I'll sell you.'" The women were told that if they refused, their families in Ukraine would be killed, Katya said.

Over the next months, the two men beat the women, threatened them with guns and made them work at Cheetah's strip club, court records state. Katya said one of the men also forced her to have sex, a memory she still struggles with.

The two men are now in prison, and Katya's old boss in Ukraine is a fugitive. Katya was allowed to stay on a different visa designed for victims of human trafficking and other crimes, and her mother was allowed into the U.S. because of threats on her life in Ukraine.

Even J-1 students who avoid physical or sexual abuse often face other challenges. Exchange student Munkh-Erdene Battur said he and four others were fired from their fast-food jobs last year in Riverton, Wyo., after complaining about living in what looked like a converted garage and paying $350 apiece per month for the accommodations. "In my whole life, I've never lived in that kind of place and that kind of conditions," said Battur, who is from Mongolia.

Iuliia Bolgaryna came to work this summer at a souvenir store on the outskirts of Surf City, N.C.

The store manager offered to let her and two other women from the Ukraine stay with him for $120 a week. But he wouldn't let them eat at the table, so they huddled together for meals on the floor. They worked loads of overtime but were only paid for 40 hours a week. The store manager declined to comment. "It was almost normal that he screamed, that we worked 14 hours, that we ate on the floor," she said. "That was our America."

Source



8 December, 2010

New from the Center for Immigration Studies‏

1. Estimating the Impact of the DREAM Act.

Excerpt: This Memorandum examines the costs and likely impact of the DREAM Act currently being considered by Congress. The act offers permanent legal status to illegal immigrants up to age 35 who arrived in the United States before age 16 provided they complete two years of college. Under the act, beneficiaries would receive in-state tuition. Given the low income of illegal immigrants, most can be expected to attend state schools, with a cost to taxpayers in the billions of dollars. As both funds and slots are limited at state universities and community colleges, the act may reduce the educational opportunities available to U.S. citizens.

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2. DREAM On.

Excerpt: There’s no doubt that this is the most sympathetic group of illegal immigrants. That is precisely why DREAM has been dangled as bait for the more general amnesty proposals described as “comprehensive immigration reform,” with amnesty advocates brandishing the situation of these young people as justification for a broader amnesty. (Though no one seems to have stopped to ask: If such a comprehensive bill would provide amnesty for all illegals, then why would we need DREAM?)

Nonetheless, now that the amnesty crowd has belatedly decided to move ahead on DREAM as a standalone measure, many in the public and Congress are open to the idea of addressing the situation of such young people. But the DREAM Act, in every one of its iterations over the years, has four fatal flaws . . .

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3. Amnesty Advocates Trumpet Distinction Without a Difference.

Excerpt: The ever-creative advocates of amnesty for illegal aliens are pressing what they regard as a historical argument for the proposed DREAM and AgJobs Acts – that those kinds of specialized programs, not general amnesties, are, in effect, the American Way. That's their position.

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4. GAO Reports Fraud and Abuse in H-2B Program.

Excerpt: The H-2B program for unskilled non-agricultural migrant workers is one of the nation's many alien worker programs, and one that, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report, is subject to extensive fraud and abuse.

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5. Straw Man Arguments and Chutzpah Used to Defend Tuition Break for Illegals.

Excerpt: Those supporting tuition breaks for illegal aliens attending college sometimes use both straw man arguments and chutzpah math to advance their cause.

There is, for example, a November 23 article in the Fresno Bee headed 'Illegal immigrants are not getting free college education, Calif. official says.'

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. 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






Israel fears 'flood' of migrants threatens state

Ismail Abdul-Rasul and his family escaped war in Darfur, languished in squalid conditions in Egypt for five years and nearly suffocated in a harrowing journey across the Sinai desert before they were finally smuggled into Israel. "I was dancing with joy when I arrived," said the 47-year-old father or four, who reached Israel in July 2007. "It was one of the happiest days of my life."

In recent years, tens of thousands of Africans like Abdul-Rasul have entered the country through its long desert border with Egypt, turning Israel, like parts of Europe, into a magnet for asylum seekers, and even more, for migrants desperate for jobs in the industrialized world.

Their arrivals are hardly being welcomed. Facing a public furor, the government is scrambling to erect a fence along the 130-mile (220-kilometer) Egyptian border and a massive detention center in the remote southern desert.

With Israel, however, come special complications: Founded six decades ago in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust genocide, its society is torn between a sense of duty toward the persecuted and fears that the influx might make the country less Jewish.

In a speech to parliament last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a "flood" of illegal migrants. "It is threatening the jobs of Israelis, and it is threatening the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel," he said.

The government says that all but a select few are economic migrants and not eligible for refugee status. But critics charge the government is turning away bona fide refugees fleeing persecution. "The state is lying, it knows it is lying and it purposely refuses to check the refugees' status because that will prove that it is lying," said Sigal Rozen of the Hotline for Migrant Workers advocacy group.

Israel would seem to be an unlikely destination for African migrants, who have few ties to the Jewish state. Egypt, however, has a large population of migrants _ and after Egypt violently quashed a 2005 protest by a group of Sudanese refugees, they began trickling north into Israel. Approximately 35,000 have entered Israel since, with the number surging to 1,500 arrivals every month, according to government figures.

Some cities have been transformed. Some 10 percent of the population of the Red Sea resort town of Eilat are African migrants, and an entire neighborhood in south Tel Aviv is known as "Little Africa," where ethnic food shops and phone card stalls line the streets.

The vast majority hail from Eritrea, where men are often forced into a military service with slavery-like conditions, and Sudan, which was torn by a 22-year-civil war and continues to see a separate conflict in its Western region Darfur that some have labeled a genocide, with some 300,000 have been killed and 2.7 million displaced since 2003, according to the U.N.

Rozen said 88 percent of Eritrean asylum seekers worldwide were granted refugee status last year, while in Israel not one was processed.

Initially, Israel took in many of the early arrivals, providing shelter and even arranging jobs in hotels and on kibbutz collective farms. Nearly 3,000 people received temporary residence or work permits. But with no overarching policy, most migrants are simply released onto the streets after brief detentions.

Haifa University geography professor Arnon Soffer estimates that if the current pace persists there will be approximately 500,000 illegal migrants in Israel within 15 years. He called the influx an "existential threat" to a country of just 7.6 million people.

To be sure, Israel is not alone in confronting the issue. Greece, which accounts for 90 percent of the European Union's detected illegal border crossings, has asked for emergency help from the EU in patrolling its border with Turkey. Italy, with its long and loosely guarded coastline, has become the destination of tens of thousands of would-be immigrants a year, most from Libya.

The Africans have found pockets of sympathy in Israel. Human rights groups and high profile figures like Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel have urged the government to offer a home to Darfurians escaping genocide.

The Africans describe harrowing journeys, fleeing persecution at home and making their way through Egypt, where human rights groups say border guards have shot and killed 85 Africans trying to reach Israel since 2007.

In Egypt's Sinai desert, the migrants pay thousands of dollars to Bedouin smugglers to get them across the border and are often held hostage by the smugglers who extort their relatives for more.

The Israel branch of Physicians for Human Rights has collected dozens of accounts from migrants describing abuse at the hands of Bedouin traffickers. According to the testimonies, smugglers routinely rape migrants, subject them to electric shocks, burn them with iron bars and lock them in sweltering containers without food or water. "Five or six men raped me multiple times, I'm not sure how many times. They also beat me many times. I felt like I was going to die," according to a testimony from an Eritrean woman, identified only as H.A.S.

Abdul-Rasul, the Darfurian who arrived in 2007, is one of the few who has earned legal status in Israel. He works in a computer goods store in south Tel Aviv. His children now all speak fluent Hebrew, and his 17-year-old daughter _ who survived a gunshot to the head in Sudan _ is thinking of joining the military in Israel.

But he doubts he would repeat his journey today, saying it would be far too dangerous. "I was one of the lucky ones," he said.

Source



7 December, 2010

Bogus foreign students in Britain facing visa crackdown after shocking figures show a quarter flout the rules

An end to the rampant abuse of the visa system by thousands of students who claim to be attending private colleges will be announced by ministers tomorrow.

The Home Office has uncovered shocking figures showing that 26 per cent of the non-EU students given permission to attend the colleges go on to flout the rules. They do not bother to go home, disappear into the black economy, or work illegally.

Under plans to be unveiled tomorrow, only students attending university courses will be entitled to a visa. Only a small number of the most trusted private colleges will be allowed to ‘sponsor’ migrants. In stark contrast to private colleges, only 2 per cent of immigrants going to university break immigration rules.

Ministers will also slash students’ entitlement to work – which is currently 20 hours a week – and limit their ability to bring in dependants.

They say the measures will help to meet their commitment to reduce net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’, while ending the abuse of student visas which took place under Labour.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said: ‘They have left us with a system that is wildly out of control. The figures are staggering.’
The Home Office has uncovered shocking figures showing that 26 per cent of the non-EU students given permission to attend colleges in the UK go on to flout the visa system rules

Home Office research, released last night, shows that students represent almost two-thirds of the non-EU migrants entering the UK each year. Last year, the figure was more than 300,000.

But officials said 41 per cent of students from abroad were coming to study a course below degree level, and abuse was ‘particularly common’ at those levels.

A supposed student from Delhi, who travelled to the UK to enrol on a diploma course in hospitality management, thought the course would allow him to become a doctor. He could not understand English.

Mr Green said: ‘We will only admit people to do degrees at a genuine institution or with a verifiable sponsor.’

SOURCE






An educated guess on Texas students in the U.S. illegally

In Texas, nobody asks, nobody tells, but a whole lot of people would sure like to know. How many illegal immigrants attend the state's public schools, supported by taxpayer money?

While the answer is unknown because schools do not track students' legal status, estimates from top researchers and a Dallas Morning News analysis of little-known state data provide a range that is lower than many people might expect.

•At the lower end, researchers estimate between 125,000 and 150,000 illegal immigrants attended Texas public schools in 2009, making up 3 percent of Texas students and costing taxpayers more than $1 billion a year.

•At the top end, the analysis provides a solid ceiling. State records show 92 percent of the state's schoolchildren have Social Security numbers on file, indicating they are legally in the United States. That means Texas cannot have more than 8 percent – about 400,000 illegal immigrant students – or spend more than $3.5 billion annually to educate them.

The precise numbers are almost certainly lower because school districts cannot require parents to provide Social Security numbers, though most ask for them.

"Eight percent is a ceiling, but it's a high ceiling," said Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

Passel estimates there were 150,000 illegal immigrants in Texas schools in 2009, including a small portion who attended private schools. His work is derived from U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Labor surveys. He acknowledges the margin for error in his Texas estimate is "pretty big." He declined to give a specific margin.

Some want the guesswork to end.

A bill has been filed for the next Texas legislative session, which begins in January, that would require districts to ask for proof of legal status and report the number of illegal immigrants who attend their schools. Similar bills have failed in the past, but the political climate has changed, raising the odds of success this time.

Plyler vs. Doe

Taxpayers, school districts and the state are entitled to know the number, some argue, because they bear the brunt of the costs. Others say the counting effort is designed to discourage parents from enrolling children who are in the United States illegally, endangering their right to education guaranteed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982.

In Plyler vs. Doe, a Tyler case, the court struck down a Texas law denying public education funding to illegal immigrants and attempts to charge them tuition.

There is disagreement about whether the court's decision also prohibits counting illegal immigrant students. That's why school districts currently avoid the issue by not asking.

State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, said nothing forbids districts to track illegal immigrants, as long as they aren't denied admittance. Berman said illegal immigrants cost Texas billons of dollars a year in services, including the building of additional public schools. "The illegal aliens aren't paying for those school buildings," Berman said.

"Enough is enough," echoes Dallas resident Shirley Daniels, who has grandchildren in Dallas ISD. "They're taking away from us."

Talk like that worries relatives of students in the country illegally and their advocates, who point out that some illegal immigrants do pay taxes.

"What's the point in knowing whether they're here legally or illegally?" said Alicia Luna of Dallas, who has nieces here illegally. "To me it would be to kick them out."

David Hinojosa, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that asking a student's status could violate the Supreme Court ruling because it might make parents, already fearful of authorities, hold their kids out of school.

"There's no educational purpose. It's very mean-spirited and leads nowhere," Hinojosa said.

Dallas teacher Diane Birdwell said the proposed law would send kids here illegally into hiding and increase school dropout rates.

"If this law is to destroy some of our public schools, then that is what it would do," said Birdwell, who sits on the board of directors for NEA-Dallas employees association. "If you don't want these kids in school, then get the people who hire their parents."

The idea of counting illegal immigrant students, while controversial, has received support from the U.S. General Accounting Office. In a 2004 report, the audit and investigative arm of Congress said it was relevant for states to know the exact number. A possible future federal reimbursement of costs related to illegal immigrants is one reason cited.

Texas state Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, fears that the bill requiring school districts to determine citizenship and other bills targeting immigrants could pass next year because of large GOP majorities in both the state House and Senate.

"They'll be able to pass anything – and anti-immigration is a top priority," Farrar said.

That would be a mistake, she said. In the long run, not educating immigrants will cost more.

Social Security test

Students who don't submit Social Security numbers when they first enroll in Texas schools get a state-approved alternative ID from their school district. Both numbers are used for tracking purposes.

The state reviews the Social Security numbers, but the numbers are not verified with the federal government.

In The News' analysis, higher concentrations of alternative IDs were found around the largest cities. Dallas ISD and Houston ISD issued alternative IDs to about 18 percent of their students.

The percentage of students without Social Security numbers in Dallas ISD is close to an estimate of illegal immigrant students that Superintendent Michael Hinojosa provided: about 15 percent, or 23,000 students, accounting for more than $200 million in annual costs.

In The News' analysis, some suburban districts, like Plano, Denton and Katy, near Houston, had surprisingly high proportions of students with alternative IDs.

But that does not appear to mean they have large numbers of illegal immigrant students.

School officials at Plano and Katy said their communities have a lot of foreign workers, here legally, and their children don't have Social Security numbers. The officials also said some parents don't provide Social Security numbers because they worry about potential identity theft.

Denton ISD, where nearly 26 percent of the students were using alternative IDs, doesn't change an alternative ID number even if the student later produces a Social Security number.

Hinojosa thinks that alternative IDs provide the best ballpark maximum for illegal immigrant student figures. But he found the maximum of only 8 percent "a little surprising."

Lew Blackburn, currently DISD's longest-serving trustee, had guessed that the proportion of illegal immigrant students statewide would be 15 to 25 percent. Regardless of the number, he said, schools should not be "immigration policemen."

"You're going to have parents that are afraid to have their kids in school," he said.

Ana, who is in the country illegally, has a son, also in the country illegally, who is a senior at W.T. White High School in northwest Dallas. She said she never felt threatened when enrolling him in school, but she's concerned about what could happen now.

"They'll try to place more restrictions," she said.

Some say schools have already gone too far in efforts to collect Social Security numbers.

The News found that 41 of 50 districts reviewed in North Texas listed a Social Security card as an enrollment requirement on their websites.

Civil liberties groups say posing what should be a request as a requirement is against the law.

"It's not that they can't ask for it, but they can't require it," said Lisa Graybill, ACLU Foundation of Texas legal director. "They should be concerned about the accuracy of what's on their website. It's definitely something to be concerned about."

Varying estimates

Over the past decade, several estimates, including two from the Texas comptroller's office, have pegged the proportion of illegal immigrants in the state's public schools at 3 to 5 percent of total enrollment.

The lowest estimate, by the comptroller's office, was 125,000 students for the 2000-01 school year. The highest was 225,000 for 2003-04, by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-illegal-immigrant group that has issued several reports about the strain that it says immigrants place on the public education system.

In its latest estimate, for 2009, FAIR drastically reduced the number of illegal immigrant students in Texas public schools to 127,390, nearly 100,000 less than its 2003-04 estimate.

Part of the reason for the lower number, explained Jack Martin, FAIR's director of special projects, is because the flow of new immigrants to the U.S. has slowed in recent years, while illegal immigrants who are already here continue to have children.

That raises a separate, but related issue: U.S.-born children – therefore, U.S. citizens – of illegal immigrants. In Texas, the Pew Center's Passel estimated, there were 350,000 U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants in grades K-12 in 2009, more than twice as many students as those who were illegal immigrants themselves.

Adding that group to the illegal immigrant children means about 500,000 Texas school-age children have parents who are living in the country illegally, making up about 11.5 percent of the state's enrollment, Passel estimates. That's almost twice the national rate.

FAIR and some Republicans in Washington say it's time to end birthright citizenship.

Berman has proposed a bill for this session that would prohibit the state from giving a birth certificate to a child whose parents are here illegally. He said if the bill passes, he expects a lawsuit to be filed in protest – which he hopes will get the issue before the Supreme Court.

As the estimates and debates continue, Dallas-area Latinos don't want people to overlook the social aspect of the issue – and its possible effect on schoolchildren.

"It's unfair for them to involve a school with immigration issues," said Luna, the Dallas resident who has nieces here illegally. "Kids have to be here because of their parents."

SOURCE



6 December, 2010

Obama cooking the books on deportations

For much of this year, the Obama administration touted its tougher-than-ever approach to immigration enforcement, culminating in a record number of deportations.

But in reaching 392,862 deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement included more than 19,000 immigrants who exited the previous fiscal year, according to agency statistics. ICE also ran a Mexican repatriation program five weeks longer than ever before, allowing the agency to count at least 6,500 exits that, without the program, would normally have been tallied by the U.S. Border Patrol.

When ICE officials realized in the final weeks of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, that the agency still was in jeopardy of falling short of last year's mark, it scrambled to reach the goal. Officials quietly directed immigration officers to bypass backlogged immigration courts and time-consuming deportation hearings whenever possible, internal e-mails and interviews show.

Instead, officials told immigration officers to encourage eligible foreign nationals to accept a quick pass to their countries without a negative mark on their immigration record, ICE employees said.

The option, known as voluntary return, may have allowed hundreds of immigrants, who typically would have gone before an immigration judge to contest deportation for offenses such as drunken driving, domestic violence and misdemeanor assault, to leave the country. A voluntary return doesn't bar a foreigner from applying for legal residence or traveling to the United States in the future.

Once the agency closed the books for the 2010 fiscal year and the record was broken, agents say they were told to stop widely offering the voluntary return option and revert to business as usual.

Without these efforts and the more than 25,000 deportations that came with them, the agency would not have topped last year's record level of 389,834, current and former ICE employees and officials said.

The Obama administration was intent on doing so even as it came under attack by some Republicans for not being tough enough on immigration enforcement and by some Democrats for failing to deliver on promises of comprehensive immigration reform.

"It's not unusual for any administration to get the numbers they need by reaching into their bag of tricks to boost figures," said Neil Clark, who retired as the Seattle field office director in late June, adding that in the 12 years he spent in management he saw the Bush and Clinton administrations do similar things.

More HERE






Colorado Wants Arizona Style Immigration Reform

Rep. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa, one of a small handful of Democratic Hispanics in the Legislature, said she’s waiting to see how things shake out before committing to supporting or opposing the legislation. But she said she believes the federal government should be handling immigration policy. If the state does pass a law, she thinks it should focus on making it difficult for businesses to hire undocumented workers.

Colorado held a special session on immigration in 2006 under a Republican governor and a Democratic Legislature. Compromise included barring illegal immigrants’ use of some state services, requiring law enforcement officials to report those they believe to be in the country illegally, and creating a state patrol unit to enforce immigration law and combat human smuggling.

They included a measure requiring employers to prove they don’t hire illegals to qualify for state economic development grants and other incentives. Another denied state business and professional licenses to illegals, and a third required political subdivisions to verify that anyone over 18 who applies for public benefits is in the country legally. Cities were prohibited from enacting policies that stop cooperation with immigration officials.

Some Republicans like Senator-elect Kent Lambert (R-Colorado Springs) want to see a law passed here patterned after Arizona’s new immigration law requiring police to check people’s immigration status. He says there are too many instances of Colorado employers hiring illegal immigrants because they know they’ll work for cheaper.

The Arizona law, which was signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer earlier this year, has received national attention. The law requires officials to inquire on an individual’s immigration status if they have reasonable suspicion. It also bans illegal immigrants from soliciting work in public places and allows for warrantless arrests when people commit crimes that can result in their deportation.

As sources have explained to the Colorado Independent, E-Verify only detects on average half the people it should detect as undocumented. Worse, it doesn’t nab people looking to dodge it. Those people steal identities; they get false ID numbers that work. Indeed, some say E-Verify creates a whole new level of business in identity theft. The other thing it does, often, is misidentify as undocumented people who are documented or in the legal process of getting documented.

SOURCE



5 December, 2010

Special report: Will the white British population be in a minority in 2066?

When future historians consider the most significant legacy of 13 years of New ­Labour rule, what will they decide upon? Chapter upon chapter will focus on the spending binge and subsequent debt crisis. Likewise, much will be written on the weakening of this country’s moral authority in the world, caused by the last government’s shameful complicity in torture, and military misadventure in Iraq.

But, in an article for this month’s left-of-centre Prospect magazine, the Oxford University academic Professor David Coleman indicates the longest-lasting impact on society may well be something else: the demographic upheaval brought about by the policy of mass immigration.

To quote Prof Coleman, an expert in population change, ‘the inflows of the last decade’ — which took place with no debate, or public mandate — ‘have been more sudden and on a bigger scale than ever before’.

And if they continue on a similar scale, he says ‘they will transform the demography of this country’ to the extent that, in the lifetime of a young person alive today, the ‘white British population’ will become a minority group. It is a startling, controversial assertion — but so are the figures on which Prof Coleman bases his claim.

At this point it should be stressed that the professor, a government adviser who is one of Britain’s foremost experts on demographics, is hugely respected for his academic ­rigour and for the avoidance of ­emotion and prejudice in his work.

As recently as 1998, he points out, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) projected that the UK population would peak at about 65 million in 2051, and then slowly decline. Yet the latest projection — revised by the ONS in 2008 to take into account the unprecedented levels of net migration under Labour— expected Britain’s population to rise to 77 million by 2051, and to 85 million by 2083. To put this in simple terms, it is the equivalent to adding the population of the Netherlands to the UK by 2050.

Moreover, if Britain continues along current trends, with net immigration staying at its long-term level of around 180,000 a year, the make-up of the country will change dramatically.

The white British-born ­population — defined by Prof Coleman as white English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish-born citizens — would decline from 80 per cent of the total now to 59 per cent in 2051.

Further into the future, and also taking into account factors such as changing birth and death rates, the ‘white British population’ would become the minority after about 2066.
Many observers will question the definition of 'white British' or consider it anachronistic or irrelevant. If you are British, it really does not matter what colour or race you are

Britain will become — as Prospect magazine’s headline puts it — a ‘majority minority’ country. ‘Majority minority’ is a phrase designed to encapsulate the fact that groups traditionally viewed as being in the minority will, when combined, become the majority. This is something that has already happened in two London boroughs (Tower Hamlets and Newham), with six more local council areas projected to join them by 2031, according to the Greater London Authority.

Many observers will question the definition of ‘white British’, or consider it anachronistic or irrelevant. If you are British, it really does not matter what colour or race you are. However, it is the official classification used by academics to gauge the pace of change, and the impact which immigration is having on society.

And, as a YouGov opinion poll revealed this week, it is also something that appears deeply to concern the British public. Asked what their opinion would be, should Prof Coleman’s projection about the make-up of Britain post-2066 prove accurate, 73 per cent of the public said they would feel ‘unhappy’.

Some 85 per cent of Tory ­voters hold this view. Interestingly, so do 67 per cent of Labour supporters and 55 per cent of Lib Dems — the two parties widely considered to promote open-door immigration policies. Only a fifth of the public said they would be neither happy nor unhappy. Two per cent, or one in every 50 people, said they would be ‘happy’.

The primary reason there is such widespread concern about immigration is the belief that Britain simply does not have the infrastructure or ­public services to cope with such a rapidly growing population. More than two million new homes will have to be built over the next 25 years for immigrants — a figure that may not be possible to achieve.

The alternative will be more cramped living standards, or increased prices because ­supply cannot meet demand. Water supply in the South-East, in particular, would come under enormous strain.

In schools, the MigrationWatch think-tank, with which Prof Coleman does research, estimates that more than a million additional places will be needed over the next ­decade, at a cost of £100 billion – an extraordinary sum, at a time of government spending restraint.

The worry is that if adequate schooling cannot be provided for the children of immigrants, they will be unable to learn English and prosper in the same way that past generations of new arrivals have done or fully integrate into society.

Which leads to the main issue raised by Prof Coleman’s ­article: how to manage the ‘enormous change to national identity — cultural, political, economic and religious’ which would be brought about by ‘white ­Britons’ becoming a minority group.

The fear is that the scale of the population increase will not provide sufficient time for proper integration between different cultures and religions. Of course, had the last government chosen to pursue a policy of integration, there may be far fewer grounds for concern.

The new Coalition Government faces the huge challenge of trying to promote integration, particularly among Muslim communities who, under Labour were only ever spoken to in the context of counter terrorism. But instead, it wedded itself to the failed doctrine of multiculturalism which almost encourages immigrant communities to live in social and cultural isolation with little attempt to integrate them into the host community.

It was this that led to the social tensions that erupted into riots in the early years of this decade in northern towns such as Bradford and Oldham.

Significantly, an official inquiry by the former local government chief Ted Cantle blamed this state-approved policy of allowing communities to lead ‘parallel lives’ for the social unrest.

When Labour finally realised there was an urgent need to foster a sense of ‘Britishness’ among newcomers, their ­proposals to achieve this were utterly inadequate. For example, there was the belated introduction of the so-called Life In The UK test for foreign nationals seeking a British passport. Yet this eschewed questions on British history in favour of risible sections on how to claim welfare benefits.

Then there was the idea of a ‘Britishness Day’ to be the focal point of a campaign for ‘stronger shared standards’ — a ‘celebration of what we like and love about living in this country’ — with street parties, carnivals and sporting events. But the idea fell flat and was abandoned by ministers.

Now the new Coalition ­Government faces the huge challenge of ­trying to promote ­integration, particularly among Muslim communities who, under Labour, were only ever spoken to in the context of counter-­terrorism policy. For example, after the July 7 London bombings, parents were asked to spy on their sons and daughters for signs of extremism or radicalisation.

It is not an exaggeration to say that there is no more daunting or important task for the future happiness and wellbeing of this country than developing a sense of shared British identity.

The urgency for this is underlined by this week’s YouGov poll, which graphically reveals that the overwhelming majority of the public appears not to ­support the rapid demographic change that is under way.

According to Prof Coleman: ‘In Britain, judging by the opposition to high immigration reported in opinion polls over recent years, it seems likely that such developments [the “majority minority” scenario] would be unwelcome.’ However he notes: ‘Some argue that a changed population would be for the better, and in any case inevitable in a globalised world.

So long as there was an adequate degree of integration, a more diverse population would be more creative, innovative, stimulating, open-minded and tolerant.’ This, says the professor, is a view ‘that has become orthodox among the educated elite, though not with the UK population as a whole’.

Prof Coleman’s comments chime with the anger of a large rump of the public at never ­having been consulted by politicians over a policy that allowed three million migrants to enter the UK between 1997 and 2010.

New Labour’s 1997 manifesto, offering not a clue to the future, said disingenuously that ‘every country must have firm control over immigration and Britain is no exception.

Certainly, Tories have long believed that Labour encouraged mass immigration in the belief that as newcomers to a nation tend to be more Left-wing, Labour’s electoral chances would be enhanced.

Meanwhile, in the absence of proper debate or consultation with the British people, odious far-Right groups were able to cynically capitalise on the sense of alienation felt by working-class voters in particular.

If Prof Coleman’s views have one dominant theme, it is that the same mistakes must not be repeated. (And it is encouraging to note that his thought-provoking ­article should be published by a Left-leaning magazine, suggesting that — finally — we may be moving to a time when adult discussion of immigration policy is considered possible.)

The Oxford academic rightly stresses that his population ­projections are just predictions. If the Coalition shows the political will to reduce net migration — the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK and those leaving — to the ‘tens of thousands’, his ­scenario of Britain post-2066 will not happen. The growth in population would be significantly reduced.

Conservative ministers have made a strong start, despite having to fight a constant turf war with their Lib Dem partners who — seemingly misjudging the mood of their own supporters — continue to want open-door policies. Yet their task keeps getting harder and harder, with the ONS this week revealing that net migration, in the last year of Labour rule, was 215,000 — around 35,000 a year more than the assumptions used by Prof Coleman.

Meanwhile, Labour does not yet appear to have found the resolve to change course. Ed Miliband, the new party leader, admits ‘losing touch’ with the voters over immigration. But, in almost the same breath, he allows his MPs to attack the Coalition’s plans to impose a cap on economic migration, with the aim of reducing work visas by a fifth.

Referring to his scenario for 2066 onwards, Prof Coleman writes: ‘If the changes projected here came to pass, they would be perhaps the biggest unintended consequence of government action — or inaction — in our history.

‘It would be curious if embarrassment or demographic ignorance permitted an old society to marginalise itself in its own homeland without discussing it.

‘In a democracy it is surely appropriate, at the very least, for these considerations, for good or ill, to be at the forefront of debate on migration — not the short-term interests of employers and others grown dependent on migration in our distorted economy.’

Whatever the view a person holds on immigration, nobody should disagree with his desire to see the subject fully — and maturely — debated.

When properly controlled, there is much to celebrate and promote about immigration. It brings expertise and industry to the economy, and enriches ­everything from cuisine to our music, culture and theatre.

But the way the last government circumvented the electorate over immigration policy, while silencing any dissenting voices with cries of racism, was an insult to democracy.

Source





Florida Follows Arizona's Lead With New Bill Cracking Down on Illegal Immigrants

Florida has joined Arizona on the front lines of battling illegal immigration with a new bill released this week that seeks to crack down on the estimated 800,000 undocumented workers in the state.

The bill, filed by state Sen. Michael Bennett, allows law enforcement officers to check the residency status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant and would punish some legal immigrants who aren't carrying proper documentation.

Florida has been flirting with releasing an immigration bill since the summer when outgoing state Attorney General Bill McCollum wrote a similar proposal with state Rep. William Snyder. But Snyder has yet to file that bill.

Snyder told FoxNews.com that he's in no rush to file his bill and expects to unveil it next month. He said he is consulting with state Attorney General-elect Pam Bondi and minority communities who are concerned about the bill promoting racial profiling.

"Filing a bill is just pushing a button," he said. "I could do that in instant. Getting people behind the bill is what legislation is all about."


Bennett could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott, who campaigned on cracking down on illegal immigrants in the state, did not return a message seeking comment.

Bondi said she is still reviewing the details of Bennett's bill but expressed support for such a law.

"I am committed to working with the legislature in support of an immigration law for Florida that protects the public, guards against racial profiling and upholds the rule of law," she said in a written statement to FoxNews.com. "I will stand up to any effort by the federal government to stop Florida from implementing such a law."

Like Snyder's bill, Bennett's measure would allow law enforcement officers to check immigration documents during a lawful detention if they suspect the detainee is not in the country legally. But the bill bans the use of race or ethnicity as a reason to check immigration papers. Immigrants who are caught not carrying their documents face a fine of up to $100 and up to 20 days in jail.

Arizona's immigration law ignited a firestorm of criticism when it was passed earlier this year, including legal challenges from the Obama administration and civil rights groups. A U.S. District Court judge blocked key provisions in the summer as the battle between Arizona and the federal government continues, possibly heading to the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, though, several states are working to pass similar bills. As of last month, six other states have filled Arizona-style immigration bills, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Snyder said he's confident that his bill will withstand legal challenges because it is simply enforcing existing federal laws.

"People pushing back think it would create a whole new genre of law," he said. "We're not."

Snyder added that he supports legal immigration.

"I think there are people who are against illegal immigration and there's a whole separate group for open borders," he said. "Those people are using my bill as a platform to rail against any immigration law."

Source



4 December, 2010

No More Illegal Alien Waivers

Michelle Malkin

Open-borders radicalism means never having to apologize for absurd self-contradiction.

The way illegal alien students on college campuses across the country tell it, America is a cruel, selfish and racist nation that has never given them or their families a break. Yet despite their bottomless grievances, they're not going anywhere.

And despite their gripes about being forced "into the shadows," they've been out in the open protesting at media-driven hunger strikes and flooding the airwaves demanding passage of the so-called DREAM Act. This bailout plan would benefit an estimated 2.1 million illegal aliens at an estimated cost of up to $20 billion.

While votes on various DREAM Act proposals are imminent, the Congressional Budget Office has yet to release any official cost scoring. Viva transparency!

To sow more confusion and obfuscate the debate, Democrats in the Senate have foisted four different versions of the bill on the legislative calendar, which all offer variations on the same amnesty theme: Because they arrived here through "no fault of their own," illegal alien children deserve federal education access and benefits, plus a conditional pass from deportation and a special path toward green cards and U.S. citizenship for themselves and unlimited relatives.

In a last-ditch attempt to win over fence-sitters, DREAM Act sponsors have tinkered with eligibility requirements. But supporters know that the words on bill pages -- which hardly anyone will read before voting -- don't matter. Built into the proposals are broad "public interest" waiver powers for the illegal immigration-friendly Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

University of Texas-San Antonio student Lucy Martinez embodies the entitlement mentality of the DREAM Act agitators: "We have done lobbying, legislative visits, marches, sit-ins. We are tired of it," she complained to the San Antonio Express News. The illegal alien student hunger strike "is similar to what we go through in our everyday lives -- starving without a future." But neither she nor her peers have been denied their elementary, secondary or college educations. Neither she nor her peers face arrest for defiantly announcing their illegal status. And for all the hysterical rhetoric about "starving," the federal government and the federal immigration courts have been overly generous in providing wave after wave of de facto and de jure amnesties allowing tens of millions of illegal border-crossers, visa overstayers and deportation evaders from around the world to live, work and prosper here in subversion of our laws.

Among the major acts of Congress providing mass pardons and citizenship benefits:

-- The 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act blanket amnesty for an estimated 2.7 million illegal aliens.

-- 1994: The "Section 245(i)" temporary rolling amnesty for 578,000 illegal aliens.

-- 1997: Extension of the Section 245(i) amnesty.

-- 1997: The Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act for nearly one million illegal aliens from Central America.

-- 1998: The Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti.

-- 2000: Extension of amnesty for some 400,000 illegal aliens who claimed eligibility under the 1986 act.

-- 2000: The Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, which included a restoration of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty for 900,000 illegal aliens.

This is in addition to hundreds of "private relief bills" sponsored in Congress every year.

Most recently, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to stay the deportation of illegal alien DREAM Act activist Steve Li -- whose family's asylum claim was rejected and whom a federal immigration court judge ordered deported in 2004.

These illegal alien passes needn't be approved by Congress for the recipients to gain benefits. Mere introduction of the bills buys the deportable aliens time that ordinary, law-abiding citizens can't buy in our court system. The DREAM Act schemers pretend this isn't a zero-sum game. But every time a private illegal alien relief bill passes, the number of available visas for that year is reduced by the number of illegal alien/deportable immigrant recipients granted legal status/deportation relief through the special legislation.

In Austin, Texas, this week, one illegal alien DREAM Act activist blithely argued to me that "it's not like the government would be sending a message that breaking the law is OK." Reality check: The number of illegal aliens in the U.S. has tripled since President Reagan signed the first amnesty in 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even larger because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number was multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty recipients who then acquired automatic U.S. citizenship.

At a time of nearly double-digit unemployment and drastic higher education cutbacks, a $20 billion special education preference package for up to 2.1 million illegal aliens is not and should not be a priority in Washington. It certainly isn't in the rest of America. And it certainly shouldn't be a priority for federal immigration and homeland security officials, who have a 400,000 deportation fugitives problem, a three-year naturalization application backlog and borders that remain in chaos.

Grownups need to tell the DREAM Act agitators to get in the back of the line.

SOURCE





Refugees are exploiting a loophole in Australian laws

I have commented on this some time ago. Good to see that it is now getting wider recognition

AGAIN, I ask: how old are all these Afghan "boys" who came by boat and will soon be freed into our community?

More than 300 say they are under 18, which makes them "minors" who qualify to bring out their families.

"But I'd say some are in their early 30s," says one of their guards at Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation. "I'd say there were only two of the 168 we've got here in Melbourne who are really under 18. "None of the other 'boys', in inverted commas, speaks to them, and they are frightened out of their minds."

And so evidence grows of a massive rorting of a loophole in the Gillard Government's boat people laws.

In fact, the guard, a staff member of Serco, the firm now running detention centres, claims an extraordinary 128 of the 168 "Afghan boys" in the Melbourne centre have listed as their birthday December 31, 1993.

That's not necessarily the birth date they gave, but the one that Immigration Department officials were forced to put down, unable to get from the "boys" a real birth date.

How odd that so many should be just young enough to qualify as a minor under the boat people laws. And how lucky. If they were one year older, they would lose their right to sponsor their families once they got permanent residency. Nor would they now get all these excursions and the nicer accommodation.

And they wouldn't now be eligible for the Government's latest "compassionate" plan to send unaccompanied minors out to live in the community, looked after by religious groups and charities.

No wonder teachers, doctors, immigration officials and now detention centre staff are privately warning that few of the more than 300 "Afghan boys" who arrived here on boats, without their families, are what they actually claim.

One interstate official told me most of the "Afghan boys" he'd seen given school lessons were clearly young men, older than their classmates.

And the Serco officer says not only do most boys in the Melbourne centre seem older than 18, many do not seem to be from Afghanistan, either.

One month ago, some 40 of those "boys" staged a wild brawl that sent seven to hospital. The Immigration Department claimed the fight started over access to the centre's computers. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre even argued the boys used those computers to track American bombing raids in Afghanistan to see if their families were safe.

In fact, says the Serco staff member, who has asked not to be identified, the brawl started when some 40 Afghans at the centre were joined by 98 more "Afghan boys" flown in from Christmas Island, now full to bursting, after the flood of boats unleashed by Labor's softening of boat people laws in 2008.

The Afghans at the centre became angry when they realised the newcomers were not Afghans but Pakistanis, who could hurt the "real" Afghans' chances of staying.

The Serco staffer thinks they were right to be suspicious: "Most of the newer boys speak fluent Urdu (a Pakistani language) and some even understand French and Italian as well." He suspects some are actually children of Pakistani officials who served overseas, and that they went to international schools. "Australians are so naive. These are boys with hair gel and Manchester United or Chelsea T-shirts."

The statistics alone should have warned the Government its rules were being rorted by Afghans and Pakistanis who saw a way to get entire families to Australia just by sending over a son by boat and have him say he was not yet 18.

Of the 2278 Afghans in detention, an extraordinary 326 claim to be boys aged under 18. Just 22 are girls. Compare this with the 602 Sri Lankans in detention. Only 23 say they are boys under 18, and they are nicely matched by the number of girls -- 21. So, while one in seven Afghans says they are just boys, only one in 26 Sri Lankans claims the same.

The Opposition has now asked what checks are run on "unaccompanied minors" to establish their age, but it already seems clear the Government has yet again been outwitted by mere fly-by-nighters. Or sail-by-dayers.

You must admire the smarts of these "boys". And worry about the brainlessness of the politicians.

SOURCE



3 December, 2010

Incoming Florida governor wants people stopped and asked if they're in Florida legally or not

Gov.-elect Rick Scott [GOP] said he hadn't seen the immigration bill recently filed by Sen. Mike Bennett, but he's supportive of the concept of stopping citizens to ask them to show identification.

Scott, who was in Washington D.C. today meeting with the Florida congressional delegation and will meet with the President Obama tomorrow, along with other newly-elected governors, said he first wants the federal government to "secure our borders."

"We need to come up with an immigration policy that workds for the country," he said. "Finally, if you're stopped in our state -- no different than if you're asked for your ID -- you should be able to be asked if you're legal or not."

Bennett's measure would allow law enforcement officers if ask anyone arrested or detained for their immgration documents if they suspect the detainee is in the country illegally. Bennett believes it will not lead to racial profiling because law enforcement may not stop people solely on the suspicion they they are in the country illegally. The proposal takes it a step farther, however, by proposing to fine legal immigrants who refuse to carry their documentation, with a possible fine of up to $100 and a 20-day jail sentence.

SOURCE




'We let in some crazies'... British leader claimed Labour went soft on radical Muslims

David Cameron told the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan that the Labour government 'let in some crazies', leaked diplomatic documents have revealed. In secret meetings before becoming Prime Minister, he promised the Americans he would toughen policy towards Pakistan.

Mr Cameron and George Osborne met Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks. The American put them under pressure to do more to combat terrorism by making use of the 'striking connections' between the Pakistani community in the UK and militants in their 'home country'.

Mr Holbrooke reported to Washington: 'On the radicalisation of British Pakistanis, Cameron said the UK had "gotten it wrong domestically"... he argued that PM Brown's policy had been too willing to engage with radicalised but non-violent Muslim groups... "We let in some crazies," Cameron said, "and didn't wake up soon enough".'

The Conservatives also promised the U.S. before the election that they would be tougher on Pakistan - because unlike Labour they did not depend on votes from people with Pakistani connections. Liam Fox, who is now defence secretary, criticised Labour for their pro-Pakistan approach in cables given to WikiLeaks.

David Cameron has apparently has apparently shifted the UK's stance towards Pakistan since he was elected. He visited India on a trade mission in June before telling Pakistan 'not to face both ways' when it came to tackling terrorism.

U.S. ambassador to the UK Louis Susman was told that 'the Conservatives are "less dependant" than the Labour party on votes from the British-Pakistani community.' Mr Susman added in the cable: 'Fox criticised the Labour government for policies which reinforce the Indian government's long-held view that HMG's (Her Majesty's Government) foreign relations on the subcontinent are "skewed to Pakistan".'

Britain has 'deep concerns' about the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, WikiLeaks documents showed. Documents from the latest cache of leaked US cables demonstrate that the UK and the US have similar anxieties about Islamabad's nuclear arsenal. US officials are quoted citing the danger of Pakistani fissile material finding its way into the hands of extremists.

SOURCE



2 December, 2010

DREAM Act Will Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion

Act Likely to Adversely Affect American College Students

A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies examines the costs and likely impact of the DREAM Act currently being considered by Congress. The act offers permanent legal status to illegal immigrants up to age 35, who arrived in the United States before age 16, provided they complete two years of college. Under the act, beneficiaries would receive in-state tuition. Given the low income of illegal immigrants, most can be expected to attend state schools, with a cost to taxpayers in the billions of dollars. As both funds and slots are limited at state universities and community colleges, the act may reduce the educational opportunities available to U.S. citizens.

The Memorandum is available online here. Among the findings:

Assuming no fraud, we conservatively estimate that 1.03 million illegal immigrants will eventually enroll in public institutions (state universities or community colleges) as a result of the DREAM Act. That is, they met the residence and age requirements of the act, have graduated high school, or will do so, and will come forward.

On average each illegal immigrant who attends a public institution will receive a tuition subsidy from taxpayers of nearly $6,000 for each year he or she attends for total cost of $6.2 billion a year, not including other forms of financial assistance that they may also receive.

The above estimate is for the number who will enroll in public institutions. A large share of those who attend college may not complete the two full years necessary to receive permanent residence.

The cost estimate assumes that the overwhelming majority will enroll in community colleges, which are much cheaper for students and taxpayers than state universities.

The estimate is only for new students not yet enrolled. It does not include illegal immigrants currently enrolled at public institutions or those who have already completed two years of college. Moreover, it does not include the modest number of illegal immigrants who are expected to attend private institutions.

The DREAM Act does not provide funding to states and counties to cover the costs it imposes. Since enrollment and funding are limited at public institutions, the act’s passage will require some combination of tuition increases, tax increases to expand enrollment or a reduction in spaces available for American citizens at these schools.

Tuition hikes will be particular difficult for students, as many Americans already find it difficult to pay for college. Research indicates that one out of three college students drop out before receiving a degree. Costs are a major reason for the high dropout rate.

In 2009 there were 10.2 million U.S. citizens under age 35 who have dropped out of college without receiving a degree. There was an additional 15.2 million citizens under age 35 who have completed high school, but have never attended college.

Lawmakers need to consider the strains the DREAM Act will create and the impact of adding one roughly million students to state universities and community colleges on the educational opportunities available to American citizens.

Providing state schools with added financial support to offset the costs of the DREAM Act would avoid the fiscal costs at the state and local level, but it would shift the costs to federal taxpayer.

Advocates of the DREAM Act argue that it will significantly increase tax revenue, because with a college education, recipients will earn more and pay more in taxes over their lifetime. However, several factors need to be considered when evaluating this argument:

Any hoped-for tax benefit is in the long-term, and will not help public institutions deal with the large influx of new students the act creates in the short-term.

Given limited spaces at public institutions, there will almost certainly be some crowding out of U.S. citizens ─ reducing their lifetime earnings and tax payments.

The DREAM Act only requires two years of college, no degree is necessary. The income gains for having some college, but no degree, are modest.

Because college dropout rates are high, many illegal immigrants who enroll at public institutions will not complete the two years the act requires, so taxpayers will bear the expense without a long term benefit.

Data Source: The analysis in this report is based on one developed by the Migration Policy Institute, which is based on the 2006 to 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS) collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. We have updated their analysis using the 2009 and 2010 CPS. The above estimates focus on the number of illegal immigrants likely to enroll in state universities or community college. It must be emphasized that it is not an estimate of the number of individuals who are eligible for the DREAM Act amnesty or the number that will ultimately meet all the requirements for permanent residence.

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: Steven Camarota, (202) 466-8185, sac@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




Reid Angers GOP by Pushing Four Versions of DREAM Act Without Hearing

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pushed four different versions of the controversial immigration bill known as the DREAM Act without a hearing on any of them, drawing outrage from the top Republican on the committee that would have handled the package.

The Nevada senator, who narrowly escaped a defeat in the November election, has pursued an unusual approach to advancing the bill that gives young illegal immigrants who attend college or join the military a pathway to legal status.

Since September, his deputy Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has introduced four slightly different versions all bearing the same name. Reid has moved them all to the calendar -- he appears to be teeing up for a test vote, which could happen sometime later this week, on the latest version introduced on Tuesday.

But Republicans balked at the maneuvering. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, railed against the bill and the process Democrats were using to push it. "We now may have a fourth version of the DREAM Act," Sessions said Wednesday. "We haven't had a hearing on that in seven years."

He decried the bill as "amnesty" and pledged to fight it "with every strength and every ability that I have."

A statement to FoxNews.com put out by the Republican side of the Senate Judiciary Committee said all four versions have the same "fundamental" problems, but that Democrats' approach causes unnecessary confusion.

"Democrat leaders, in their rush to pass an unpopular bill during the lame-duck session, have completely bypassed the Judiciary Committee. They have introduced four separate versions of the same bill and, without any committee review, placed each and every one of them on the legislative calendar," the statement said. "This unusual approach creates a chaotic situation, one that makes it more difficult for the public and their representatives -- as well as the press -- to review this deeply controversial measure."

A representative from Reid's office could not be reached for comment.

The latest version of the bill was not available online, but a Senate source said it would lower from 35 to 30 the age at which an illegal immigrant would be eligible to go through the program.

The new version also made illegal immigrants who had committed marriage or voter fraud ineligible, the source said, though those responsible for other infractions like document fraud could still apply.

The changes could be a sign that Democratic leaders are watering down the bill in response to behind-the-scenes grumbling in the Democratic caucus. But the changes appear unlikely to win much support from the Republican side.

All 42 Senate Republicans signed a letter Wednesday vowing to block any legislation until a government spending bill is passed and the Bush tax cuts, set to expire at the end of the year, are extended. A couple of Senate Republicans could cross over once those issues are resolved, but Reid would still have defecting Democrats on his hands.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., wrote in a column on his Senate website that he would oppose the plan to give "hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants" a path to residency. "I'm not going to support any legislation that I don't think adds to jobs, or to the military or to the economy. Consequently, I won't support any motion to proceed or any kind of cloture measure on the DREAM Act," he wrote. "In addition, I think that it must be part of an overall comprehensive solution to immigration once we have the border secured, and not until then."

Democratic groups, though, are putting on the pressure. Organizing for America sent out an e-mail urging supporters to call moderate Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both from Maine, and urge them to vote yes.

Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine said the bill would help build the military, urging Republicans to support it. "The DREAM Act is based on two very simple principles: that children brought up in this country should not be penalized for the actions of their parents and that our country is made stronger by hard-working immigrants who are willing to do what it takes to build a better life in America in a way that makes our country both stronger and more secure," Kaine said in a statement.

But Sessions argued that the bill is not as innocuous as it sounds. "This is not a good idea, it's not well written, it does far more than its supporters say, and it will create litigation in massive amounts that will disrupt the entire ability of immigration officials to do their jobs," he said.

SOURCE



1 December, 2010

Eight in ten Britons want tighter controls on immigration ... even Lib Dem voters want cap

The public, including a sizeable majority of Lib Dem supporters, want far stricter controls on immigration to the UK, according to a poll released last night. The YouGov survey found 81 per cent support for the government's cap on economic migration - which will slash the number of non-EU workers given visas by a fifth.

It is part of a policy to cut net migration - the number of people arriving in Britain, versus those leaving - from 215,000 to the 'tens of thousands'. However, the public, including a large chunk of Lib Dem supporters, is calling on the Coalition to go much further. Some 70 per cent of the public thought that net immigration of 50,000 or less would be 'best for Britain'.

This was the view of 61 per cent of Lib Dems. The figure will surprise party managers, who had widely assumed their supporters wanted relaxed immigration controls. During the consultation over the government's cap on economic migrants, Business Secretary Vince Cable repeatedly complained the Home Office was intending to be too tough. The party is also known to be unhappy with David Cameron's 'tens of thousands' pledge, which did not appear in the Coalition agreement.

But the survey, carried out for Migrationwatch, found 16 per cent of Lib Dems want net migration of 50,000-a-year, and a further 36 per cent want no net immigration - which means the same number of people arriving each years as leaving. A further nine per cent said there should be more emigrants than immigrants. Overall, this is the view of 19 per cent of the population. In terms of the cap policy, there was 79 per cent approval by the Lib Dems, compared to 95 per cent of Conservatives and 69 per cent of Labour voters.

The figures will be useful in continuing negotations between the Tories and Lib Dems over cracking down on other routes into the UK, such as marriage and student visas.

Separately, the YouGov survey found public concern about a report, published by an Oxford University academic, warning that white Britons will be a minority by 2066 if immigration continues at the current rate. Prof David Coleman said that, If immigration stays at its long-term rate of around 180,000 a year, the white British-born population would decline from 80 per cent of the total now to 59 per cent in 2051.

By then white immigrants would have more than doubled from 4 to 10 per cent of the total, while the ethnic minority population would have risen from 16 to 31 per cent. If the trend continued, the white British population, defined as English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish-born citizens, would become the minority after about 2066, Prof Coleman said.

The poll found that 73 per cent of the public would feel 'unhappy' if this scenario proved accurate. Some 85 per cent of Tory voters held this view, compared to 67 per cent of Labour supporters and 55 per cent of Lib Dems. A fifth of the public said they would be neither happy nor unhappy.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: 'These results are a strong vote of confidence in the government’s recent measures to control economic migration. 'But they are also warning that the public, who would like to see even lower levels of immigration, are very unhappy about the long-term consequences of immigration for the make-up of our society. '

Last week, Home Office ministers announced a 21,700 cap on visas for workers from outside Europe - a reduction of 20 per cent. They also promised sharp reduction in the number of student visas being handed out - with most applicants for non-degree courses being rejected.

Figures released by the Office for national Statistics, two days after the announcement, showed the scale of the task facing the government. In the year to March 2010, net migration was 215,000. Some 580,000 people moved to Britain, including a record 211,000 students. In the same period 364,000 left the country - the lowest level in a decade. The net migration totals for 2008 and 2009 were 163,000 and 198,000 respectively.

The Office for National Statistics has said that the population will hit 70million by 2029 if net migration runs at 180,000 a year.

SOURCE








The DREAM Act Is Amnesty

For most of us, the holidays are a time for reflection. You would think that the Democrats would take advantage of the opportunity after their latest “shellacking.” Instead, the Party of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama sees the season as just one more opportunity to sneak past legislation to rob the American people of a future.

Even as our troops in Afghanistan fight a growing insurgency, Senate Leader Harry Reid used a defense bill to try to push the so called DREAM act through the lame duck Congress. The Democrats have learned nothing from their historic defeat, and are doubling down on amnesty for illegal aliens.

Shockingly, they are even being assisted by Republican collaborators like Senator Richard Lugar. Since they are unpopular with Americans, the Democrats’ strategy for political survival is essentially a massive voter registration drive for criminals. Meanwhile, RINO’s like Lugar, in pursuing praise from the liberal media and money from corporations lusting for cheap labor, blind themselves to what the Democrats clearly understand. Immigration has finished the GOP in California, where Ronald Reagan was once governor, and amnesty will finish the party as a national force.

Harry Reid is self-interested but, unlike Lugar, is not stupid. His latest piece of chicanery combines a cutsey title and happy talk about “the children” and education to disguise its true intent. Proponents describe the bill as a way to provide a pathway to legal residency for illegal alien “kids” who just want to go to college or serve in the military. However, the true scope of the act is far more broad.

Under the act, illegal aliens under 35 – hardly children – can apply for permanent residency. Any illegal who came to the country before he was sixteen, has been here for five years, and has dodged deportation is rewarded by being allowed to apply if they say they want to go to college or join the military.

As a bonus, illegals will receive in-state tuition under this act. Not only do the Democrats cheapen citizenship, they make it an outright disadvantage. That’s not even the worst part. Because the law has no enforcement mechanisms, an illegal alien simply has to claim that the United States before he or she was sixteen to be eligible. As illegals are, as they themselves like to say, “undocumented,” there is no way to prove the truth or falsity of their claims. There is also no way to prove that an illegal is over 35 and therefore ineligible. The act also leaves intact the “chain migration” system that allows illegals to bring in their entire families. Essentially, the DREAM act is a path to permanent residency for any criminal alien who can plausibly claim to be under 35 – and their entire families.

Make no mistake – the DREAM act is amnesty. All patriotic Americans concerned about crime, education, health care, unemployment, or the staggering budget deficits of states like California that are coping with the illegal immigrant invasion should be outraged that we are even considering this legislation.

In 2006, and 2007, we were able to overcome the leaders of both political parties in the past to stop amnesty. Amnesty advocates know they can’t win if there is an open debate on illegal immigration. If the DREAM act sneaks through the lame duck Congress, apologists for illegals will undo that victory by accomplishing their aims through trickery and deception.

The American people are out of work and out of savings, with paying the bills – never mind college for their children – as a real dream. Rather than lending assistance, the Democrats and Republican collaborators like Lugar are actually taunting them, forcing them to pay for their own dispossession. Democrats caring about actual Americans is the real dream.

SOURCE






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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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