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31 January, 2011

America’s Deporter in Chief

Frustrated by the federal stalemate on illegal immigration, cities and states have spent the last few years crafting their own curbs on unlawful residency. The most publicized of these was in Arizona, which ordered police with “reasonable suspicion” to check people’s immigration status (and went further last week, introducing a bill that aims to deny citizenship to children born in the state whose parents are there without permission).

Lawmakers have worked aggressively as well in Nebraska, Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Idaho, among other states, punishing schools that educate undocumented immigrants, landlords who rent to them, and businesses that hire them.

What unites these measures, however, is more than a hardline approach to border control. It’s their ties to one man: Kris Kobach, a Kansas-raised former law professor who has emerged as the intellectual architect of the right’s fight against illegal immigration. The 44-year-old has authored, aided, or officially defended almost every controversial stance in the country, beginning with his work as chief immigration adviser in John Ashcroft’s Justice Department.

This year may be Kobach’s most influential yet. From a base in Kansas, where he is the newly seated secretary of state, Kobach will help Arizona defend his laws against all comers. Both the Justice Department and American Civil Liberties Union have sued the state, claiming that immigration is a federal matter.

He’ll also counsel a dozen or so states that are considering copycat laws and a coordinated assault on birthright citizenship. And he’ll litigate at least four ongoing immigration-related cases, including lawsuits against California (for extending in-state college-tuition rates to the undocumented) and San Francisco (for failing to notify immigration authorities before a thrice-arrested alien allegedly murdered three people).

It’s a “legal jihad,” according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which calls the path he’s blazing “a trail of tears.”

Kobach’s contagious ideas and all-American good looks have made him a fixture on Fox News. But he’s no wingnut. His path to public life is so pedigreed it makes John Kerry seem rough-hewn. Kobach earned top undergrad honors at Harvard; won a Marshall scholarship to Oxford, where he picked up a political-science doctorate; got a law degree from Yale, where he was an editor of The Yale Law Journal; and did missionary work in Africa. He even won two Masters national rowing titles in the men’s double scull.

In the heart of East Coast liberalism, Kobach’s conservatism actually deepened, say the people close to him, including his mother, high-school debate coach, friends, and colleagues—including Ashcroft, with whom Kobach hiked and bodysurfed.

The only son of a car dealer and homemaker —churchgoing Lutherans who also believed in law and order— Kobach is of French, German, and Nordic heritage, his ancestors passing through Ellis Island in the late 1800s (“It was legal,” promises his mother, Janice).

At Harvard, he led the Republican Club and gravitated toward conservative lion Samuel Huntington, who became an early mentor.

But it was 9/11, and his realization that several hijackers had been in the country illegally, that crystallized for him the importance of border security as a way to protect both lives and livelihoods. Kobach authored the much-decried fingerprint program for Muslims and Middle Easterners in the U.S. “American sovereignty is at stake,” he tells NEWSWEEK. “You can’t have open immigration and a welfare state.”

More HERE





SD Legislature will debate immigration issues

The South Dakota Legislature will join the national debate on illegal immigration this year. Three bills seeking to crack down on illegal immigrants have been filed in the Legislature, all patterned after measures already proposed or passed in other states.

Rep. Manny Steele, R-Sioux Falls, the prime sponsor of two of the measures, said he wants to protect the public from crimes committed by some who are in the country illegally and make sure immigrants working in South Dakota are doing so legally.

"These people who are here legally are part of our society . I welcome them. They belong here," Steele said. "I'm glad they're here. They are helping our economy grow. As far as I'm concerned, they're needed."

Steele acknowledged that South Dakota does not have as big of a problem as many other states with illegal immigrants. South Dakota probably only has 2,000 or so illegal immigrants, he said.

However, Steele said two illegal immigrants were convicted of murder last year, and the state will pay $15,000 a year to keep them in prison. He said he believes his bills will treat people fairly and will not lead to racial profiling by law officers.

Opponents disagree, saying the proposed laws are not needed and will violate people's rights by encouraging racial profiling.

Sam Ellingson, program coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, said a proposal similar to an Arizona law will force law officers to give priority to immigration enforcement and give less attention to other public safety problems.

"Laws like these do not make us safer, and in fact have raised the crime rates in areas where similar bills have been passed," she said.

One of Steele's proposals, similar to an Arizona law being challenged in court, would direct law officers enforcing other laws to make reasonable attempts to ask about a suspect's immigration status if there is reason to believe that person is in the U.S. illegally. It also would make it illegal for anyone to transport or conceal an illegal alien or to encourage an illegal alien to come to South Dakota.

Steele's second bill is part of a national challenge to automatic U.S. citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. It is intended to encourage Congress to propose an change to the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the U.S.

The third bill, sponsored by Sen. Craig Tieszen, R- Rapid City, would penalize anyone who knowingly employs, transports or conceals an illegal immigrant.

Steele said the bill requiring law officers to check immigration status during stops for enforcement of other laws has been modified somewhat from the Arizona law. He said he believes it will not lead to racial profiling or discrimination. Officers already check people's identification during traffic stops, and the bill would allow officers to let people go when it's not practical to detain them for a lengthy investigation, he said.

However, Ellingson of the ACLU said the organization will oppose Steele's proposal because it would lead to racial profiling, and that part of the Arizona law has been blocked by a federal judge. Some provisions also would be struck down because they are already covered in federal law, which takes precedence, she said.

Robert Doody, executive director of the ACLU in South Dakota, said the three bills send a message to businesses and workers that South Dakota does not welcome minority families or economic growth. The measures, if passed, would likely lead to costly lawsuits, he said.

Steele said state lawyers have estimated a lawsuit could cost $50,000 to $100,000, which he said is much less than the cost of keeping a lot of illegal immigrants in state prisons after they have been convicted of crimes.

The bill dealing with citizenship seeks to require that a child born in the U.S. is a citizen only if at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or a legal immigrant. It would create a compact with other states to issue different birth certificates for those who are citizens and those who are not. Such compacts would have to be approved by Congress, but do not require the president's signature.

Supporters of the proposal contend that the wording of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. who is "subject to jurisdiction" of this country, does not apply to children of illegal immigrants because those families do not owe sole allegiance to the U.S.

Steele said some people enter the U.S. illegally to give birth to children so those babies will get citizenship. He said supporters of the compact hope eventually to persuade Congress to propose a constitutional change.

Ellingson said a compact between the states cannot change the rules on citizenship because state laws cannot change the U.S. Constitution.

"It's guaranteed in our legal history that we allow citizenship to those who are born in this country," she said.

Source



30 January, 2011

Now WA state steps into immigration issues

The state's grim financial shape is pushing lawmakers further into the immigration debate, forcing a state historically friendly to immigrants to consider cuts that will impact large segments of legal and illegal immigrants.

The proposed cuts are on top of introduced bills that call for stricter enforcement of immigration law, specifically bills that would force the state to ask for proof of legal residency when obtaining a driver's license.

"My whole point is that we ignore, ignore, ignore - now we have to make real decisions: Does the public think it's a priority to provide benefits for people who are undocumented?" said Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, the Senate GOP's budget chief. "I believe it's time for prioritizing what we can afford to do. We gotta have that debate."

From blueberry fields in Skagit County to the high-tech offices at Microsoft, immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, is a fuel in many of the state's industries. And no matter their legal status, immigrants contribute to the state's main source of revenue - the sales tax - whenever they buy something.

"In one year, Washington State has gone from a leader on immigration to a hostile environment for immigrants and their families," said an e-mail from OneAmerica, the state's largest immigrant advocacy group, to supporters, urging them to testify against the driver's licenses bills.

During this legislative session, lawmakers have been tasked with two crucial budgetary jobs: They need to close a cash deficit of more than half a billion dollars in the supplemental budget for this fiscal year that ends in June, and they need to write a budget that closes a projected $4.6 billion deficit in the 2011-2013 budget.

Gov. Chris Gregoire's proposed budget, which sets the pace for the session, cuts more than half a dozen programs that directly aid immigrants - from subsidized naturalization classes to transferring illegal immigrant inmates in state prisons to federal custody.

The two biggest proposals for the next two-year budget, though, are stripping medical coverage to an estimated 27,000 children whose legal status is unclear under the Children's Health Program for savings of $59 million, and eliminating the State Food Assistance Program, which provides food stamps for legal immigrants, for a savings of $45 million.

"In the last decade or two, Washington has wisely recognized that immigrants are tax paying, working neighbors to all of us," said Jon Gould, executive director of the Children's Alliance, an advocacy group. "I'm very worried right now that we are at risk of losing those important public structures that allow our immigrant neighbors to be contributing members of the state."

It's the third year in a row that a section of the Children's Health Program has been proposed for cuts, but it's the first time that children who may be illegally in the country have been singled out, Gould said.

The Department of Social and Health Services has sent thousands of letters to parents of children in the health program, warning them that the state may no longer cover health care for children who are not legally in the country. It then asks parents to send any immigration-related paper work by the beginning of February that may help their case.

The state food program was created by a bipartisan Legislature in 1997 after Congress, under welfare reform, imposed a five-year bar on legal immigrants from obtaining food stamps. In Washington, the state stepped in and subsidized the program.

Scott Whiteaker, a spokesman for Gregoire, said that the governor looked at state programs that are solely funded by the state in proposing her cuts and is imploring non-profit groups and private businesses to step in and help with whatever they can. "Times that we're in right now really demand cuts that nobody necessarily wants to do," he said.

Gregoire's proposals and the licenses bills have sent immigrant advocates to scramble to Olympia. But in a down economy, pitching for programs that serve non-Americans can be a tough sell.

"I think that our state and nationally there's an increasing resentment against immigrants, legally or not legally, to be honest with you . and I think it's growing," said Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney, D-Seattle. "If we don't get immigration reform at the federal level, it's going to get worse."

But for Zarelli and others, the question they want asked about these programs for immigrants is if the state can afford them. Zarelli, the GOP's budget expert, said that the state spends about $270 million every two years on health care, welfare, childcare for farmworkers and illegal immigrant prisoner. Republicans are pushing for the state to re-enroll users of welfare programs to weed out people who don't qualify - that includes illegal immigrants and others.

More HERE





Colorful shoes, handbag give away fake nuns in Philippines

Filpinas go all over the world in search of well-paid work but are often mistreated in Muslim countries. Their government does what little it can to protect them

Immigration authorities detained Saturday six Philippine women dressed as Catholic nuns who were attempting to get around a ban on working as maids in Lebanon. The suspects were arrested at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila while about to board a flight bound for Kuala Lumpur with a connecting flight to Lebanon, immigration officer Rodolfo Magbuhos said.

Magbuhos admitted his men were at first reluctant to apprehend the women, not wishing to disrespect religious people. But they got suspicious when they saw one of the nuns wearing red shoes, carrying a colourful handbag and not wearing her habit properly.

The women admitted during interrogation that they were going to Lebanon to work as maids and they dressed as nuns to evade a government ban. The Philippines banned its workers from going to Lebanon since 2007 due to the unstable security condition and lack of legal protection.

SOURCE



29 January, 2011

Bills Denying Birthright Citizenship to be Introduced in Arizona

This is, of course, mainly a way of getting the issue before SCOTUS -- where it has some chance of success. SCOTUS is as much political as judicial and there is a broadly conservative majority at the moment

Arizona is expected to set off another seismic immigration wave on Thursday, when both chambers of its legislature expect to hear the introduction of bills denying citizenship to U.S.-born babies of undocumented immigrants.

Republican State Sen. Ron Gould said he and Republican State Rep. John Kavanagh agreed on a day for each to introduce the legislation, but Gould said that timetables for consideration of the bills by the separate chambers will diverge at that point.

Arizona's legislation would define a U.S. citizen as someone who has been naturalized, or someone born in this country who has at least one parent who has no allegiance to a foreign country.

Gould is the Senate Judiciary Committee's chairman and he said he expects the committee will consider his bill in early February. Meanwhile, Kavanagh indicated that House action on his bill might wait for approval of a new state budget.

Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of Arizona’s well-known, controversial immigration measure, SB 1070 -- which, among other things, allows police to enforce immigration laws -- is a sponsor of the citizenship legislation.

Last fall, Pearce said that the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which addresses citizenship, was not meant to apply to the children of people who live in the United States illegally.
“This is a battle of epic proportions,” Pearce, Republican, said at a press conference in Arizona. "We’ve allowed the hijacking of the 14th Amendment.”

Arizona has become the leader in the movement by states to take immigration into their own hands as their frustration mounts over the federal government’s failure to revamp the nation’s broken immigration system.

Legislators in numerous states this year have introduced, or announced plans to introduce, measures modeled on Arizona’s SB 1070, which is facing court challenges. And so, anything Arizona does on immigration is being closely followed nationwide.

Last year, Pearce gave new momentum to the contentious – but not new -- issue of birthright citizenship when he said it was next in his quest to crack down on illegal immigration.

Earlier this month, a group of state legislators known as the State Legislators for Legal Immigration gathered in Washington D.C. to unveil model legislation that denies birthright citizenship to the babies of illegal immigrants. They said that lawmakers in as many as 14 states plan to introduce bills on the matter this year.

One of the proposals SLLI crafted would allow a state to issue two kinds of birth certificates – one to babies of people legally in the United States, and a different one to babies of illegal immigrants. The SLLI maintains that automatic citizenship for anyone born here – without regard to whether their parents are breaking the law by being here -- fuels illegal immigration.

The founder of the group, Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican, said: “We need to end the incentive that encourages illegals to cross our border.”

LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a Hispanic organization that has won landmark civil rights, has vowed to sue any state that passes such a law. LatinoJustice, like others who oppose birthright citizenship measures, say it is unconstitutional and unlikely to hold up in court.

Cesar Perales, the president of LatinoJustice, said that though the 14th amendment originally was ratified after the Civil War to guarantee the children of former slaves U.S. citizenship and all its protections, courts subsequently have declared that the amendment applies to babies of Native Americans and to babies of Chinese guest workers.

“States don’t give people citizenship,” Perales said in an interview earlier this month, “it’s the federal government’s role. This is a political stunt, with invented arguments that are not based on law, and it smacks of racism.”

A Pew Hispanic Research analysis last year found that that nearly four out of five – or 79 percent -- of the 5.1 million children, ages 18 and younger, of unauthorized immigrants were born in this country.

SOURCE





Mississippi Passes Arizona-Style Immigration Law

Mississippi lawmakers have passed an immigration law similar to one passed in Arizona, giving local law enforcement the power to investigate the immigration status of anyone they suspect to be in the US illegally, the Hattiesburg American reported Friday.

People stopped by police who cannot show they are in the US legally could be jailed and eventually deported under the measure.

The measure passed in the Mississippi House late Thursday after a brief explanation and no debate. A similar measure was passed last week in the Mississippi Senate.

Arizona was sued by the US Department of Justice for passing its immigration law, claiming only the federal government has the right to enforce immigration policies and undertake deportation proceedings. Most of the law was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge, but the state appealed that decision. It is now before the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals and it is not known when that court will issue a ruling.

In a separate measure, the Mississippi state legislature also approved fining businesses that hire illegal immigrants up to $25,000 a day. Any penalties collected would be turned over to municipalities to pay for efforts to enforce the newly-passed immigration policy.

According to a 2006 State Auditor’s report, there were approximately 49,000 illegal immigrants living in Mississippi at the time.

SOURCE



28 January, 2011

US steps up illegal workers crackdown

US immigration authorities have more than quadrupled the number of jobsite inspections for illegal workers in two years, a government report said Wednesday.

In fiscal year 2010, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initiated a "record" 2,746 worksite enforcement investigations, said the report submitted to Congress by the agency's deputy head Kumar Kibble. That's more than double the 503 inspections in 2008. Fines for 237 violations reached almost seven million dollars, compared to the 18 violations and 675,209 dollars in penalties in 2008.

Kibble told lawmakers ICE was focused on identifying "criminal illegal aliens who pose a threat to the public." The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, has "fundamentally reformed immigration enforcement," he said.

Republicans, who now dominate the House of Representatives, have criticized President Barack Obama's approach to immigration as weak.

Kibble noted DHS "has engaged in record enforcement, removing more aliens in both 2009 and 2010 than in any point in the history of our country, including more than 195,000 criminal aliens last year."

Advocacy groups representing migrants have meanwhile criticized what they call heavy-handed raids in Hispanic communities along the US-Mexico border.

"ICE is now taking custody of more aliens encountered at the border and is increasing the consequences for illegal entry and reentry," Kibble said.

"Aliens who illegally enter in Arizona, for instance, are no longer given the opportunity to return voluntarily and instead are given orders of removal and are repatriated through other states."
The southwestern state of Arizona has seen more illegal immigrants than anywhere else along the border, and has been the scene of bitter political standoffs on immigration issues between the tough approach of the state government and the federal government's softer stance.

SOURCE






Immigration scam unveiled in a California university

Federal prosecutors have labeled Pleasanton, California-based Tri-valley University a sham, alleging that the institution was merely a facade used by the authorities to run a racket that facilitated illegal student immigration status for foreign nationals and authorized them to remain in the United States.

Bay Area News Group publication Contra Costa Times has reported that the Tri-Valley University founded by Susan Su earned millions of dollars in tuition fees since its establishment, luring foreign students, a majority from India, by granting F-1 visas. The university had received approval in February 2009 to grant F1 visas for about 30 students.

For a student to acquire and maintain an F-1 visa, he must physically attend classes and show that he is making reasonable progress towards course completion. The University on the other hand catered mostly to online students and falsely registered their address as that of a single apartment in Sunnyvale. Upon investigation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities, it was found that four university students lived at that address between 2007 and 2009 but there have been none since. Between May 2009 and 2010, however, the number of active students who received F-1 visas from Tri-valley University went up from 11 to 939.

Incidentally, this is not the first time that a student visa-related fraud has been uncovered in the State. In March 2010, Eamonn Daniel Higgins from Santa Ana California was arrested on charges of operating a ring of illegal test-takers, who faked their identity and wrote various proficiency and college-placement exams on behalf of dozens of Middle Eastern nationals, helping them to obtain US student visas. Around the same time, a Florida language school was also exposed as having helped more than 80 foreign nationals, who were purportedly studying at the school but were found never to have attended class, in illegally obtaining student visas.

SOURCE



27 January, 2011

Obama’s Empty Words on Immigration

By Alfonso Aguilar

President Obama knows it. It's quite simple. If his Republican opponent in 2012 gets at least 40 percent of the Latino vote his re-election is in jeopardy. Therefore, no one should be surprised that he used his State of the Union address to portray himself as the champion of immigration reform.

Let’s be clear: immigration is not the most important issue for Latino voters, but they will reject a candidate that is not willing to show leadership to try fixing our dysfunctional immigration system. Obama understands this well. As he stressed in his speech: “I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration. And I am prepared to work with Republicans and Democrats to protect our borders, enforce our laws and address the millions of undocumented workers who are now living in the shadows.“

The problem with the president’s rhetoric is that it doesn’t match his actions. For the past two years he has basically ignored the immigration issue, even though he had promised the Latino community that he would tackle this issue the first year of his administration. Just consider that in last year’s State of the Union he said the same thing he said now and he did nothing to seriously address the issue.

Why didn’t he advance an immigration bill when his party controlled the two Houses of Congress? He didn’t think twice before pressing Congress to pass the massive $780 billion dollar so-called “stimulus” bill that only expanded the size of government and substantially contributed to the deficit. Nor did he waver when lobbying for his unpopular health care bill.
The reality is that these were priorities for him. Immigration simply isn’t. Why should Latinos believe that it is a priority for him now?

Since being elected, the president has rarely talked about immigration and, when he has, it normally is to blame Republicans for supposedly being the party of “no.” What, we should ask, have they said no to? The White House has never presented them with a formal proposal nor have they ever been seriously consulted on the issue.

There was, of course, the White House's failed attempt to pass the Dream Act, but even this was not a serious effort. It was introduced at the last minute –during the lame duck session —and once again without consulting the Republican leadership or allowing them to present amendments. No wonder the majority of them – plus five Democrats – voted against letting the bill go to the floor for an up and down vote.

The false promises of the 2008 election as well as political ploys of these past years have not gone unnoticed by Latinos. They are realizing that Democrats are just pandering to them and they are understandably upset at them.

The administration is aware of this and, as they begin to look at 2012, they know they need to regain the trust of Latinos voters to win another four-year term. They haven’t forgotten that the President won in 2008 because he dominated the minority vote by a 3 to 1 margin. While McCain got 58 percent of the white vote, Obama got 68 percent of the Latino vote.

Their strategy to win over Latinos is not merely to begin talking about immigration again. The other part of it is to demonize Republicans and portray them as anti-immigrant and as the “enemies” of Latinos, to use the President's own words. To accomplish this they will follow their Dream Act playbook, which, as we have said, is to avoid constructively engaging Republicans on the issue and to do everything possible to antagonize them so they end up opposing any legislative attempt.

The only way, however, that Latinos will buy the Democrats’ demagoguery is if Republicans just cross their arms and decide not to do anything constructive on immigration. That’s why the GOP leadership in the House and Senate should call the Democrats’ bluff and pro-actively propose specific solutions to the immigration crisis that go beyond enforcement-only measures, like the creation of a sensible guest worker program.

If they do this, Obama’s effort to “divide” the country by minority groups to “conquer” them politically will collapse. And it will show that despite all his touting on immigration, he’s really not committed to meaningful action on this issue. Moreover, it will give Republicans the opportunity to demonstrate to Latinos that the majority of them are not narrow minded restrictionists, and giving them a real shot at winning enough Latino votes to win back the White House.

Source






How the British Labour Party's 'tough' rules let in 2,100 migrants a day

Britain handed out 2,100 visas a day following the introduction of Labour’s ‘tough’ new border controls. Official figures reveal for the first time that 1,554,327 non-EU nationals were given permission to enter or stay in this country under the previous government’s points-based system. The beneficiaries included workers, their partners and children and hundreds of thousands of foreign students.

Incredibly, the numbers entering Britain continued to climb between 2008 and 2009 – despite the country being in the grip of a recession. A fall of fewer than 20,000 in the number of work permits being rubber-stamped for main applicants was dwarfed by a leap of 80,000 in student visas. The total number of visas handed out in 2009, including renewals for people who would otherwise have been forced to leave, was 778,617 – up from 775,710 a year earlier.

According to a report by the Migrationwatch think-tank, the early indications are that, so far, the Coalition Government has had only limited impact on the figures. Ministers have decided to keep the points-based system, which was introduced in 2008, but are making the criteria much tougher. But, in the year to September 2010, the latest period for which figures are available, the total number of visas issued was 752,855, down only slightly.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: ‘These figures give the lie to claims the points-based system (PBS) was already bringing immigration under control. ‘Such reduction as there has been is surely the consequence of the deepest recession for a generation, not the introduction of the PBS, which is deeply flawed. ‘This renders still more difficult the Government’s commitment to get net migration down to the “tens of thousands” as the public overwhelmingly wishes to see.’

The impact of the points system on foreign workers – which Labour introduced amid mounting public concern over immigration – is limited by the fact it can be applied only to non-EU nationals.

Coalition action has so far been limited to an interim cap on economic migrants. From April, this will be replaced by a permanent system which promises to reduce the number of non-EU workers entering Britain by a fifth. But ministers have been criticised for creating a ‘loophole’ which allows businesses to transfer unlimited staff from overseas if they stay for less than 12 months.

The Home Office said that, if evidence of abuse of this route emerged, it would change the rules next year, when they are reviewed.

Last week, official figures suggested foreign workers are finding themselves the main beneficiaries of the economic recovery.

They showed that only 100,000 of the 297,000 workers who began new posts between July and September 2010 were British-born. Of the rest, 90,000 were from Poland and other Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004.

Ministers are also close to announcing plans to slash student visas. The most likely scenario is that non-EU nationals will be refused visas if they are seeking to study non-degree level courses. Exceptions will be made only for ‘trusted’ private colleges.

SOURCE



26 January, 2011

Where’s the Border Fence?

On the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced plans to scrap the so-called “virtual fence” project along the 2,000 mile United States-Mexico border. The official reasons cited included cost overruns and technology failures. The truth, of course, is a different story.

At the height of the last amnesty craze in 2006, Congress passed the Secure Fence Act (SFA). The measure required building 700 miles of double-layered fence to physically separate the United States from Mexico. The bill’s authors also intended to demonstrate that the federal government accepted the American people’s judgment that illegal immigrants could not be granted citizenship until the southwestern border was secured.

With the border fence supposedly under construction, the Senate gathered on June 28, 2007, to end debate on comprehensive immigration reform and vote its passage. Then, Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) addressed the chamber. In the final minutes before the Democratic majority moved for cloture, Dole reminded her colleagues that only two miles had been built.

For Dole, enough was enough. “And so my strong view is that it’s not just promises, it’s proof that people want. The American people want to see results, control of our borders. So we need to establish standards, metrics and show that they have been achieved,” said Dole at the time. With devastating accuracy, she confirmed what many suspected: Governing elites used the promise of a border fence to ease resistance towards amnesty for illegal immigrants. After Dole exposed the hypocrisy, comprehensive immigration reform died on the Senate floor.

The open borders crowd was defeated, but not deterred. In December 2007, the Bush Administration tapped Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) to attach an amendment to a DHS appropriations bill. The amendment’s language added a wrinkle to SFA by granting then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff complete discretion over the border fence. Since the Bush Administration favored granting citizenship status to illegal immigrants, but was dragging its feet on building the fence, many saw Hutchinson’s amendment as gutting SFA’s mandate to secure the border first.

Hutchison hit back at criticisms she gutted the border fence by pointing to a new requirement in her amendment. By the end of 2008 (i.e. within twelve months of the amendment’s passage) 370 of the 700 miles of the southwest border would be fenced. As of September 2008, fewer than 120 miles were completed. So much for mandates.

Then along came the Secure Border Initiative network (SBInet), a compromise between pro-amnesty governing elites and the defense industry to further weaken the fence project. Throughout the public debate over the border, the Bush Administration was quietly replacing its promise of a physical fence with a high-tech virtual one. When the $1 billion contract was awarded to Boeing in September 2006, the project was hailed as a way to harness technology for fulfilling public policy.

A little more than five years later, neither goal was reached. To date, only 53 miles of border have been “virtually” fenced. Problems ranging from weather disruptions to camera lenses that can’t distinguish between humans and shrubs pushed SBInet into boondoggle territory. Numerous investigations in and outside the government confirmed the project was a manmade disaster. Last week’s announcement to end the program officially concluded this taxpayer-financed fool’s errand.

The irony of all this is that many Americans support granting some path to legalization for illegal immigrants – if a border fence is built first. The logic is simple: secure the border to stop the flow of illegal immigration, and then deal with those who are already here. Had Congress and Presidents Bush and Obama taken the American people’s demand for a border fence seriously and followed any of the fence laws they enacted, today they might find a public ready to talk about more comprehensive reform.

As it is, Americans were swindled out of more than $1 billion in exchange for two more federal immigration laws that are not enforced. Is it any wonder that voter mistrust of the federal government is at an all-time high?

SOURCE





White children in Birmingham 'a minority' this year because of immigration

Children from white families are in the minority in both Birmingham and Leicester, according to researchers. More than half of those under 16 in the cities are now from black, Asian and other ethnic communities, they believe. White children make up 47 per cent of the population in both cities, the researchers estimate.

The figures, which are expected to be confirmed by this year’s census, mean that for the first time white children are a minority group, although they are the biggest single ethnic group.

A report on Birmingham suggests that the figures could be explained by a younger population, more white families moving out of the city and immigration. The report estimates that in 2006 53 per cent of children under 16 in Birmingham, Britain’s second biggest city, were from white families. It also forecast that the proportion of children aged under 16 who are from ethnic minorities will rise to about 64 per cent by 2026, while the proportion of children from white families will be 36 per cent.

In Leicester it is predicted that children from white families will make up 31.8 per cent of under 16s by 2026.

The predictions are contained in reports by the Cathie Marsh Institute at the University of Manchester. The Birmingham report was commissioned by Birmingham City Council while the Leicester estimates are from a student’s dissertation.

At the time of the last census in 2001, 70.4 per cent of Birmingham’s population of all age ranges was white and 29.6 per cent from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, dominated by those with Asian, Caribbean and African origins.

It is predicted that by 2024 no ethnic group will form a majority. At present the total population of the city is just over one million.

In Leicester, white British people made up 60.54 per cent of the population at the time of the 2001 census.
More than half of children in Birmingham will be from black and Asian communities, making white families a minority group, a report says

More than half of children in Birmingham will be from black and Asian communities, making white families a minority group, a report says

According to the University of Manchester predictions, Leicester will become Britain’s first city where no ethnic group forms a majority in about 2019. Leicester’s population at present is more than 300,000.

Professor Ludi Simpson, who led the research team, said: ‘In Leicester and Birmingham, the white group will remain the largest by far – though it will not account for a majority of the population as a whole.

‘These and most other cities are already diverse with many different ethnic minorities. ‘Indeed it is indisputable that whether the whole of Britain or its city districts are considered, there will be more cultures represented in more equal numbers than in the past.’

The findings for Birmingham chime with Department for Education figures released last January. They showed that 43 per cent of children at Birmingham’s primary and secondary schools were white. Out of 148,900 pupils attending council-run schools, 63,800 were white.

The 2011 census is being conducted in March, when 25million households across England and Wales will be required by law to answer a range of questions including who is registered as living at a property, their age, their education and their ethnicity. The results, the first official figures since 2001, will be announced later this year.

SOURCE



25 January, 2011

Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Keep SBInet (Op-ed)

2. Department of Error-Riddled Immigration Op-Eds (Blog)

3. The Price of L.A.'s Illegals – and Then Some (Blog)

4. Why Not a Hispanic-American Identity? (Blog)

5. Cancellation of SBI on FOX News (Blog)

6. A Sad Little Announcement: Some Nations Want the Crumbs of Our Economy (Blog)

7. The Value of a Hyphenated Identity (Blog)

8. Supreme Stop Sign (Blog)

9. The Hyphen as a Bridge to an American Identity (Blog)






Australian cities to more than double in size under current immigration levels

AUSTRALIA'S capital cities will more than double in size within 50 years under current immigration rates, dramatically affecting quality of life and cutting food production.

Research for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has found more than 430,000 hectares of land will have to be found for housing in both Sydney and Melbourne if net overall immigration remains above 260,000 a year. Even with zero migration, the capitals will grow in size by roughly 50 per cent, costing residents an extra $1000 a year due to added congestion within the next two decades.

Under current migration rates, each capital would become an estimated one and a half times bigger, with massive gridlock-induced costs.

Posted on the department's website before Christmas, the National Institute of Labour Studies research reveals the extent of the policy problems facing the Gillard government as it plans for a “sustainable Australia”.

“The magnitude of the impacts at all net overall migration levels suggests that unless substantial and timely actions are taken to address these impacts, some impacts have the potential to disrupt Australia's economy and society,” the paper warns.

Lead researcher Dr Jonathan Sobels, from Flinders University, said farms and public land would be consumed as bulging cities expanded. He said Sydney would lose about half of its productive land used for fresh fruit and vegetable production.

“Sydney and Melbourne will rise to something of the order of seven million people. We've got something in the order of half of that now,” he said. “Where are they all going to go? They're not going to all go into 50-storey apartment blocks. “Physically, the demand on land is going to be immense.”

Affluence is forecast to rise faster under higher immigration scenarios, driving up the use of space and resources. Per capita wealth would rise by about 2.3 times by mid-century with migration at the level of 260,000 a year. Without migration, per capita wealth would double over the same timeframe.

Consumption is forecast to rise with affluence, contributing to growing levels of waste, congestion and use of environmental resources.

Sydney would need an extra 2.5 landfills for every one required today under higher migration scenarios, with much of the extra waste resulting from demolition of old buildings.

The report suggests agricultural production would increase toward 2030, and then decline.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd was a supporter of a “Big Australia”, arguing for a population of 36 million-plus by 2050.

Julia Gillard modified the approach amid a growing suburban backlash, calling instead for a sustainable Australia.

Net overseas migration was running at almost 300,000 but is expected to fall when the latest figures become available in about six months, after changes to cut the number of overseas students staying in Australia following their studies.

SOURCE



24 January, 2011

Driver's license reform a priority in New Mexico

The men from Poland had settled near Chicago, but New Mexico offered what they coveted - driver's licenses without any proof of their immigration status.

Federal prosecutors in Albuquerque say the ringleader was a man named Jaroslaw Kowalczyk. They allege that, for $1,000 a person, he drove other Poles from Illinois to Albuquerque to exploit the New Mexico law that allows foreign nationals and even undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.

New Mexico requires that applicants for driver's licenses live in the state and show a utility bill or lease as documentation. State police arrested Kowalczyk and two of his customers last summer after the address they listed turned out to be fake.

Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, a former state prosecutor, has made New Mexico's licensing system one of the early targets of her legislative agenda. She says people in America illegally obtain driver's licenses in New Mexico, then use them to move throughout the country. Martinez wants to repeal the 2003 law that made it possible for undocumented immigrants to receive licenses.

"This is a priority for the governor this session," said her spokesman, Scott Darnell. "There will be multiple bills that address this subject, and we will review them all. Ultimately, the governor will support the bill that best achieves her central goal of ensuring that driver's licenses are no longer issued to illegal immigrants."

Since the law went into effect, New Mexico has issued more than 82,000 licenses to foreign nationals. Because of the way the system is set up, the state has no breakdown of how many of them were in the United States illegally. In all, more than 1.6 million people have New Mexico driver's licenses.

Even with the small percentage of licenses going to people without proof of U.S. citizenship, Martinez sees dangers in an era of terrorism and drug cartel wars in Mexico. "If we're going to tell New Mexicans we're serious about securing the border, we must stop giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants," she said.

Legislators who voted to make it easier for undocumented immigrants to obtain licenses said the law would increase the number of drivers with auto insurance. They say it has succeeded because far more drivers carry coverage than before. A driver's license generally is necessary to buy insurance.

Richard Williams, police chief in Las Cruces, said the debate over licensing involves an important principle. "Our driver's licenses should be reserved for the people who live in New Mexico," Williams said in an interview. "If the state is a haven for people trying to get licenses illegally, it's easy to see the problems associated with that."

Under New Mexico's law, people without a Social Security number can apply for a driver's license. They must provide an alternative means of identification. These would include a personal taxpayer identification number, a valid passport from their country of citizenship, a Matricula Consular card from the Mexican Consulate or a foreign birth certificate with a notarized English translation.

In the case of the Poles from Chicago, federal prosecutors allege, they saw New Mexico as a place where they could circumvent immigration law. Illinois will not issue a driver's license without proof of immigration status. New Mexico does.

More HERE





Tough border control in India

The idea that India is a land of opportunity compared to some of its neighbours is perhaps rather startling but that is the case.

The article below is from the Leftist "Guardian" so is rather preachy and probably exaggerated, but it covers some interesting ground nonetheless.

West Bengal and Bangladesh were once part of the same Indian State, yet the economic difference between them is now so great that Bangladeshis risk their lives to go to West Bengal. Bangladesh is Muslim. West Bengal is run by Hindus. Another example of what a disaster Islam is. Bangladeshis in Britain tend to be a problem population too

Do good fences make good neighbours? Not along the India-Bangladesh border. Here, India has almost finished building a 2,000km fence. Where once people on both sides were part of a greater Bengal, now India has put up a "keep out" sign to stop illegal immigration, smuggling and infiltration by anti-government militants.

This might seem unexceptional in a world increasingly hostile to migration. But to police the border, India's Border Security Force (BSF), has carried out a shoot-to-kill policy – even on unarmed local villagers. The toll has been huge. Over the past 10 years Indian security forces have killed almost 1,000 people, mostly Bangladeshis, turning the border area into a south Asian killing fields. No one has been prosecuted for any of these killings, in spite of evidence in many cases that makes it clear the killings were in cold blood against unarmed and defenceless local residents.

Shockingly, some Indian officials endorse shooting people who attempt to cross the border illegally, even if they are unarmed. Almost as shocking is the lack of interest in these killings by foreign governments who claim to be concerned with human rights. A single killing by US law enforcement along the Mexican border makes headlines. The killing of large numbers of villagers by Indian forces has been almost entirely ignored.

The violence is routine and arbitrary. Alauddin Biswas described to Human Rights Watch the killing of his 24-year-old nephew, who was suspected of cattle rustling, by Indian border guards in March 2010. "The BSF had shot him while he was lying on his back. They shot him in the forehead. If he was running away, he would have been shot in the back. They just killed him." The BSF claimed self-defence, but no weapons were recovered.

Nazrul Islam, a Bangladeshi, was luckier. "At around 3am we decided to cross the Indian border," he said. He was headed to India to smuggle cows back to Bangladesh. "As soon as the BSF saw us, they started firing without warning." Islam was shot in his arm, but survived.

The border has long been crossed routinely by local people for trade and commerce. It is also crossed by relatives and friends separated by a line arbitrarily drawn by the British during partition in 1947. As with the Mexican border in the United States, the border has become an emotive issue in Indian politics, as millions of Bangladeshis now live in India illegally. Many are exploited as cheap labour.

India has the right to impose border controls. But India does not have the right to use lethal force except where strictly necessary to protect life. Yet some Indian officials openly admit that unarmed civilians are being killed. The head of the BSF, Raman Srivastava, says that people should not feel sorry for the victims, claiming that since these individuals were illegally entering Indian territory, often at night, they were "not innocent" and therefore were a legitimate target.

Though India is a state with functional courts, he apparently believes the BSF can act as judge, jury and executioner. This approach also ignores the many victims, such as a 13-year-old named Abdur Rakib, who broke no law and was killed simply because he was near the fence. Sadly, Bangladeshi border officials have also suggested that such killings are acceptable if the victim was engaged in smuggling.

As the recent WikiLeaks report about endemic torture in Kashmir underscores, Indian soldiers and police routinely commit human rights violations without any consequences. Permission has to be granted by a senior Indian official for the police to even begin an investigation into a crime committed by a member of the security forces, such as the BSF. This rarely happens.

More HERE



23 January, 2011

UK can't deport asylum seekers back to Greece as they will be subjected to 'inhumane or degrading treatment'

Britain was stripped of the power to deport hundreds of asylum seekers yesterday in a far-reaching ruling by European human rights judges. The judgment condemned the treatment of refugees by Greece and effectively forbade countries from returning asylum seekers there as they are subjected to ‘inhumane or degrading treatment’.

It means that for the first time human rights rules stop Britain from sending deportees to a fellow European Union country.

Greece is visited by nearly two million British tourists each year – and also enjoys the power under EU law to demand extradition of British citizens it suspects of crime within its borders.

An immigration watchdog warned the ruling is likely to mean thousands of asylum seekers will make their way to Britain from Greece, or will say they have come from Greece, because authorities will have no power to return them.

The judgment, by the European Court of Human Rights, will also act as a fresh constraint on Britain’s right to remove individuals considered undesirable.

Under a 15-year-old ruling by the Strasbourg-based court, terrorists and other criminals cannot be sent back to their own countries if the courts consider torture may be used against them.

Britain’s Border Agency stopped deporting asylum seekers who came into Europe through Greece last September in anticipation of the ruling. There are currently 1,300 asylum seekers thought to have come to Britain through Greece who could, under EU rules, be sent back to Athens.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said yesterday: ‘We are disappointed with the judgment. ‘The United Kingdom does not, however, currently return asylum seekers to Greece, although we will continue to keep the situation under review.’

Sir Andrew Green, of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘This opens a gateway into Europe and Britain for asylum seekers. ‘Future asylum seekers will enter the EU through Greece safe in the knowledge we cannot send them back. ‘Their cases will have to be settled here at the expense of the British taxpayer.’

SOURCE




Immigration bill could hurt Head Start in Kentucky, officials say

Since all the evidence is that Head Start achieves nothing, that should not be a big problem

A bill that would make it a crime for an illegal immigrant to set foot in Kentucky could cost the state's Head Start programs millions of dollars, Head Start officials warned this week.

In a letter to House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, Head Start officials said that Senate Bill 6, which passed the Senate this month, could create problems for the federal pre-kindergarten program that serves 17,444 children in all 120 counties.

The bill has not been considered by the House, which will reconvene Feb. 1. House leaders, including Stumbo, have said it is doubtful that the Senate's immigration bill will pass the Democratic-controlled House. A recent legislative analysis says implementing the bill could cost the state as much as $40 million.

SB 6 would make it a crime for anyone to transport or assist an illegal immigrant and would create a state charge of trespassing if an illegal immigrant enters Kentucky.

Head Start officials cannot ask about immigration status, according to federal guidelines.

SOURCE



22 January, 2011

Migration wave means a third of London residents were born abroad

More than one in three people living in London were born outside Britain, an official analysis showed yesterday. Nearly half of them have arrived over the past decade in the wave of immigration that began under Tony Blair’s government.

Almost four in ten of all the foreign-born people in the country live in London, the Office for National Statistics said. They make up 34 per cent of the capital’s population. Around one in six of the population of the capital have arrived in Britain since 2000.

But many regarded as essentially British are defined as immigrants by the study, including Cliff Richard and Joanna Lumley, who were both born in India to British parents.

In most parts of the country, those born abroad are more likely than the British-born to be working in jobs classed as ‘elementary’, the figures from the Labour Force Survey of around 180,000 individuals showed.

Fewer of the population of those born abroad claim state benefits or tax credits than native-born Britons. Most are Christian by religion, although in Yorkshire and the West Midlands just under a third are Muslim.

The analysis also found that around half the foreign-born population is married, compared with only around 40 per cent of native Britons.

SOURCE





Chipotle between a rock and a hard place

Faces Protesters After Firings Over ICE Audit

Chipotle Mexican Grill faced protesters at one of its downtown Minneapolis restaurants in response to having fired a number of employees after an audit by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Eight protesters were cited for trespassing after they chained themselves together Thursday, blocking the doorway to the restaurant, according to Minneapolis police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer.

The Denver-based burrito chain received a notice of inspection from ICE several months ago for its Minnesota restaurant employees, according to Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold.

After Chipotle supplied officials with documentation, ICE informed the company that it suspected many of the documents to be illegitimate, Mr. Arnold said. Chipotle asked those employees for new documents or to clarify any errors, and in early December let go those who could do neither.

Mr. Arnold wouldn't disclose how many of the 1,200 employees at its 50 Minnesota restaurants were let go or how many were suspected of having fraudulent documents. He said this is the first time Chipotle has received an immigration audit.

Chipotle, known for buying meat from ranchers who don't pen their pigs or use antibiotics in their chicken, operates by the mantra "food with integrity."

The protesters, who included local members of the Service Employees International Union, claim that Chipotle fired the workers without providing much explanation and that the workers faced delays in getting paid.

Mr. Arnold said those assertions are untrue and that "ours is a culture that is built on recognizing top-performing employees and developing them into future leaders, so this is a particularly troubling situation for us because of the impact this has on future generations of leaders and managers. We'd rather keep all these people but under the law we can't do that."

The review of its employees by immigration officials is still continuing, and Mr. Arnold couldn't say whether additional employees might be let go. Shawn Neudauer, spokesman for the ICE region that includes Minnesota, says it's the department's policy not to comment on specific cases.

Mr. Arnold said current immigration law puts companies in a tough spot—they must thoroughly review workers' documentation but they can't be discriminatory in their hiring practices. "We have to thread this very delicate needle," he said.

SOURCE



21 January, 2011

Feds announce new tactic in illegal hiring crackdown

Immigration officials announced Thursday that they are ramping up a crackdown on employers who hire illegal workers by creating an audit office tasked with strengthening the verification of business hiring records.

"What the center will allow us to do is ensure us to have the capacity to do a lot of large-scale audits," Immigration and Customs Enforcement head John T. Morton said Thursday during a teleconference.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are briefed before a Santa Ana raid in search of fugitives. Five subjects, court ordered to be deported, were arrested in early morning raids in Santa Ana, Anaheim and Garden Grove.

The new office will have specialists who will scrutinize I-9 employee data collected from employers chosen for audits, Morton said. The new office will add an additional 15 full-time auditors to a staff of 137, he said.

This move is the latest action taken by the Obama administration, which has promised to refocus immigration enforcement's aim on worksite enforcement.

At a Los Angeles news conference in August 2009, Morton told reporters the administration would move away from the Bush administration's large-scale work enforcement actions where thousands of people working in the country illegally were arrested and placed in deportation proceedings.

Immigration rights groups blasted the high-profile raids, saying that immigration officials only went after the people who were in the country illegally and prosecuted very few of the employers.

One of the most recent worksite enforcement actions in Orange County during the new administration targeted Terra Universal, a manufacturing plant in Fullerton that manufactures and ships high-tech laboratory equipment – mostly abroad.

ICE officials served a search warrant and detained 43 people who were suspected of being in the country illegally. Those detained were released within a few hours.

However, company officials complained that while the search warrant asked for employee records, they disrupted the company's operations, costing them thousands of dollars in business.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, ICE conducted audits of more than 2,740 companies, just short of twice as many as the previous year, according to a Wall Street Journal story. The agency gave out a record $7 million in civil fines to businesses that employed people who were not authorized to work in the country.

Morton also announced a partnership with Tyson Foods, which has joined a program that allows federal officials to audit a portion of their hiring records.

Tyson has faced human smuggling charges in the past, which ultimately resulted in acquittal, according to a Wall Street Journal story about the new federal audit office.

SOURCE






Britain is migrant magnet of Europe: Only Spain admits more non-EU immigrants

Britain accepts more non-European immigrants than any other EU country except Spain, it emerged yesterday. The latest annual figures showed immigration from Asia, Africa and the Americas running at 307,000, against 284,000 received by Italy and the 238,000 who went to Germany.

These comparisons are striking because Italy is the main destination for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East who see it as the easiest route into Europe, and for decades Germany accepted more migrants than any other European country.

The only country that takes more non-EU immigrants than Britain now is Spain, the European country of choice for most Latin Americans. The figures, which cover 2008, show that Spain took 499,000 non-EU migrants.

The news comes as ministers prepare caps on migration from outside Europe, the only possible form of control because EU laws demand free movement between the 27 member states.

They have promised to reduce annual ‘net migration’ – calculated by subtracting the number of emigrants from the immigrant total – to below 100,000, a level last seen in the late Nineties. Tory MPs warned that the new figures show the need for the Coalition to act effectively.

Douglas Carswell, MP for Clacton, said: ‘We made a clear promise to cut net migration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. ‘These figures show that the Government needs to pull its finger out and get on with it. ‘People are fed up with talk. They want to see significant reductions. People will hold ministers to account for this at the next election.’

Last week, a Whitehall survey showed four out of five people want to see immigration reduced and more than half the population want to see immigration cut ‘a lot’.

The figures from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics department, show only four member states accepted more than 100,000 immigrants from outside the EU in 2008. France used to admit high numbers of immigrants, but it took only 89,000 two years ago, fewer than a third of the number coming to Britain.

The country outside the EU from where the most people came to Britain in 2008 was India, at 47,000. In that year, 165,000 people arrived in the UK from Commonwealth countries and 142,000 from other non-EU nations.

The most recent statistics show 303,000 people came to Britain from outside the EU in 2009 – the latest year for which figures are available. Net migration then was 193,000, a figure which is likely to have risen to well over 200,000 because fewer people emigrate in a recession.

In April, the Government will introduce rules intended to cap visas for less skilled workers from outside Europe to 21,700 next year, a reduction of a fifth. A consultation on how to cut the number of student visas is under way.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said: ‘This shows why the Government is committed to reducing net migration to sustainable levels from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands within the lifetime of this Parliament.

‘We have already introduced a limit on non-EU economic migration and throughout 2011 we will be introducing further controls across the board to affect every immigration route. ‘We will exert steady downward pressure on immigration numbers, which is the sensible way to deal with the uncontrolled immigration system we inherited.’

SOURCE



20 January, 2011

Foreigners take two out of three new British jobs as statistics reveal nearly 200,000 vacancies were filled by those born overseas

These figures will not be much of a surprise in Australia. As Australians sometimes say in their splendid slanguage: "A Pom wouldn't work in an iron lung". In other words, Britons are seen as characteristically work-shy

Just a third of all jobs created last year went to British-born workers, official figures indicate. They show that only 100,000 of the 297,000 workers who began new posts between July and September 2010 were native Britons. Of the rest, 90,000 were born in Poland and other Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004, and the remainder were born elsewhere in the world.

The summer figures from the Office for National Statistics are the latest available and are understood to be representative of the whole year.

The analysis, published in the ONS journal Economic and Labour Market Review, also showed that while a million jobs have become available in Britain over the past six years, there are now a third of a million fewer British-born people in work.

Since the beginning of 2004, the number of British-born people in jobs has gone down by 334,000, while nearly 1.3million foreign-born individuals have found work in the UK. Of these, 530,000 were from Eastern Europe and 770,000 from elsewhere in the world.

Sir Andrew Green, of the think-tank MigrationWatch, said: ‘These latest figures can only be described as spectacular. There are no fixed numbers of jobs in an economy but it is very hard to escape the conclusion that foreign-born workers are taking jobs that might be done by British workers.’

SOURCE






Asylum seeker who killed girl in hit and run 'should be deported', says immigration minister

The father of a girl left dying in the road after being mown down by a failed asylum seeker has been handed a major boost in his bid to have him deported. Aso Mohammed Ibrahim knocked down Amy Houston, 12, and fled the scene leaving her under the wheels of his car. He was arrested and served four months in prison but launched legal action to be allowed leave to remain in the UK.

Last year his fight against deportation was successful after he argued sending him home would breach his right to a 'private and family life' under the Human Rights Act as he had fathered two children here.

But Amy's father, Paul Houston, 41, has continued to campaign for Ibrahim to be deported claiming the Act had become nothing more than a charter for thieves, killers, terrorists and illegal immigrants. Now he has been handed fresh hope after his campaign was backed by immigration minister Damian Green. In a letter to Mr Houston, the immigration minister said: 'I agree that Mr Ibrahim should not be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom.

'Mr Ibrahim was convicted of committing an offence that led to the tragic death of Amy Houston and it is my personal view that he should be removed.'

His support comes as it was announced the case was set to go before the High Court in London. The Home Office has granted UK Borders Agency bosses permission to take the case to the Court of Appeal in an attempt to overturn the Upper Immigration Tribunal's decision to allow Ibrahim to stay in Britain.

Ibrahim, 33, arrived in Britain hidden in the back of a lorry in January 2001. His application for asylum was refused and a subsequent appeal in November 2002 failed, but he was never sent home.

Amy was killed in 2003 after she was hit by a Rover driven by Ibrahim who then fled the scene leaving the girl crying in pain under the wheels. The Iraqi Kurd was jailed for just four months after admitting driving while disqualified and failing to stop after an accident.

Since his release from prison he has racked up a string of criminal convictions, including more driving offences, harassment and cautions for burglary and theft.

But Ibrahim embarked on a relationship with Christina Richardson and they had two children, Harry, four, and Zara, three. He was able to escape deportation from the UK by using the Human Rights Act to successfully argue he had a right to a family life.

The UK Border Agency launched a last-ditch appeal against that decision in an attempt to have him kicked out. But at a hearing in Manchester in November immigration judges, Deborah Taylor and Clive Lane, rejected the appeal. Now senior judge in the High Court will now review case documents to determine whether an appeal can be heard.

Mr Houston said: 'I'm hopeful we will be given an appeal and we will finally be able to argue that Mr Ibrahim should have been deported years ago.'

SOURCE



19 January, 2011

Britain's Borders 'made less secure by Labour' say frontline staff

Britain's border guards have delivered a damning verdict on Labour's supposedly 'tough' immigration system. In an official survey, nearly three quarters of staff working on the front line said the changes made the border less secure.

But migrants asked their views on the system - attacked for allowing arrivals to spiral out of control - were overwhelmingly in favour. More than 80 per cent of visa applicants said the system was fair, easy to understand and 'user-friendly'. Businesses and universities bringing migrants in to work or study in Britain were similarly in favour.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch UK think tank said: 'We have long had concerns about the effectiveness of the points based system in controlling the scale of immigration to Britain.' 'The fact that immigrants themselves are very happy with it, and immigration officers are not serves to underline the view that the system needs fundamental reassessment.'

The Australian-style points system, introduced by Gordon Brown, was intended to cut arrivals from outside the EU, with numbers of economic migrants expected to fall by as much as 12 per cent. But it was branded 'shambolic' after analysis showed that economic migration actually increased by 20 per cent, while the number of foreign students went up by more than 30 per cent.

Less than a year after it was brought in, ministers were forced to suspend applications from several countries, including Bangladesh and Nepal, because of fears student routes were being abused by economic migrants.

In just twelve months the number of visas issued in Bangladesh increased by 645 per cent. At the time, some border staff watching arrivals at UK ports and airports reported migrants arriving who could barely speak English, despite having met supposedly strict admission criteria.

The Home Office survey of nearly 2000 immigration staff was carried between April and May last year.

Around half of all UK Border Agency staff - including backroom workers tasked with processing applications - said the country's borders appeared less secure since the system was brought in. But that view was held by 71 per cent of Border Force staff who work on the front line.

The survey also suggested the system was rushed in, with just 14 per cent of Border Force staff saying they were properly prepared for its introduction.

The highest approval rates - approaching 90 per cent - were seen in Tier One of the points system, which issued visas to 'highly skilled' workers allowed to come to Britain even if they didn't have a secure job offer.

Figures emerged recently showing just one in four of those coming in through Tier One was able to secure a 'highly skilled' occupation. Nearly one in three were either unemployed or working as supermarket cashiers, security guards or call centre staff.

Of 6,796 migrants, 82 per cent of those in Tier One said they were satisfied with the system, 81 per cent of skilled migrants coming in through Tier 2, and 79 per cent of young and temporary workers admitted under Tier 5.

Businesses and universities bringing in migrants to work and study gave the scheme an 86 per cent approval rate.

Ministers have pledged to cut net migration - the difference between the numbers arriving and those leaving - from more than 200,000 last year to less than 100,000 by 2015.

In an unprecedented crackdown the number of economic migrants arriving from outside the EU will be permanently capped from later this year, and both student visa numbers and totals coming here to marry will be slashed.

SOURCE





Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. REAL ID Implementation: Less Expensive, Doable, and Helpful in Reducing Fraud (Backgrounder)

2. The Big Lie Never Dies: The Washington Post on Mass Deportation (Blog)

3. A Small Hyphen's Large Assimilation Results (Blog)

4. Hyphenation vs. Dual Citizenship (Blog)

5. Just How Does an Anchor Baby Anchor the Illegal Alien Parent? (Blog)

6. What's in a Name? Assimilation's Secret Weapon (Blog)

7. Morton Kondracke and the Immigration-Industrial Complex (Blog)

8. Plan B for the Pro-Migration Advocates (Blog)

9. Not Your Father's Latino Officials (Blog)

10. Would Advanced Immigrant Visas for 55,000 Haitians Help Haiti? (Blog)

11. Phoenix ICE Agents Raid Business! (Blog)

12. Decision Makers: Gallegly in House of Representatives, Sperling in White House (Blog)

13. Arlington-Based Outfit Urges India to Fight Against U.S. Interests in WTO (Blog)






18 January, 2011

Amid federal inaction, Md. among states to take up immigration issue

Clad in black T-shirts that read, "I am Maryland. Youth can DREAM," a dozen undocumented students came to Annapolis last week to thank state Sen. Victor R. Ramirez. Even before he was sworn in, the Prince George's County Democrat had pledged to try to extend in-state tuition at Maryland's public colleges and universities to the children of illegal immigrants.

Elsewhere in the capital that day, Del. Patrick L. McDonough called for officers at state buildings to bar the entry of those students — and anyone, he said, who could not present proof of citizenship. The Baltimore County Republican outlined plans to introduce several bills to crack down on illegal immigrants in what he calls a "sanctuary state."

Similar clashes are unfolding in statehouses across the nation. As a decade of bipartisan efforts at comprehensive immigration reform in Washington comes to an end in a divided and polarized Congress, local lawmakers — including those in states, such as Maryland, far from some other country's border — are taking matters into their own hands.

All 46 states that held a regular legislative session last year addressed immigration in some form, enacting more than 200 laws and adopting 138 resolutions — a record number, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And there's no sign that interest will ebb this year, conference official Ann Morse said.

Legislatures "are reflecting the general public's frustration with the issue," Morse said. She said many of the laws, in fact, are passed merely as "a way to get the federal government to pay attention."

Advocates for undocumented immigrants warn that state attempts to assume the federal responsibility to defend the borders are fraught with pitfalls. A spokesman for the Washington-based National Immigration Forum points to last year's controversial Arizona law, which would require law enforcement agents to verify the immigration status of suspects they believe could be in the country illegally. The Obama administration says the law is unconstitutional; it is now tied up in court.

State legislative fixes "can have dire consequences," National Immigration Forum spokesman Martine Apodaca said.

Frederick County Sheriff Charles A. Jenkins, who leads the only law enforcement agency in Maryland with a formal policy of referring undocumented suspects to federal immigration authorities, said waiting for Congress "to do something" is "the easy way out."

Jenkins says the county policy has led to 800 deportation proceedings. "It's easy for any sheriff or chief of police or legislator to say, 'It's a federal problem,'" he said. "But what we've demonstrated here in Frederick County is that there is a clear role for the locals to play."

At least seven states, including Pennsylvania, are seriously considering legislation modeled on Arizona's law, according to the National Immigration Forum.

McDonough has put together an Arizona-style bill for the Maryland legislature to consider, but it is not expected to go anywhere in the Democrat-dominated General Assembly. "What's important to me is the rule of law, the citizenship we have and its value," McDonough said.

More likely to gain traction this year, according to House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, is a plan that would enable undocumented students schooled in Maryland to pay in-state tuition at the state's public colleges and universities. Ramirez, who was elected to the Senate in November, called the legislation "a matter of education policy, not immigration policy."

Federal law requires public schools to provide K-12 education to undocumented children. Given that the state has already invested in those children, Ramirez said, "it makes no sense to abandon them" if they go on to seek higher education.

Ramirez, who was born in El Salvador and moved to Maryland legally with his family as a child, authored similar legislation as a delegate. He will be joined in the effort by Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr., a Montgomery County Democrat who also has long advocated for in-state tuition.

The legislature passed an in-state tuition bill in 2003, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican. Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat who has referred to illegal immigrants as "new Americans," said he would sign an in-state tuition bill.

Ten states now offer in-state tuition to undocumented students, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Morse, the conference's program director, says a court finding upholding such a law in California will likely encourage other states to consider similar measures.

Kim Propeack, organizing director at the immigrant advocacy group Casa de Maryland, said rejection of the federal Dream Act last month "was felt deeply" in Maryland, with its large immigrant community, its proximity to the nation's capital and its Democrat-majority population. "There's a very emotional relationship between the failure of the Dream Act and the movement locally," she said.

The federal legislation, which was backed by President Barack Obama and most congressional Democrats, would have extended citizenship to some children of illegal immigrants if those children served in the military or pursued higher education. It was approved last month by the then-Democratic House, but fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate.

Miller, the state Senate president, has said he would support an in-state tuition bill, but predicts lawmakers will seek a compromise, such as extending the offer only at community colleges, and not four-year institutions.

A Southern Maryland Democrat, Miller anticipates that lawmakers will hear loudly from constituents on the issue. He does not believe that Marylanders support giving in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

Jenkins, the Frederick County sheriff, said citizens feel strongly about cracking down on illegal immigrants. He is surprised more sheriffs across the state haven't followed his county's example. "I talk to average citizens, and there's a real want out there for government leaders to stand up and do something about the problem," Jenkins said.

Until June 2009, Maryland was the only state east of the Rocky Mountains that didn't require applicants for driver's licenses to prove they were in the country lawfully. The practice ended only after a long and emotional legislative debate, punctuated with shouting and tears, that continued to the final moments of that year's session.

More HERE





Thousands of Afghan "asylum seekers" face deportation from Australia

AUSTRALIA has the green light to deport thousands of Afghan asylum seekers after reaching a historic agreement with the Afghan government.

The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Afghan Refugee Minister, Jamaher Anwary, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Sydney yesterday. It enables the forced return of Afghans whose bids for asylum fail. The move is alarming security experts and refugee advocates.

Mr Bowen said it would deter Afghans considering travelling to Australia. "Never, all through the Howard years, never before today, has there been an involuntary return from Australia to Afghanistan," he said. "To dissuade people from risking their lives by joining people-smuggling ventures, it is important that Afghans found not to be owed protection by Australia are returned to Afghanistan."

About 2600 Afghans are in Australia's detention centres. Of those, 49 must win court appeals to avoid imminent deportation.

The opposition was sceptical about the agreement, saying it was only as good as the government's will to enforce it. "The minister is unable to say when anyone is going to be returned," said its immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison. "It's not clear to me the government has the resolve to implement this."

In three years, only three asylum seekers have been returned to Afghanistan - all last year after volunteering to go. In 2008 and 2009, 126 people were returned to their countries of origin.

The director of the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University, William Maley, warned that ethnic Hazaras, in particular, should not be deported without extreme caution. "The security situation in Afghanistan is extremely unsettling," he said.

He cast doubt on the security expertise of Australian officials making refugee assessments. The decapitation of 11 Hazaras in Oruzgan province in June contradicted a cable from the Kabul embassy proclaiming a "golden age" for Hazaras, he said.

The Refugee Council of Australia was concerned by the lack of safeguards the memorandum provided for returned asylum seekers. "In Afghanistan, people are not so much under threat from actions by government but the actions of people who the government cannot, or chooses not to, control," said the chief executive, Paul Power.

The Australian government has promised money to help Afghanistan improve its passport system and accommodation for returned asylum seekers. The UN has agreed to ad hoc monitoring.

SOURCE



17 January, 2011

A good reply

The Arizona Suns basketball team is known for taking the field with "Los Suns" on their uniforms -- "Los" means "The" in Spanish. Their loyalty is apparently to Mexico rather than to the USA.

So it should be no surprise that they are sympathetic to illegal aliens in their midst in Arizona. And the AZ Sun's owner, Robert Sarver, said so last year -- criticizing Governor Brewer's support for Arizona's tough immigration control laws.

Jan Brewer replied:

"What if the owners of the Suns discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into games without paying? What if they had a good idea who the gate-crashers are, but the ushers and security personnel were not allowed to ask these folks to produce their ticket stubs, thus non-paying attendees couldn't be ejected.

Furthermore, what if Suns' ownership was expected to provide those who sneaked in with complimentary eats and drink? And what if, on those days when a gate-crasher became ill or injured, the Suns had to provide free medical care and shelter?"

See HERE




Va.: Prince William immigration policy could be extended statewide

Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William, has introduced legislation that would require police to check the immigration status of anyone arrested. The legislation would essentially extend Prince William's illegal immigration enforcement policy to all Virginia.

Lingamfelter's bill was lauded Friday by Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart, a Republican who has hinted at running for U.S. Sen. Jim Webb's seat in 2012.

Prince William's policy, passed by its Board of County Supervisors amid controversy in 2007, mandates that police officers inquire into the immigration status of everyone who is arrested in the county.

"The strength of this policy is that it mandates the status check and establishes a bright line for Virginia law enforcement, avoiding racial-profiling accusations," said Stewart. "As lawmakers, we have to show our law enforcement officials that we have their backs."

He added: "I am very hopeful we will be able to advance the rule of law for all Virginians."

SOURCE



16 January, 2011

Border Fence Project secretively buried by Homeland Security

Having spent a number of years in the media relations business, I’m familiar with the concept of releasing “bad news” on Friday. Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano used that approach to share news about her decision to cancel the Secure Border Initiative (a.k.a., “electronic fence”) that was supposed to help safeguard the nation’s southern border.

Late Friday night, I came across a Wired.com article about the cancellation of the project which, so far, has cost taxpayers more than $1 billion. That article contained a reference to a written statement (below) that was attributed to “Big Sis” Napolitano:

“SBInet cannot meet its original objective of providing a single, integrated border-security technology solution.”

Hoping to read the official statement with my own eyes, I visited the DHS web site’s “Press Room.” There, however, I found nothing published. In fact, the most-recent entry was dated Jan. 8.

Next, I visited PRNewswire for Journalists where I have an account. Again, nothing.

Growing frustrated, I visited the Customs & Border Patrol’s “National News Releases” and “Speeches and Statements” pages. I found nothing there.

Though doubtful I would find anything, I returned to the DHS web site and entered the phrase, “Border Fence,” in the site’s search box. When the results appeared, I clicked on the link, DHS | Southwest Border Fence. A new “rabbit chase” began.

I scrolled about halfway down the page and clicked on another link, “More on border fence.“ Again, nothing, so I scrolled down again until I saw a link to the SBInet program. When I clicked on the link, a “404 – Page Not Found” error appeared before my eyes — a fitting description of a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.

SOURCE






Governor Perry: 'Number of cities' giving safe haven to illegal immigrants despite wishes of Texans

Republican Gov. Rick Perry offered no clues Wednesday on how Texas might abolish "sanctuary cities" that he says provide haven to illegal immigrants, after ordering the new GOP-dominated state legislature make the issue a top priority.

Perry didn't get into details on how Texas should correct a "number of cities" he said are in conflict with state and federal immigration laws. He said writing a bill on the second day of a new session was premature, and didn't give an answer when asked whether he wants local police officers to question people about their immigration status during traffic stops.

"I don't know yet," Perry said. "We'll write the legislation over the next 140 days."

Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for the governor, later sought to clarify that comment, saying Perry wants to stop cities from taking away the discretion officers have to enforce certain laws. Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city, has long been assailed by conservatives as a place that protects illegal immigrants because the city's police officers generally don't ask about citizenship during patrols or investigations.

Perry, when pressed about Houston on Wednesday, said residents there realize the city has some "policies in place that are inappropriate." He didn't name other sanctuary cities in Texas when asked.

Houston has bristled at the "sanctuary city" label. Mayor Annise Parker, speaking to reporters in Houston after Perry's comments, said her city's policies for police are the same ones followed by state troopers. She said she wasn't aware of a sanctuary city anywhere in Texas. "We are going to continue doing what we do, and we believe common sense will prevail in Austin," Parker said.

Texas opened a new legislative session Tuesday with a historic GOP 101-49 supermajority in the House, meaning Republicans in that chamber can pass legislation with no Democratic support. Perry got thing started by designating sanctuary cities one of two emergency items for lawmakers. That puts the issue on the legislative fast track, whereas dozens of anti-illegal immigration bills in previous sessions withered quickly.

"There are cities in this state that have made decisions that they're going to be havens for those that are in conflict with federal immigration laws or state laws, and we're going to prohibit that," Perry said. "We'll have a good and open discussion about what we're going to prohibit."

Democrats say they've identified at least 40 bills targeting illegal immigration this session. The proposals include requiring local law enforcement to ask anyone without ID during a legal traffic stop whether they're in the country legally. Another would require school districts to identify students who are illegal immigrants.

Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic caucus, said Perry putting sanctuary cities on top of lawmakers' to-do list is another sign of the momentum behind illegal immigration proposals in Texas. "I figured that one out on election night," said Van De Putte, referring to sweeping GOP gains in November.

But Van De Putte said she is waiting to see how "sanctuary cities" are defined before commenting on the push to pass a bill. She is opposed to measures she believes would complicate the job of police officers if people in the community, including illegal immigrants, were reluctant to come forward with information about crimes.

Arizona passed the toughest state anti-immigration laws in the nation last year. It requires police officers, when enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally. Perry has said he doesn't support Texas passing an identical measure but has lauded the state for taking the matter into its own hands.

In Houston, Parker said her problem with Arizona-style laws is that it gives too much discretion to officers on the street in determining who might be here legally and who isn't. Parker said 20 percent of her city's population wasn't born in America, and that she wasn't just referring to Hispanics born elsewhere. "Are we as Americans willing to carry and display, for any police officer who wants to stop us, something that proves that we were born here and have the right to be here?" she said.

Perry has not mentioned any specific bill since declaring sanctuary cities a priority. But one that seems to closely match his comments is Republican Rep. Debbie Riddle's bill that would deny state funding to local governments that do not enforce immigration laws.

Riddle, of suburban Houston, has long been one of the loudest anti-illegal immigration voices in the Capitol. She found Perry's prioritizing validating. "This is the United States of America. Not the United States of Luby's," said Riddle, referring to a popular cafeteria-style Texas restaurant chain. "We cannot just pick and choose the laws that we want to enforce. We cannot pick and choose the laws we want to respect."

SOURCE



15 January, 2011

UC Berkeley Chancellor Links Tucson Shooting to Immigration

About what you expect of UCB but still dishonest and irresponsible. Intellectual standards? Nil

Striking up controversy while commenting on last weekend’s shooting, a University of California Berkeley chancellor sent an e-mail linking the Tucson shooting to Arizona’s war on undocumented immigration, and the downfall of the DREAM Act.

In the e-mail sent Monday, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, he stated he was angered by a “climate in which demonization of others goes unchallenged and hateful speech in tolerated.” [So he does some hate speech of his own, directed at Arizonans? Accusing them of complicity in mass murder?]

The chancellor also gave his opinion on why the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner , could have been motivated to kill those six people and injure another thirteen.

“I believe that it is not a coincidence that this calamity has occurred in a state which has legislated discrimination against undocumented persons,” [Whoa boy! It's illegal immigrants who are affected, not "persons" in general] said the e-mail, referring to Arizona’s law that gives local police officers the authority to enforce federal immigration law, by asking anyone appearing to be an undocumented immigrant for proof of their immigration status during a traffic stop.

The comments in the e-mail were picked up by news sources immediately, as this kind of blunt opinion on a matter like this is rather rare occurrence from a university leader.

Birgeneau added that Saturday’s shooting was caused by the “same mean-spirited xenophobia [that] played a major role in the defeat of the DREAM Act by legislators in Washington, [which left] many exceptionally talented and deserving young people, including our own undocumented students, painfully in limbo with regard to their futures in this country.”

["mean-spirited xenophobia". Would calling people that be contributing to the climate of hate by any chance? "Xenophobia" means neurotic fear of foreigners so he is calling Arizonans and conservatives mentally ill. How does that contribute to calming down the debate? His words sound to me like the "anger, hatred and bigotry" that Sheriff Dupnik was talking about. Birgeneau certainly seems to be doing his best to create a climate of hostility -- JR]

While UC Berkeley has a tradition of supporting student activism, college officials are rarely this vocal, and Birgeneau’s e-mail has caused an uproar, with some going as far as demanding his removal.

Holmes says response from the students has been minimal as they are still on winter break.

SOURCE




Immigration is too high, say four in five Britons

Four out of five people want to see cuts in the level of immigration, a large-scale survey carried out for the Government has revealed. More than half the population want to see numbers coming from abroad to live in Britain reduced by ‘a lot’, it found.

The poll, carried out for the Communities Department, showed that public demand for reducing immigration is overwhelming and growing.

It amounts to a warning from Whitehall to David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May that concerns over immigration – which played a central role in last year’s general election – have not gone away and are likely to lead to voter frustration if the Coalition fails to keep its promises.

Ministers have pledged to bring net migration – the number of people added to the population by migration each year – down to 1990s levels of under 100,000. In Labour’s last year in power, net migration was 215,000.

The Communities Department Citizenship Survey – a research project launched while Tony Blair was prime minister – attempts to measure ‘community cohesion’.

Its findings on immigration are notable because the survey was designed to ensure that ethnic minorities and Muslims were ‘robustly represented’ among those consulted.

Some 10,000 people were questioned, but pollsters then gauged opinions from a further 5,000 ethnic minority members and 1,200 Muslims before reaching their conclusions.

The survey found that 78 per cent of the population want to see immigration cut back. A quarter (24 per cent) would like to see immigration reduced a little, while 54 per cent said they wanted it cut ‘a lot’. Fewer than one in five – 19 per cent – said levels should stay the same. Only three people in 100 thought there should be an increase.

The pollsters found no sign that people felt their local areas were becoming more uneasy and divided. They said 85 per cent thought their neighbourhood was ‘cohesive’ and a place where people from different backgrounds got on well together.

However, 22 per cent thought they would get worse treatment from public services because of their race. This proportion is double the size of the ethnic minority population, which is around 10 per cent of the population.

Sir Andrew Green, of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: ‘These figures are a very clear indication that, despite our economic troubles, immigration remains high among public concerns. The Coalition Government, and especially its Liberal Democrat members, would do well to remember that.’

Some ministers, notably Business Secretary Vince Cable, have been resisting Mrs May’s attempt to cut numbers of visas for workers coming to Britain from outside the European Union. Mr Cable and some other ministers believe industry needs to recruit highly skilled labour from abroad.

But critics who fear the Coalition may be too cautious say that Britain is importing workers while six million people remain idle on benefits.

They also point to tensions caused by competition between immigrants and locals for housing and state services in places such as East London and the growing strain on housing, transport, water and energy supplies because of fast-increasing population levels.

In April, the Government will cap numbers of visas for less skilled workers from outside Europe to 21,700 for 2012, a reduction of a fifth. A consultation on how to cut numbers of student visas is under way.

SOURCE



14 January, 2011

Hispanic border control agents not a good idea?

Family loyalties tend to be strong among people from poor countries

A Border Patrol agent in San Diego was busted Tuesday for harboring illegal immigrants at his home – including his own dad. Marcos Gerardo Manzano Jr., 26, was arrested at the Imperial Beach Border Patrol Station after police and FBI agents staged an early morning raid at his home in San Ysidro and arrested Jose Alfredo Garrido-Morena, a suspected undocumented immigrant, NBC San Diego reported.

According to court documents, Garrido-Morena, 26, had been living at Manzano's house since November -- along with Manzano's 46-year-old pop, Marcos Gerardo Manzo Sr., who is wanted by the feds. The elder Manzano was not at the home at the time of the sunrise raid and is still on the run. He was busted on marijuana charges four years ago and twice deported to Mexico before sneaking back into the U.S., Fox San Diego reported.

Manzano Jr. is also charged with lying to federal investigators, who had asked him about his dad's whereabouts.

On Tuesday, a heavily armed SWAT squad, backed by Customs officers and Border Patrol forces, stormed Manzano Jr.'s home, where they arrested Garrido-Morena and also detained a second man and three women, Fox reported. "It looked like a movie. It was a big scene," neighbor Daniel Lazo told NBC. "Seems impossible. They were everywhere."

The second man and women, whose relationship to the Manzanos and Garrido-Morena was not clear, were released after questioning.

Manzano Jr. and Garrido-Morena were being held in a jail in downtown San Diego and scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.

Source





Report finds immigration at heart of Chesapeake Bay woes

Environmentalists often get uncomfortable when asked if people - and their growing numbers - aren't the underlying problem in the Chesapeake Bay's decline.

Now comes a report that'll make everyone even more skittish, because it calculates that immigrants and their children accounted for two-thirds of the population growth in the bay's six-state watershed in the past decade. And in Maryland, they represented 98 percent - nearly all - of the state's increase in residents.

"The leading environmental groups dedicated (to) cleaning up the Bay recognize the harmful effects of population growth on the Bay but do not acknowledge that immigration is driving population growth in the watershed," says the report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

The Washington-based group says it's drawing a bead on the Chesapeake because the Bay's woes are "symptomatic of the impact that immigration-driven population growth is having across the United States. The difference is that the population in the Bay's watershed has already grown beyond the carrying capacity of that ecosystem.

"The question is not whether the Bay is going to suffer the consequences of excessive growth," it goes on. "The question is whether the Bay can recover from the immense damage already inflicted upon it."

There's no question that people - and their demands for food, energy, housing and transportation - are at the heart of the Bay's woes. The chemical fertilizer and manure fouling the waters are produced by or for people. The bay cleanup effort to date has managed to make only patchy gains in the face of an ever-increasing population - 17 million now, with 150,000 more every year. Longtime author and journalist Tom Horton has written an Abell Foundation report looking at the impact growth has had on the Bay.

FAIR is using the Bay to push its national advocacy for a stricter crackdown on illegal immigration, and for reduced levels of legal immigration as well. It's an emotional issue, because many American families can trace their lineage to foreign shores, and the United States has a long tradition of drawing people here from other countries in search of greater freedom or economic opportunity.

Environmental activists, while acknowledging population's impact, often say there are other things, more in the control of the region's residents, for reducing the impacts the current and future residents that could be done before tackling the thorny issue of immigration reform. Such as Smart growth, for example, getting everyone to reduce their individual environmental footprint.

What do you think? Is immigration a problem for the Bay, much less THE problem? Would limiting entry to this country, legally or illegally, help repair the Chesapeake? Even if you think it might, would wading into the political minefield of national immigration policy tear apart the already fragile coalition of people and groups working on the current cleanup effort?

Source



13 January, 2011

Implementing REAL ID

Less Expensive, Doable, and Helpful in Reducing Fraud

By May 2011, all states must be in compliance with the first 18 security benchmarks of the federal secure driver's license law known as the REAL ID Act. REAL ID was prompted by the fact that the 9/11 hijackers acquired a total of 30 state-issued IDs and driver's licenses in order to embed themselves here (and board airplanes).

The Center for Immigration Studies has published a review of the current state of REAL ID: 'REAL ID Implementation: Less Expensive, Doable, and Helpful in Reducing Fraud' was prepared by Janice Kephart, a former 9/11 Commission counsel and currently the Center's National Security Policy Director. The paper is online at www.cis.org. Among the findings:

REAL ID has proven easier and less expensive to implement than previously believed. Using actual state budget numbers, total one-time costs to implement REAL ID’s 18 security benchmarks, for all states combined, could be as low as $350 million and not likely to exceed $750 million.

These numbers are significantly less than the one-time costs of at least $1 billion that the National Governors Association (NGA), National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) claimed in 2006.

Eleven states are already fully compliant with REAL ID's 18 security benchmarks, ahead of the May 2011 deadline. Another eight states are close behind.

The legal presence of applicants is being checked in all but two states, up 28 states from 2006. Every state is now checking Social Security numbers.

Some states were able to achieve full compliance in less than a year, and other state costs came in significantly below the projections which have been used for years to denigrate REAL ID’s feasibility.

Compliant states are finding REAL ID to be helpful in reducing fraud by criminals and illegal aliens shopping for the easiest driver's license issuance rules. Motor vehicle departments using REAL ID standards are also increasing criminal investigations of those who have traditionally used driver's license systems to commit identity theft and operate illegally under multiple identities.

Regulatory proposals from the NGA, NCSL, and AAMVA, slated for an upcoming lobbying campaign, incorporate language from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s failed 2009 PASS ID Act, which sought to repeal much of REAL ID.

Secretary Napolitano in November 2010 ordered an internal review with the goal of using the regulatory process to change REAL ID requirements after the failure of PASS ID.

The paper also includes a chart listing for every state the current status of implementation, federal grant monies issued to date, and costs of compliance, where available.

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




Cuba, US hold new round of immigration talks

Cuba and the United States launched Wednesday in Havana a new wave of immigration talks.

A source at the United States Interests Section in Havana confirmed the start of negotiations, which are being held at a secret location and, according to the US State Department, aim to promote safe, legal and orderly migration between the two countries.

The government of US President Barack Obama, however, has made it clear that no significant progress will be made in these talks until the release from prison of US contractor Alan Gross, who was arrested in Cuba in December 2009.

No formal charges have been pressed against Gross, 62, so far. Cuban authorities have accused him of distributing satellite communications systems on the island, where they are forbidden. According to US sources, he intended to facilitate Internet access for Cuba's Jewish organizations. Havana calls him a spy and says the case is still 'under investigation.'

This is the fourth immigration meeting of its kind between the United States and communist Cuba. Talks were relaunched in 2009, after Obama was inaugurated, after a six-year pause. The third round of negotiations took place in Washington in June.

Cuba and the United States signed a migration agreement in 1994, in the wake of the so-called Balsero Crisis, when thousands of Cubans reached US shores on precarious rafts and boats.

Since then, the United States has agreed to grant 20,000 visas per year to Cuban citizens, while Cuba takes back without retaliation those who are sent home by US authorities.

Based on the 1966 Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act, any Cuban citizen who reaches US soil is granted refugee status. If aspiring Cubans are found by the US Coast Guard at sea, however, they are sent back, in what is known as the 'Wet Foot, Dry Foot Policy.' Cuba demands that this law be repealed, as a precondition for a new immigration deal.

SOURCE



12 January, 2011

Plans for a wall on Greece's border with Turkey embarrass Brussels -- but they offer no alternative

Barrier is latest attempt to stem flow of illegal migrants attempting to enter the EU through Greece

The Greek government's plans to build a wall three metres high along part of its border with Turkey have prompted confusion in Brussels. The project, unveiled by the minister of civil defence, Christos Papoutsis, aims to restrict illegal immigration in an area with no natural barriers. The strip of land has become a major thoroughfare for migrants attempting to enter the European Union, with 90% of illegal migrants now passing through Greece.

The wall is to be built on a 12km stretch of frontier in Thrace. The area south of the river Evros, which takes a turn through Turkey, is highly permeable. About 128,000 illegals entered Greece at this location last year, according to Papoutsis.

The European commission expressed reservations about the project. "Walls or fences are short-term measures that are not meant to deal with the question of illegal immigration in a structural way," said the spokesman on security. [Pathetic waffle] Talks with Athens are likely to be difficult. The government has rejected "hypocritical" criticism, emphasising the need to "protect the rights of Greek citizens". Past complaints by European partners have focused on Greece's failure to guard its borders, the pitiful state of its detention centres and the treatment inflicted on asylum seekers.

The French and Germans are concerned about the future of the Schengen area due to the influx of illegal immigrants through Greece. The British, Dutch and Swedish authorities have stopped sending undocumented migrants back to Greece, even when there is proof they came by that route. Some governments even suspect that the Greeks floated the idea of a wall to put pressure on their partners and have the Frontex mission extended. The EU agency deployed 200 border guards south of the Evros river in October but they are due to be withdrawn at the end of February.

The Turkish government seems reluctant to get involved in the controversy. Located at the crossroads of migratory flows from the Middle East, Asia, the Caucasus and increasingly Africa, it has problems of its own.

SOURCE





Where are the UK's 60,000 lost asylum seekers?

Thousands of asylum seekers have been lost to immigration officials, according to a group of MPs looking in to border controls. They say more than 60,000 people will have vanished in a "rush" to clear backlogs.

Where have these people gone?

You might remember the uproar four years ago when it came out up to 450,000 asylum claims hadn't been processed. There were claims that the Home Office was not "fit for purpose" under the old Labour government.

Ever since, this MPs' group - the Home Affairs committee - has been keeping an eye on efforts to get things back on track. What's come out today is their latest report.

So - these aren't new asylum seekers?

No. All this could go back years.

The accusation is that in the rush to catch up since that backlog about one in seven applications have simply been shelved. They say too much time has passed, and it's now likely to be impossible to find the people that filled out the forms in in the first place.

It adds up to about 60,000 people living in the UK who initially arrived as asylum seekers and there's no knowing whether they should be allowed to stay or not.

But they won't be here legally if they don't have their paperwork sorted?

That's right. It leaves them in limbo neither legally settled and able to get a proper job, nor under threat of being removed.

Answering all this for the government, the Immigration Minister Damian Green says the system is "recovering".

SOURCE



11 January, 2011

Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Checks and Balances: Potential Areas for Congressional Oversight of Immigration Administration in the 112th Congress (Memorandum)

2. Anti-Civil Discourse (Blog)

3. New Foreign PhDs Much Less in Debt than New U.S. Citizen PhDs (Blog)

4. The Yin and Yang of Immigration Debate Extremes (Blog)

5. Guam Employer of Foreign Workers Caught in Quadruple Abuse Scheme (Blog)

6. Department of Very Bad Immigration Ideas: 'Every child in the United States should learn Spanish' (Blog)

7. Amnesty Advocates Interrupt Birthright Event, Tackle Senior Citizen (Blog)

8. Mexican Education's Sad Legacy in the U.S. (Blog)

9. Decision Maker: Justice Appoints Osuna to Head EOIR (Blog)

10. Education as Patriotism: A Novel and Dubious Defense of the DREAM Act (Blog)

11. Flashback: Sen. Reid on Birthright Citizenship (Blog)

12. A View from Manhattan (Blog)

13. Foriegn Workers and the Mismatch Theory (Blog)

14. The More-Workers-Needed Fallacy (Blog)

15. New Bomb Manual + Open Borders = Danger (Blog)





Australia pressured to speed up skilled migrant applications

More than 140,000 skilled workers hoping to migrate to Australia are caught up in a departmental backlog going back over two years.

Immigration minister Chris Bowen was informed of the backlog in a secret briefing with Australia's Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) late last year, but the details of the briefing have only just been made public.

The backlog has been widely criticised by businessmen who believe that the number of skilled migrants in Australia needs to be swiftly increased in order to help the country ride out the economic crisis.

Australia's rapid recovery from the worldwide economic problems of the past few years has led to what business leaders say is a shortage of workers in many sectors, including engineering, construction and health care, and a consequent risk of inflated wages.

Graham Kraehe, director of the Reserve Bank of Australia, told The Australian: ”I think skills shortages are a major problem and if we don’t increase the amount of skilled migration then we are going to have some real pressure on wages.

“Two things are critical: one is some measures to improve productivity, which has been very poor in the last three or four years and declining; and the second is to increase the skilled immigration quotas so we can address what is already a shortage and something that is putting pressure on project costs and more broadly will put pressure on wages costs in the community.”

A spokesman for the DIAC justified the backlog by saying that the government prioritised the order in which skilled migration applications were processed. “Priority goes to those applicants determined to bring the most benefit to Australia, not simply to those who applied first. For this reason, waiting times range from a few months, for those sponsored by employers, to a few years, for those who don’t have a sponsor or skills in need in Australia.

The issue is that many more people were applying for skilled migration than there were places in the programme, so the pipeline of applicants awaiting a decision continued to grow.”

Over the past 40 years, Austalia's population has grown at an average of 1.4 per cent per annum, bringing its total population in 2011 to around 22 million.

In the briefing, Mr Bowen was told that in order to keep the country economically powerful and fight the problems of an ageing population, Australia would need to have a population of 36 million by 2050 - the same figure which was enthusiastically embraced by ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2009, when he spoke of his hopes for a “Big Australia.”

Since Julia Gillard came to power in June 2010 however, the government's emphasis on a “Big Australia” has switched to the idea of a "Sustainable Australia", with migration intake decreased from around 300,000 to 180,000 a year, and a stronger emphasis placed on making sure migrants' skills are needed.

In an interview on ABC programme PM, Mr Bowen said that he wanted to see the waiting figure reduced, but insisted that the “vast majority” of those people on the list were people “who the Department of Immigration have determined are people who are unlikely to have the skills necessary that the Australian economy needs at this point in time".

The spokesman for the DIAC said that waiting times had already begun to fall as a consequence of recent reforms. "The result is a programme that is driven by Australia’s labour market demand, rather than by the supply of people seeking skilled migration," he added.

SOURCE



10 January, 2011

Was it immigration policy that got Rep. Giffords shot?

Based on zero evidence, there have been many attempts to link the Giffords shooting to Arizona's policies towards illegal immigration. Some such attempts are reported in the excerpts below

The final paragraph is true in a way that its speaker probably did not intend. He is right that America is currently "practicing the politics of division and subtraction, not multiplication and addition", but who is to blame for that?

It wouldn't be a Democratic party that pushed through a vast healthcare bill that was clearly unwanted by the majority of Americans (something confirmed on Nov. 2 last year) and a party that has not shown one sign of that "reaching across the divide" which Obama promised in his election campaign, would it? It took the defeats of last November to wring the first compromise out of them.

And which party tried its damnedest to push through the DREAM act when at least two thirds of Americans are opposed to any form of amnesty for illegals?

Another blogger makes similar points but at greater length. And, as noted here Giffords was in fact closer to the GOP policy on illegal immigration than she was to mainstream Democrats. It was a "secure the borders" politician who was shot

Even before the shooting of a U.S. congresswoman Saturday, the state of Arizona was in the throes of a convulsive political year that had come to symbolize a bitter partisan divide across much of America.

The motives of the alleged shooter, who wounded Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed six people in Tucson, are not known and they may not be political.

But after an acrimonious election in November that followed months of bitter exchanges, politics looms large in the wake of the shooting and a local sheriff pointedly blamed hateful political rhetoric for inciting violence.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told a news conference.

"The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

The spark in Arizona's political firestorm was the border state's move to crack down on illegal immigration last summer, a bill proposed by conservative lawmakers and signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer.

The law known as SB 1070 "superheated the political divide more than I've ever seen it in Arizona," said Bruce Merrill, a longtime political analyst and pollster at Arizona State University.

A majority of Arizonans supported it, but opponents and many in the large Hispanic population felt it was unconstitutional and would lead to discrimination.

As the law went into effect, U.S. Congressman Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and opponent of SB 1070, closed a district office in Yuma after staff found a shattered window and a bullet inside.

Giffords favored a softer approach to illegal immigrants and was expected to push for comprehensive immigration reform in the Congress that was sworn in this week in Washington....

Art Hamilton, who served 26 years in the state House and 18 years as its Democratic leader, said there is "no question" that Arizona is at a low point in its governance. "I do believe we see a point in the history of this state that we're practicing the politics of division and subtraction, not multiplication and addition," Hamilton said.

SOURCE





Working illegally in Canada can lead to legal residency

Would-be immigrants to Canada can use illegal work experience to help bolster their application for permanent residency, according to federal documents obtained by QMI Agency.

The documents, a series of emails between senior officials within Citizenship and Immigration Canada, starts with an unnamed official questioning whether illegal work experience can count for someone seeking to enter Canada under the provincial nominee program, a program designed to fill specialized labour shortages in Canada.

“How does CIC count (or not count) illegal work experience?” asked the unidentified person in an email. “We have been asked to consider undocumented work experience in Canada towards accumulation of work experience.”

The email, addressed to Heidi Smith, director of permanent resident policy and programs at the immigration department, goes on to ask if there is a difference between illegal work experience gained in Canada and illegal work experience gained outside of Canada. The email also asks what the policy rationale would be for counting illegal experience.

After being circulated among various officials, a short answer was provided. “We can count illegal work for PNP, but at the same time we need to have a confirmation of the illegal work,” wrote Jacqueline Desjardins, senior analyst at CIC's national headquarters in Ottawa.

The answer shocked lawyer and immigration policy analyst Richard Kurland. “Last time I checked, it's illegal to work without a work permit,” Kurland told QMI. “Why am I advising people to obey the law? Here's a senior official saying you can flout the law.”

While Kurland said it's possible that people working in the country illegally could still be paying taxes, most, he said, would be working under the table, thereby breaking the law.

Many of those working illegally in Canada may also be breaking the law by being in the country illegally, said Kurland, while others might simply be students who have taken a job while studying at a Canadian school.

The activist group No One is Illegal estimates there are 200,000 to 500,000 people living in Canada illegally. Other estimates of the illegal immigrant population are much lower, closer to 100,000.

The federal government has long had difficulty enforcing deportation orders against those in the country illegally. A 2008 report from Auditor General Sheila Fraser showed that the government had lost track of 41,000 people that had been ordered deported.

Source



9 January, 2011

Arizona Bans extremist Latino Studies Program in Tucson school

A new immigration debate is burning in Arizona this week after the state's attorney general declared a Tucson school district's Mexican-American program illegal -- while similar class programs for blacks, Asians and American Indians were left standing.

"It's propagandizing and brainwashing that's going on there," Tom Horne, the new attorney general said earlier this week referring to the Latino program. He ruled it violated a new state law that went into effect on Jan. 1, the New York Times reported Saturday.

When he was the state's superintendent of public instruction, Horne wrote the bill challenging the program. The legislature passed it last spring, and Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law in May at a time when Arizona was mired in protests against its new anti-illegal immigration law.

Now, adding to an already combustible racial and ethnic climate in the heavily Hispanic state, 11 teachers have filed suit in federal courts challenging the new ethnic-studies law, the one that is backed by Horne.

In the Tucson school case, the state claims that the Latino program is more about creating future activists and less about education.

Horne's fight with Tucson goes back to 2007, the Times reported, when Dolores Huerta, co-founder with Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers, told high school students in a speech that Republicans hated Latinos. And Horne is a Republican.

Arizona school districts may lose 10 percent of their state funds if their ethnic studies programs fail to meet new state standards. Programs that support the overthrow of the United States government are banned. Also prohibited are classes that encourage hatred or resentment toward a race, or that focus on one race, or that support ethnic solidarity instead of individuality.

Horne said that Tucson's Latino program violated all those provisions. The district has 60 days to comply with the new law, although Horne indicated that the program would be ended anyway. He said that other districts ethnic-studies programs could continue, absent any complaints.

At Tucson High Magnet School where nearly all the students enrolled in Curtis Acosta's Latino literature class were Mexican-American, students expressed anger, asking how they could protest Horne's decision. "They wrote a state law to snuff this program out, just us little Chicanitos," Acosta told the New York Times. "The idea of losing this is emotional."

On the other side, Horne was asked if he felt he was being compared to Bull Connor, the Alabama police commissioner whose violence against blacks and other freedom fighters became the image of bigotry in the 1960s. Horne said he had joined the March on Washington in 1963, and lashed out at his critics, saying, "They are the 'Bull Connors.' They are the ones re-segregating."

Source






Cautious Choice for House Immigration Panel

The new Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith of Texas, has passed over an outspoken immigration hard-liner and member of the Tea Party caucus for chairman of the immigration subcommittee.

In an announcement Friday, Mr. Smith unexpectedly gave the job of chairman of the subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement to Representative Elton Gallegly, a conservative Republican from California.

Representative Steve King of Iowa, who was the senior Republican on the subcommittee in the last Congress and was expected to take over as chairman, was named vice chairman instead. Mr. King is known for his high-profile support for measures to crack down on illegal immigration.

In an interview late Friday, Mr. King made no secret of his surprise and disappointment. “I don’t know I can explain it,” he said.

“But the speaker has clearly said that our legislative agenda is the Pledge to America,” Mr. King said, referring to the newly inaugurated Speaker of the House, John A. Boehner of Ohio, and a manifesto Republicans endorsed before the November elections, in which they won a strong majority in that chamber. Mr. King was critical of the pledge, saying, “There is no immigration agenda in it, period.”

He added, “If that is the speaker’s will — that there be no immigration agenda — then this decision would begin to be rational.”

An aide on the Judiciary Committee said Mr. Smith had followed protocol, since Mr. Gallegly was more senior than Mr. King on the full committee. The aide, who asked to speak anonymously following guidance from Mr. Smith, said Mr. Gallegly had requested the immigration subcommittee post.

In practice, Mr. Gallegly does not differ substantially with Mr. King on immigration. Mr. Gallegly, who represents a southern California district, supports tough border enforcement and opposes measures to give legal status to illegal immigrants. He has described himself as one of the “top 10 illegal immigration hawks in Congress.”

But Mr. King, as top Republican on the subcommittee, had made immigration a hallmark issue, appearing frequently in the media to denounce illegal immigrants and recount crime waves and job losses he said they had brought to the country.

Coming from Texas, Mr. Smith has been more sympathetic than Mr. King to Republican concerns that harsh rhetoric on immigration could alienate Latino voters. A chorus of Latinos said Thursday they were offended by Mr. King’s bill to deny birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants.

“We urge our conservative brothers and sisters to be careful regarding the message that they are sending to the fastest growing segment of our society,” said Juan Hernandez, a founder of Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, a group that favors legalization for illegal immigrants.

Source





"Refugees" win access to Australian courts

THE Gillard government is bracing for a wave of asylum claims to swamp the legal system. This comes after the government accepted the results of a High Court ruling that raises serious questions about the value of offshore processing.

Responding for the first time to the High Court's ruling on the rights of asylum-seekers to challenge procedural aspects of their cases in the courts, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen yesterday announced the government would appoint two new federal magistrates specifically to deal with the expected deluge in new cases.

Changes to the refugee review process will also greatly extend the appeal options available to asylum-seekers.

But, in a move likely to put the government on a collision course with the Greens and the Coalition, Mr Bowen said the government was already considering laws to limit access to the courts. He said one option was eliminating the jurisdiction of the Federal Court, something legal experts said could be done with an act of parliament.

The changes announced by the government yesterday, which were based on legal advice from the Solicitor-General, provoked fresh questions about the value of retaining Christmas Island as a processing hub for refugees.

The island, along with other parts of Australia's territory, was excised from the migration zone by the Howard government in 2001, a move that denied asylum-seekers access to the courts.

University of Sydney law professor and refugee law expert Mary Crock said that logic no longer applied. She said there was now virtually no legal difference between a protection application lodged at Christmas Island from one lodged on the Australian mainland. "But practically the gulf is enormous," Professor Crock added. "You are treated much more fairly onshore than offshore."

Professor Crock said there was no longer any point to offshore processing, which, according to the incoming government brief supplied to Mr Bowen by his department, was budgeted to cost $471.18 million. That compared with onshore detention costs of $93.76m.

The High Court unanimously ruled in November that two Tamil asylum-seekers were denied procedural fairness and failed to have their claims processed in accordance with the Migration Act.

The court rejected the government's use of the Migration Act to detain asylum-seekers on Christmas Island while claiming the assessment process was "non-statutory" - occurring outside of Australian law.

Mr Bowen, citing advice from the Solicitor-General, said yesterday that, as a result of the decision, failed asylum-seekers would now have access to the Federal Magistrates Court, the Federal Court and, finally, the High Court.

In an effort to streamline what is sure to be a longer, more expensive process, Mr Bowen said immigration officials would "triage" new asylum claims. As of March 1, when the regime takes effect, asylum-seekers with obviously weak or problematic claims would be sent straight to a newly established "independent protection assessment" reviewer. The protection assessment replaces the old independent merits reviewer who audited failed claims, and whose decisions were the subject of the High Court ruling. From there, they could appeal through the courts if unsuccessful.

The announcement greatly extends the appeal options available to asylum-seekers processed offshore, who prior to the court's ruling only had access to a single non-statutory reviewer appointed by the government.

The government's response was dismissed by Tony Abbott as "bureaucratic hand-wringing". He said as long as asylum-seeker boats kept coming, problems would remain. "Look, there's really only one way to address this and that is to stop the boats, and nothing in today's announcement by the government will actually stop the boats," the Opposition Leader said.

The Coalition's acting border protection spokesman, Michael Keenan, said the High Court decision had undermined the concept of Christmas Island, underlining the need for the government to process illegal arrivals in a third country.

"If the government is serious about streamlining the process, they should acknowledge their never-never East Timor solution is a complete farce and pick up the phone to call the President of Nauru," Mr Keenan said.

More here



8 January, 2011

The Numbers on the New Congress Add Up To Despair For Pro-Amnesty Forces

By Roy Beck

A bold college student politely asked me an interesting question during my presentation this morning to university students from around the country.

She said she -- like many students in the auditorium -- had worked passionately for the DREAM Act amnesty. She said they now are so discouraged and want to know what advice I could give that would offer them hope for passing the amnesty in the future.

But the numbers I provided the students about the changed composition of the House of Representatives sworn in today was not cause for much hope for amnesty supporters.

Look at the numbers I extrapolated from the assessment our NumbersUSA staff made about every one of the 435 Members sworn into the House today . . . .

226 -- If everybody had voted on the DREAM Act just before Christmas, it would have gotten 226 YES votes (actual tally was 216).

208 -- And 208 Members of that Lame Duck Congress would have voted NO (actual tally was 198).

But if the DREAM Act was brought up for a vote in the new Congress today, I think these would likely be the numbers:

174 -- Those who would vote YES.

261 -- Those who would vote NO.

Talk about discouraging to the pro-amnesty set!

And this 174-261 failed vote on the DREAM amnesty would likely to be the closest the Expansionists could get to a majority because the DREAM amnesty was by far the most publicly popular piece of the much-touted "comprehensive immigration reform" that couldn't even get the time of day in the Congress that just ended.

SO WHAT ARE THE NEW NUMBERS FOR PASSING ENFORCEMENT BILLS IN THE HOUSE?

Keep in mind that the majority of the House is 218. That's what it takes to pass something (or kill something if everybody votes).

The hard-core Expansionists in the House have dropped from 151 to 134. These are the people who not only want a blanket amnesty for all illegal aliens but also want to increase the number of permanent foreign workers brought into the country.

The soft-core Expansionists have also dropped, from 75 to 40. These are the kind of Members that pushed the DREAM amnesty just over the line to pass in December. Most of these types aren't very excited about a mass amnesty and they definitely are not committed to importing more foreign workers. It will take some work by the constituents in their Districts, but I think many of these pro-DREAM-amnesty Representatives can be persuaded to vote for enforcement bills that will move illegal aliens out of their jobs so that unemployed Americans can have them. But the good news is that we don't actually need any of them to pass the enforcement bills because of the next numbers I'll give you.

73 Members of the new House took the NumbersUSA survey and pledged to support every enforcement measure and every reduction in legal immigration advocated by NumbersUSA.

That is up from 35 in the old Congress.

They combine with others to add up to 113 hard-core Reductionists who not only lead the way for the toughest enforcement measures but want reduction in legal immigration.

But 113 is still a long way from 218. The 113 have to provide the energy and leadership to pull another 105 with them if the House is to pass reduction/enforcement bills this year.

Fortunately, there are 148 other Members who are anti-amnesty and pro-enforcement. Nearly all of them range between strongly committed enforcement champions and lightly committed. But they have shown little sign of understanding how important it is to reduce the level of legal immigration. I don't think we have to worry about them being pulled into any kind of amnesty camp. But all of you who live in their Districts have your work cut out for you to persuade them to join our 113 hard-core Reductionists in ending the Visa Lottery, in ending Chain Migration, in ending Birthright Citizenship and in ending massive importation of specific foreign workers for jobs that unemployed Americans would like to have.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SENATE?

Everything is just as dismal for amnesty supporters in the Senate as in the House. But passing tough enforcement bills is not going to be easy for us.

55 -- The DREAM amnesty could get only 55 YES votes in the Senate in December, five short of the 60 needed to pass.

45 -- If all Senators had voted, there would have been 45 NO votes.

Because only one-third of Senators were up for re-election, voters were not able to change the Senate as much as they changed the House. But I think if the DREAM vote were held today in the NEW Senate, these would be the numbers:

50 -- The YES votes would fall 10 short of the 60 needed.

50 -- The NO votes would tie.

Again, remember that this would be on the most popular slice of the pro-amnesty Expansionist agenda.

What would happen if strong enforcement legislation could come to the floor of the Senate?

Majority Leader Reid (D-Nev.) wouldn't allow enforcement legislation to receive votes during the last Congress. If he had, I believe the vote might have been 52 YES and 48 NO.

In the NEW Senate, I believe we have a very good shot at passing tough enforcement legislation with 60 YES votes and only 40 NO votes.

However, all of you will have to apply immense pressure to first of all force Majority Leader Reid to allow votes on enforcement, which is unlikely to happen unless Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) becomes a true champion of enforcement.

We can only win on the floor if all 47 Republicans buck the Chamber of Commerce and vote for the enforcement. A tall order. But we have seen this kind of success at times in the past when Republicans feel enough public pressure from the grassroots.

If we get the 47 Republicans, we will need 13 Democrats.

I think we have six strong Democrats right off the bat -- the six who opposed the DREAM amnesty.

But what a fight we have on our hands this year in persuading the last seven needed to reach 60 votes. I can see the scenario, but it won't be easy.

If you are pro-amnesty, the numbers in the new Congress have turned totally against you.

But the new numbers aren't guaranteeing that we can win, either.

SOURCE





State pols seek “reinterpretation” of US Constitution

In a move certain to escalate the legal tug of war over illegal immigration, state lawmakers from across the country announced Wednesday that they are launching an effort to deny automatic citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.

Republicans from Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oklahoma, Georgia, South Carolina and other states said they were taking aim at birthright citizenship by seeking to apply the Constitution's 14th Amendment - which grants citizenship to all children born in the United States - only to children with at least one parent who is a permanent resident or citizen.

Within weeks, several state legislatures are expected to introduce bills that would lay the groundwork for such a reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, which was passed in the wake of the Civil War in order to confer citizenship on freed African American slaves.

Proponents said their strategy is designed to draw legal challenges and get the issue before the Supreme Court.

Civil rights groups denounced the move and said it was motivated by racism against Latino immigrants. They also said that Supreme Court precedents have made clear for more than a century that the 14th Amendment applies to all children born in the United States, regardless of whether their parents were in the country legally.

About 340,000 children were born in the United States to undocumented immigrants in 2008, according to a study released in August by the Pew Hispanic Center. Thousands of children born to tourists and foreign students also could be denied citizenship if the 14th Amendment were reinterpreted.

The move is the latest example of states testing the boundaries of federal control over immigration. "This country has a malady, and it is costing her citizens dearly," said South Carolina State Sen. Danny Verdin (R). He added that the rise in number of what he called "anchor babies" - children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants - had created a huge problem.

Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) said that he was planning to introduce legislation within weeks and that legislators in about 40 states, including Virginia, had signed up to learn more about the proposal. Metcalfe said he expected about 20 states to introduce legislation soon, among them Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nebraska, Alabama, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, who has been pushing for Arizona-type legislation in Virginia, said he is disappointed that Virginia is not in the vanguard of the push to end birthright citizenship. "It has been so difficult to get bold action," he said.

In Maryland, Del. Patrick L. McDonough (R-Baltimore County), the legislature's most outspoken critic of illegal immigration, said it is possible he may introduce birthright legislation. But it is unlikely to advance very far in a state controlled by Democrats.

"It's hard to imagine a more quintessentially anti-American proposal than one that would judge a person by their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents," said Lucas Guttentag, who directs the Immigrant Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. Guttentag said that the ACLU would counter any effort to challenge the 14th Amendment.

Proponents of the new strategy said they would adopt a two-pronged approach. The first is to introduce bills in state legislatures that revive the concept of "state citizenship." Only children with at least one parent who is a U.S. permanent resident or citizen would be granted state citizenship, though it wouldn't prevent the federal government from granting U.S. citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants.

The second prong of the strategy involves a more direct challenge to the authority of the federal government by using what is known as a state compact to draw a distinction between the children of undocumented immigrants and those of legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens.

A compact is a legal term that describes a measure, passed by states, that requires congressional approval. If Congress approves a state compact, it can become federal law without requiring the signature of the president, said Kris Kobach, professor of law at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the Kansas secretary of state-elect.

The states involved in the compact would issue different birth certificates to children of permanent residents and U.S. citizens from those of undocumented immigrants, tourists and foreign students. The birth certificates would draw a distinction between those children whose parents are "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" - a phrase from the 14th Amendment - and other children whose parents are not.

Kobach and other proponents said that because undocumented immigrants are in the country illegally, they are not under the jurisdiction of the United States.

Effectively, states would be throwing down the gauntlet to Congress to deny citizenship to children who do not have at least one parent who is a permanent resident or a citizen.

Walter Dellinger, who was assistant attorney general and acting solicitor general in President Bill Clinton's administration, predicted that the Supreme Court would dismiss the challenge to the 14th Amendment because of past decisions that ruled children born in the United States were citizens.

In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that children born to Chinese migrants - who were themselves barred by exclusionary racial laws from becoming citizens - were U.S. citizens since they were born on U.S. soil.

The clause in the 14th Amendment that restricted birthright citizenship to those "under the jurisdiction of the United States," he added, merely excluded the children of foreign diplomats from becoming citizens.

Repeated challenges to the 14th Amendment, several civil rights experts said, had questioned the legitimacy of African American, Chinese American and Japanese American citizens. Each time, the challenge was refuted.

"This matter has been raised in every instance in a racial context," Dellinger said. "That's why we wanted a simple rule: Every new girl or boy born in this country is simply, indisputably, an American."

SOURCE



7 January, 2011

Fake foreign students vanish into black market jobs and cost British taxpayers £493 million a year

Bogus students from overseas are costing taxpayers up to £493million a year, a report claims. The study by think-tank Migrationwatch says tens of thousands of foreign students are ‘disappearing underground’ to take jobs on the black market.

They are filling up to 32,000 posts which could be legally held by the 2.5million unemployed British workers, the report says. It adds that the cost of paying unemployment and housing benefit to those who lose out to bogus students is as much as £471million a year.

And because the NHS does not carry out stringent checks on those needing emergency treatment, the study estimates the illegal workers cost a further £16million in health care. Educating their children is estimated at an additional £6million.

Migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green called on the Government to clamp down on bogus students. He said: ‘By working illegally they take a job that would otherwise be available for a British worker who remains unemployed.’ He added: ‘Such illegal workers also tend to hold down wages at the lower end and enable unscrupulous employers to compete unfairly with honest employers who offer decent wages and conditions.’

Immigration minister Damian Green said the Coalition was committed to ensuring that ‘those who come to the UK to study are genuine and are not using a student visa to gain work’. He added: ‘Tough enforcement is the cornerstone of our immigration policy.’

SOURCE






Georgia to move on illegals

Complaining that the federal government has fallen down on the job, Georgia lawmakers are putting a big bull’s-eye on illegal immigration this year.

The state’s legislative session won't begin until Monday. But lawmakers got started weeks ago, “prefiling” bills that would block illegal immigrants from attending state colleges and punish government contractors who hire them. Yet more legislation is on the way. Much more.

A pair of Republican lawmakers is preparing to file omnibus legislation in each chamber some time in the coming days. On Tuesday, Rep. Matt Ramsey -- a co-chairman of a special study committee on immigration -- outlined for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution what the legislation will likely include:

Ways to encourage more communities to apply to join a federal immigration enforcement program called 287(g). Through the program, local police officers and sheriff's deputies are given the power to question people about whether they are in the country legally and issue arrest warrants, prepare charging documents, and detain and transport people for immigration violations;

Measures to toughen an existing Georgia law requiring state and local government contractors to ensure their employees are eligible to legally work in the United States. The legislation could also include incentives for other private employees to participate in E-Verify, a federal work authorization program;

Provisions to ensure the identification people use to get public benefits in Georgia are “secure and verifiable.”

Ramsey said he and other legislators are also studying a tough new Arizona law that allows police officers to check the immigration status of people they stop for questioning. The Obama administration has argued that it is the federal government's responsibility to enforce immigration laws, and it successfully sued to halt key parts of Arizona's law last year.

Lawmakers and local sheriffs say illegal immigrants are committing crimes in Georgia and competing for taxpayer benefits and jobs here. “There are some serious social and economic consequences for the state and local governments due to the federal government’s failure to secure our borders over the last 30 years,” said Ramsey, a Republican from Peachtree City and a co-chairman of the Joint House and Senate Study Committee on Immigration Reform.

Last month, a pair of Democratic lawmakers warned Ramsey’s committee against doing anything that would hurt Georgia's economy by scaring away immigrants. Georgia’s $65 billion agricultural industry, they said, relies heavily on immigrant workers. Immigration watchdogs have responded to such arguments by pointing to the federal H-2A visa program, which allows foreign workers to legally come to the United States and temporarily work in its agricultural industry.

The Democrats issued their warning soon after the Georgia Farm Bureau -- which represents nearly 400,000 families -- weighed in on illegal immigration, saying “it is a federal issue, not a state or local issue.”

Georgia’s commercial construction industry is also warily watching the issue. “In order for this issue to be appropriately addressed and comprehensively reformed, it needs to occur at the federal level,” said Mark Woodall, director of governmental affairs for the Georgia branch of Associated General Contractors of America, which represents commercial construction companies. “It is federal employment law.”

Georgia, meanwhile, is not alone in eyeing Arizona’s law. Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee are likely to pass similar laws, said the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group based in Washington. Critics warn states could invite costly court challenges with such measures.

“This stuff is going on everywhere,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “We have sued to stop legislation like this across the country, and we will continue to do that.”

Mike Hethmon, who helped draft Arizona’s law, said he supports the measure because it deters illegal immigrants from settling in that state. “Each time one of these measures passes in a state and survives -- even partially -- it builds up pressure on Congress” to take action on illegal immigration, said Hethmon, general counsel for the Washington-based Immigration Reform Law Institute, a nonprofit law firm that supports reducing levels of immigration.

With Republicans in control of the Legislature and the Governor’s Mansion, Ramsey has a good chance at success this year. Gov.-elect Nathan Deal, for example, said during last year’s campaign that he would support an Arizona-style law in Georgia.

“He is aware of the litigation involving the Arizona law,” said Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Deal, “and he wants to make sure that Georgia is able to narrowly draft legislation that will meet federal guidelines so that we can avoid a lawsuit while protecting Georgia taxpayers.”

Deal also supports having more Georgia counties participate in the 287(g) program. And when he served in Congress, Deal drafted legislation targeting the 14th Amendment, which grants U.S. citizenship to children born on U.S. soil even if their parents are here illegally. Deal sought to require that a child born here also have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, a legal resident or "an alien performing active service in the armed forces" in order to be considered a citizen.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Jack Murphy, the other Republican co-chairman of the state’s immigration study committee, is planning to be in Washington on Wednesday for a news conference about birthright citizenship. A group called State Legislators for Legal Immigration plans to unveil model state legislation to halt what it calls “the misapplication of the 14th Amendment.” Murphy said Monday that he had not yet seen the legislation and did not know whether he would introduce it in Georgia.

Critics say birthright citizenship is a federal issue and that attempts to change it could be divisive and have severe and costly consequences. "Proposals for undermining the 14th Amendment would lead to creation of a caste system -- a country with two kinds of residents, citizens and a second-class group of stigmatized individuals without any place to truly call home,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, director of the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

SOURCE



6 January, 2011

Bureaucracy triumphant in a new height of British insanity

Asylum seeker who keeps trying to return to Morocco sues Britain for STOPPING him

A failed asylum seeker is suing the UK Border Agency for locking him up for five years – even though all he wanted to do was go home to Morocco. In an extraordinary case that exposes the immigration system to ridicule, Rashid Ali is seeking a six-figure compensation payout after being detained following his six attempts to stow away on ships leaving Britain.

Although UKBA has spent five years trying to deport him, officers did not want him to be freed from detention in case he escaped Britain illegally. [Why?]

Now the 32-year-old has gone to the High Court for compensation after being freed on bail from the detention centre – where his stay was costing taxpayers £100 a night. The Moroccan has been given a room in a shared house in Ilford, East London, and food vouchers worth £140 a month pending a court hearing to determine whether he should receive damages. His prolonged detention has already cost taxpayers more than £360,000.

Ali said: ‘I am not a murderer. I am not a rapist or a paedophile; I am a simple man who only wanted to go home. They should not have locked me up. It has cost British taxpayers all this money to keep me locked up because I didn’t want to stay in this country. ‘They want to deport me but I should have just been free to make my own way. I know other people have got £100,000 from the Government for three years’ detention. ‘I should get hundreds of thousands of pounds of compensation for being locked up for this long.’

Dreaming of a better life, Ali came to Britain in 2000 at the age of 21 by hiding on a cargo ship from France. However, he became an alcoholic after working at a bar in Bristol and, when his claim for asylum was turned down, decided to try to find a passage home to Morocco. The first ship kicked him off at Milford Haven in South Wales in November 2004. Several stowaway attempts followed and the furthest Ali got was Ireland.

On his fifth attempt in June 2005 he was found aboard a Russian ship and sent back to Avonmouth, where he stole some food and a coat to keep warm.

He was jailed for nine months by a North Somerset magistrate who ordered he be deported after serving the sentence. On his release, he was sent to a detention centre for three years, despite constant pleas to go home.

In October 2008 he was offered a flat in Newcastle amid fears that he could seriously injure or kill himself hiding on vessels. But two days later he was found hiding on another boat leaving Bristol. He was charged with stealing a mobile phone and jacket and damaging a door, which he admitted.

When he appeared at Bristol Crown Court in December, a judge called for an inquiry into the fiasco. Judge Michael Hubbard, QC, said: ‘The sooner he gets back to Morocco, the better for everybody. ‘It beggars belief that during that time in detention it wasn’t sorted out for him to return home.’

He was held at Colnbrook Removal Centre, near Heathrow, until four months ago when, despite objections, he was freed at an asylum and immigration tribunal.

The UK Border Agency says it has been unable to deport him as he has refused to provide a passport or any identity papers. However, Ali says he has never had any papers.

Yesterday Migrationwatch UK chairman Sir Andrew Green said: ‘Words fail me. Alice in Wonderland describes this case. ‘Surely ... the best thing would be to turn a blind eye and just let him go home under his own steam.’

Jonathan Sedgwick, deputy chief executive of UKBA, said: ‘We will rigorously defend this challenge. ‘Mr Ali’s continued presence in the UK is a frustrating situation, caused by his own failure to provide appropriate evidence, which would allow him to be returned. ‘We believe that those who break the law have no right to be here, and we are doing everything we can to remove them from the UK.’

A TaxPayers’ Alliance spokesman described the case as ‘farcical’.

SOURCE





Greece wants fence along border with Turkey

Greece plans to build a fence along its border with Turkey in a bid to keep out illegal immigrants, Citizen Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis said yesterday.

“Cooperation with the other EU states is going well. ... Now, we plan to construct a fence to deal with illegal migration,” he told the semi-official Athens News Agency ANA.

In the six months up to the end of November, 33,000 illegal immigrants were detected crossing the Greek-Turkish land border. Most were from Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Somalia or Iraq.

Papoutsis said the 128-mile-long fence would be like the one the United States erected along its border with Mexico.

Since November, European Union teams have been patrolling the border with Greek police.

Currently, there are an estimated 300,000 people living illegally in Greece.

SOURCE



5 January, 2011

Immigration: At what cost to Utah schools?

But as the immigration debate in Utah heats up, a number of Utahns find themselves wondering whether paying to educate Andrea and other students like her is taxing the public school system to the point that the children of legal residents suffer.

It’s a question that doesn’t seem to have an easy answer, though schools must educate students regardless of their legal statuses, per a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimated that about 8 percent of Utah students in kindergarten through 12th grade had an undocumented parent in 2009 — a figure higher than the national average of about 6.2 percent. And a 2007 legislative audit estimated that it cost Utah between $55 million and $85 million in fiscal year 2006 to educate just undocumented students.

In July of 2007, members of the Education Interim Committee voted to send a letter, along with the audit, to the federal government asking it to reimburse Utah for those students.

Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, said at the time, “We as a state are asked to absorb large numbers of costs that result from failed federal immigration policy.”

“If you isolate the cost of illegal immigrant children in the classroom we could have forgone taking that [federal] money,” said Eagar, referring to $101 million Utah recently accepted to help schools.

But others say it’s not enough to look just at the cost of educating children of undocumented immigrants. Some, for example, criticized the 2007 audit for not including estimates of money paid into the state by such immigrants.

Utah schools are funded mostly through income tax, which undocumented immigrants generally don’t pay unless they have a Social Security number. But about 30 percent of total education funding comes from property tax, which undocumented immigrants pay if they own homes or may help pay indirectly through rent. Some education funding also comes from the federal government and other local sources.

As to the question of whether undocumented immigrants pay enough into the school system to support the costs of their children’s educations, Jeff Passel, a senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said it’s his sense that parents, as a whole group, generally don’t pay enough to cover those costs. The population as a whole, not just parents, pays to educate children. Yet he said the question of whether parents are paying enough into the school system for their own kids tends to be directed at undocumented immigrants. “We don’t ask that for other kids,” Passel said.

Also, Utah would likely still have the lowest base per-pupil spending and highest student-to-teacher ratios in the nation even without children of undocumented immigrants.

About 8 percent of Utah’s students are likely children of undocumented immigrants, but Utah’s per pupil spending was about 17 percent lower than the next lowest state in 2007-08, according to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. And Utah’s student-to-teacher ratio was about 26 percent higher than the next highest state in 2008-09, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

More HERE






Detention centres for illegals busting out all over in Australia

CHRISTMAS Island is fast becoming the alternative place of detention for boatpeople. The number of boatpeople on the mainland now easily outnumbers those on the Indian Ocean island excised in 2002 for the purpose of processing asylum-seekers.

There are 3469 boatpeople or "irregular maritime arrivals" in immigration detention on the Australian mainland compared with 2811 on Christmas Island, according to Immigration Department figures compiled on the evening of December 30.

Labor moved to overturn the Howard government practice of offshore processing in September 2009, when then immigration minister Chris Evans authorised the transfer of 10 Afghan youths from Christmas Island to the Melbourne Immigration Detention Centre.

An Immigration spokesman said at the time the decision to allow the boys to travel to the mainland with their paid carers would give them access to a range of classes and recreational activities. "This move will enable the department to finalise their cases and ensure support to this particularly vulnerable group," he said.

Within months, large numbers of asylum-seekers were being transferred to mainland detention because crowding on Christmas Island was becoming unmanageable. Initially, men were sent to high-security detention centres at Villawood, in Sydney's western suburbs, and in Darwin.

In June last year, families were sent to a refurbished miners' camp in the West Australian town of Leonora, where the shire and local business owners welcomed the economic boost.

There are now detention centres or facilities for boatpeople in every mainland state, including at the air bases at Curtin in the far north Kimberley of Western Australia and in Scherger near Weipa in Queensland's far north.

So far, the decision has done little to ease crowding on Christmas Island, where tents -- supposed to be a temporary measure -- are still in use.

Residents on Christmas Island have long complained of rising rents and food prices caused by crowding outside the detention centre. The influx of government workers and contractors who work on a fly-in, fly-out basis has been good for businesses but difficult for residents on relatively modest incomes.

Christmas Island shire president Gordon Thomson lobbied Labor for extra infrastructure to cope with the crowding. As a result, the island's sewerage and water systems are being upgraded and extra housing is planned. Residents hope pressure will ease when the federal government moves about 1500 men from Christmas Island to an old army barracks in the West Australian wheatbelt town of Northam.

SOURCE



4 January, 2011

Recent posts at CIS below

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

1. Census: Population Up 27 Million in Just 10 Years (Announcement)

2. Panel: The Illusionary Allure of Immigration Grand Bargains (Transcript and Video)

3. USCIS Does the Right Thing on Immigrant Investor Scam in the Mojave (Blog)

4. Obama's Immigration Warning (Blog)

5. Medical Cost Exposure Forcing States' Hands (Blog)

6. How to Revise the DREAM Act, Part II: The Permanent Administrative Visa (Blog)

7. Non-Accredited Language Schools Given More Time for F-1 Admissions (Blog)

8. Housing Prices' Upside from Local Enforcement (Blog)

9. Why a Revised DREAM Act Might Help American Immigration Policy (Blog)

10. Preserving the Border Insecurity Environment (Blog)

11. USCIS Further Waters Down Requirements for Investor Visas (Blog)

12. Dangerous Compassion? Conservatives on a Revised DREAM Act (Blog)

13. Mexican Senators Want Safe Passage for U.S.-Bound Central Americans (Blog)

14. Immigrant Entrepreneur Visas: A Solution in Search of a Problem? (Blog)

15. Case Study: When Klutz and Chutzpah Combine in the Immigration Business (Blog)

16. No Big Surprise: Obama Administration Not Fully Implementing Border Passport Requirements (Blog)

17. The Center's Negative Christmas List (Blog)

18. Amnesty Advocates Continue the Battle, Offer Differing Approaches (Blog)




A humane policy would be one that stopped the boats coming

By Philip Ruddock, a minister for immigration in the previous conservative government of Australia

ALL Australians very much lament the tragic loss of life that occurred on December 15, 2010, just off Christmas Island. Latest reports are that 48 people have died, and that the death toll could rise.

We owe it to the heroic efforts of our navy and Customs officers, who risked their own lives in the heavy seas, that more did not perish. Parents have lost children; children have lost parents. I express my deepest sympathy to the families of those killed and injured. Many others seeking to enter Australia by boat die far out to sea, out of sight.

Sadly, the latest tragedy was a realisation of our worst fears and in all likelihood will be repeated if Labor's policies do not change.

The Coalition had a humane policy that stopped the boats from taking the dangerous journeys that horrifically killed so many men, women and children just off Christmas Island. Our policy was targeted at making it tougher for people-smugglers to prey on desperate asylum-seekers. While both sides of politics recognise that co-operation with our regional neighbours and international partners is necessary, it can never be a one-way street.

While we are looking at what Indonesia may be able to do to assist, it is important to remember that they see this outcome as an own goal by Australia. Indonesian spokesmen have repeatedly referred to the need for Australia to "take the sugar off the table".

What is the sugar? It is the incentives that Australian policies give to people to seek to access Australia through Indonesia. Indonesia is just as anxious as us that this should stop.

The Howard government's so-called Pacific solution, excision of islands from the migration zone, returning boats in safety and temporary protection visas stopped the boats. We recognised that a suite of measures was necessary to give people-smugglers the message that Australia was not open for their business.

The issue of temporary protection visas rather than permanent visas meant that when conditions in source countries improved, those who could go back without fear of persecution did so, rather than stay in Australia indefinitely. Temporary protection visas are in accord with Australia's obligations under international humanitarian law.

The abolition of temporary protection visas helps people-smugglers sell Australia to prospective asylum-seekers as a place you can migrate to permanently rather than temporarily.

People-smugglers knew that when the Labor government abandoned the Pacific solution and temporary protection visas, this meant they once again had a product to sell and their cruel trade recommenced. The Australian ("Ruddock slams asylum policy") reported on November 24, 2010, that Department of Immigration and Citizenship officials warned then immigration minister Chris Evans on February 25, 2008, to "expect an upswing in boat arrivals after the Nauru detention centre was abandoned that month".

Also, while mandatory detention has ostensibly been maintained, there has certainly been a softening and the government markets its new regime as more humane, of shorter duration and less punitive. Given that more than 700 children remain detained, figures far higher than seen during the Howard government years, it is hard to see how Labor's policies have been more humane.

Nevertheless it has created an impression in the region that we are a softer touch for asylum-seekers.

Labor has failed to stop the boats. The Coalition government stopped the boats. This is not a slogan but an outcome of policy. When the Labor government came to power in November 2007, there had been an average of three boats a year under the Howard government's last six years in office and only four illegal boat arrivals in detention. There are now on average three boats a week under Labor and more than 6500 illegal boat arrivals in detention.

When we look at the growing protests, riots, self-harm, hunger strikes and breakouts in a detention network that is expanded well beyond its capacity, we can see that Labor's policies on boatpeople have simply failed.

Australia has a long and proud record of resettling refugees and those in need of protection.This is something that the Coalition wants to continue. During the election we committed to increasing our intake through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees by 1500 places to 7500 and also to introduce a private sponsorship program to bring in potentially another 1500 UNHCR-mandated refugees.

But at the same time we have the right and responsibility to enact laws that protect our borders and are consistent with our international obligations to protect refugees. This is a delicate balance that the Howard government was able to achieve. It achieved this by recognising that a package of measures was necessary, and that to remove any one of those measures put at risk the very effectiveness of the package.

The Coalition remains serious about stopping the boats. Offshore entry persons, those who arrive by boat, should be treated differently to discourage boat arrivals. We must put a stop to the tragedies from these awfully dangerous sea journeys.

SOURCE



3 January, 2011

Israel extends ban on immigration through marriage

Israel on Sunday extended for six months a ban preventing Palestinians married to Israelis to immigrate to the Jewish state, the premier's office said in a statement.

"The ministerial committee for security affairs decided tonight (Sunday) to extend for six months a text on family unification, which expired December 31," said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

That extension until June 30 denies Palestinians the right to acquire Israeli citizenship or resident status through marriage.

The so-called Family Unification provision has been the subject of an outcry from leftist movements and groups representing the country's Arab minority, who charge the ban is "inhumane" and "racist."

The ministerial committee also asked the justice minister "to work towards early finalisation of a law on family unification, which will meet the national security and long-term interests of the government of Israel," the statement added.

The Israeli government is concerned that uncontrolled immigration could slowly erode the state's Jewish identity. Israeli Arabs currently number some 1.4 million, or 20 percent of the population.

SOURCE





Britain: An empty promise on immigration

Another year begins with another Big Lie exposed. I wonder how many voters foolishly supported David Cameron’s Unconservative Party last May because of his loud claims that he would do something about immigration.

Yet a report from a Left-wing think tank, the IPPR, shows that Mr Cameron must have known perfectly well that his pledge could not be kept. Immigration will not fall this year and may even rise. EU citizens can come and go as they please. Lithuanians and Latvians, and many of our Irish neighbours, will arrive in thousands in search of work, keeping wages low.

We will continue to host hundreds of thousands of overseas students and large numbers of alleged refugees. ‘Family reunions’ will allow many others through supposedly closed doors, from all the parts of the world which have already supplied so many of our new citizens.

Mr Cameron’s vaunted cap on economic migrants from outside the EU will indeed begin to operate, but this will affect no more than two or three per cent of the immigration total.

So why this gap between claim and reality? First, Mr Cameron could be fairly sure that most voters wouldn’t notice the small print in his pledges. Secondly, we are not considered grown-up enough to discuss the greatest political issue of our time – the steady takeover of our once-independent country by the EU and the colossal implications of this. And no major political party will offer us an exit.

But third, the modernised Tory Party, just like its New Labour twin, actively favours large-scale migration. Rich young careerists in pleasant parts of London – who form the core of all our establishment parties – couldn’t function without the cheap servants and cheap restaurants that immigration brings.

Not for them the other side of immigration – the transformation of familiar neighbourhoods into foreign territory. Not for them the schools where many pupils cannot speak English, and the overloaded public services. Not for them the mosque and the madrassa where the church and the pub used to be. Not that they mind that so much. These people have no special loyalty to this country, nor much love for it.

They are not significantly different from the Blairite apparatchik Andrew Neather, who last year unwisely said openly what such people have long thought privately.

Let me remind you that he spoke of ‘a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the UK Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural’.

And that he recalled coming away from high-level discussions ‘with a clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main -purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.

Well, doesn’t Mr Cameron also like to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date? I think he does. And of course anyone who complained could be (and always will be) smeared as a ‘bigot’. In fact, the issue long ago ceased having anything to do with skin colour. We have many black and brown Britons who have, over time, become as British as I am – though alas this is less and less the case because the curse of multiculturalism has prevented proper integration, as has the huge size of the recent influx.

And we have many people here with pale northern skins who do not speak our language or share our culture.

Our wealthy urban elite are actively pleased by these changes because they did not like Britain as it was, conservative, Christian, restrained and self-disciplined. They like it as it is, and as it will become. But what about the rest of us?

SOURCE



2 January, 2011

The Democrats' conundrum: If you want less income inequality, does that means fewer illegal immigrants?

Mickey Kaus makes a very interesting observation. It will be interesting to see if the Democratic party even tries to square the circle on this issue or just ignores it:

If you're worried about incomes at the bottom, though, one solution leaps out at you. It's a solution that worked, at least in the late 1990s under Bill Clinton, when wages at the low end of the income ladder rose fairly dramatically. The solution is tight labor markets. Get employers bidding for scarce workers and you'll see incomes rise across the board without the need for government aid programs or tax redistribution. A major enemy of tight labor markets at the bottom is also fairly clear: unchecked immigration by undocumented low-skilled workers. It's hard for a day laborer to command $18 an hour in the market if there are illegals hanging out on the corner willing to work for $7. Even experts who claim illlegal immigration is good for Americans overall admit that it's not good for Americans at the bottom. In other words, it's not good for income equality.

Odd, then that Obama, in his "war on inequality," hasn't made a big effort to prevent illegal immigration--or at least to prevent illegal immigrration from returning with renewed force should the economy recover. He hasn't, for example, pushed to make it mandatory for employers to use the "E-Verify" system, or some other system, to check the legality of new hires, preferring to hold that reform hostage (sorry!) in order to try and achieve a larger "comprehensive" bill that included a conditional amnesty for the 11 or so million illegals already here. (In Washington, if something's obviously desirable that means it's a bargaining chip.) True, Obama has tried to make a big deal of his administration's deportation numbers, but only as a nose-holding effort to placate the right sufficiently to get a mass legalization bill through. And the deportation numbers themselves are suspect.

Income inequality has become a big issue on the left. And as the job market continues to stagnate, I wonder to what extent the blue collar parts of the Democratic base will put pressure on the party to do something about immigration reform.

SOURCE





Among Mormons, a deep divide on immigration

Two leading Utah activists embody opposite views on the issue – and both cite the church's teachings as the core of their positions.

At the Sandstrom family table on the edge of the Wasatch Mountains, eldest son Stephen listened carefully as his parents talked about politics, the divine nature of the nation's founding and the importance of the rule of law.

Sandstrom held fast to those tenets of his Mormon faith years later as a state representative. They led him to write a bill modeled on a controversial Arizona law that would require police to determine the immigration status of people they lawfully stop and also suspect are in the country illegally.

"This country is the greatest nation on Earth because God had a hand in its formation," said Sandstrom, 47. "A lot of that is because … we obey the rule of law. Turning a blind eye to illegal immigration jeopardizes the rule of law."

At the Yapias family table in Peru, eldest son Tony felt the strain of a family divided. His father labored seven years in the United States as a sheepherder in Idaho before the family won permission to join him when Tony was 14. The separation ultimately destroyed his parents' marriage.

When he became an adult, Yapias joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, drawn by the religion's emphasis on family. The intersection of the church and his childhood led the 44-year-old to a very different position on illegal immigration than Sandstrom's.

"Every immigrant understands the pain and suffering of any family that's separated," Yapias said. "When Sandstrom or anyone else starts talking, it just opens up wounds.... What I don't understand is how Sandstrom doesn't get it — how two people of the same faith can be so far apart."

Stephen Sandstrom and Tony Yapias embody the conflicting viewpoints on illegal immigration among church members — and both sides cite core LDS principles.

Illegal immigration has been a combustible issue across the country this year, but in normally tranquil Utah it has roiled the state's politics and highlighted a deep divide among Mormons. [The writer has given no evidence that the "divide" affects Mormons who are not of immigrant origin]

SOURCE



1 January, 2011

Irish emigrants means Britain will not reach its immigration target

Immigration to Britain in “unlikely” to significantly fall next year due to the turbulent state of the Eurozone, a leading think-tank has warned. Over 100,000 Irish people are expected to leave Ireland over the next 12 months and many of these are likely to travel to Britain considering the level of proximity and lack of a language barrier. The influx of Irish citizens will have an impact on Britain’s target to lower migration.

Proposals to impose a cap and gradually bring down migration levels will fail as there are few restrictions on workers coming from the EU.

The Institute for Public Policy Research has warned that net migration is unlikely to fall below 200,000 in the coming year. This contradicts the Government’s pledge to restrict immigration from “hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands”.

Since the beginning of 2007 workers from the newest EU member countries such as Bulgaria and Romania have largely needed to apply for work permits in order to work in the UK. However that restriction is due to be lifted in December 2011, which means that thousands more could be tempted to emigrate.

Britain could see migration increase further if citizens from other economically challenged countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece choose to relocate to Britain. In contrast fewer Britons are currently moving abroad, as they weakness of the pound has made it difficult for many to leave.

With the influx of those coming from European countries, the Home Secretary Theresa May has imposed a cap on non-EU economic migrants. From April, no more than 21,700 will be permitted to work and live in Britain.

However Nick Pearse, the Director of the The Institute for Public Policy Research, said this would not have a great effect on the overall migration levels. “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.”

“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,” he added.

SOURCE





NY governor Paterson and Federal Officials Reach Pact on Immigration

Gov. David A. Paterson, seeking to assuage critics of a new government program to strengthen immigration enforcement, said Thursday that he had negotiated a pact with federal officials to help protect illegal immigrants in New York without criminal records.

But the pact is unlikely to mollify the program’s opponents. It does little more than reiterate the long-stated position of the Department of Homeland Security, which has said it intends to use the program primarily to detain and deport immigrants who are considered a threat to public safety and national security.

Under the enforcement program, called Secure Communities, fingerprints collected by local police departments are automatically shared with federal immigration officials. Mr. Paterson signed an agreement in May to cooperate with the program, which is going into effect state by state and is scheduled to start in New York by 2013.

In recent months, critics of the plan, including immigrant advocates and some elected officials, have urged the governor to withdraw from the program, saying it would mostly ensnare illegal immigrants with low-level convictions or no criminal history at all.

The pact, which Mr. Paterson signed this week, added language explaining the enforcement priorities of the Department of Homeland Security and clarifying that the agency will focus on deportable immigrants considered a threat to public safety and national security, as well as those who have been convicted of crimes or have illegally re-entered the United States after being deported.

“This new agreement balances the homeland security and civil liberties issues that have surrounded the Secure Communities initiative,” Mr. Paterson said in a statement.

Homeland Security officials said the agreement, however, did not alter the mechanisms of the Secure Communities program or hinder putting it into effect. It also does not preclude immigration officials from detaining and deporting immigrants without criminal histories.

Under the program, the fingerprints of everyone booked into a local or county jail will be sent to the Homeland Security Department and compared with prints in the agency’s databases. If officials discover that a suspect is in the country illegally, or is a noncitizen with a criminal record, they may seek to deport him.

Federal officials said a state could refuse to cooperate, but it would lose access to criminal databases of other states and the federal government, hampering crime-fighting efforts. In his statement, Mr. Paterson said, “It is appropriate and important for New York State to share information with the federal government that could protect us from terrorist attacks.”

But some reacted to the new agreement with skepticism. “My sense is that the governor caved to federal officials, and that’s unfortunate,” said Scott M. Stringer, Manhattan’s borough president and one of more than 40 elected officials who signed a letter last week urging Mr. Paterson to block the program in New York State.

Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said the governor had lost an opportunity to curb immigration officials from “ramping up deportations of immigrants who are only the victims of our dysfunctional immigration system.”

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.