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30 June, 2012

Sabbath



29 June, 2012

British  Migration staff 'played solitaire rather than hunt for foreigners taking part in sham marriages'

Immigration officials played solitaire on their computers instead of hunting for foreigners taking part in sham marriages, a tribunal heard yesterday.  In the end one investigator refused to ‘turn a blind eye’ and was sacked, it was alleged.

Neville Sprague said it had become clear that there was a major criminal conspiracy in which foreign nationals applied for ‘spouse’ visas that enabled them to stay in Britain and enjoy benefits and free services.

It had ‘far reaching consequences’ for the immigration situation, but when he tried to encourage his bosses to act they showed little interest.

Mr Sprague, 59, a former chief immigration officer, told the employment tribunal: ‘I was singled out because of my reluctance to ignore serious organised criminal activities in relation to bogus sham marriages.  ‘I wanted action taken, but the department wanted to brush the scandal under the carpet and wanted me out of the way.

‘Some members of the unit found it difficult to do any real motivated work. Some were quite happy to sit on their computers playing solitaire and similar games rather than working.’

Mr Sprague joined the Home Office in 2001 after 25 years as a uniformed officer and detective with the Metropolitan Police. He earned £26,000 a year working for the Border Control Crime Team, now known as National Tactical Operations.

Things began to go wrong after Jill Smith, the head of the BCCT, twice promoted investigator Tony Buswell in a short time.  Neither job was advertised and Janet Griffiths, a Border Agency inspector, told the hearing she had never known such a quick double promotion in more than 20 years in the service.

Mr Sprague told the tribunal in Croydon, South London, that Mr Buswell’s accelerated promotion ‘annoyed’ most of the staff and that they disliked his ‘cocky attitude’.

Things deteriorated further after his unit was asked to investigate a few cases of sham marriages by foreigners. ‘It was obvious there was serious organised criminal activity occurring,’ he said.  ‘I had great difficulty in getting Buswell and Smith to show any interest. They begrudgingly allowed us to investigate some cases already known about, but they did not want new cases investigated.’

Another inquiry unit based with them in Croydon could have investigated but showed ‘little interest’, he said. ‘It was easier to turn a blind eye.’

Mr Sprague was sacked in April 2009 after complaints about his role in the arrest of a man and his wife involved in an alleged bogus marriage scam.  They included claims that he was ‘untidy, smelly and unkempt’, which he denies.

Mr Sprague, from South Croydon, is claiming unfair dismissal.The tribunal continues.

SOURCE





Legal Illegal Immigration

 Victor Davis Hanson

President Obama recently issued an edict exempting an estimated 800,000 to 1 million illegal aliens from the consequences of federal immigration law. Ostensibly that blanket amnesty applies to those who arrived before the age of 16 and are younger than 30; who are in, or graduated from, high school or have served in the military; and who have not been convicted of a felony or multiple misdemeanors. And while most Americans sympathize with helping those who were brought into the United States as toddlers, raised as de facto Americans and followed the rules, the policy of exempting hundreds of thousands en masse in the long run may create far more problems than it solves.

First was the cynical timing. In 2009 and 2010, Democrats had a supermajority in the Senate and a majority in the House and could easily have enacted such a law over all opposition. So why was the edict handed down in a tough campaign year?

Then there is a problem of constitutionality, an especially serious issue for former constitutional law lecturer Barack Obama, who ran on the premise that he would restore respect for the separation of powers. But as seen in the reversal of the order of the Chrysler creditors, the attempt to shut down a non-union Boeing plant in South Carolina, the decision not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, and the recent use of executive privilege not to hand over Fast and Furious documents, this administration sometimes just bypasses a now-difficult Congress to rule by fiat.

The move contradicts Obama's earlier claim that a de facto amnesty "would not conform with my appropriate role as president." He later reiterated that "some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own," but "that's not how our system works."

In theory, the federal government currently treats illegal aliens on a case-by-case basis, as it allots limited resources to determine who most urgently should be deported and who need not be. The president has added some vague qualifiers to his blanket proclamation concerning schooling and criminal activity. But given that in a state like California, Hispanic males are dropping out of high school at a rate of nearly 40 percent, will the new policy result in summary deportations? That is, once we have chosen those who will not be deported, do we then go after thousands who dropped out, went on state assistance or have been convicted of crimes? And how do we authenticate age and length of residency?

Not long ago, the president, in explaining his personal desire for some sort of amnesty, lamented to Hispanic leaders that they needed to "punish our enemies" at the polls. But is illegal immigration always the single most important issue for Hispanics? Some polls show the Latino community divided almost evenly over open borders. That is understandable, given that the presence of 11 million to 15 million illegal aliens masks the national profile of Latino success. In terms of the rates of assimilation, integration, intermarriage and economic ascendency, Latino Americans who legally immigrated to the United States are mirroring past experiences of successful southern European immigrants.

In Southwestern states, American citizens of Hispanic ancestry share in the increased costs associated with spiraling incarceration rates, plummeting test scores and overtaxed social services, which at least in part reflect the difficult efforts to accommodate those who arrived illegally from the poorest regions of Latin America. A cynic might argue that employers and identity-politics elites jointly welcomed in illegal aliens, the former wanting cheaper labor, the latter wanting more constituents. But driving down wages in hard times and increasing government costs is not always beneficial for small businesses and entry-level American workers -- increasing numbers of them Hispanics.

Finally, is it wise to tie our immigration policy so intimately to race and ethnicity, rather than individual merit and circumstances? Presently we equate massive influxes with Latin America and particularly Mexico. But we forget that Asians now comprise the largest group of new immigrants. Almost all come legally, and many arrive with capital, college educations and specialized skills. Following the president's election-year example, are we to expect the Asian community, in the fashion of Latino lobbyists, to demand even more visas for kindred groups? Should we now waive the immigration rules for economic refugees from the collapsing European Union?

The president's decision is politically tainted, constitutionally suspect, cynically timed and poorly thought out. But it did result in one unintended consequence: We are reminded once again that there are millions of foreign nationals dying to reach the United States -- and to stay at any cost after they get here.

SOURCE



28 June, 2012

Why does the U.S. government halt skilled immigration?

Halting skilled immigration while tolerating millions of Hispanics who can barely speak English makes no sense at all

Just two months after the government started accepting applications, next year's highly skilled worker visas hit the numerical cap. No firm will be now able to apply to sponsor highly skilled foreign workers. Foreign high skilled workers neither "take" American jobs nor do they lower American wages. The low numerical cap, along with other regulations and visa fees, need to go, if the American economy is to grow.

The H-1B visa is a three year, employer-sponsored work visa, renewable one time, for highly skilled foreign workers. Only 85, 000 such visas are issued annually to private firms.

Most H-1B workers specialize in fields demanded by the technology sector, a major source of innovation in the American economy. In May 2012, the unemployment rate for engineers was 5 percent, well below the national average of about 8 percent. There is an unemployment rate of 3.5 percent in computer or mathematical occupations and a 1.9 percent unemployment rate for science workers. H-1B and highly skilled workers fill those niche professions.

Foreign highly skilled workers do not "take" American jobs because the economy doesn't have a set number of jobs. Highly skilled foreign workers create many of the firms that make America a center of technological innovation. Highly skilled foreign born workers and immigrants were instrumental in the founding of Intel, Sanmina-SCI, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Yahoo and Google, firms which have produced billions of dollars in value and employ thousands of Americans in skilled positions.

Foreign skilled workers do not lower American wages. Immigrants in general do not directly compete with Americans, but instead complement them by bringing in different skills and ability. Highly skilled foreign workers have skills that few Americans possess and are greatly demanded by American firms.

Wages aren't affected much by H-1Bs because firms hire them as they expand, so the H-1B cap is a limit on expansion rather than a protection of American wages. If the goal of the H-1B was to lower wages, American firms would apply for more of them as a cost saving measure when profits are low and the economy is sour. But H-1B applications pour in when business and the economy are improving. H-1B application patterns show that their goal is not to lower wages.

More than half of all startups in Silicon Valley were started by immigrants, many of them Indians and Chinese who have been living here for over a decade. The government cannot tell who will be a successful entrepreneur, but the evidence is clear that immigrants — especially the highly skilled — are prone to creating businesses. Many H-1B workers apply for green cards while working here, eventually becoming Americans.

The benefits of highly skilled immigration don't end with the immigrant though. Their children have a remarkable propensity to succeed.

The 2012 winner of the National Spelling Bee was Snigdha Nandipati from San Diego, California. She became the fifth consecutive American of Indian descent to win the contest and the 10th in the last 14 years. Her parents emigrated from India, a major source of skilled foreign immigrants and workers.

Her father, Kirshnarao Nandipati, used his skill as a software engineer to help train his daughter because, as he said after her win, "My English is so weak that I cannot train her. I had to look into finding information of how to prepare her. I am a software engineer. I wrote a program for her that pulls information from the dictionary."

Spelling bees aren't the only academic competitions where the children of highly skilled immigrants excel. According to Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy, 28 of the 40 finalists of the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search Competition, known as the "Junior Nobel Prize," have at least one immigrant parent. Twenty-four of those parents originally came to the U.S. with H1-B visas.

H-1Bs are not perfect and there are several ways to improve them, including removing or expanding the cap as well as the time limit, slashing fees, and eliminating the need for employer sponsorship.

Cutting ourselves off from foreign highly skilled workers makes all of us poorer. America's strengths of relative free markets, contract, and property rights attract immigrants and skilled foreign workers because they can produce more here and make higher wages than in their home countries. For all of our sakes, we should let them come unhindered.

SOURCE






Hundreds have broken out of Australia's immigration detention centres

ELECTRIC fences, razor wire and security guards are no barrier to breakouts from Australia's Immigration detention centres.  Hundreds of visa over-stayers and asylum seekers have scaled fences, fled on day release programs or simply vanished after being released into the community on bridging visas.

For the first time, the Sunday Herald Sun can reveal 524 people have escaped Immigration detention in the past decade. Nearly one-third - 154 - remain on the run from authorities.

The Department of Immigration also revealed that 11 asylum seekers released into the community on bridging visas since November have absconded in breach of reporting requirements.

But this is only a fraction of the 4052 people approved for community detention since the program was expanded two years ago.

Refugee Action Collective spokesman Ian Rintoul said the escapees were desperate and often sustained injuries while doing a runner.

"They have anti-climb fences with sheer cladding so they end up with cuts from the barbed wire and injuries if they have to jump from the fences. People do get electric shocks," he said.

"They are fearful of being deported. The detention centres are hellholes."

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said that, while escapes were "rare", the private company that ran immigration detention in Australia had incurred million-dollar fines in the past.

"Escapes from detention, and especially from community detention, are very rare," he said.

A spokesman added: "Nonetheless, we take any escape from detention extremely seriously."

The new figures confirm the vast majority of escapes were from traditional detention centres.

Of 98 in 2010-11, only one person was from community detention and had since been found.

Last month, Immigration official Kate Pope told Budget estimates that 13 clients had absconded from community detention since October 2010.

"Eleven are Vietnamese, of whom two claimed to be adults and were living in Victoria at the time ... nine claimed to be unaccompanied minors," she said.

"Of those, eight absconded from community detention in Victoria and one in Western Australia. Six of those Vietnamese have been relocated. Four claimed to the unaccompanied minors, all now identified as adults, two of whom are in custody pending court appearances."

In February, three Vietnamese asylum seekers fled over a northern immigration detention centre fence in Darwin at 4.06am.

Last year, authorities foiled a suspected mass breakout of almost 20 inmates at Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney.

The department said the one Malaysian and 16 Chinese nationals had overstayed their visas and were not asylum seekers.

Two years ago, 10 inmates climbed a fence at low-security Inverbrackie Detention Centre to pick fruit.

Since the Rudd-Gillard Government was elected in 2007, 18,949 asylum seekers have arrived on 329 boats - 12,397 on 189 boats since Julia Gillard became Prime Minister in 2010.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said alleged people smuggler Captain Emad recently being allowed to flee the country was a further sign the system was a mess under Labor.

"Increasing numbers of escapes are the result of a system under stress, created by the unprecedented failure of Labor on our borders," he said.

SOURCE



27 June, 2012

A significant win for Arizona illegal immigrant law

The US Supreme Court upheld the most controversial element of the legislation, while overturning three other parts by declaring that immigration remains a federal, rather than state, responsibility.

In an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the country's highest court by an 8-0 vote upheld the part of the law requiring police officers to check the immigration status of people they stop for any reason.

But in a split verdict, the justices also ruled that the three other provisions that were challenged in court by the Obama administration went too far.

These three provisions required immigrants to carry immigration papers at all times, banned illegal immigrants from soliciting work in public places, and allowed police arrest of immigrants without warrants if officers believed they committed crimes that would make them deportable.

The votes on those provisions were either 5-3 or 6-2, with the more conservative justices in dissent.

According to some analysts it appears the Supreme Court is leaving it to lower courts to decide whether the “show me your papers” law can actually be enforced without breaking civil rights laws.

Some doubt that is possible.

“[The laws] are not designed to pick up Canadians,” says Gary Segura, a Stanford political scientist and co-founder of the polling firm Latino Decisions.

In fact the “show me your papers” law, drafted by Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, says explicitly that it embodies an "attrition through enforcement" doctrine - that is, it is designed to make life in Arizona so fearful and unpleasant for undocumented immigrants that they leave.

Five other states have similar legislation pending as they waited for the outcome of the Obama administration's challenge to Arizona's law.

Both the state of Arizona and the Obama administration, which challenged the law in the Supreme Court, have claimed victory.

“Today's decision by the US Supreme Court is a victory for the rule of law. It is also a victory for … all Americans who believe in the inherent right and responsibility of states to defend their citizens,” said Arizona's Republican mayor, Jan Brewer, in a statement.

President Barack Obama said: “What this decision makes unmistakably clear is that Congress must act on comprehensive immigration reform. A patchwork of state laws is not a solution to our broken immigration system – it's part of the problem.”

But he said he was concerned with the remaining elements of the law.

“No American should ever live under a cloud of suspicion just because of what they look like. Going forward, we must ensure that Arizona law enforcement officials do not enforce this law in a manner that undermines the civil rights of Americans, as the Court's decision recognises.”

Professor Segura said President Obama's partial legal victory could turn out to be a complete political victory.

He said the President had demonstrated to Hispanic voters, who had been disappointed in him over his first term, that he is willing and able to act on their behalf.

In addition, because the most draconian element of the law still stands, it could motivate more to vote in November.

Polling by Latino Decisions shows that even third and fourth generation Latino voters remain scared of the so-called “check your papers” law.

The Hispanic vote could be significant to the election outcome in five states, including Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina and even staunchly Republican Arizona.

Though the law has proved popular among Arizona voters, many of the state's various police agencies oppose it, fearful not only of possible civil rights suits against them, but of the huge increase in their workload should they be required to check the immigration papers of everyone they come into contact with.

SOURCE





Next stop for Arizona immigration law: Back to the courts?

The basis for "reasonable suspicion" will be the issue but not having a native command of English should emerge as a reasonable criterion for that.  Only suspicion is required, not certainty

The nation’s top justices on Monday struck down three sections of SB 1070 but unanimously upheld the most-discussed provision: Section 2(B) requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop, detain or arrest for other legitimate reasons “if there’s reasonable suspicion” the person is in the country illegally.

But exactly how local police will go about enforcing that provision is raising more questions than answers. Enforcement had been put on hold pending the Supreme Court decision; lower courts must lift the injunction before it can take effect.

Even the Supreme Court justices hinted that they expect the provision to be legally challenged again.

“There is a basic uncertainty about what the law means and how it will be enforced. At this stage, without the benefit of a definitive interpretation from the state courts, it would be inappropriate to assume 2(B) will be construed in a way that creates a conflict with federal law,” the high court said.

The Supreme Court declared three parts of Arizona's immigration law unconstitutional, but unanimously upheld the most controversial part. Now the high court is expected to make a ruling on "Obamacare" on Thursday. NBC's Pete Williams reports and NBC's Chuck Todd and Professor Noah Feldman weigh in.

“This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect.”

The American Civil Liberties Union says it is exploring legal challenges to keep “show me your papers” from ever taking effect.

“The Supreme Court vacated the injunction against it but took pains to point out the potential constitutional problems that are inherent in Section 2(B) and drew a firm line in the sand that the state cannot cross,” said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. “We are going to be in court bringing new claims and evidence to stop 2(B) again.”

Among the possible claims are that the provision violates the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures and that it invites racial profiling, ACLU officials say.

Joe Rubio, lead organizer for the Arizona Interfaith Network, a coalition of religious groups that opposed SB 1070, said the provision “leaves a nebulous area” if it goes into effect.

MSNBC's Thomas Roberts talks to NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams and Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Ariz., shown here, about the ripple effect of the Supreme Court's ruling.

“It’s going to be important that the state monitors very closely how police deal with immigrants during regular stops and make sure racial profiling does not occur,” Rubio said.

“I think we’re going to have a few months here where people are suspending judgment to see how it’s going to be implemented.”

Jim Gilchrist, founder and president of the Minuteman Project, an anti-illegal immigration group that recruits volunteers to patrol the U.S. border with Mexico, said the Supreme Court decision “left vague” the fate of enforcement of immigration laws by local police.

“Police will be able to ask (about immigration status); however, that’s all they can do,” he said.

“Nobody’s really getting serious about this. Everybody keeps kicking the ball around the court.”

The interpretation of Section 2(B) also could put law officers in a precarious bind. There are no written instructions on how long local police must wait for federal immigration officials to respond, for example, when they encounter someone they suspect is illegal.  And immigration checks could open police up to accusations of racial profiling.

"Talk about 'no win' - if they find the person is not in authorized status, what do they do? Hold them for ICE which doesn't want them? Charge them with some state crime?" said Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney who has has testified before Congress on immigration, homeland security and military issues.

"If they make a mistake, they get sued. If they make too many mistakes, the rest of the statute gets enjoined as unconstitutional as enforced."

"We're going to get sued if we do. We're going to get sued if we don't. That's a terrible position to put law enforcement officers in," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, whose territory covers much of southern Arizona, told The Associated Press.

Tucson police Chief Roberto Villasenor told the AP he estimates the statute will result in 50,000 additional calls a year to federal immigration authorities in his city alone.

SOURCE



26 June, 2012

UN migration chief calls on EU to force member states to be multicultural as he says Britain's quota 'not legal'

I am sure many Britons would have strong views on where Mr Sutherland should put his internationalist opinions

The EU should make sure that its member states are multicultural to ensure the prosperity of the union, the UN's special representative for migration has said.  Peter Sutherland also suggested the UK government's immigration policy had no basis in international law.

He was being questioned by the Lords EU home affairs sub-committee which is investigating global migration.

Mr Sutherland, who is non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former chairman of oil giant BP, heads the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which brings together representatives of 160 nations to share policy ideas.

He told the House of Lords committee migration was a 'crucial dynamic for economic growth' in some EU nations 'however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states'.

He said that an ageing or declining native population in countries like Germany or southern EU states was the 'key argument and, I hesitate to the use word because people have attacked it, for the development of multicultural states'.

'It's impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the other argument can survive because states have to become more open states, in terms of the people who inhabit them. Just as the United Kingdom has demonstrated.'

In evidence to the Lords committee, he urged EU member states to work together more closely on migration policy.

He criticised the UK's attempt to cut net migration from its current level to 'tens of thousands' a year through visa restrictions.

British higher education chiefs want non-EU overseas students to be exempt from migration statistics and say visa restrictions brought in to help the government meet its target will damage Britain's economic competitiveness.

Mr Sutherland, who has attended meetings of The Bilderberg Group, a top level international networking organisation often criticised for its alleged secrecy, called on EU states to stop targeting 'highly skilled' migrants, arguing that 'at the most basic level individuals should have a freedom of choice' about whether to come and study or work in another country.

SOURCE






 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

Commentary

1. Immigration order will hurt unemployed Americans (Op-ed)

2. What Next on Immigration? If Obama gets away with his amnesty-by-decree, other similar measures can be expected. (Op-ed)

3. Presidents Can't Rule by Decree (Op-ed)

4. Obama’s amnesty Dream: President’s measure is much more damaging than it appears (Op-ed)

Television

5. Mark Krikorian Discusses Future of Immigration Policy on PBS (Video)

Blogs

6. BREAKING: Supreme Court Rules on S.B. 1070 (Blog)

7. Economists, Lawyers Tussle at USCIS EB-5 Meeting (Blog)

8. 4.6 Million Waiting for Green Cards Displaced by Dreamers (Blog)

9. Terrorist Travel Remains a Priority for al Qaeda; Obama Policies Support Easy Entry, Embedding (Blog)

10. 'The Same Priority as Citizens'? (Blog)

11. Obama Administration's DREAM Decree – Compassion or Child Abuse? (Blog)

12. The Permanence of a 'Temporary' Amnesty (Blog)

13. USCIS Hotline Gives Conflicting Answers on a Dream Scheme Question (Blog)

14. America's Asian Population Is on the Rise (Blog)

15. How to Break the Immigration Impasse (1): Winner Take All (Blog)

16. Shouldn't We Drop Greece from the Visa Waiver Program? (Blog)

17. Some Senators Grow a Spine on DREAM Decree (Blog)

18. Beneath America's Immigration Stalemate: Conflicted Emotions (Blog)

19. H-1B Visas Flood U.S. Labor Markets with Bush-League Workers (Blog)

20. Meet Deepak Bhargava: Well-Connected, Well-Funded Immigration Activist (Blog)

21. Some Details of the Dream Scheme Revealed in DHS Teleconference (Blog)

22. America's Immigration Stalemate: Conflicted Policies (Blog)

23. Pennsylvania's Decision to Play Chicken with the Feds over Driver's Licenses Is a Bad Idea (Blog)

24. Immigrants Neither More nor Less Entrepreneurial than the Native-Born (Blog)

25. The Rule of Unintended Consequences: Executive Order May Put Illegal Alien Youths at Risk (Blog)



25 June, 2012

The real Ed Miliband

His speech about immigration to Britain has generally been reported as a backdown on the "open door" policy favoured by his Labour Party predecessors.  It is however  a different story if you look at the detail of what he said

In political, economic and demographic terms, we are living through remarkable times. The news, whether it be domestic or international, is almost uniformly bad. And yet amidst this maelstrom, the helmsmen of the emergent global economic and political order continue to chart a course that they set long ago, cognisant of the storms that their policies must surely engender, yet happy for us to suffer the ill-effects of their globalist tempest, utilising the naïveté of those who believe in the ideal of a global village, to aid in their construction of a global prison, from which none, they hope, will be permitted to escape.

Miliband’s speech, like his recent speech on Englishness, was essentially devoid of content. Its intent however, was just the same as its forerunner: to generate headlines conveying the impression that he cares about the ostensible topic under discussion.

Whilst sections of the media and some trades union spokesmen have dutifully complied with this charade, feigning outrage over his touching upon such topics as national identity and immigration, both speeches delivered the same message as found expression in the policy of the last Labour Government: immigration and globalisation are positive, and should be promoted as such. This can be demonstrated through reference to key elements of Miliband’s speech reproduced below:

Excerpt 1: “Britain must control its borders but it must always face outwards to the world. The Britain I believe in is a confident and optimistic country, not one which is insecure and inward looking. If people are looking for a politician who says immigration is just bad for Britain, that's not me. I believe immigration has benefits, economically, culturally and socially.”

Excerpt 2: “I am the son of immigrants and I am hugely proud of it. I will always talk about immigration in a way that is true to who I am, to my heritage, to my mum and dad.”

Excerpt 3: “Providing a refuge for those fleeing persecution. And a new approach to immigration based on building a different kind of economy. An economy that doesn't leave anyone behind. That continues to attract people from abroad who contribute their talents to our economy and society. That offers proper wages and good conditions. That's the kind of economy that will enable Britain to compete with the world.”

In summary the core message of Miliband’s speech was this: Labour made a gaffe in selling mass immigration from the EU accession states to the public and this backfired electorally, not because the party believes this to have been wrong, but because it handled its propaganda maladroitly. The Labour Party needs to repair its image with its traditional indigenous (although Labour’s upper echelons would never use such a term) working-class supporters, who have to a considerable degree deserted Labour; it would still like their votes.

By talking about “immigration” in a manner which suggests to the public that Miliband is recognising Labour’s mistakes and addressing their concerns, whilst in reality simply acknowledging that there had been public disquiet and then reiterating the message that Labour still advocates mass immigration and thinks that it is beneficial, Labour hopes that it can pull the wool over the public’s eyes and win back the support of ex-Labour voters without changing policy. Miliband wishes to change the presentation of policy, whilst retaining its essence: open borders and the deculturisation of the United Kingdom, especially England.

 Another highly noteworthy aspect of Miliband’s speech was the target that he selected in his discussion of mass immigration: white Central and Eastern Europeans from the EU member states of the former Soviet bloc. Nowhere did he have a critical word to say with respect to the far larger, as well as more culturally and economically problematic influx, of immigrants from Asia (predominantly Pakistan and Bangladesh) and Africa (e.g. Somalia and Nigeria). It seems that he is perfectly at ease with this mass settlement.

Why? Although it is true that mass immigration from the EU accession states of the former Soviet bloc has lowered wages, increased unemployment and placed an increased strain on housing, education, health and utilities, there is not so great a cultural gulf between these immigrants and the host population as that between us and the incomers from Asia and Africa.

Although the press are keen to run stories about ‘East European’ or ‘Romanian’ criminal gangs, these are predominantly Roma, and thus should not be conflated with ethnic Romanians or other immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe.

So, why is it, taking into consideration the additional problems associated with significant elements of the immigrant populations from Africa and Asia, that Miliband chose not to focus upon them? Given Miliband’s glaring omission, it could give the impression that he has some issue with white European peoples that he does not have with non-Europeans.

Ed Miliband is the son of a Belgian-born Marxist theoretician of Jewish origins.  Is that why he seems to have so little attachment to England and Englishness?  He certainly stresses his family ties.  Both Marxism and Jewishness would tend to lead him towards little respect for  civilizations of Christian origins -- JR

More HERE





That "Welcome to Australia"  sign is costing lives

By Amanda Vanstone

SURELY after another known tragedy of lost lives because people smugglers are able to sell unsafe places on boats to get to Australia, the Gillard government will finally shut the door on people smuggling.

The government must now remove the so-called pull factors that encourage people to risk their lives. Labor must take down the "Come on down" sign that makes some of its supporters feel so good, but actually costs lives.

When I was minister for immigration in the Howard government, one of the Indonesian ministers visited Australia to discuss border protection, among other things. My job was to reinforce the reasoning for our then strong border protection policies. He had a very sombre approach, but when I said "Ada gula ada semut" - "where there is sugar ants will be" - he had a glint in his eye. It is just common sense.

Tough border protection is not about being anti refugees. This is a ruse run by do-gooders who, in contrast to their sweet self-image, like to peddle hatred by asserting that people who don't think as they do are racists or uncaring.

During my time as immigration minister, we increased our intake of refugees, through the United Nations refugee agency, by a massive 50 per cent, while maintaining strong border protection. And we stopped the boats. For the government to now offer to set up an independent inquiry to look at the effectiveness of these policies seems to me no more than an unnecessary stalling tactic.

The people that use people smugglers fall within a range of categories, some with better credentials to take a refugee place than others. What all the boat arrivals have in common is a desire for Australian permanent residence and, hopefully, citizenship. But the UN Convention does not give a right to choose the country in which one will be protected.

I think it is fair to say that those who have travelled through three or four other countries before coming to Australia are no longer fleeing persecution but are rather seeking the citizenship of their choice. Who wouldn't want the golden visa card that Australian permanent residence or citizenship brings? While that is on offer, we are tempting people to get on the boats.

The government needs to reintroduce both offshore processing and temporary protection visas, or a variation thereof. Something that says: "If it becomes safe for you, we will assist you to resettle home. In the meantime, phone home and tell them they are not coming."

The Malaysian solution was never going to be all the government hoped. A half-smart people-smuggling network would quickly send 800 people to Australia for no fee, just to fill the limited number Malaysia was prepared to take. They may even then pay for those 800 to get from Malaysia back to Indonesia. Then the boats with paying customers would start again. It might increase their cost of doing business, but it would not stop the trade. What will do that is taking the goodies off the table.

Last Monday on this page, former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser made a contribution to this debate, labelling the Coalition's policy both evil and inhumane. It's the use of these words that got him the headline and it is typical of the hate-style politics that some seek to practise. (We've seen a bit more of it over the past week in the "Let's get stuck into Gina" campaign.) Fraser might like to consider what humanity there is in continuing to attract people on to these boats when so many have lost their lives in horrific circumstances.

He says Australia does not have an asylum seeker problem because the percentage of people arriving unlawfully by boat is small compared to the number of people who cross our borders each year. It is an apple-and-orange comparison.

The fact that millions of people do lawfully enter and leave Australia each year has nothing to do with the fact that thousands are choosing to land on our shores with the aid of people smugglers, having passed through other safe countries so they can live in the land of the golden visa card.

Where we are the country of first asylum, as we were with the Indonesian West Papuans in 2006, of course there can be no question. They did not go through three or four other countries first in order to force our hand. We were their nearest port of call, and we gave protection. They were a completely different category to those on the boats that come through Indonesia.

Thankfully, in a free country such as Australia everyone is entitled to voice their opinion. Former prime ministers are no exception. But I don't recall hearing Fraser's former nemesis and now friend, Gough Whitlam, publicly attacking his own party in the way that Fraser has.

There are plenty of people keen to argue the case for leaving onshore processing in place, for community detention and for letting almost everyone stay. With a throwaway line of "send back the ones who are not refugees", they reveal how little they know of the difficulties in doing just that.

These people are engaging in conspicuous compassion - it is more a statement to the world about how they would like to be seen than it is about the object of their concern. It is nothing more than the politics of convenience.

There is nothing humane or compassionate about enticing people to risk a horrific death.  For heaven's sake, take the sugar off the table.

SOURCE



24 June, 2012

At last British Labour admits: Talking about immigration ISN'T racist as Miliband says his party was wrong to brand opponents as bigots

Voters who raise concerns about immigration are 'not bigots' and Labour got the issue 'wrong' for years, Ed Miliband will say today.

Unveiling plans for a major U-turn, the Labour leader will say the party became 'disconnected from the concerns of working people' during its 13 years in power.

In office, Labour often tried to silence criticism of its immigration policy by suggesting it was inspired by racism.

Today, Mr Miliband will admit this tactic was wrong, saying: 'Worrying about immigration, talking about immigration, thinking about immigration, does not make (people) bigots. Not in any way. They are anxious about the future.

'Labour, which is more rooted in people's lives than any other party, must listen to those anxieties and speak directly to them in return.'

His words are a thinly-veiled attack on Gordon Brown, who branded Rochdale pensioner Gillian Duffy a 'bigoted woman' for raising concerns about the impact of immigration during the 2010 election campaign.

Mr Miliband will also distance himself from Mr Brown's pledge to create 'British jobs for British workers'. The policy failed almost immediately when critics said he could not block workers coming here from the European Union.

Mr Miliband, who also attacks the Coalition's immigration cap, will say politicians 'need to be honest about what can be done'.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think-tank, last night welcomed the change of heart, but said it needed to be followed by a change of strategy.

Sarah Davies, 32, from Norwich, who lost her cleaning job four months ago, said: 'There are a lot of foreign workers and you are competing against them for even the most basic jobs.

'It means people like me are being left on the scrapheap. I don't want to be a burden on the taxpayer.'

He said: 'Mumbled apologies are not enough. Having caused the mass immigration of recent years, will Labour now pledge to cut back future immigration, and if so how?'

Mr Miliband will suggest that Labour under Tony Blair became 'dazzled by globalisation and too sanguine about its price'.

He suggests the impact of immigration has had a class divide, with the well-off benefiting from cheap labour, while others find their own jobs and incomes are undercut.

'Immigration made things easier for some, but it also makes things harder for others. If you wanted a conservatory built, you were probably better off. If you were working for a company building conservatories, you probably weren't.'

The Labour leader will also outline a string of changes to the party's approach to immigration.

He will acknowledge the party made 'a mistake' in not putting controls on the number of migrants who flocked here from Poland and other Eastern European countries after they joined the EU. Countries joining in future, such as Croatia and Turkey, should face curbs.

Firms with more than 25 per cent of foreign workers on their books should have to notify their local JobCentre, in order to provide an 'early warning system' about potential skills shortages in the economy.

Mr Miliband will also call for a crackdown on employment agencies that boast of exclusively employing foreign workers, saying a change in the law may be needed.

He will say: 'The idea that in core sectors of our economy, industries like construction or agriculture, you can get recruitment agencies who boast all their workers are Polish or denigrate the talents of people living locally is deeply wrong.'

Mr Miliband will also call for better enforcement of minimum wage laws. He will say it is wrong that just seven employers have been prosecuted for failing to pay the minimum wage when recent studies have suggested that up to 220,000 workers in the care sector alone are not being paid the legal minimum.

The Labour leader will warn that the Government's immigration cap will affect just three per cent of migrants. But he says Labour will 'examine the evidence' on whether the cap works before deciding whether to scrap it.

A Tory spokesman said Labour continued to lack 'credibility' on immigration.

 SOURCE






Obama's immigration bombshell is naked lawlessness

By Charles Krauthammer

"With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations [of immigrants brought here illegally as children] through executive order, that's just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed."  -- President Barack Obama, March 28, 2011

Those laws remain on the books. They have not changed. Yet Obama last week suspended these very deportations -- granting infinitely renewable "deferred action" with attendant work permits -- thereby rewriting the law. And doing precisely what he himself admits he is barred from doing.

Obama had tried to change the law. In late 2010, he asked Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which offered a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. Congress refused.

When pressed by Hispanic groups to simply implement the law by executive action, Obama said it would be illegal.

Now he's gone and done it anyway. The election approaches and his margin is slipping. He needs a big Hispanic vote. After all, who will call him on it? A supine press? Congressional Democrats?

With a single Homeland Security Department memo, the immigration laws no longer apply to 800,000 people. By what justification? Prosecutorial discretion, says Janet Napolitano.

This is utter nonsense. Prosecutorial discretion is the application on a case-by-case basis of considerations of extreme and extenuating circumstances. The Napolitano memo is nothing of the sort. This is a fundamental rewriting of the law.

Imagine: A Republican president submits to Congress a bill abolishing the capital gains tax. Congress rejects it. The president then orders the IRS to stop collecting capital gains taxes and declares anyone refusing to pay them will suffer no fine penalty whatsoever. (Analogy first suggested by law professor John Yoo.)

It would be a scandal. Why? Because unlike, for example, war powers, this is not an area of perpetual executive-legislative territorial contention. Nor is cap-gains, like the judicial status of unlawful enemy combatants, an area where the law is silent or ambiguous. Capital gains is straightforward tax law. Just as Obama's bombshell amnesty-by-fiat is a subversion of straightforward immigration law.

It is shameful that Congressional Democrats should be applauding such a brazen end-run. Of course it's smart politics. But, by Obama's own admission, it is naked lawlessness.

As for policy, I sympathize with the obvious humanitarian motives of the DREAM Act. But two important considerations are overlooked in concentrating exclusively on the DREAM Act poster child, the straight-A valedictorian who rescues kittens from trees.

First, offering potential illegal immigrants the prospect that, if they can successfully hide long enough, their children will one day freely enjoy the bounties of American life creates a huge incentive for yet more illegal immigration.

Second, the case for compassion and fairness is hardly as clear-cut as advertised. What about those who languish for years awaiting legal admission to America? Their scrupulousness about the law could easily cost their children the American future that illegal immigrants will have secured for theirs.

But whatever our honest and honorable disagreements about the policy, what holds us together is a shared allegiance to our constitutional order. That's the fundamental issue here. As Obama himself argued in rejecting the executive action he has now undertaken: "America is a nation of laws, which means I, as the president, am obligated to enforce the law. I don't have a choice about that."

Except, apparently, when violating that solemn obligation serves his re-election needs.

SOURCE



22 June, 2012

Romney's latest

Mitt Romney on Thursday offered what he called a strategy for “bipartisan and long-term immigration reform” in an address to a convention of Latino elected officials in Florida.

In the speech, which also touched on the economy, Mr. Romney dropped the confrontational tone he took on immigration during the Republican primary. Instead, he promised to work in a series of areas to help immigrants and their families while discouraging people from coming to the country illegally.

An interactive video feature examines how Mitt Romney has had to finesse his position on illegal immigration as he pivots towards the general election.

“Immigration reform is not just a moral imperative, but an economic necessity as well,” Mr. Romney said. “We can find common ground here, and we must. We owe it to ourselves as Americans to ensure that our country remains a land of opportunity – both for those who were born here and for those who share our values, respect our laws, and want to come to our shores.”

But Mr. Romney, who has refused to say whether he would overturn a policy announced last week by President Obama that would stop the deportation of some illegal immigrants who were brought to the country as children, again sidestepped that question.

“Some people have asked if I will let stand the president’s executive action,”  he said. “The answer is that I will put in place my own long-term solution that will replace and supersede the president’s temporary measure.”

Even as he started speaking, Mr. Romney’s campaign released an outline of his plan, which would include giving green cards to immigrants who earn advanced degrees at American universities; providing a path to legal status for illegal immigrants who serve in the military; and cutting red tape.

“As president, I will stand for a path to legal status for anyone who is willing to stand up and defend this great nation through military service,” Mr. Romney said.

The nearly twenty-minute speech was met with tepid applause and moments of pointed silence. He seemed to hit his stride near the middle of his remarks, when he talked about balancing the budget, giving parents a choice of where to send their children to school, and providing a path to legal status for immigrants who have served in the military. At the end, about half the room stood up to applaud.

Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, said that the fact that Mr. Romney addressed the conference was a meaningful gesture.   “It was a great speech, I was real impressed with it and I’m glad he came,” Mr. Bush said. “I think he was received respectfully and warmly.”

Democrats criticized Mr. Romney on immigration issues even before the speech was delivered.  In a memo to reporters, Bill Burton, a founder of Priorities USA Action, a “super PAC” backing Mr. Obama, wrote that Mr. Romney was attempting to hide his real views on the issue from voters.

“Mitt Romney’s speech in Florida today will be an attempt to cover up the divisive rhetoric and draconian policies he has espoused for years on immigration,” Mr. Burton wrote. “Today’s slick speech will not change the fact that Romney has repeatedly used divisive language to propose an extreme immigration policy.”

The issue of immigration is shaping up as a critical one in the presidential election. Mr. Romney trails President Obama by wide margins among Hispanic voters, a gap which could provide the difference in important swing states like Colorado, Nevada, Florida and Virginia, where Latino populations are growing.

Mr. Obama is scheduled to speak to the same group on Friday. But for now, the pressure is on Mr. Romney to increase his appeal among Hispanic voters.

Advisers inside and outside Mr. Romney’s campaign have urged him to shape a positive message to Hispanics on immigration and dispel the harsh image he created during the primaries.

“Ultimately what we’re talking about here is the tone is what has hurt Republicans in the past, not the policies,’’ said Alberto Martinez, an adviser and spokesman for the campaign on Hispanic issues.

But that effort is likely to run headfirst into some of Mr. Romney’s conservative supporters. Many in the Republican base believe that any solution that lets illegal immigrants remain in the country is unacceptable. During the primary race Mr. Romney courted these voters with talk of “self-deportation” and his approval of Arizona’s harsh immigration law.

In two previous addresses to Hispanic groups, Mr. Romney ignored immigration. On Wednesday the Romney campaign abruptly cut short a telephone press conference when all the questions were about immigration – and the campaign wanted to talk about the economy.

“The reason that immigration is important is not because it’s the priority issue but because it’s the issue that can turn Hispanics off,’’ said Ana Navarro, a Florida-based adviser to Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008. “If a candidate has the wrong tone and the wrong rhetoric on immigration, Hispanics won’t listen to any of his proposals on anything else.

Ahead of the Florida speech on Thursday, Mr. Romney’s campaign promised to forge “lasting solutions” to what he called the “nation’s broken immigration system.” He said he would work with both parties to pass immigration reform.

But the brief outline did not say how he would overcome the gridlock that has blocked comprehensive immigration reform in the Congress for more than a decade.

SOURCE






Fueled by immigration, Asians are fastest-growing U.S. group

Most arrive legally as highly skilled orofessionalsM.i>

Asian Americans are now the nation's fastest-growing racial group, overtaking Latinos in recent years as the largest stream of new immigrants arriving annually in the United States.

In an economy that increasingly depends on highly skilled workers, Asian Americans are also the country's best educated and highest-income racial or ethnic group, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

In fact, U.S. Asians, who trace their roots to dozens of countries in the Far East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, are arguably the most highly educated immigrant group in U.S. history, the study shows. And although there are significant differences among them by country of origin, on the whole they have found remarkable success in their new land.

"These aren't the poor, tired, huddled masses that Emma Lazarus described in that inscription on the Statue of Liberty," said Paul Taylor, the research center's executive vice president.

In fact, the Asian newcomers' achievements are likely to change the way many Americans think about immigrants, typically as strivers who work hard in the hope that their children and grandchildren will have easier lives and find greater success in this country, Taylor said.

For U.S. Asians, especially those who arrived in recent years, the first generation itself is doing well, outpacing Americans as a whole when it comes to education, household income and family wealth, according to the report released Tuesday.

Asian Americans also tend to be more satisfied than most Americans with their own lives, the survey found, and they hold more traditional views than the general public on the value of marriage, parenthood and hard work.

As a whole, Asian Americans are more likely than the general public to prefer a big government that provides more services. They also lean Democratic and a majority approves of President Barack Obama's job performance. Obama's approval rating among the general public is hovering around 44 percent.

Although the first large wave of Asian immigrants came to the U.S. in the early 19th century, the population grew slowly for more than a century, held down by severe restrictions and official prohibitions, some explicitly racist. Most Asian Americans now living in the U.S. arrived after 1965 legislation that allowed immigration from a wider range of countries.

Asian Americans now make up nearly 6 percent, or 18.2 million, of the U.S. population, the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show. Nearly three-quarters were born abroad, and about 8 million came to this country in the last 30 years.

Geographically, nearly half of all U.S. Asians live in the Western states. California, the traditional gateway for Asian immigrants, has by far the largest number, almost 6 million. Of the major Asian subgroups, in fact, only those from India are relatively evenly distributed throughout the country, with the largest share, 31 percent, living in the Northeast.

Asian immigration has grown rapidly in recent years, with nearly 3 million arriving since 2000. At the same time, Latino immigration, especially from Mexico, has slowed sharply, mainly because of the weakened U.S. economy and tougher border enforcement.

As a result, the number of newly arrived Asian immigrants has outpaced Latinos each year since 2009, according to Pew's analysis of census data. In 2010, for instance, 36 percent of new U.S. immigrants were Asian, compared with 31 percent who were Latino.

The most recent immigrants have arrived even as the economy has boomed in many Asian countries and the standard of living has risen. Taylor said the reason many Asians move to the U.S. include shifts in U.S. immigration policies, changes in their home countries and U.S. labor needs for science, engineering and math graduates.

The Pew study combines recent census and economic data with an extensive, nationally representative survey of 3,500 Asian Americans. The interviews, conducted from January to March, were done in English and seven Asian languages.

Chinese Americans are the largest Asian immigrant group, with more than 4 million who identified as Chinese, followed by Filipinos, Indians, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese.

U.S. Asians as a whole are more satisfied than most Americans with their lives overall (82 percent compared to 75 percent), with their personal finances (51 percent compared to 35 percent) and with the general direction of the country (43 percent compared to 21 percent).

More than half of adult Asian Americans say that having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in life; 34 percent of all American adults agree. Asian Americans are more likely than American adults in general to be married (59 percent compared to 51 percent) and their newborns are less likely than U.S. infants as a whole to have an unmarried mother (16 percent compared to 41 percent).

SOURCE



21 June, 2012

GOP doubts legality of Obama administration's immigration policy, mounts opposition

Republican lawmakers aren't just uneasy about the Obama administration's move to grant a reprieve to thousands of illegal immigrants who came here as children. Several say they're not even sure it's legal.

Though members of both parties have expressed an interest in crafting legislation to potentially let young illegal immigrants stay in the U.S., Republicans took exception to the Department of Homeland Security's announcement last Friday. Accusing the administration of making an end-run around Congress, GOP officials are increasingly questioning the president's legal authority for the move.

Twenty Republican senators fired off a letter to President Obama on Tuesday asking a string of questions about the legal basis for the policy change.

"Not only do we question your legal authority to act unilaterally in this regard, we are frustrated that you have intentionally bypassed Congress and the American people," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and the other senators wrote.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, followed up with a letter to Obama Wednesday, likewise asking for legal opinions backing up what he described as "amnesty."

Smith wrote that the move "represents a breach of faith with the American people and our Constitution, blatantly ignoring the rule of law and the separation of powers that are the foundations of our democracy."

Other lawmakers have taken their concerns beyond letter-writing.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told Fox News Radio that he plans to sue. "We have to settle this issue," King said. "And if we don't take a stand here on this issue, then the door's wide open for the president to do whatever he shall do with his presidential edicts."

Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., earlier in the week introduced a bill to bar the implementation of the policy. Fellow Republican Arizona Rep. David Schweikert introduced a similar measure.

Meanwhile, the president's announcement threw into question an effort by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to draft a similar measure -- only in Congress. Rubio told Fox News on Wednesday that the administration's decision, though, did not strike a balance.
"The biggest problem I have with it is that (Obama) ignores the Constitution and the Congress and shoves it down our throat," the senator said.

Rubio said the Executive Branch decision "sets the whole thing backwards," asserting that the administration has now inserted "election-year politics" into the debate.

The Obama administration unveiled the new policy on Friday. Under the change, the federal government would make certain illegal immigrants eligible for work permits, provided they're under the age of 30 and came to the U.S. before they were 16. They also must not have been convicted of a major crime and must have been continuously living in the U.S. for the past five years.

Obama, in remarks Friday, stressed that the change is meant to help illegal immigrants who came here as children -- many of whom do not even realize they are undocumented "until they apply for a job or a driver's license, or a college scholarship."

Obama stressed his continued support for the legislative proposal, the DREAM Act, which contains similar provisions but has not passed out of Congress. He cast the change by Homeland Security as a temporary solution.

"This is not amnesty, this is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It's not a permanent fix," he said. "This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people."

But Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and co-author of several state anti-illegal immigration laws, told Fox Business Network that the administration is "breaking federal law." He pointed to a section in federal law he says states "very clearly that the president's administration cannot grant this sort of amnesty or cannot refuse to place in deportation proceedings an alien in this situation, who's illegally in this country."

SOURCE





A small anti-immigrant success in France



Jean-Marie Le Pen’s granddaughter has become France’s youngest MP since 1791.  Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a 22-year-old law student, was elected at the weekend. The new darling of the country’s National Front has announced herself as the ‘spokeswoman’ for France’s youth.

She will be sworn in as the MP for Carpentras, in the south-east Vaucluse area, at the end of the month. The seat is symbolic for her party, as it was there that it was implicated in the desecration of a Jewish cemetery.

Miss Marechal-Le Pen campaigned on an anti-immigrant, anti-Europe and anti-globalisation agenda. ‘If the elites listened, they would understand why French youth, to which I belong, is joining our ranks,’ she said.

Marion’s father, Samuel Marechal, once ran the National Front’s youth movement. Her mother Yann is Jean-Marie’s daughter.

Mr Le Pen, who turns 84 this week, was in Carpentras to toast his granddaughter’s victory. His daughter, who leads the party he founded, failed to win a parliamentary seat, losing by 118 votes to her Socialist opponent. She has demanded a recount.

The party’s only other successful candidate was lawyer Gilbert Collard, who took the southern Gard department.

'Politics can be as genetic as art or music,' Jean-Marie Le Pen said of his granddaughter this month. 'It's the proof of a good race. Those who accuse us of nepotism are imbeciles.'

Delivering a toned-down version of her party's hardline policies to a younger generation of voters, while saying she does not back all the National Front's ideas, Marechal-Le Pen says her success shows the party is becoming mainstream.

'If the elites listened, they would understand why French youth, to which I belong, is joining our ranks,' she said in a victory address, vowing to speak out in parliament for national sovereignty and for giving priority to French nationals.

She added: 'I am happy to the spokeswoman for this French youth that tomorrow will be spearhead new hope in the shape of the National Front.  '6.4 million French voters have already joined us (in presidential elections) and it's just the beginning.'

The far-right's new face insists she is not her grandfather's puppet, but she was careful to place security and immigration - his two key themes - at the heart of her campaign.

Born on December 10, 1989, in the affluent suburb of Saint Cloud, west of Paris, where much of the Le Pen family lives in a mansion, Marechal-Le Pen joined the party aged just 17 and went on to try her luck in regional and municipal elections.

She has remained active in party politics through her postgraduate studies in public law, following the same academic route as her former paratrooper grandfather, who was a more stately 27 when he first entered parliament in 1956.  Her grandfather, who founded the anti-immigrant, anti-EU party, turned 84 this week.

SOURCE



20 June, 2012

Obama's  Immigration Ploy

 Thomas Sowell

President Obama's latest political ploy -- granting new "rights" out of thin air, by Executive Order, to illegal immigrants who claim that they were brought into the country when they were children -- is all too typical of his short-run approach to the country's long-run problems.

Whatever the merits or demerits of the Obama immigration policy, his Executive Order is good only as long as he remains president, which may be only a matter of months after this year's election.
People cannot plan their lives on the basis of laws that can suddenly appear, and then suddenly disappear, in less than a year.

To come forward today and claim the protection of the Obama Executive Order is to declare publicly and officially that your parents entered the country illegally. How that may be viewed by some later administration is anybody's guess.

Employers likewise cannot rely on policies that may be here today and gone tomorrow, whether these are temporary tax rates designed to look good at election time or temporary immigration policies that can backfire later if employers get accused of hiring illegal immigrants.

Why hire someone, and invest time and money in training them, if you may be forced to fire them before a year has passed?

Kicking the can down the road is one of the favorite exercises in Washington. But neither in the economy nor in their personal lives can people make plans and commitments on the basis of government policies that suddenly appear and suddenly disappear.

Like so many other Obama ploys, his immigration ploy is not meant to help the country, but to help Obama. This is all about getting the Hispanic vote this November.

The principle involved -- keeping children from being hurt by actions over which they had no control -- is one already advanced by Senator Marco Rubio, who may well end up as Governor Romney's vice-presidential running mate. The Obama Executive Order, which suddenly popped up like a rabbit out of a magician's hat, steals some of Senator Rubio's thunder, so it is clever politics.

But clever politics is what has gotten this country into so much trouble, not only as regards immigration but also as regards the economy and the dangerous international situation.

When the new, and perhaps short-lived, immigration policy is looked at in terms of how it can be administered, it makes even less sense. While this policy is rationalized in terms of children, those who invoke it are likely to do so as adults.

How do you check someone's claim that he was brought into the country illegally when he was a child? If Obama gets reelected, it is very unlikely that illegal immigrants will really have to prove anything. The administration can simply choose not to enforce that provision, as so many other immigration laws are unenforced in the Obama administration.

If Obama does not get reelected, then it may not matter anyway, when his Executive Order can be gone after he is gone.

Ultimately, it does not matter what immigration policy this country has, if it cannot control its own borders. Whoever wants to come, and who has the chutzpah, will come. And the fact that they come across the Mexican border does not mean that they are all Mexicans. They can just as easily be terrorists from the Middle East.

Only after the border is controlled can any immigration policy matter be seriously considered, and options weighed through the normal Constitutional process of Congressional hearings, debate and legislation, rather than by Presidential short-cuts.

Not only is border control fundamental, what is also fundamental is the principle that immigration policy does not exist to accommodate foreigners but to protect Americans -- and the American culture that has made this the world's richest, freest and most powerful nation for more than a century.

No nation can absorb unlimited numbers of people from another culture without jeopardizing its own culture. In the 19th and early 20th century, America could absorb millions of immigrants who came here to become Americans. But the situation is entirely different today, when group separatism, resentment and polarization are being promoted by both the education system and politicians.

SOURCE


    




Secure Communities by the Number, Revisited

New study refutes denial of due process charges

As ICE nears completion of the nation-wide activation of the Secure Communities program, which facilitates the identification and removal of aliens who are arrested for other crimes through automated fingerprint matching, the record of arrests and removals continue to show the program is effective and beneficial to U.S. communities.

A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies examines the nature of the immigration charges against aliens identified through Secure Communities and how these offenders were processed. In this final installment of a three-part series, Secure Communities By the Numbers, Revisited, authors W.D. Reasoner and Jessica Vaughan find that there are no indications of denial of due process or other inappropriate handling of removal cases, as program critics frequently allege. On the contrary, this analysis shows that the Secure Communities caseload consists mainly of jail and prison inmates, many of whom have histories of significant and repeated immigration violations – in keeping with the program goals.

These findings help explain why the vast majority of state and local law enforcement agencies have embraced Secure Communities enthusiastically, and willingly assist by honoring detainers so that ICE can take custody of criminal aliens. Support from the nation’s sheriffs and police departments has helped motivate ICE to implement the program over the objections of illegal alien advocacy groups.

The key findings:

* There were no indications of systematic denial of due process for aliens processed under Secure Communities. In the case data reviewed, the authors found no instance of an individual being deprived of due process or subjected to an inappropriately harsh form of due process.

* If anything, ICE officers lean towards more costly and inefficient methods of removing criminal aliens, instead of the quicker options that are available. More than half (56%) of the sample cases reviewed had immigration judge hearings and only one percent were processed using the most efficient tool of expedited removal (compared to 30% in the national DHS removal caseload).

* 26 percent of the cases reviewed involved aliens who had been removed at a prior date and returned here illegally (a felony offense under the U.S. criminal code). This suggests that significant gaps in border security still exist.

* 10 percent of these criminal aliens were granted voluntary return, a very lenient treatment that enables them to avoid harsh penalties if they return again illegally.

* Nearly half the total (48%) were multiple or repeat immigration violators, aside from their state or local crimes.

The data source for this analysis was a sample of more than 500 cases released by ICE in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the National Day Labor Organizing Network and the Cardozo Law School’s Immigration Clinic.

The CIS authors’ first two reports examine allegations of wrongful arrests of U.S. citizens and racial profiling. In Part One, Reasoner and Vaughan found no basis for the allegations that Secure Communities had wrongfully ensnared U.S. citizens. In Part Two, the authors found the ethnic profile of the aliens arrested through Secure Communities very closely matched the ethnic profile of criminal aliens incarcerated in the parts of the country where the program was operating, rebutting the accusations of racial profiling. In addition, Reasoner and Vaughan found significant methodological and interpretive errors in the analyses of the ICE critics. They also found significant data integrity problems that ICE must move to correct to facilitate more meaningful analyses of the program.

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: Jessica Vaughan, (508) 346-3380, jmv@cis.org or Marguerite Telford, (202) 466-8185

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



19 June, 2012

Backdoor Amnesty? White House Proposes CATCH and RELEASE for Some Illegal Immigrants

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency charged with guarding the U.S. borders, has written a secret draft policy that would let its agents catch and release low-priority illegal immigrants rather than bring them in for processing and prosecution.

The policy, which has not been signed off on, would be the latest move by the Obama administration to set new priorities for the nation's immigration services, and would bring CBP in line with other Homeland Security Department agencies that already use such "prosecutorial discretion."

The policy was detailed in an internal memo obtained by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and reviewed by The Washington Times, which confirmed the document.

According to the memo, the draft policy "provides circumstances when to pursue enforcement actions ... and includes detailed discussion of several factors CBP personnel should consider when exercising discretion."

Opponents say it amounts to another "backdoor amnesty" for illegal immigrants and could give the administration a tool to pressure Border Patrol agents not to pursue some people.

"Rather than allow Border Patrol agents to do their job, the Obama administration instead would like them to roll out the welcome mat for illegal immigrants," Mr. Smith said. "This ‘catch and release' policy undermines border security, our immigration system, and CBP's mission."

President Obama has called for a broad immigration bill that would legalize most illegal immigrants, but with action in Congress unlikely, his administration has taken steps to try to rewrite enforcement priorities and shift deportation efforts away from rank-and-file illegal immigrants and toward gang members and those with extensive criminal records.

Those favoring a crackdown say that amounts to a de facto amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, while immigrant rights groups say he is setting records for deportations and that too many illegal immigrants without extensive criminal histories are being caught.

As part of its efforts, the administration last summer announced that it would grant broad prosecutorial discretion for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), a Homeland Security agency that enforces immigration laws in the country's interior.

That policy, which lets the agency decline to prosecute or deport some illegal immigrants, has received mixed reviews. Crackdown supporters say it's too lenient, while the immigrant advocates say it's not applied fairly.

The new draft policy detailed in the memo would apply similar rules to CBP, and the chief effect could be to give Border Patrol agents discretion not to turn over illegal immigrants for prosecution.

SOURCE





 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

Blogs

1. Plenty of Room for Fraud & Fuzz in Obama's Dream Scheme (Blog)

2. Obama's Administrative Dream Act Myths (Blog)

3. Phony Military Frosting on the Dream Scheme Cake (Blog)

4. What Is Deferred Action? (Blog)

5. Contrasts Between the IRCA Legalization and the Administration's Dream (Blog)

6. H-2B Exploiters Beat Obama Administration in Senate Committee Vote (Blog)

7. Meanwhile, at the Border . . . (Blog)

8. Who Will Pay to Process the Dream? (Blog)

9. Rubio’s Response to Obama's Amnesty (Blog)

10. The End Justifies the Means (Blog)

11. Lessons for U.S. Southern Border from Interview with Canadian Mountie (Blog)

12. DHS Wastes Money on Adult Toys (i.e., Drones), OIG Reports (Blog)

13. State Agencies Should Prepare for a War of Attrition on Enforcement Measures (Blog)

14. Let's Make a Deal: A College's Special Tuition Rates for Illegal Immigrant Students (Blog)

15. California Senate Advances Sanctuary Bill, Ignoring Lessons of Triple Murder Case (Blog)

16. Summertime, Brought to You by Eastern Europe (Blog)

17. On Whose Behalf Do Our Officials Labor? (Blog)

18. Ag Employers Cry Wolf on Immigration (Blog)

19. Voter ID – Sometimes Even Politicians Get It Right (Blog)

20. On Capitol Hill, a Strong Indictment of Administrative Amnesty Policies (Blog)

21. Beyond the Hoopla — Older Immigrants Are Economic Disasters (Blog)

22. Time for Another DREAM Act Story (Blog)

23. Irish Workers in the Big Apple: American Kids (Apparently) Need Not Apply (Blog)

24. DOJ Expands Gun Rights for Certain Nonimmigrant Aliens (Blog)



18 June, 2012

Israeli PM: African illegals to be deported in orderly, dignified manner

 Ahead of first plane of South Sudanese migrants set to leave Israel, Netanyahu says: The government is today essentially starting the return of the illegal infiltrators to their lands of origin.

With heart-rending scenes of police rounding up frightened African migrants on the nightly news, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledged at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday an orderly deportation process that will "preserve the dignity" of those slated for expulsion.

"The first plane of illegal infiltrators will leave tonight for South Sudan," Netanyahu said. "Next week another plane will leave. The government is today essentially starting the return of the illegal infiltrators to their lands of origin."

Netanyahu said the government is dealing with the migrant problem through the completion of the border fence with Egypt within the next few months; an expedited process to deport infiltrators, in some cases to third countries: and taking away the motivation for others to come to Israel by implementing a number of steps.

These disincentive steps include ending the practice of directing infiltrators to Tel Aviv or other locations, and rather transferring them directly to detention centers where they can be held for up to two years. In addition, Netanyahu said the Knesset approved a law last week to level strict penalties on employers giving the migrants work.

"The infiltrators come here to work," Netanyahu said. "If there will not be work for them here they will have no reason to come."

SOURCE





Australia's  'how-to guide' for people smugglers

THE Immigration Department has been accused of running a "marketing department" for people smugglers after publishing an online guide to asylum-seeker processing and fact sheets detailing free legal assistance available to arrivals.

A new section of the department's website explains the journey irregular maritime arrivals take when their boat is intercepted in Australia.

The site also explains the appeals process for rejected claims and the visa process for successful applications.

"This website contains general information for you if you arrived in Australia by boat without a visa," the department tells visitors.

The government yesterday said it was best to be proactive and distribute the facts rather than let asylum seekers be fooled by people smugglers.

But opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison dubbed it a "how-to guide".   "The only thing missing from this website is a hotline to the people smugglers that they can call and an introductory video from Captain Emad," he said. "You can effectively call this 'captainemad.com'."

Some of the information has been available on the department's website for months, but was compiled into an easy-to-use resource in recent days.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen yesterday said the information was important to counter the false promises people smugglers peddled.

"Scott Morrison would rather asylum seekers get the myths from people smugglers; these are simply the facts," the spokesman said.

SOURCE



17 June, 2012

Obama halts deportations of young illegals

Another end-run around Congress.  A President with no respect for the Constitution he has sworn to uphold

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has suspended the threat of deportation against hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, delighting crucial Hispanic voters ahead of November's election.

"These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighbourhoods... they are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one... on paper," Obama said at the White House.

The scheme applies to people brought to the United States before the age of 16, who are currently under 30, are in school or have graduated from high school, or have served in the military and have not been convicted of a felony.

"Put yourself in their shoes, imagine you have done everything right your entire life... only to suddenly face the threat of deportation to a country you know nothing about," Obama said.

"This is not amnesty, this is not immunity... this is the right thing to do," said Obama, who, in an unusual scene, was heckled by a journalist from the conservative Daily Caller website during his remarks.

Although affected youths will be able to apply for work permits, they will not be granted permanent residence status or a path towards citizenship.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that only youths that had been living in the United States for five years and were no threat to national security would be eligible for the scheme.

Obama's decision will go some way to enshrining the goals of the DREAM Act, legislation backed by the White House that could lead to young illegal immigrants gaining permanent residency.

The bill, opposed by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and conservatives on Capitol Hill, has repeatedly failed to pass Congress and become law.

Romney said that although the plight of young illegals was important, the action Obama took "makes it more difficult to reach that long-term solution."  "I'd like to see legislation that deals with this issue," he said, adding that he agreed with the approach of US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

Rubio, seen as a possible future Republican presidential candidate, has a difficult line to walk on immigration between a hawkish Republican party and a desire not to alienate Hispanic voters.

"By once again ignoring the constitution and going around Congress, this short-term policy will make it harder to find a balanced and responsible long-term one," Rubio said.

Romney's position on immigration reform, adopted to appeal to conservative Republican primary voters, could come back to haunt him among Hispanics in general election swing states like Colorado and Nevada.

Other Republicans accused Obama of overstepping his powers and of bypassing the collective will of elected politicians.

"Americans should be outraged that President Obama is planning to usurp the constitutional authority of the United States Congress and grant amnesty by edict to one million illegal aliens," Iowa Representative Steve King said.  "There is no ambiguity in Congress about whether the DREAM Act's amnesty program should be the law of the land.  "It has been rejected by Congress, and yet President Obama has decided that he will move forward with it anyway."

Officials said the move was not a permanent solution to the status of illegal immigrants but offered a two-year deferment of deportation proceedings, which could be extended by a further two years on expiry.

Despite sparking conservative anger, Obama's decision was however welcomed by immigration reform groups.

"The president has given us a reason to believe in him," said Cesar Vargas, managing partner at DRM Capitol Group, which fights for DREAM legislation around the United States.  "We will ensure that people go out to vote to keep this executive order alive."

Officials said the measure could impact around 800,000 youthful illegal immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Centre said up to 1.4 million children and young adults could benefit.

There are 11.5 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, and efforts to deal with their status - and provide a path to citizenship - have foundered in recent years over sharp political divisions.

In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll last month, Obama led Romney among registered Hispanic voters, 61 to 27 per cent.

Obama promised to work towards comprehensive immigration reform, a goal of the Hispanic community, when he ran for office but has made little progress. Now the president is pledging to tackle the issue if he wins a second term.

SOURCE




Illegals  abuse law to overstay in Australia

FAILED asylum seekers, foreign students overstaying their visas and others facing deportation admit to rorting the immigration system to stay in Australia, according to an official report.

The Immigration Department study revealed unsuccessful visa applicants had a "dig in and resist" mentality, believing they had a "personal entitlement" to stay in Australia and could beat the system with persistence. It found some refugee advocates, migration agents and religious groups misled asylum seekers by raising expectations and false hopes about their chances of staying in Australia.

Based on interviews with people facing removal from Australia and immigration officers, the report revealed the department was besieged by those with a "stay-at-all-cost" mindset.

It found people used every means to extend their stay and many saw marrying an Australian as a viable way to remain permanently, with the aim of later bringing out family. "Most respondents displayed a 'dig in and resist to the end' mentality (and) they had a strong sense of personal entitlement to stay in Australia," the report said.

"They believed the system was there to be exploited and no decision was seen as final."

Among those surveyed were Afghan, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, UK and New Zealand nationals. Most had been in Australia between two and 10 years - some for decades.

The report said, while many claimed to fear persecution in their home countries, they strongly believed they had a right to stay based on their social and economic contribution to Australia.

"(There was also) a sense of shame around returning to the country of origin having nothing to show for their stay in Australia," it said.

The report said many surveyed asylum seekers were drug addicts and had mental health problems, and they had a general attitude that the department lacked credibility and was "just trying to get rid of people". The Management Of Enforced Removals In Australia: A Client Perspective report was done for the department by consultants Hall & Partners/Open Mind.

It recommended the department improve "messaging" so clients better understood the migration process and were given alternatives to remaining in Australia.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan police have arrested 53 people who were trying to leave the island illegally in a boat believed to be heading for Australia. The trawler was stopped by the navy off the island's southeastern coast on Tuesday and the men were handed over to police, who arrested a further 26 people on shore, including 21 Afghans and five Pakistanis suspected of using Sri Lanka as a transit point.

SOURCE



15 June, 2012

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests 44 "egregious" illegals

This is all fine and good but what is going to be done with them?  If they are deported they will just pop right back over  the border again.  Only long prison sentences could reduce the danger they pose to the community

A sting operation by U.S. agents led to the arrests of 44 "egregious immigration law violators" in the Chicago area.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say all of the arrested had prior criminal convictions ranging from arson and battery to drugs and weapons possessions charges.

Of the 44 arrested, 23 were fugitives who had failed to leave the country when ordered to by immigration officials, and 11 had feloniously re-entered the country after being deported, according to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement news release.

"ERO is committed to making our communities safer by arresting and removing convicted criminal aliens and immigration fugitives," said Ricardo Wong, Chicago field office director for ICE ERO in Chicago, "By targeting our efforts on these egregious offenders, we are improving public safety while making the best use of our resources."

The five-day investigation and arrest operation took place in Chicago and the western suburbs, including West Chicago, Cicero, Aurora, Elgin, Joliet, Downers Grove and Carpentersville, according to the release.

SOURCE






Australia: Bureaucratic obtuseness defeated for once

Immigration bureaucracies worldwide are mini-Kremlins

THE Immigration Minister has ordered his department to allow British policeman Peter Threlfall and his family into Australia.

Chris Bowen's intervention followed revelations in The Advertiser yesterday that the family had been denied visas because Mr Threlfall's 25-year-old step-daughter, Sarah, has autism.

Mr Threlfall last night likened the backflip to winning the lottery.

He said SA Police had told him his original job offer as a constable in Ceduna would be honoured, and he hoped to be in Australia by September. "This is unbelievable. I just can't get over it," Mr Threlfall said from London.

"I knew it was achievable, it was just getting the right person to overturn this bad decision, but it was so hard to get to that person. My wife is in tears - we are so happy."

The Threlfalls were originally denied visas because an Immigration Department medical officer deemed Sarah's condition would place a burden on health- care and community services in Australia.

This was despite the fact Sarah has two jobs and plans to study as a hairdresser in Australia. Disability advocates last night applauded Mr Bowen's intervention, but demanded the immediate scrapping of the "discriminatory" policy behind the original decision.

Intellectual Disability Association of SA chairman David Holst and Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young both called on the Government to bring immigration policies into line with a 2010 parliamentary report on the issue.

"This case, like similar ones in recent years show why there must be reforms to the health waiver requirement," Ms Hanson-Young said.

"The Greens call on the Government to fulfil the recommendations from the Enabling Australia 2010 parliamentary inquiry report, particularly raising the 'cost threshold' of the health requirement and those criteria affecting family migration."

Opposition immigration spokesman Mitch Fifield said there needed to be greater flexibility in cases such as that of the Threlfalls.

Mr Threlfall hoped his case would help ensure policy change after the Immigration Department deemed Sarah could be a $500,000 burden on Australian healthcare and social services, despite assurances she was employed, largely self-reliant and rarely sought medical assistance in London.

"You can't adopt a hypothetical situation without taking into account any positives," he said.

A spokesman for Mr Bowen said after learning about the case he had asked the department to "facilitate entry for the family".

Migration Institute of Australia state president Mark Glazbrook said cases such as this were too common.

"There is this general assumption that certain conditions will have a high cost and because of that the visa will be refused, even when you can get strong evidence to say there shouldn't be a high cost," he said.

The Threlfall family received a deluge of support from readers of AdelaideNOW and The Advertiser's Facebook page yesterday.

"That's disgusting! Let them in and stop the discrimination against disability," one reader commented.

Autism Advisory and Support Service president Grace Fava applauded the decision, saying people should not have to live with a label.

SA Police Assistant Commissioner Bryan Fahy said SAPOL would honour its original employment offer.

SOURCE



14 June, 2012

Row in Britain over 75,000 visas handed out each year to foreign students who never go home

Foreign students who fail to return home at the end of their courses push the country’s population up by 75,000 every year, a report revealed last night. 

The study by the Migration Watch think tank claims 25,000 remain here illegally.  The remainder either take jobs or are given permission to settle down with a partner or undertake further studies.

The report undermines the view of 68 university chancellors who say overseas students should be taken out of the Government’s migration statistics.  The number of students coming into the UK is logged, but the figure for those leaving is not.

In a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron, the Universities UK umbrella group argued that because students went home at the end of their courses there was no need to log them at all.

Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable has also pressed the Home office to take a more relaxed attitude to student visas.

In a speech yesterday, he again said: ‘One of our biggest and most successful export industries is higher education. If we are to strengthen it there must be confidence that bona fide overseas students are welcome here, and have the opportunity to work on a managed basis.’

But Migration Watch argues that removing students from Britain’s net migration of 250,000 – which is the difference between the number of people entering the country and those leaving – would ‘destroy public confidence in the Government’s immigration policy’.  Mr Cameron has pledged to cut net migration to ‘the tens of thousands’.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch, said: ‘Foreign students are valuable, but the present system is far too easily abused. Sadly, the student route has become the back door to Britain and it is wide open.’

The study says that since 2002, two million non-EU and 500,000 EU students have been admitted to Britain to study for more than a year.  But because they are not counted out, the Government ‘has not the slightest idea how many have actually left’.

SOURCE




Arizona prepares to enforce strict immigration law

Arizona is already gearing up to enforce its strict immigration law as it anticipates a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court sometime this month, with Gov. Jan Brewer issuing an executive order this week telling police to bone up on the details of the law.

Mrs. Brewer ordered that training materials produced to help police understand the law and its limits should be distributed throughout the state in preparation for a ruling.

The materials, created by a state board that sets standards for all law enforcement, include a DVD designed to help police understand the circumstances that would let them question someone about immigration status.

That power has been the most controversial part of the law, SB 1070, which Mrs. Brewer signed in 2010 but was largely halted by lower federal courts as an infringement on federal powers.

In her order, Mrs. Brewer said the materials need to “make clear that an individual’s race, color or national origin alone cannot be grounds for reasonable suspicion to believe any law has been violated.”

Among other provisions, the Arizona law requires police to check the immigration status of those they have encountered during their duties and have reasonable suspicion are in the country illegally.

Immigrant-rights groups and civil liberties organizations said SB 1070 would lead to racial profiling, but that has yet to be tested in court.

Instead, the Obama administration sued to halt Arizona’s law, arguing it would set the stage for a patchwork of laws throughout the country and infringe on the federal government’s exclusive rights to set immigration policy.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in late April and is expected to rule before the end of June, when its 2011-2012 term concludes.

During oral arguments the justices seemed to take a dim view of the government’s challenge to at least parts of the law, saying the state seemed to want to push federal officials to enforce their own laws rather than try to compete with them.

The Obama administration said it should be allowed to determine the extent of calls it gets from local authorities to respond to illegal immigrants, but the justices said the government can always ignore those calls if they want.

The administration appeared on firmer ground, however, when it argued Arizona should not be allowed to impose its own state penalties, such as jail time against illegal immigrants who try to seek jobs.

In her executive order, Mrs. Brewer said authorities should be prepared to update their police training materials with any guidance the Supreme Court gives on how to enforce the law.

She issued a similar executive order in 2010 when the law was to go into effect, and decided with the court ruling pending it was wise to make sure police were prepared.

“The governor thought it was an appropriate time to revisit that and make certain law enforcement across the state of Arizona is as prepared as possible for the partial or full implementation of this law,” said Matt Benson, a spokesman for the governor.

SOURCE



13 June, 2012

Canadian reforms  to hit Hong Kongers

Up to 1,000 Hongkongers who applied to emigrate to Canada may have to abandon their plans or reapply if the authorities there accept a proposal to scrap a backlog of pre-2008 applications.

A source close to the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong said currently there are fewer than 1,000 Hongkongers whose applications are still being processed.

The consulate can provide only "limited help" aside from passing a petition submitted by 80 Hongkongers and mainlanders in April to the country's immigration department, the source said.

Hong Kong applicants will have to go through the same process as those from other countries, the source added.

The controversial proposal to ax the backlog was made by Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney in March because "having to process applications that are as many as eight years out of date reduces [Canada's] ability to focus on new applicants with skills and talents that our economy needs today."

If the proposal is passed, the immigration department will close the files of those who applied under the Federal Skilled Worker Program before February 27, 2008, but who did not receive a decision based on selection criteria by March 29 this year.  Around 280,000 applications are set to be rejected.

For decades China was one of the top sources of immigrants to Canada.

In Beijing, activists Jiang Yiming and Vancouver-based Gabriel Yiu Wing-on, a Hongkonger who emigrated to Canada two decades ago, yesterday handed a petition signed by around 100 mainlanders to minister counsellor Louis Dumas of the Canadian embassy.

The petition calls on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene.  But the embassy's second secretary and vice consul Wu Long told The Standard the latest petition will only be passed to the immigration department.  It "may or may not" be passed to the prime minister, as the decision is in the hands of the [immigration] department, Wu said.

Jiang and Yiu said although the embassy has not promised any help, apart from passing on the petition, they are confident the new immigration proposal will not be passed. This is because there are many potential immigrants, from countries such as India and the Philippines, who are protesting at the Canadian embassies in their respective countries.

"I am confident the proposal will not be passed," Jiang said.  The activist added that he had earlier applied for an injunction in a Canadian court.  The ruling is expected in about two days and Jiang is confident he will win.

SOURCE





New Obama Immigration Policies Only Reduce Deportations By 2 Percent,  complain Leftists

They may be right

The Obama administration announced a new process in August 2011 to review deportations on a case-by-case basis. That way, immigration officials could focus their resources on higher priority targets — people who pose a threat to public safety or repeat immigration law violators — instead of low priority cases, like bi-national same-sex couples, children who were brought to America at a young age, pregnant women, and military veterans.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in August that the policy was first outlined in March 2010. And a senior administration official explained at the time that the process is designed to “keep folks who are low priority cases out of the deportation process to begin with.” But of the roughly 300,000 cases reviewed, only 4,400 deportations of undocumented immigrants had been halted so far. Stopping fewer than 2 percent of deportations is not good enough, one official told the New York Times:

“I do believe the administration has the right intention, prioritizing deportations,” Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a leading Democrat on immigration issues, said after seeing the low figures from the deportations review. “But these abysmal numbers raise serious questions about whether the Department of Homeland Security is making that vision a reality.”

Menendez suggested that immigrants who have close relatives in the U.S. should be included in the reviews, and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said prosecutors should grant work permits to immigrants who stay in the U.S. until their deportation case is reviewed.

Under President Obama, roughly 400,000 undocumented immigrants have been deported each year. About 46,000 parents were deported in the first half of 2011, before officials began reviewing deportation case-by-case. But if only 4,400 deportations have been stopped under the review policy, then the administration should use it more widely, like for students who risk being deported.

SOURCE



12 June, 2012

Investigative Reporter Wins Immigration Journalism Award

Sarah Ryley, a writer at The Daily, is the recipient of the 2012 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration. The award, presented annually by the Center for Immigration Studies, is intended to highlight good reporting in a field where so much of the coverage is formulaic and mawkish.

Ryley wrote on a part of the Obama administration's weakening of immigration law enforcement that has not been widely covered, namely, increased pressure on rank-and-file immigration officers to rubber-stamp visa applications. She obtained an unpublished internal report that found one-quarter of USCIS agents surveyed reported having been pressured to approve questionable applications. Though this is not unheard of, Ryley noted that 'high-ranking USCIS officials said the pressure has heightened after the Obama administration appointed Alejandro Mayorkas as director in August 2009 during an effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform, bringing with him a mantra of 'get to yes.''

This and Ryley's other reporting on the 'get to yes' culture in adjudicating immigration applications, including coverage of fraud and the punishment of a whistleblower, have shined a light on a huge weakness in our immigration system, and one that gets little media attention because it isn't related to photogenic border fences.

Michael Volpe, writer for the Daily Caller and keynote speaker at the award ceremony, said of Ryley's reporting, 'Sarah was able to insert herself in the middle of the story that many powerful forces were trying to keep hidden. And whistleblowers are, in my opinion, a great tool for investigative reporters, and unfortunately, it’s a tool most journalists don't use nearly enough.'

Articles: here

Award Ceremony Videos: here

Award Ceremony Transcript: here

This award is named in memory of Eugene Katz, a native New Yorker who started his career, after Dartmouth and Oxford, as a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman. In 1928, he joined the family business, working as an advertising salesman for the Katz Agency, and in 1952 became president of Katz Communications, a half-billion-dollar firm which not only dealt in radio and television advertising but also owned and managed a number of radio stations. Mr. Katz was a member of the Center for Immigration Studies board until shortly after his 90th birthday in 1997. He passed away in 2000.

Previous winners of the Katz Award are listed here

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: Bryan Griffith, (202) 466-8185, press@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





 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

Publication

1. Part 3: Secure Communities by the Numbers, Revisited

Video

2. 2012 Katz Award Ceremony

Blogs

3. Why Not Reduce Immigration Too?

4. Death Threats and Bond Defaults Linked to Different H-1B
Programs

5. Proposal: Let's Look at All the Foreign Worker Programs as a Whole

6. Hiring Illegals? Securities Regulators May Call

7. The Untold Emigration from Central America

8. The 21st Birthday, Hailed by Most, but Dreaded by Some Aliens

9. USCIS Verbal Magic: 'Immigrant Investors' Become 'Alien Entrepreneurs'

10. USCIS Does Right Thing on Some Applications, but Does Not Announce It



11 June, 2012

GOP Has Latino Options

Susana Martinez for VP!

No wonder Republicans can't even get 40 percent of Latino votes in a presidential election.

When Mitt Romney made his first big push to appeal to Latinos earlier this week in Texas, he hammered the "Obama economy" for being "particularly hard on Hispanic businesses and Hispanic Americans."

He pointed out the grim statistics -- an unemployment rate for Latinos of 11 percent and a poverty rate of 30 percent. And he stressed that the Obama regime's economic policies are hostile to the small businesses and entrepreneurs that traditionally provide many of the jobs in the Hispanic community.

Everything Romney said was true. But he delivered the wrong message in the wrong place. Texas is a Republican stronghold. Romney couldn't lose the Lone Star State this fall if he promised on Day One of his presidency to outlaw cattle, oil and gas.

Where Mitt should be stumping for Latino votes is in the contested states of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Florida. That's where the election is going to be won or lost. That's where the Latinos he needs to persuade are concentrated.

Unfortunately for Romney, he's in serious trouble with Latinos. According to a poll last month, he trails Obama 61 to 27 percent among Latinos. It's nothing new. Latinos generally vote 2-1 Democrat.

In 2004, Republicans thought they went to heaven when President Bush got 44 percent of the Latino vote. But in 2008 it was back to the usual slaughter. Obama and Biden out-pointed McCain and Palin among Latinos by a margin of 67-31.

It's hard to blame Latinos for not liking Republicans. The GOP only pays attention to them in election years. And when it courts the Latino community, the GOP doesn't shape its message to fit their needs or appeal to their conservative family values; it delivers tired economic boilerplate about the benefits of lower taxes.

Romney needs to customize and personalize his message to Latinos voters. He also badly needs someone in his party to help him deliver it. If that sounds like a job for Super Marco Rubio, it's not. Everyone's favorite VP pick isn't the only Latino kid on the Republican block.

Have you heard of Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada? Didn't think so. Don't feel bad. Apparently no one in the GOP has either.

In 2010 Martinez and Sandoval -- young, smart, popular and Latino -- won easily in heavily Latino states. As Republicans. Both obviously figured out how to appeal to the independent and Democrat voters.

Sandoval beat Harry Reid's son in a state that's 26 percent Latino. Martinez was elected in a state that's half Latino and has three times as many Democrats as Republicans. How did she win the New Mexico governor's office?

Not by talking about the differences between Democrats and Republicans. Not about talking about taxes. She won by appealing to the values that Republicans and Latinos share: Who are we as a country? Where are we going?

Today Martinez has a 70 percent approval rating and is the unsung hero of the Republican Party. She's the first elected Latina governor in the history of the United States, and the GOP can't seem to find her even though she is right there in plain view.

Romney shouldn't necessarily pick Martinez as his VP, as some have suggested. But he should pick her brain. And when Mitt goes courting Latino votes in tough toss-up states like Colorado or Florida, the GOP should make sure Martinez or Sandoval is attached to his hip.

SOURCE




Israel Starts Round-Up of African Illegals

Israel’s Immigration Authority began rounding up African migrants on Sunday, with eight arrests reported in Eilat and central Israel.

The Jerusalem’s District Court ruled on Thursday that Israel could deport South Sudanese nationals back to their home county.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said that this was a first of many steps and that a great deal of work is left until his vision of a migrant-free Israel is fulfilled.

The court decision on Thursday permitting the deportation of the South Sudanese nationals rejected an appeal by migrant worker NGOs against Yishai’s decision to halt Israel’s collective defense of citizens form the war-torn country.

Once the court ruling was handed down, the Immigration Authority announced that it will begin enforcing the law as it applied to the South Sudanese nationals and their employers.

SOURCE



10 June, 2012

New immigration clampdown demands £20,000 salary for Brits to marry a foreigner

This may seem rather draconian but Britain's incredibly useless  bureaucracy gives Britain little ability to enforce its immigration and citizenship laws -- so this latest brainwave is unlikely to have much effect.  People who simply ignore British citizenship law usually have untroubled lives and may even receive generous welfare benefits!

British citizens who marry foreigners will have to earn at least £20,000 a year if they want to set up their family home in the UK under a new immigration clampdown.

The planned changes mean lower-paid Britons would be forced to emigrate if they wanted to live with a loved one from overseas.

And if the foreign-born spouse had children, their British partner would have to earn £30,000 or more, depending on how many children they had.

They will also have to pass a strict new 'combined attachment test' to prove they share a genuine loyalty to Britain, not another country, and they will remain on probation for five years instead of the current two.

The proposals, to be announced by Home Secretary Theresa May, are expected to cut immigration, currently standing at 250,000 a year, by 25,000.

They are designed primarily to combat claims that some foreigners are marrying Britons to take advantage of the UK's generous welfare system.

Tory MPs last night welcomed the move, but Labour spokesman Chris Bryant said: 'These new measures have more to do with Theresa May's abject failure to live up to her promise to cut immigration than fairness.'

He claimed the idea was 'poorly thought out', adding: 'It seems very unfair that a poor British man or woman can fall in love with someone from America or Thailand and be prevented from getting married and making a home here, while a rich person can.'

He said a better way to deal with the problem would be to insist that Britons who marry foreigners and settle here provide a bond worth 'a substantial sum'. If the immigrant went on to claim benefits, the money would be deducted from the bond.

And immigration campaigners are expected to denounce the measures, claiming the new curbs would effectively give low-earning Britons who fall in love with foreigners the choice of indefinite 'exile' – or  breaking up their family if they want to stay in the UK.

Ms May is also expected to confirm stringent English-speaking test for husbands, wives or partners of UK citizens applying to come to live in Britain on a family visa.

The new clampdown will not apply to partners from within the European Union, as they will continue to have the right to settle here.

A senior Government source said last night: 'The welfare system has abused for years under Labour by people who marry Britons and within a short period are living off benefits.

'There is little we can do to stop them claiming benefits but we can implement better controls on people who come here to marry in the first place. We are confident these moves will command widespread support from the public. Labour's lamentable record on immigration is one of the main reasons they lost the election. We are going to put the system right.'

Ms May said earlier this year that it was obvious that British citizens and those settled here should be able to marry or enter into a civil partnership with whomever they choose.

But she added: 'If they want to establish their family life in the UK, rather than overseas, then their spouse or partner must have a genuine attachment to the UK, be able to speak English, and integrate into our society, and they must not be a burden on the taxpayer. Families should be able to manage their own lives. If a British citizen or a person settled here cannot support their foreign spouse or partner they cannot expect the taxpayer to do it for them.'

She also plans to make it easier to deport illegal migrants or convicted foreign nationals.  At present they can use the European Convention on Human Rights to avoid being thrown out, claiming they have a 'right to a family life' here.  But in future, if they want to continue their family life they will have to take their British-based partner overseas.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants says an extension of the probationary period for foreign spouses could trap more women in violent marriages because of the fear of being deported if they complain.

Mr Bryant added: 'At a time when our national finances are hard-stretched it is only fair that anyone wanting to bring someone new to this country should be able to prove that they will not be a burden on the State. But I worry that the Government will not achieve what it hopes with this measure, and that they have rejected options that could provide better protection for the taxpayer and be fairer too.

'In today's climate, someone on £20,000 today could all too easily be earning nothing tomorrow.  'So simply relying on income as a measure may lead to the taxpayer still being exposed.'

SOURCE






Texas GOP approves party platform with more-lenient immigration policy

 The Texas Republican Convention has approved a party platform on immigration conceding that mass deportation of illegal immigrants isn't practical and calling for "common ground" to develop more-realistic strategies.

Many of the more than 6,000 delegates assembled in Fort Worth had objected to the platform, complaining it was "ambiguous at best, liberal at worst."

But supporters said the language allows Texas to lead the nation on immigration solutions, rather than simply listing problems generated by it.

The platform sanctions a national temporary worker program to bring foreigners to America when jobs are available.

A series of motions to replace the proposed platform with the state GOP's more-traditional, hardline stances against illegal immigration all failed late Friday night.

After that, the full platform was voted on and approved with little objection.

SOURCE



8 June, 2012

Some more California dreaming

Immigration Increases Home Values, Reduces Crime in SoCal??

Some of our favorite commenters at LA Weekly compare Los Angeles to Tijuana and say our fair town is turning into a Third World slum.

We beg to differ, of course. Not only because immigrants have invigorated an inner city devastated by the L.A. riots, but because more billionaires live in California than just about anywhere else on the planet. Can't be that bad.

A new study seems to agree:

UC Irvine's Southern California Regional Progress Report, scheduled to be released next week, found that "the large influx of Asian and Latino immigrants into Southern California over the past 50 years has resulted in stronger and safer multicultural communities."

Say what?   Yeah, the school says immigrants actually contributed to an increase in property values and a decrease in crime rates.

Come again!?  We're not lying. According to UC Irvine:

Neighborhoods with 10 percent more Latinos than surrounding areas at the beginning of the 2000s experienced a 1.3 percent greater increase in home values over the decade.

And ...

... Ethnically mixed neighborhoods in Southern California today are more likely to have higher property values than homogenous neighborhood ...

Even the ones with pickup trucks on the lawns? We kid!

Like us, John Hipp, one of the UC Irvine researchers behind the report, said, Holy frijole, this data is blowin' my membrane:

A number of findings took us by surprise.

Fer sure.

SOURCE

UCI is not beyond outright lying but I suspect that we can decode the above as a finding that Hispanic neighborhoods are marginally better off than black ones.  No great surprise there -- JR





Swedish politician wants more immigrants for Europe

Too bad that majorities of Europeans disagree.  Unelected EU bureaucrats know best.  She is most famous for her claim that Sweden  lost out economically by not adopting the  Euro as its currency.  No thanks to her that Swedes still  have their bank deposits in good Swedish crowns.  She speaks lots of languages but makes little sense in any of them

Immigration presents an opportunity rather than a threat, a top EU leader said this week as Europe's national interior ministers prepared to tackle reforms.

European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, at Tuesday's Global Hearing on Refugees and Migration in The Hague, Netherlands, said a "rising tide" of anti-immigrant rhetoric being embraced by some political parties will result in a weaker and divided Europe.

"It is more important than ever for us to stand up against the rising tide of anti-immigrant rhetoric," Malmstrom said. "Unscrupulous politicians have been quick to recognize and exploit people's fears, blaming migrants for our economic woes."

Instead, she said, Europeans must recognize their aging demographics and declining labor forces will make it impossible for many EU countries to maintain their economies with "purely homegrown" workers, resulting in "a serious lack of skills and talent."

Malmstrom's plea for embracing rather than demonizing immigrants comes after right-wing political parties advocating anti-Islamic agendas made strong showings in European elections, at times with the tacit or specific support of mainstream counterparts.

In France, former President Nicolas Sarkozy made attempts to appeal to backers of the far-right National Front, which had won 18 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential poll, before ultimately falling in the general election to Francoise Hollande.

Dutch anti-Islam, anti-EU political leader Geert Wilders triggered the collapse of the Netherlands' government in April when he withdrew his support over what his Freedom Party called a transfer of sovereignty to Brussels.

And in Greece, the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn won 21 seats in its 300-member Parliament last month, spurring fears among immigrants after its leader called for the expulsion of legal and illegal foreigners living there.

"Their mantra will be familiar to most of you: 'Migrants are coming over here, taking our jobs, forcing down our wages and exploiting our welfare systems,'" Malmstrom said. "This statement is alarmist, misleading and wrong. It is the worst kind of politics, exploiting people's insecurities and worries about the future."

Declaring "reliable evidence is the best defense," the EU home affairs chief noted the European Union's working age population [What about "working" rather than "working age"?  An important difference] will shrink by 12 percent by 2030 without net migration, and that it will fall short by 380,000-700,000 workers of the information technology labor force needed by 2015.

She pitched more solidarity between EU member states as part of a major immigration policy reform effort which the European Commission aims to have completed by the end of the year.

The European Council of home ministers was set to meet in Luxembourg Thursday to begin negotiations on the reforms against the backdrop of more immigration pressure in the wake of the Arab Spring upheavals in northern Africa.

The reforms center on creating a new asylum policy for 2012 and changes in the management of the Schengen system of lifting border controls between European countries, the Brussels weekly Europolitics reported.

On asylum, the commission is seeking to relieve the burden of member nations that receive the biggest influx of asylum seekers, such as Greece and Italy. Under its current "Dublin" system, those countries are assigned the primary responsibility of examining applicants' claims.

Malmstrom said only 10 countries -- France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece and Poland -- handle 90 percent of asylum seekers.

"Seventeen countries could therefore do a lot more," she said.

SOURCE



7 June, 2012

Pause in Illegal Immigration Sweeps as Arpaio Faces Discrimination Lawsuits?

 Critics of America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff, known for his hardline stance on illegal immigration, say legal pressure has led Joe Arpaio to suspend special immigration patrols that are at the center of two separate federal lawsuits accusing Arpaio's office of discriminating against Latinos, an accusation he denies.

The Arizona sheriff has gone months without using his most controversial law enforcement tactic. But the Maricopa County lawman says his opponents have it all wrong.  "I haven't stopped anything," Arpaio said. "I don't know why anybody thinks we stopped."

During the sweeps, as many as 200 deputies and volunteer posse members flood a designated area, making dozens of traffic stops and arrests. The enforcement zones are sometimes in areas with a large Hispanic population. Undocumented immigrants account for nearly 60 percent of the approximately 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps Arpaio has launched since January 2008.

It's been nearly eight months since the last such patrol, marking the longest pause in more than four years.

Arpaio said the break isn't unusual. He added that the news media have not reported about immigration arrests made during more routine patrols by his deputies.

"I am not backing down regardless of them taking me to court," he said. "I am still enforcing immigration laws. They are being arrested and are going to jail."

But Arpaio's critics, such as the ACLU of Arizona, say he has backed away from the patrols because they make it more difficult to defend against the lawsuits that say his deputies ethnically profile Hispanics in immigration enforcement efforts.

"It's not in his best interest to conduct these high-profile sweeps before he is put on the stand to defend his practices," said Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.

The sheriff's office completed its last sweep in southwest Phoenix in October. Previously, the longest break was a six months stretch during the first half of 2009, when civil rights officials with the Department of Justice told the sheriff they were investigating him.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit last month saying the sheriff's office carried out a pattern of discrimination against Latinos in his sweeps and had a culture of disregard for basic constitutional rights. Arpaio is accused of launching some sweeps based on citizen letters that complained about people with dark skin congregating in a given area or speaking Spanish but never reported an actual crime.

The department is seeking an agreement requiring the sheriff's office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the sheriff's department is there to also protect them.

A second lawsuit focusing on the patrols is scheduled for trial next month in federal court. The handful of Latinos who filed the suit say officers based some traffic stops on the race of Hispanics in vehicles and made the stops solely to check their immigration status. The plaintiffs aren't seeking money. Instead, they want Arpaio to enact changes to guard against what they said is discriminatory policing at his agency.

Arpaio is fighting both lawsuits, denying the charges and saying his patrols are within the law.

In December, a judge considering the lawsuit brought by two groups, including the ACLU, on behalf of the Latinos who say officers pulled them over with no probable cause ruled that deputies enforcing Arizona's immigrant smuggling law cannot detain people based solely on the suspicion that they're in the country illegally. Arpaio has appealed that decision.

In that same ruling, U.S. District Judge Murray Snow noted the case's evidence could lead a judge or jury to conclude that Arpaio's office ethnically profiles Latinos.

The sheriff remains defiant. He vowed to launch another sweep in the future and said he is still raiding businesses suspected of hiring undocumented immigrants and arresting suspects in more routine traffic stops along roadways that are known smuggling routes.

"I am not backing off," he said. "You can tell all the critics, 'Look at the statistics, and look at all the illegal immigrants we have arrested."

SOURCE





Immigration bill has bipartisan backing

Republicans and Democrats agreed on one piece of immigration policy Wednesday, that immigrants who get high-tech U.S. graduate degrees should be able to remain.

A bipartisan group introduced Startup2.0 in the House of Representatives, The Washington Post reported. The measure also allows immigrants who start U.S. companies to get visas.

The bill was introduced in the Senate last week, also with bipartisan support.

Congress failed to pass a similar bill earlier this year with lawmakers suggesting graduates born in the United States could lose jobs to immigrants. But supporters of the legislation say there are too few citizens earning graduate degrees in science, math, engineering and technology to fill available job openings.

"U.S. immigration policy should help, not hurt, the ability of U.S. companies to attract top talent," Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said. "As our economy continues to recover, we must further enable our entrepreneurs to grow and to create jobs."

SOURCE



6 June, 20122

Would per capita U.S. wellbeing be maximized by unrestricted immigration?

Both Leftists and libertarians sometimes argue to that effect, though I suspect that only libertarians are serious about it.  Although I am broadly sympathetic to libertarianism, I think this is one instance where we can see that libertarianism can be as narrow, dogmatic and utopian as Leftism. 

Reproduced below is a coda to an article by economic historian Martin Hutchinson.  The article is primarily concerned to offer a thoroughly Ricardian analysis of international wage differentials.  Rather curiously, Ricardo was a good friend of Malthus and Hutchinson is also vigorously Malthusian.  In the present U.S. situation that is perhaps  not totally incomprehensible

In a theoretical economic model, welfare might be optimized by eliminating immigration restrictions. But that could not happen by moving the Indian, Chinese and African population to the U.S. and raising their wages to U.S. levels, because they would not be sufficiently more efficient in a U.S. setting to support the higher wages. Instead, while the overall global average wage might be somewhat higher, most of the differential would be eliminated by U.S. wages falling to emerging market levels. U.S. politicians, responsible for the welfare only of the U.S. electorate, would be betraying their voters if they contemplated any such move.

In reality, any such mass migration would incur such huge assimilation costs that the theoretical benefits of leveling the playing field would be largely wiped out. However, that is not a counsel of despair. Free trade is not the same thing as free migration; the case for it is very much stronger. In particular, the “globalization” caused by the Internet and modern telecommunications has hugely increased economic welfare for the citizens of poorer countries, provided those countries are even moderately competently run. (The recent economic histories of India and China, both badly run countries by any Western standards outside Greece, are good examples of this.)

It is now clear however that globalization has also depressed living standards for the less able citizens of rich countries, raising their unemployment rate as wages are to a certain extent “sticky” on the downside. That does not mean that globalization should be rejected by Western politicians; having been an artifact of technology rather than policy, it would almost certainly have been impossible to stop, and any attempt to do so would have left the country attempting it both poorer and more isolated than when it began. In any case, there is every sign that the initial effect of the Internet revolution is approaching completion; the rapid increase in Chinese wage rates and disappearance of the Chinese balance of payments surplus certainly suggests that a new equilibrium is being reached.

To improve the living standards of Western countries’ citizens in this new equilibrium, and reduce their debilitatingly high unemployment, new policies are necessary. Increasing mass immigration increases the pressure on domestic living standards, especially at the bottom; it should thus be avoided.  Education, so often touted as the panacea for facing the increase in international competition, is clearly no such thing, because it is of mediocre quality and excessive cost. In any case at all but the most exclusive levels it can easily be copied overseas (as the recent Indian successes in the software business have demonstrated.) Instead, interest rates must be raised to levels that rebuild the capital base in rich countries, rather than decimating it as has been the case with the Greenspan/Bernanke polices. By increasing the incentives to saving, and the returns from it, policymakers can increase the rich countries’ natural advantage in capital availability, and reduce their pension and medical expenses by providing citizens with higher investment returns.

The other need is for policymakers to reduce the level of waste in the public sector, most of which produces “output” that is laughably overvalued in GDP statistics. Especially in Europe, living standards, already under threat, have been reduced further by the exactions of oversized and unproductive public sectors. Cutting this waste will leave more money in citizens’ pockets, and improve their living standards thereby.

Wage differentials between rich and poor countries are natural, caused by differentials in those countries’ capital endowments, infrastructure and institutional effectiveness. Their natural level has been reduced by the Internet, and will doubtless be reduced further by future technological advances. But as far as possible, responsible Western policymakers should work to ensure that this reduction in differentials produces only improvements in emerging markets’ living standards, without allowing it to immiserate their own people.

More HERE





Survey shows Australians support foreign labour

A new survey shows a majority of Australians support the use of foreign workers to address labour shortages, but are also opposed to large-scale foreign investment.

The Lowy Institute poll has found 62 per cent of people support the use of temporary skilled migration when local employees are not available.

The annual survey was conducted before the Federal Government announced it would allow 1,700 foreign workers to be employed on the Roy Hill iron ore project in Western Australia.

But the institute's executive director, Michael Wesley, says the poll gives some indication of what Australians might think about the plan, and shows many people are worried about foreigners buying Australian assets.

"We found that 81 per cent of people we asked are against foreign companies buying Australian farmland," Mr Wesley said.

"Australians continue to be worried about the amount of Chinese investment the government is allowing in - 56 per cent think the government's allowing too much Chinese investment into Australia.

"I think people are well aware that some of the big projects in Australian history like the Snowy Mountains scheme were built using skilled labour, because the labour wasn't available from within the Australian population.

"So they're aware that our prosperity and our progress as a nation does depend on allowing in people with the skills that we need."

The survey has also found support for Australia's alliance with the United States has reached its highest level since the poll began in 2005.

But support for tough action on climate change has continued to fall, with 63 per cent of respondents opposed to the government's carbon tax.

SOURCE



5 June, 2012

Happy hour (or weeks) in  Northern California

The San Francisco immigration court partially closed Monday morning as a team of federal lawyers pored over thousands of backlogged Bay Area deportation cases to close those deemed low priority.

The two-week review in one of the nation's busiest immigration courts will relieve some Bay Area residents who are here illegally but have strong community ties and clean records.  But having their cases administratively closed -- set aside indefinitely -- also will leave the illegal immigrants in limbo, allowing them to stay but not to seek permanent legal residency. The review encompasses the state's coastal counties from Monterey to the Oregon border.

"It's something that is kind of like a Damocles sword hanging over their heads," said private immigration lawyer Matthew Muller, whose San Francisco firm is seeking what federal authorities call "prosecutorial discretion" for a few dozen people.  "It's just a decision by the agency that you're not a priority right now," he said. "In theory, they could certainly become a priority later."

A new U.S. president, for instance, could reverse the leniency. Republican lawmakers have described the case closures as a "backdoor amnesty" encouraging more illegal immigration.

The Obama administration announced last year that its immigration enforcers would begin using more discretion, focusing resources on expelling criminals and sparing some undocumented residents whose chief wrongdoing was coming here.

After the Obama administration deported a record 396,906 people last year -- and a million since taking office -- the discretion policy is slowing deportations but affects a minority of cases.
As of mid-April, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said it had reviewed 219,554 pending deportations and closed 2,722 of them -- roughly 1 percent.  It identified several thousand more -- about 7.5 percent of the total -- as amenable to discretion.

The closed cases mostly involved longtime residents of the United States with an American citizen family member and "compelling ties" to the country, according to ICE. The second-largest group -- several hundred nationwide -- were children, high school or college students or college graduates brought to the country as youngsters.  [i.e. Obama makes the DREAM Act law by executive fiat]

With a few extraordinary exceptions, federal attorneys screening the Bay Area cases this month are unlikely to grant relief to anyone without a near-perfect record, Muller said. "The cynical view is they're the people who would probably get relief anyhow," he said. "We're not expecting fireworks."

The Obama administration had case screenings in the Denver and Baltimore immigration courts at the end of last year. The rolling reviews moved to Detroit, New Orleans, Orlando, Seattle and New York City.  Then came San Francisco, where ICE attorneys will be weeding out low-priority cases through June 15. The San Francisco court had more than 18,000 pending cases as of last month.

Prosecutorial discretion -- first announced last June -- has not much reduced the national backlog of more than 300,000 deportation cases, according to a public records group at Syracuse University.
"The hope was this was going to speed the cases and bring down the backlog," said Susan Long, co-director of Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. "We haven't seen that, but maybe we're expecting too much in the short term."  [Translation: Obama can do no wrong]

SOURCE




 Recent posts at CIS  below

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

Blogs

1. Below-the-Belt Latino Politics (Blog)

2. Strange Numbers — Immigrant Investors Losing Interest in Green Cards? (Blog)

3. You're Good to Go, or Thoughts on Encouraging Emigration: Part II (Blog)

4. The IRS, ITINs and Child Tax Credits (Blog)

5. Vernon Briggs: Prophet of the Economic Divide (Blog)

6. Massachusetts Senate Attempts to Stop Illegal Alien Access to Driver's Licenses (Blog)

7. DHS Deals Citizen Grandparents Three Financial Blows (Blog)

8. Long Live Immigration Charity (Blog)

9. You're Good to Go, or Thoughts on Encouraging Emigration: Part I (Blog)

10. Post Questions Displacement of American Workers by the Summer Work Travel Program (Blog)

11. Administrative Amnesties Create More Problems Than They Solve (Blog)

12. Two Ignored Immigration Policy Strategies: Diversion and Emigration (Blog)

13. Zig-Zagging to the Finish Line: The GOP's Disturbing Lack of Consistency on Immigration Policy (Blog)

14. Do Immigrants Bowl Together? (Blog)

15. Golly, Did Italy Really Give Legal Status to 12 Million Illegal Aliens? (Blog)

16. Greeks Frustrated as Foreigners Fill Jobs, Even During Severe Economic Crisis – Sound Familiar? (Blog)

17. A Peculiar View of America's (Very Easy) Naturalization Test (Blog)

18. Two Key Points in the New Yorker Article on Arizona's Immigration Politics (Blog)



4 June, 2012

The Rubio compromise

A DREAM Act with enforcement teeth

In a strongly partisan election year, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is trying to build support for a bipartisan compromise on the DREAM Act, a Democratic bill that would provide a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants who graduate from college. Some critics argue that the measure is a cynical attempt to build support among Latino voters while offering them little in return.

Rubio's alternative to the DREAM Act would not provide citizenship, but would provide legal status, or a non-immigrant visa, for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents when they were minors. They would also need to have no criminal record, graduated from high school and been accepted for admittance to a college.

"The first step I'm trying to make is to deal with children, basically, that were brought here at a very young age, through no fault of their own, find themselves undocumented. ... All I'm trying to do is help these kids do right where their parents did wrong," Rubio said Saturday in an interview on Fox News' "Wall Street Journal Editorial Report."

Rubio, a Cuban-American, is often mentioned as a potential vice presidential running mate for Republican nominee Mitt Romney. This is due, in part, to the possibility that he would help the campaign reach Latino voters. Latino voters have shown strong support for the DREAM Act.

A version of Rubio's bill was introduced Wednesday in the House of Representatives by Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.). Rivera's bill is called the Studying Towards Adjusted Residency Status (STARS) Act.

Rivera has also introduced the Adjusted Residency for Military Service (ARMS) Act, which would allow the children of undocumented immigrants to obtain permanent residency if they serve in the military.

Rubio's Senate version has yet to be introduced, but he hopes to do so by the end of the summer.

Rubio's proposal would also allow permanent residency for military service. That part of the bill, Rubio said, is not controversial. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has said he would veto the DREAM Act, but supports a path to citizenship for undocumented workers who serve in the military. The path to permanent resident status for high school graduates who enter college is the most controversial aspect of the bill, according to Rubio.

After a period of time after graduating from college, the immigrant visa holders would be able to apply for a "green card," or permanent resident status. The amount of time they would need to wait is still being negotiated, Rubio said.

When asked if the legislation amounts to amnesty for undocumented immigrants (a policy opposed by many Republicans), Rubio said, "there's a difference that we've long recognized in this country ... between people who have chosen to break the law and be here illegally and those who were either brought here by their parents or by circumstances. When you're 12 years old or eight years old, you don't choose to come to this country illegally. Many of these kids don't even know they're undocumented until they graduate and try to go to college."

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Sen. Bob Nelson (D-Fla.) have expressed a willingness to work with Rubio to get the legislation passed, but President Barack Obama had indicated he will not back the bill. In an interview last month on the Laura Ingraham radio show, Rubio complained that the White House was calling Democratic congresspersons to ask them not to support his bill.

SOURCE






Australia's Boatpeople crisis grows as 246 arrive in three days

LABOR'S border security crisis is deepening, with the number of asylum-seekers arriving by boat over the weekend accounting for more than half the forecast arrivals for the month of June.

A large boat carrying 150 asylum-seekers and crew was intercepted yesterday north of Christmas Island by Customs and Border Protection officers.

It was the second boat to be detected in Australian waters over the weekend after another vessel carrying 87 passengers and one crew member was picked up on Saturday evening.

It is the third boat to arrive in the first three days of June, and brings the total number of asylum-seekers who have made the dangerous boat journey this month to 246.

This comes after 1176 asylum-seekers arrived last month - the highest number since August 2001, when the Howard government moved to implement the Pacific Solution after the Tampa crisis.

Department of Immigration officials confirmed to a Senate committee last month that Labor's budget is based on estimates that an average of 450 boatpeople will arrive each month over the next financial year.

But since Julia Gillard's bilateral agreement with Malaysia to send 800 asylum-seekers to Kuala Lumpur in exchange for taking 4000 processed refugees was scuttled by the High Court, and negotiations with the opposition to amend the Migration Act to allow for offshore processing broke down in November, an average of 733 asylum-seekers have arrived each month.

The Australian understands the Department of Immigration, along with the departments of Finance and Treasury, will review whether their estimates are appropriate in November's mid-year economic and fiscal outlook.

The opposition blamed the latest boat arrivals on the government's refusal to adopt the Coalition's Pacific Solution.  "Labor is using their Malaysian people-swap as a political shield against their own accountability and responsibility as a government," opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said.

But Immigration Minister Chris Bowen put the blame on Tony Abbott.   "Until the Coalition is prepared to allow offshore processing to occur, the Australian people can only conclude he prefers to see more boats arrive, because it's in Mr Abbott's political interests," Mr Bowen said.

The Law Council of Australia has meanwhile condemned the government for detaining in adult prisons up to 28 Indonesian minors accused of being involved in people-smuggling.

In a submission to a Senate inquiry, the law council said it was concerned there may be up to 28 cases where Indonesian minors have been held in detention facilities alongside adults.

"These cases, which have been brought to the attention of the public and the parliament by the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Indonesian government, suggest serious inadequacies in relation to the age determination processes employed by Australian authorities and in relation to the approach taken to prosecuting and sentencing persons who claim to be minors for people-smuggling offences," the submission says.

The law council has raised concerns the government might be in breach of its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

SOURCE



3 June, 2012

Republicans working on a realistic alternative to the DREAM act

The Donk version claims reasonable objectives but subverts that by including nothing of substance  to ensure that only the target group is benefited  -- thus being a virtual open door to almost anyone

A Republican congressman introduced alternative immigration legislation to the DREAM Act on Wednesday.

The Studying Towards Residency Status Act, introduced by Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.), offers young immigrants living in the country illegally a chance to be granted non-immigrant status for five years if they meet certain criteria. They must have entered the U.S. before they were 16, have lived in the country for five consecutive years, earned a high school diploma and been accepted to a 4-year institution of higher learning.

The bill is meant as an alternative to Sen. Dick Durbin's (D-Ill.) Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which provides a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants provided they have demonstrated good moral character and are working toward completing a degree at a college or university or serving in the military. Sen. Marco Rubio, a fellow Florida Republican who is friends with Rivera, plans on introducing an alternative to Durbin's bill by the end of the summer.
Rubio's bill would provide non-immigrant visas to the children of illegal immigrants provided they attend college or serve in the military. Unlike Durbin's bill, Rubio's bill will not provide a path to citizenship.

"The STARS Act would allow undocumented students who arrived here at a young age, graduated from high school and are accepted into a university, to apply for a five-year conditional non-immigrant status," Rivera said in floor remarks.

According to an aide, Rivera has had discussions with Rubio over their proposals.

"Congressman Rivera has had discussion about the STARS Act with Sen. Rubio, but the congressman recognizes that the House and Senate each have their own legislative process," the aide said. "The STARS Act is meant to start the conversation in the House of Representatives in the hopes of achieving some sort of immigration reform in the 112th Congress."

Durbin and other Democrats have expressed openness to working with Republicans to pass some kind of immigration reform legislation but it's unclear how successful that effort would be given the opposing views over granting citizenship.

Rubio's legislation could be an effort to appeal to Hispanics in order to help Mitt Romney. Rubio is often mentioned as a top prospect for the vice presidential spot on the 2012 Republican ticket. Romney has said he is "studying" the proposal as it's crafted but is yet to endorse it.

Romney has said, if elected, president, he would veto Durbin's DREAM Act.

SOURCE




In Far Northwest, a New Border Focus on Latinos

Obama probably sent his agents there because he didn't know there were Latinos there

The Olympic Peninsula has always felt more like the edge of the world than a mere national boundary.

Its ocean shoreline, the northwesternmost coast of the contiguous United States, is accessible by a single road, Highway 101, and it has long been traveled by a distinctive fleet: loud logging trucks rumbling out of the dark and wet woods, rusty pickups with windows pronouncing “Native Pride,” stray Subarus hauling surfboards and kayaks to the cold Pacific.

Then the United States Border Patrol vehicles started showing up.

Sometimes they respond unexpectedly to assist with mundane traffic stops conducted by the local police. Sometimes they hover outside the warehouse where Mexican immigrants sell the salal they pick in the temperate rain forest. Sometimes they confront people whose primary offense, many argue, is skin tone.

Those kinds of scenes might be common in towns that border Mexico in Texas, Arizona or California. But the border here is with Canada, which is separated from the peninsula by the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

“What’s the purpose of the Border Patrol in a place that has no border problems?” asked Art Argyropoulos, who is from Greece and runs a restaurant on the peninsula with his wife, who is from Mexico.

Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the federal government has kept a more careful watch on the country’s northern border. Here on this remote peninsula over the past six years, the number of Border Patrol agents has risen tenfold, from 4 in 2006 to about 40. This month, the agency is completing construction of a $10 million office in Port Angeles, a city of 19,000. The one-story building, surrounded by a spiked security fence, can house as many as 50 officers.

The Border Patrol says its priority is to address potential terrorism and smuggling threats from Canada (a ferry runs between Port Angeles and Victoria, British Columbia), but many people say the peninsula has instead become an unlikely new frontier in the effort to fight illegal immigration from Latin America.

“Everybody’s scared,” said Benigno Hernandez, 38, who has lived in Forks, population 3,500, for more than a decade. “Everybody’s leaving.”

In Forks, several hundred immigrants had long found winter work picking salal, a wild shrub whose branches are used in floral arrangements around the world. But now, schools are losing enrollment because students’ parents have been deported. Mobile home parks are half empty. At Thriftway, the main grocery store in the town, the weekend rush has slowed because the salal pickers who used to shop after getting paid on Saturdays have disappeared, sometimes because they were detained, sometimes because they were afraid.

“It’s happened very much in the past couple of months,” said Mayor Byron Monohon of Forks. “I think the Border Patrol has just put a lot of pressure on the situation.”

Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project filed a class-action suit against the Border Patrol, claiming that its officers were illegally stopping and interrogating people on the basis of racial profiling. This month, the Rights Project filed another suit, alleging that Border Patrol agents sometimes asked to support other law enforcement as interpreters — Border Patrol agents are required to know Spanish — while intending instead to investigate for immigration violations.

In the class-action suit, the three named plaintiffs are all minority members who said they were stopped and questioned without cause: two were corrections officers, one was the student-body president of Forks High School, whose parents were born in Mexico. The student, Ismael Ramos-Contreras, who will be a freshman at Western Washington University in the fall, said the Border Patrol’s presence has become unnerving but also a source of dark humor, including when the school soccer team travels to away games.

“If we see Border Patrol, it’s like, ‘Everybody hide!’ ” he said. “The majority of the soccer team is Hispanic.”

The Border Patrol would not comment on the lawsuits and said it prohibited profiling based on race or religion.

“What they’re focused on up there are the same things that we’re focused on around the country,” said Ronald D. Vitiello, the deputy chief of the Border Patrol. “That’s, you know, the threat of terrorism, the criminal organizations that use the border for their own gain and being prepared to combat those threats, eliminate the vulnerabilities that we know about and mitigate the risk where we can.”

Officials sometimes cite the 1999 arrest of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian who became known as the “millennium bomber” for his plan to detonate explosives at Los Angeles International Airport. Mr. Ressam was convicted after he tried to enter the United States at Port Angeles with bomb components.

More HERE



1 June, 2012

MASS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT VOTER FRAUD IN FLORIDA  ... and the feds don't care!

First lady Michelle Obama told a cozy group of 400 campaign supporters in Iowa last month that the 2012 Presidential Election could come down to only a "few thousand folks."

"I just want you to remember that in the end, this all could come down to those last few thousand people that we register to vote. It could all come down to those few thousand folks we need to help to get to the polls in November," the first lady said.

And boy, oh boy, is this administration stacking the deck! After all, just last month Florida election officials were denied help by the feds to confirm citizenship status (and voter fraud) for an estimated 180,000 illegal immigrants already registered to vote in Florida.

That's 180,000 votes in just one SWING state in an election that is going to boil down to, as Mrs. Obama said, a "few thousand votes."

According to state records, Florida election officials have determined that massive voter fraud is taking place and that as many as 180,000 non-residents are registered to vote in the sunshine state, and it only came to the attention of state election officials early last year when the state's DMV turned over a large data-set containing the population's residency information.  Upon sampling the data and running some preliminary checks, officials narrowed their estimate of illegally registered voters to 180,000.

How did this happen, you ask?

Florida's Motor Voter Act of 1993 (which most states have some form of!) PROHIBITED even asking immigration status when an individual filled out their voter registration form while FAILING to require proof of citizenship!

One Naples voter admitted to NBC-2 Tampa reporter Andy Pierrotti that she was not a U.S. Citizen NOR A LEGAL IMMIGRANT -- election records show she voted six times in the past eleven years!

This same investigation revealed Florida county supervisors of elections have no way to verify citizenship and are not required to ask for proof! Not having access to official state records, NBC-2 investigators were only able check a very small sample of "jury excusal" forms and cross-checking those where a person said they couldn't serve because they were not U.S. Citizens with names in the database of Florida registered voters!

The office of Ken Detzner, Florida's Secretary of State, says the Obama administration has been ignoring their repeated requests for access to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) databases that will allow them to quickly determine the citizenship status of those on the list and put the issue to rest. But the Obama administration doesn't want that.

And we can only wonder why...

After all, with Barack Obama's continuing failure to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and multiple backdoor amnesty, you can be certain who/what 180,000 illegal immigrants will be voting for in November 2012 --Their champion, Barack Hussein Obama.

The integrity of our electoral process has been obliterated.  This self-serving administration (and Obama's minions on Capitol Hill) are quick to draw the race-card whenever something so basic as ensuring only U.S. Citizens are registered to vote or passing Voter ID laws while America's economy has been sucked dry and our laws remain unenforced.

This is SERIOUS, folks.

Lefty U.S. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who hails from Florida, is even working against the effort to remove the 180,000 illegally registered voters from the ballots, putting the invasion of privacy of illegal immigrants above the integrity of our elections!

"The Florida Republicans' desire to use Department of Homeland Security information -- which is for the purpose of thwarting terrorists and not to engage in yet another round of voter suppression -- would set a dangerous precedent," Rep. Wilson said, "by not only taking away citizens' constitutional right to vote but by giving state governments free rein to invade innocent Americans' privacy."

Obviously, Rep. Wilson missed the point -- perhaps too distracted by the sparkly rhinestones on her ever-present Bedazzled cowboy hats -- since (1) these 180,000 individuals registered to vote are NOT CITIZENS from what Florida election officials can tell, and that (2) by having the same level of confirmation of these person's likely non-citizenship as the federal government, the state can ensure that not American citizens are unjustly removed from the rolls.

Given the Obama administration's lack of cooperation, Florida has moved forward to check citizenship status of these 180,000 individual, notifying them first by mail with 30 days to respond, then publishing the names of these persons in the paper (in an attempt to gain their attention) if they fail to do so.  After the newspaper publication of the list, those persons identified will have 30 more days to respond, at which point they will be removed from the voter rolls if they still fail to confirm their eligibility to vote.

'Obamnesty' for themselves and approx. 12 million of their illegal immigrant friends and family members -- that's what illegal immigrants will be voting for in November, and the great Campaigner-in-Chief and his Capitol Hill sell-outs (who will cling to power with the help of their illegal immigrant supporters) are doing NOTHING to stop it.

SOURCE





Why did anti-immigration sentiment boil over in Israel?

Because the "immigrants" concerned are illegals from Africa, who mostly behave as Africans usually do

Amene Tekele Haymanot thought he had made the right choice when five years ago he escaped war-torn Eritrea and opened a business in sunny Tel Aviv, Israel.  But he and his countrymen couldn't escape conflict for long.

Haymanot never expected himself - or his store -- to become targets of threats and violence in a metropolitan city known for its tolerance. But it was. His windows were smashed in and his business looted during an anti-immigration protest.

"Now I am afraid here. I cannot live this way. I'm afraid for my life," Haymanot, who is an illegal immigrant awaiting refugee status, told CNN.

His fear has been growing for many months because illegal African immigrants have attracted anger in certain parts of Israel -- and Haymanot believes the color of his skin makes him vulnerable -- because many here will assume if you're black in his Tel Aviv neighborhood -- you are here illegally.

Many Israelis are frustrated with the estimated 59,000 illegal African immigrants in the country and Israel's inability to deal with them. Most of the new arrivals are from Eritrea and Sudan, and the government says they come illegally through the Egyptian border.

The police say about 700 African immigrants enter the country illegally every week.

Illegal African immigrants are blamed by residents in neighborhoods where there is a large African population for increasing levels of crime, suffocating the infrastructure and changing the fabric of Israel.

Anger over illegal immigrants in Israel

Many Israelis who sympathize with the plight of African immigrants say they believe racism plays into all this. Some Israelis are asking how a country that founded by Jews trying to escape persecution could turn against anyone trying to escape danger in their own lands.

Attorney Asaf Weitzen, who works with the immigrant hotline in the south Tel Aviv neighbourhood of Hatikva, trying to sort out immigrants' legal problems, says: "There is a very big pressure on the neighborhood, and the structures cannot support so many people." He adds that the problem is exacerbated because newcomers come from a different background, speak a different language and have a different approach to life as well as by the fact they are a different race.

The biggest problem that immigrants and Israel face, Weitzen says, is the lack of a proper and enforceable immigration policy.

He says the Eritrea population should be awarded asylum and given the necessary papers to work. His words echo the call from the United Nations for Eritreans to be given refugee status due to conditions in their home country.

But Israel has no diplomatic relations with Sudan, the source of the second largest illegal immigrant group in the country, so repatriating those immigrants is nearly impossible.

The current Israeli policy leaves the immigrants in an unsustainable holding pattern, says Weitzen: They are not allowed to legally work but do so anyway, leaves residents frustrated as the number of poor grow in certain neighborhoods, putting pressure on everything from housing to hospitals.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the immigration problem is being dealt with.

"The problem of infiltrators must be resolved and we will resolve it," he said last Thursday. "We will complete the construction of the security fence in several months and soon will start the process of sending the migrants back to their home countries."

Anti-immigrant sentiment is particularly strong in Hatikva, partly due to the influx of large numbers of African immigrants who have moved in there. In May an anti-immigration protest numbering several hundred demonstrators boiled over into all-out violence bashing in a few store and car windows owned by African immigrants.

Israeli protesters chanted slogans such as "infiltrators get out" and "Tel Aviv: A refugee camp". Three members of the right wing Likud party -- part of the governing coalition - were among the politicians who attended. One of them, Miri Regev, was quoted as saying that "the Sudanese are like a cancer in society." Police arrested 17 Israeli protesters at the demonstration and charged them with property damage.

In two separate cases in May, two African illegal immigrants were arrested and charged with raping teenage Israeli girls, sparking even more tension between the communities in some parts of the country.

Even mentioning the issue of illegal immigration in the neighborhood where the violence broke out causes crowds of residents to form. One was close to tears about the situation, saying that people feared the influx of Africans -- and sometimes Africans themselves.

"They come by group, by group, by group and I [am] alone, I [am] afraid," said long-time resident David Ovady, who has lived in south Tel Aviv for 40-plus years. He held up a container of pepper spray that he now keeps with him at all times when he is walking around the neighborhood.

Dror Kahalani, a community activist who has lived in the neighborhood for 45 years, said through tears that he knows the immigrants are human beings and need help -- but that it's not up to residents to foot the bill for them.

"The government must, must in every meaning of the word, starting tomorrow morning," said Kahalani, "gather them all together, build them a tent city and give them solutions, food, medical, everything they need, give it to them. But not here."

In the aftermath of the attacks and arrests, visual reminders of the tension are gone but not the sentiment. "Someone has to take over the law," Kahalani said.

The day after the attacks, Netanyahu denounced the violence and what many described as provocative language used against the illegal immigrants. "I would like to stress that the expressions and acts that we have viewed last night are unacceptable," the prime minister said.

Amene Tekele Haymanot, who works and lives in Hatikva, says that his Israeli neighbors continue to make threats and intimidate him even after breaking apart his business.  He says Israelis in the neighborhood threatened to kill him and burn his place down.

With no official refugee status he now wants to close his store and move somewhere where he can live in peace. So far he can't seem to find that, no matter where he goes.

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.