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31 March, 2008

British government in illegal immigrants cover-up

Hundreds of illegal immigrants - including a suspected murderer and other criminals - are working in care homes in Britain, a leaked Home Office report has disclosed. In some homes more than half the employees have entered the country illegally and are now being entrusted with caring for old and vulnerable people. The immigration intelligence report found that one illegal worker was a murder suspect from the Philippines and others had been involved in the "abuse and mistreatment" of elderly people.

The report, which was produced more than two years ago, warned that the problems were "widespread" and "significant". But officials say its findings have been ignored. "Very few of these cases are acted on," one official said. "Ministers have turned a blind eye in the obscene interests of costs. These cases are not seen as a priority and most of them simply go to the bottom of the pile."

The leak follows the fiasco last year when Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, admitted that more than 11,000 illegal immigrants had been cleared to work as security guards. It also comes as Gordon Brown prepares to launch his flagship UK Border Agency, which is designed to bolster the country's protection from illegal immigrants, terrorists and other criminals.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "The Home Office is turning a blind eye and allowing some of the most vulnerable people to be put in the care of people who by definition cannot have a criminal records check."

The 22-page intelligence report examined 110 investigations into the employment of suspected illegal immigrants in care homes in the south and southwest of England. The situation was so bad, the report notes, that "there is potential for embarrassment if the immigration service is not seen to be actively addressing this issue". Many of the illegal workers were using false names and forged identity documents to bypass police criminal records checks. The suspected Filipino murderer had used fraudulent references to get a job at a care home in Plymouth.

The report discloses that Home Office ministers had failed to tackle the problem because most of the illegal care home workers were from countries such as Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Africa, which were not on the priority list identifying those who should be targeted. This restriction "does not allow the immigration service to take any form of action", it says. Offenders are rarely brought to court because of a lack of resources. "There is no deterrent factor for those involved in these activities," the report states.

One of the few prosecutions was a case in Nottingham in 2001 when an illegal immigrant was jailed for raping a woman in his care. The woman could not speak and had the mental ability of a three-year-old. The report, which has been leaked by Whitehall officials exasperated that little has been done about the problem, reveals:

- that 58 of 113 employees of a firm running two homes in Hampshire and Wiltshire were suspected illegal offenders;

- that 36 of 58 people at a Southampton care agency were working illegally, mostly using fake identity papers;

- and that 22 of 55 foreign nationals who applied for employment through a Salisbury agency were immigration offenders

The document says the proliferation of untrained and unqualified illegal migrants, many with unknown backgrounds, poses a direct risk to some of the estimated 480,000 elderly and vulnerable people in the 21,000 care homes in England and Wales. It states: "The severity of the reported incidents varies, ranging from care workers not being suitably qualified, to the abuse of clients within their care. If this is allowed to continue without action all have the potential to be damaging to the public and media perception of the immigration service."

Mark Hammond, of the PCS union, which represents 2,000 immigration officials, said: "This report exposes the government's big lie. There are not enough resources to enforce immigration law because of budgetary constraints and activity is set to decrease not increase, due to cuts in duties scheduled for weekends. Vitally important work won't be actioned and vulnerable people will be at risk."

The report found that there were so many illegal immigrants in two care homes in Bristol that a proposed operation at Christmas by the Home Office to arrest them was cancelled because it would have involved the removal of the majority of staff. The Home Office feared there would be "negative publicity" if it was held responsible for leaving old people without care.

Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said controls had been tightened up since the report. "Every visa applicant is now fingerprinted before they reach here, ID cards become compulsory for all foreign nationals from November and œ10,000 on-the-spot fines are now in place for any illegal workers."

The report, however, blames government policy for the lack of action. "The predominant nationalities identified working illegally within the care industry do not necessarily correspond with current national priorities for enforcement action," it says.

Source



It's all too easy to get into Britain

People flock to Britain because its system of visas and social benefits are skewed in favour of those entering Britain

Last week's report by the Independent Asylum Commission, which describes our asylum system as "shameful", flies in the face of reality. It's almost as if the former appeal court judge Sir John Waite is pulling our legs. His conclusion - that the UK's treatment of asylum seekers falls "seriously below" the standards of a civilised society and that our treatment of them has "blemished" our international reputation - is, to say the least, a slight exaggeration.

Indeed it was only last month that the government proposed tightening immigration laws relating to asylum, citizenship and visas because it is felt - with justification - that too many people from abroad are taking advantage of our welcome and hospitality. This is borne out by Migration Watch UK's prediction that more than 2m people will arrive in the UK every 10 years for the foreseeable future - taking our population to 65m by 2016. Even the Home Office's own figures note that the UK has the third-largest foreign population and labour force in the European Union - currently about 2.2m.

It's not exactly hard to come to the UK. A couple of years ago a close friend of mine who was getting married decided to invite an uncle over from Punjab, in India. The uncle duly received an invitation and a sponsorship form and within a few weeks had obtained a visa from the British high commission in Delhi. Just like that.

There don't seem to be any stringent checks on foreigners arriving here. And various independent investigations - including one by the BBC's Panorama programme - have already documented how easy it is to obtain visas and British passports by duplicitous means.

You would think that when so many people in Britain are concerned about the polarisation of communities and the erosion of a single national and cultural identity, that there would be some joined-up thinking. Surely, you might surmise, the government and the Foreign Office are singing from the same hymn sheet. Alas, you'd be wrong. Although Gordon Brown's administration talks about tightening existing laws, it doesn't seem to convey this to the visa sections in British consulates and embassies around the world - least of all in the Indian subcontinent.

It's quite simple, really: if our government wants to control immigration and asylum, it needs to design a robust and consistent policy for entry, visas and deportation of failed applications for asylum - and this then has to be communicated to all relevant agencies. Soundbites about our rotten treatment of asylum seekers may help to win elections but they don't safeguard the interests of the country at large.

Before Waite described our nation as "shameful", perhaps he should have talked to ordinary people to get a real sense of what most of us feel about the existing asylum system. Perhaps he could have explained to them why some asylum seekers, allegedly fleeing for their lives, are crossing countries and even continents to get to the UK (surely, if you are genuinely seeking safety, you would ask for haven in the nearest country).

As everyone seems to know - except Waite - people flock here because our system of issuing visas and our social benefits system are skewed in favour of those entering Britain. However, unlike his commission, British people know full well when their hospitality and their country's welfare system are being abused and exploited.

Back to my friend and his relative. Surprisingly, his uncle missed the wedding and instead turned up a few days later. A couple of weeks on, he asked to be shown the wonderful sights of our country. My friend did as much as he could, showing him around London, Manchester, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Lake District and north Wales. Eventually he had to say: "I'm sorry but I can't keep taking you around because we can't afford it." His uncle took offence. "Well, then," he said, "get me a job so I can earn some money of my own." Anyone who comes over on a tourist visa, of course, cannot work here legally. Naturally, my friend - being a pillar of the community - declined to help, explaining to his uncle that he too would be breaking the law if he helped him to find illegal employment. Rather miffed, his uncle decided to move in with another relative in Middlesex.

Almost a year later, my friend spoke to the relative who had taken him in. This man said that he had given the uncle many hints about going home to India - but he just didn't take any notice. Apparently, six months is the minimum period for a tourist visa. Why, the uncle's new host asked plaintively, are tourists given such a long period of stay in this country?

As many British Asians know only too well, living with visitors with whom you have little in common can be a nightmare. Getting them to go home is almost impossible. Indeed the uncle's host said he felt as though he was living in the Big Brother house with a guest from hell. So you can imagine how flabbergasted he was when the uncle suggested at the end of the six months that he wanted to extend his stay. No way, thought his host, who then helped him pack his bags and ordered a taxi to the airport.

This is quite a typical scenario. In other parts of our communities, "arranged" marriages are nothing more than economic contracts that enable young men from the Indian subcontinent to stay in Britain. Even so-called spiritual guides, such as the Sikh a cousin of mine once invited over, can be suspect. After six months the guru suddenly told my cousin that he was being persecuted in India - for being a Sikh. And, yes, he wanted to apply for political asylum.

It was like a sketch from Goodness Gracious Me. Yet the guru was serious: he knew that if he lodged an application for asylum, it might be years before the government heard his case. In the meantime he'd be free to do as he pleased. The next day he did a runner. Thus a Sikh who had nothing to complain about in his native land became one of the 60,000 people who, according to Migration Watch UK, enter this country every year on a visitor's visa and then disappear. Most visitors from the Indian subcontinent, I'm afraid, will do whatever they can to stay in the UK. Maybe Sir John Waite could consider making that the subject of his next commission

Source





30 March, 2008

Locals Crack Down on Illegal Immigration

Mayra Figueroa - a naturalized U.S. citizen, community organizer and licensed driver - had no reason to fear being arrested, no need to worry about deported. Then she was pulled over by a Houston police officer, who told her he found it suspicious that a Latina was driving a late-model car. The first thing the officer requested? Figueroa's Social Security card, as proof of citizenship.

Until now, few local police and sheriff's departments wanted any part of enforcing federal civil immigration laws. They had their hands full with local crime - and needed witnesses and victims to work with them without fear. But as local governments feel mounting frustration over illegal immigration, that hands-off attitude is disappearing. More than 100 local law enforcement agencies - including Los Angeles and Orange counties in California and Maricopa County in Arizona, which includes Phoenix - have begun or are waiting for training to help the Department of Homeland Security root out illegal immigrants and hand them over for deportation.

Advocates say the training beefs up the power of the overworked Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. Detractors say it will discourage millions of immigrants from reporting crime or cooperating with police investigations. They also cite evidence of poor training and overeager cops, like the one who questioned Figueroa. [QUESTIONING someone is bad??]

The ICE training program began 12 years ago in 1996, but had only one taker until 2002, when political pressure began to mount to fix the illegal immigration problem. Now 41 law enforcement agencies are trained, and 92 more are waiting in line. Even in places where police departments have resisted enforcing immigration laws, elected officials and local governments have passed or are considering similar policies.

In Harris County, which includes Houston, sheriff's deputies routinely check the immigration status of anyone booked into the county jail. In New Jersey, the Attorney General ordered police to ask arrested suspects about their immigration status. In Minnesota, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed an executive order requiring state agents to enforce immigration law. "When my deputies come across illegals, they arrest them - even on traffic violations," said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. "People ask me why I am taking this on? The last I heard, crossing the border is an illegal activity. I took an oath of office to enforce the law, so I am enforcing the law."

But some experts say it could spell the end of cooperating with police in immigrant neighborhoods. "People are very, very fearful of interaction with law enforcement, said Susan Shah, with the New York-based Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit. "Even people with legal status, whose families may have mixed immigration status, now have a fear of opening the door." That fear has been exacerbated by accounts - some rumored, some real - of people being turned over to immigration officials after being stopped for minor offenses such as traffic violations and loitering, or after going to police to report a crime.

In Newark, N.J., a freelance photographer who stumbled upon on a dead body in an alley and reported the discovery to police was detained and asked about his immigration status. In Falls Church, Va., staffers at the Tarirhu Justice Center, which works with immigrant victims of domestic abuse, say they are fielding calls from women who have been assaulted, yet refuse to go to police. "When there's confusion about what policy applies to you and when it does, the safe course of action is to avoid authorities altogether," said Jeanne Smoot, the center's director of public policy.

In Durham, N.C., police recently investigated a string of robberies targeting Latino immigrants, who the thieves saw as "soft targets" because they'd be reluctant to call police. Only after officials reassured local residents that they would not be reported to ICE did they get the information needed to solve the cases, said Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez. "If people are not reporting crimes, we don't know what is happening out there. It puts all of the community at risk," said Lopez.

Even so, the Durham police department does check the immigration status of anyone arrested, and has since been approved for the federal training program. Such confusing, sometimes contradictory, policies and programs are only heightening immigrants' fear and mistrust, say immigrant advocates and community activists. Mayra Figueroa, the woman stopped in Houston, agrees. "I have been living here for the last 17 years, and to have an officer stop me for no reason and ask for papers, it made me feel like he didn't think I belong here," said Figueroa. "It makes people feel that anytime that something happens to you, you can't call police."

Source



304,000 Inmates Eligible for Deportation, Official Says

At least 304,000 immigrant criminals eligible for deportation are behind bars nationwide, a top federal immigration official said Thursday. That is the first official estimate of the total number of such convicts in federal, state and local prisons and jails. The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Julie L. Myers, said the annual number of deportable immigrant inmates was expected to vary from 300,000 to 455,000, or 10 percent of the overall inmate population, for the next few years. Ms. Myers estimated that it would cost at least $2 billion a year to find all those immigrants and deport them.

This week, Ms. Myers presented a plan to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security intended to speed the deportation of immigrants convicted of the most serious crimes by linking state prisons and county jails into federal databases that combine F.B.I. fingerprint files with immigration, border and antiterrorism records of the Homeland Security Department. In an interview on Thursday, Ms. Myers said the plan would bring "a fundamental change" by streamlining deportations of foreign-born criminals.

Representative David E. Price, Democrat of North Carolina and chairman of the subcommittee, wrote a five-page letter on Thursday saying that the agency's plan did "not meet the legal requirements" of the 2008 appropriation that gave the agency $200 million to deport criminals. Mr. Price said the plan failed to focus mainly on illegal immigrants who committed crimes, did not provide for any coordination with immigration courts and justice officials and included huge unexplained cost increases. Based on the schedule in the plan, Mr. Price said, he did not see evidence that the agency "shares my sense of urgency about removing criminals from our country before they victimize Americans again."

In the intensely contentious debate over immigration, one point that generally draws broad agreement is that federal authorities should deport illegal immigrant criminals as swiftly as possible. But considerable confusion prevails about how fast that might be. Immigrants convicted of crimes - including illegal immigrants and those who had legal immigration status at the time of the crime - must serve their sentences before they can be deported. Many immigrant convicts are naturalized United States citizens who are not subject to deportation.

Ms. Myers said her agency, known as ICE, was seeking to expand operations to identify jailed immigrant criminals. The agency is working in all federal and state prisons, but reaches just 300 of 3,100 local jails, an official said. The agency plans a major effort to use new technology and databases at local jails so law enforcement officers can determine at booking whether immigrants have previously committed serious crimes or immigration violations. ICE officers bring charges while immigrants are serving their sentences so they can be deported as soon as they complete their terms without being released from custody. "We will identify individuals who pose the greatest risk as quickly as possible," Ms. Myers said, including in jails that the agency cannot visit regularly.

Surprised by Mr. Price's letter, she rejected his criticism of the plan's legality. She was supported by Representative Harold Rogers of Kentucky, senior Republican on the appropriations subcommittee, who said the plan could be refined.

In fiscal 2007, 164,000 immigrant inmates were charged with immigration violations to prepare the way for deportation, and 95,000 immigrants with criminal histories were deported, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement figures. Immigration lawyers warned that unless local law enforcement officers were trained in immigration law, the ICE plan could focus on many immigrants who committed minor violations that did not make them deportable. "Immigration law is confusing and convoluted and not user friendly," said David Leopold, a vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "To turn that over to local law enforcement without training is asking for trouble."

Source





29 March, 2008

Rhode Island Targets Illegal Immigrants

Linking the presence of undocumented workers to Rhode Island's financial woes, Gov. Don Carcieri signed an executive order that includes a series of steps to combat illegal immigration. The order signed Thursday requires state agencies and companies that do business with the state to verify the legal status of employees. It also directs the Rhode Island State Police and prison and parole officials to more aggressively find and deport illegal immigrants. The Republican governor said he understands that illegal immigrants face hardships - but he does not want them in Rhode Island. "If you're here illegally, you shouldn't be here illegally. You shouldn't be here," Carcieri said.

Immigrant advocate Juan Garcia feared Carcieri's proposals would drive a vulnerable community underground. He said illegal immigrants who are victims of crime will fear approaching police, and that children could suffer if parents lose their jobs. "These people are not criminals," he said. "This is affecting the poor people."

Carcieri's popularity has plummeted in recent months as Rhode Island faces an estimated $550 million budget deficit, its worst financial crisis since a series of bank and credit union collapses in the early 1990s. He has proposed cutting school funding, reducing welfare and health care benefits and even letting prisoners out of jail early. He blamed Congress for failing to set a new immigration policy. He said he supported increasing the number of legal immigrants and skilled workers allowed into the country. Carcieri was testy when taking questions after signing the order. When a reporter asked if his order might embolden xenophobes, Carcieri blamed the media for inflaming the immigration debate.

Under his order, state police will enter an agreement with federal immigration authorities permitting them access to specialized immigration databases. That information would allow police to identify and detain immigration violators. State police could investigate the legal status of anyone they suspect is an immigration violator, including crime victims, witnesses and people supplying police with confidential tips, state police Maj. Steven O'Donnell said.

Department of Corrections Director A.T. Wall said the prison system will negotiate a similar agreement so it too can identify illegal immigrants in state custody as well as legal immigrants who are subject to deportation if convicted of crimes.

Carcieri said he supported legislation that would force all companies in Rhode Island to do the same. He said he did not know how much his initiatives would cost, although he assumed they would save money in the long run.

Source



The facts that shatter British Labour's big immigration myth



By ANTHONY BROWNE (Author of Retreat of Reason. Review here)

There is a traditional pattern to any discussion about immigration. First, the Government and its supporters in the (often taxpayer-funded) immigration lobby declare various reasons the public should support their policies. Otherwise we would face a serious shortage of workers, economic growth would stagnate, there would be fewer people in the workforce to help pay the country's pension bill, the NHS would collapse or that the country would suffer without the enriching force of multi-culturalism.

These arguments are then unquestioningly trumpeted by the BBC and by much of the rest of the Press which instinctively wants to support mass immigration on the basis it is the morally decent thing to do. But then someone suddenly points to holes in the arguments, often in cold, factual ways. These critics inevitably get pilloried. In my case, when I started pointing out some of the downsides of immigration, I was denounced by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett in the Commons for "bordering on fascism."

In an earlier generation, Ray Honeyford, the Bradford headmaster, was hounded out of his job for declaring that children who are born and grow up in England should speak English. Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, has been regularly demonised for the counterarguments he has put forward. But the beauty about truth is that, in the end, it will out. Ultimately, it is realised that mass immigration's critics have many valid points, and ministers are forced to change their tune (of course, rarely with any public admission that they were wrong). And so the same government that promoted multiculturalism and attacked its critics is now having to admit that multiculturalism was wrong. In the same way, a government that once insisted the NHS would collapse without foreign workers is now having to impose curbs on foreign medical staff. And the very immigration lobbyists who previously denounced those who said people living in Britain should speak English now concede that they should for their own (and society's) good.

And so is the case with that final defence for mass immigration - the argument that it benefits the British economy. The trouble is that the claim that our economic boom was based on mass immigration (rather than a credit bubble) seems a little thin now that our economy is collapsing with immigration still at record levels. The belief that we needed Eastern Europeans to fill 600,000 vacancies in our employment market seems a tad stretched given that a million or more Eastern Europeans have come - and we still have 600,000 vacancies. The argument that we are desperately short of workers looks faintly ridiculous now that we are all increasingly aware that there are more than 5 million people of working age out of work and living on benefits - and there have been for the past ten years.

The Government's final justification was that immigration is a major boost to economic output - pumping the economy by 6 billion pounds a year. This figure is parroted so often that it has become received wisdom. But unfortunately, the argument is utterly misleading. Ignore the very serious questions about how the 6 billion figure was arrived at, and take it at its face value. The real problem is that while immigration does boost the overall size of the economy (more people working means more output), it also boosts the population. And what people really care about is not how big the economy is but how well off they are - their standard of living and quality of life.

In short, what matters is not the total Gross Domestic Product, but the GDP per capita. This is the mind-numbingly obvious flaw in the Government's argument. Although a growing population means more output it also means more people to consume that output. Almost all the resultant increase in GDP goes to the immigrants themselves (which is why they come to the UK in the first place). In fact, using the Government's own figures, the effect of immigration on GDP per capita is minimal 28p a week. That too is an average figure --while the affluent who employ immigrants tend to benefit, the poor who compete with them lose out.

When Sir Andrew Green first pointed out the 28p a week figure, he was, of course, pilloried. But, although his claims are about to be confirmed by the House of Lords committee, it is probably too soon for ministers to admit the folly of their beloved 6 billion argument. But as the truth slowly emerges, it can only be a matter of time before the Government finally abandons its policies of encouraging mass immigration to this already crowded island. Only then can we expect the level of immigration to be lowered.

Source





28 March, 2008

KS lawmakers pass illegal immigration reforms, reject tough penalties on business

Kansas lawmakers Thursday backed away from threats to pull the licenses of businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Like the Senate before it, the House eliminated tough penalties for businesses from a bill designed to crack down on illegal immigration. Instead, those who repeatedly hire illegal immigrants would face fines of up to $3,000 per illegal worker and the possibility of being held in contempt of court. The step back from tougher penalties pleases the business community, religious groups and immigrant advocates, but is sure to anger citizens who urged tough enforcement of immigration law. The House endorsed the bill, SB 329, on an unrecorded preliminary vote Thursday night. A final vote is expected today. The bill also:

* Creates new criminal penalties for employment identity fraud, voter fraud and exploitation of illegal immigrants

* Prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving many public benefits such as food stamps.

* Stiffens penalties for businesses that intentionally misclassify workers as contractors to avoid paying taxes and benefits.

An earlier provision to require all police to ask the citizenship of anyone they arrest was eliminated. Supporters said the bill struck the right balance. "It's a tough but reasonable and effective response to the problem," said Rep. Raj Goyle, a Wichita Democrat. The Senate approved a similar bill Thursday morning. The vote was unanimous, but several senators said they wanted a more aggressive bill.

One key difference: the House bill would, starting in 2011, require all new hires to be checked against the federal E-Verify database of legal workers. The bill would have the state's Department of Labor run the checks unless businesses choose to do it themselves.

When introduced, the bills were much more aggressive. The authors of those proposals said the Legislature caved to powerful industry groups. "We can't go home and say we've passed meaningful immigration reform in this session," said Rep. Lance Kinzer, an Olathe Republican who said the original bill had been "eviscerated."

Source



Official: Immigration into Britain "too fast"

A government minister today said that the effects of immigration were moving too quickly for some areas of the UK and local services were being put under pressure. Speaking in an interview with the BBC, Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said that although there were some parts of the country, notably the north-east of England, and Scotland, that wanted immigration to boost their populations, generally its impact needed more control. "There have been communities in different parts of the country where the pace of change has been too fast and transitional pressure has been put on public services," he said on The World at One. "We do need a new balance in migration policy," he added.

The effects of globalisation are now being felt outside the country's main cities. Cumbria police recently revealed that its budget for interpreters had risen 386% since 2003 and schools across the country are having to provide for pupils speaking a variety of languages other than English.

A recent study compiled by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicted that a record number of highly skilled migrant workers, such as teachers, will enter Britain over the next four years, contributing an estimated 77bn pounds to the economy. The CEBR report forecast that there would be 812,000 such migrants in the UK by 2012, a 14% increase on the 715,000 recorded last year.

Migrants added 6bn pounds to the British economy in 2006 and their impact was a net benefit to the country as a whole, said Byrne. But the minister said that the UK had no need for low-skilled workers coming from outside of the EU. A points-based system for migrants wishing to come to the UK was introduced at the beginning of this month. But the government has not said when the system for low-skilled workers will come into effect, meaning that in practice low-skilled workers from outside the EU will not be allowed entry for the foreseeable future.

The new regime involves tougher penalties for employers who employ illegal immigrants. But it also simplifies the system used to determine whether foreigners are allowed into the country to work. This, along with the economic downturn, will deter some migrants from moving to the UK, the minister said.

Source





27 March, 2008

Bush Criticized for Pardoning Drug Offenders, Embezzler While Leaving Border Patrol Agents Behind Bars

The chairman of the Project 21 leadership network is condemning President George W. Bush's issuance of a new set of presidential pardons March 25 that includes forgiveness for drug smugglers, an embezzler and others but not for jailed Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. Ramos and Compean entered prison in January of 2007 after a controversial ruling on their actions in apprehendng a fleeing drug smuggler.

"I believe the President's stolid refusal to pardon Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean is the most unconscionable act of disloyalty he has perpetrated upon those sworn to protect our well-being. I know this feeling is shared by many other patriotic Americans," said Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie. "This sends a disturbing signal to the men and women who protect our borders, not to mention how it must affect the morale of those serving overseas."

On February 17, 2005, Ramos and Compean pursued Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila on foot after Aldrete-Davila abandoned a van containing 743 pounds of marijuana worth an estimated $1 million. During the chase, Ramos shot at Aldrete-Davila in the belief that Aldrete-Davila had drawn a gun of his own. Aldrete-Davila escaped across the U.S.-Mexico border, and Ramos assumed Aldrete-Davila was unhurt. In fact, Aldrete-Davila had been shot in the buttock.

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton later charged that Ramos and Compean violated Border Patrol policy by pursuing Aldrete-Davila without supervisor approval, moving spent shell casings and improperly reporting the fired shots. Aldrete-Davila was granted immunity to testify against the agents. Ramos and Compean were sentenced to 11 and 12 years in prison, respectively. They are currently in solitary confinement in maximum-security prisons.

The Ramos and Compean convictions have been questioned by many, who point to the following: During the trial, jurors were not told of Aldrete-Davila's continued drug trafficking, for which he has now been arrested and indicted. Jurors were also unaware that a fellow agent who testified against Ramos and Compean is a life-long friend of Aldrete-Davila - a violation of Border Patrol Policy in itself.

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a labor union which has organized workers at the agency, testified before the U.S. Senate that a medical examination of Aldrete-Davila supported the agents' description of events and complied with Border Patrol and Justice Department policies. The convictions of Ramos and Compean are currently on appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

"Leaving good cops behind bars is unconscionable," added Project 21's Massie. "President Bush can argue he is granting mercy only after sentences are served, but we cannot forget that he immediately commuted the sentence of his friend and political ally Scooter Libby. Similar clemency should be given to Ramos and Compean, if not a full pardon. If he refuses, we can only hope that the next president will not only do so but also treat our courageous border guards with the respect they deserve."

Source. See also here



Canada's Health Care System Cannot Survive Mass Immigration

A cynic might characterize Canada's medicare system as the universal, free, democratic and egalitarian access to a two-year waiting list. You jump the queue only if you have the bucks and the referral to jump over the 49th, unless a life-threatening emergency sends you to the OR. America's health care system, on the other hand is discriminatory and expensive, but it offers immediate access to the best medical treatment in the world. In both cases timely care for everyone is an elusive goal.

In any event Michael Moore's take on Canada is superficial, euphoric and unrealistic. New technology, abuse and the insatiable demands of an ever expanding clientele of elderly relatives sponsored by Third World immigrants is breaking the bank. It has been calculated that each sponsored immigrant in that age group will cost the Australian medical system $250,000. Since roughly 75% of Canadian immigrants and refugees, drawn from largely "non-traditional" sources, in fact consist of their unskilled dependent children, a terrifying portrait of the toll that Canadian immigration policy is taking on medicare could no doubt be drawn.

A recent article featured in the London Free Press (Thursday, March 13, 2008 "Hospitals forecast deficits") recognized population growth as one principal reason why the Canadian health system was on the brink of deficit financing, with half of Ontario's hospitals facing service cuts to meet the legal requirement for a balanced budget. Seventy percent of Canada's population growth is driven by immigration.

It was economist Milton Friedman who commented a decade ago that "It's just obvious that you can't have free immigration and a welfare state." As Robert Rector explained, to be properly understood, Friedman's observation should be viewed as applicable to the entire redistributive system of benefits, subsidies and services that lower income groups disproportionately enjoy at the expense of higher income groups.

Unfortunately, this superstructure of benefits and services rests not only on an economic foundation but a cultural one as well. A people that is very much alike is more inclined to trust one another, and this trust translates into a willingness to vote for redistributive policies. But we are no longer a mostly ethnically homogeneous society with a shared respect for institutions and a shared sense of civic obligation. When a significant portion of the population is from another hemisphere, another culture or even another generation with different values, the welfare state is perceived as an unlocked candy store with services to be exploited to the maximum.

Redistributive policies like medicare are inversely correlated to cultural diversity. Rather than confront this reality, Canadian leftists demand yet more financial IV injections into the morbid body of the health care system. They refuse to acknowledge that even the Swedish Social Democrats, their role models, were forced to discover the "Laffer curve". That is, push the tax rate up beyond a certain level and tax revenues fall in response. Tax payers will not keep working and producing if they can't keep enough of their income. There are limits to what can be funded. The Canadian model is not sustainable. It works only if there is enough public money to fund it and not enough patients with doctors to help them abuse it. Those days are gone forever.

Source





26 March, 2008

Farmers leery of legal hazard

At the wage rate concerned, there should be no problem finding workers. It is clearly the risk of being prosecuted for hiring illegals that has the guy below running scared. I would be that way too. It should be made very clear that if an employer has made basic checks he is safe. The present situation should be good for farmers in Mexico, though.

This is an interesting story. Keith Eckel, the largest tomato grower north of the Mason-Dixon line whose crop accounts for 3/4 of the fresh tomatoes sold in markets from Boston to Washington, is quitting the tomato business over fears that he won't be able to find the 180 workers he needs for harvest. Instead, Eckel is planting grain, which he can harvest by machine with the help of only 5 workers.

Eckel told the Philadelphia Inquirer he was forced to scuttle his tomato business because of Congress's failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform, saying more and more farmers would follow suit when faced with the prospect of a labor shortage. Here's the part of the story that caught my attention:

Workers on Eckel's farm averaged $16.59 an hour "and they earned every penny of it," Eckel said. "No one will harvest tomatoes in 90 degree weather except immigrant labor," he said. And a number of people who worked in his packing house were retired workers picking up a few extra dollars, he said.

We always hear the argument that immigrants do labor that Americans aren't willing to do, and picking tomatoes would certainly seem to fall into that category. But $16.59 an hour seems like a pretty decent average wage, and so the question is whether in a place like Scranton - a metro area with more than 600,000 people and an unemployment rate that jumped seven tenths of a percent in December and is above both the state and national average - Eckel truly cannot find a hundred and eighty legal US citizens who want to make, on average, $16.59 an hour.

The bigger problem may be, as Eckel points out in the article, bearing the burden and the risk associated with verifying that his workers are in fact here legally:

He said the climate was such that legal immigrants were fearful of moving across state lines, further exacerbating the problem. Although his workers have documents proving that they are legal, Eckel said some estimates show that between 60 percent and 70 percent of the documents are fraudulent. "We can no longer take the risk," he said. "We have done everything we can to comply with the law." Most farmers are honest, he said, but rather than run the risk of losing their crop, they simply won't plant one.

Source



Britain and France join forces on immigration

In a token sort of a way

Plans for a joint drive by Britain and France against illegal immigration could backfire by forcing "soft targets" to return to dangerous countries, refugee groups have warned. The initiative will be announced by Gordon Brown and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who arrives in Britain for a two-day state visit tomorrow. The leaders will also set out plans to co-operate over the crisis threatening world money markets, nuclear power and defence.

Mr Sarkozy, who will be accompanied by his new wife, Carla Bruni, will be welcomed by the Prince of Wales. The couple will stay at Windsor Castle. The immigration package is likely to be agreed by the leaders on Thursday. It includes proposals to arrange joint charter flights to return failed asylum-seekers to their home countries. Mr Sarkozy wants international co-operation over immigration to be a theme of France's European Union presidency from July and will set the tone this week. The leaders will also promise to increase numbers of officials checking lorries at Channel ports and fresh action against people-smuggling gangs.

Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "Our leaders would do better to focus on joint initiatives to make countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan safe for people to return to - rather than forcing them to go back when it is clearly not safe." Keith Best, chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service, urged Mr Sarkozy to be sceptical of Britain's approach to deporting asylum-seekers, which often resulted in "soft targets" being singled out for removal. [That's true. Asian kitchenhands are at risk but criminals can stay as long as they like]

Source





25 March, 2008

U.S. Tweaks Proposal On Illegal Workers: Employers Could Get Warnings in June

The Bush administration yesterday renewed its drive to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal immigrants by slightly altering an earlier initiative stalled by a federal judge since last September. If the new proposal satisfies the court, the government could begin warning 140,000 employers in writing as early as June about suspect Social Security numbers used by their employees and force businesses to resolve questions about their identities or fire them within 90 days. The result could intensify an economic and political debate over the administration's immigration policies in the months leading up to November's elections for president and Congress.

The mailings, known as "no-match" letters, were enjoined by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer in San Francisco while he hears a lawsuit brought by a wide-ranging coalition of major American labor, business, farm and civil liberties groups. The plaintiffs, including the AFL-CIO, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Civil Liberties Union, allege that the plan will cause major workplace disruptions and discriminate against legal workers, including native-born Americans.

A systematic effort to wean the U.S. economy off an estimated 8.7 million illegal workers has long been blocked by economic interests and civil rights concerns. But the Bush administration considers that effort the linchpin of its immigration enforcement efforts. "We are serious about immigration enforcement," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a brief written statement yesterday. "The No-Match Rule is an important tool for cracking down on illegal hiring practices while providing honest employers with the guidance they need."

The 44-page proposal released yesterday makes mostly technical changes to the administration's initial proposal. It includes a statement about the regulation's impact on small businesses, as required by a 1980 law. According to DHS, compliance will cost companies with fewer than 100 workers $3,000 to $7,500 overall, while it will cost larger companies $13,000 to $34,000. But these estimates do not include the cost of firing and replacing workers who lack legal documentation. "DHS does not believe that the direct costs incurred by employers . . . would create a significant economic impact" on most companies, the department stated.

Opponents said the proposal makes no substantive changes to a plan that Breyer in October wrote would have "severe" effects and produce irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers. Lawyers familiar with the plaintiffs' case said they expect to battle the department in the rulemaking process and the courts through the summer.

Critics have noted that the Social Security Administration's inspector general has concluded the database used to cull suspicious numbers contains erroneous records on 17.8 million people, 70 percent of whom are native-born U.S. citizens. Even if the actual error rate of no-match letters is far lower, labor leaders say that unscrupulous employers will use the rule to burden or harass anyone who looks or sounds foreign. "It's an attempt to justify the fundamentally flawed database without actually fixing any of the problems," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU immigrants' rights project. Angelo I. Amador, director of immigration policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the DHS glossed over the true costs. "It keeps the questions before the judge the same. I would have been more concerned if they had come up with a big study" detailing the broader impact on businesses, he said.

Source



No Coyote Needed

CIS press release: New Paper Examines Visa Overstays

While presidential candidates promise to secure the border, the other major source of illegal immigration is largely ignored - lax visa policies. Visa overstays account for between one-quarter to one-half of the illegal-alien population, and fencing, unmanned aerial vehicles, National Guard patrols, etc., are irrelevant to controlling this part of the immigration problem.

To shine some light on this neglected weakness, the Center for Immigration Studies has published a new paper, "No Coyote Needed: U.S. Visas Still an Easy Ticket in Developing Counties," written by former State Department official David Seminara, examining the systemic problems in our "nonimmigrant" (i.e., temporary) visa system. The complete paper is online here

U.S. law places the burden of proof on the visa applicant to demonstrate that he won't remain in the United States as an illegal alien after his permission to remain has expired. Despite the law's tough language, 74 percent of nonimmigrant applications are granted, mostly from countries with much lower standards of living than the United States, where few residents should truly be able to qualify.

The new paper identifies some of the reasons for this laxity, including:

# The crushing volume of applications. Most visa-processing posts are woefully understaffed, resulting in very brief interviews. Managers value speed over clarity of decision making, so many applications that deserve closer scrutiny instead end up being approved.

# Foreign Service officers tend to have a diplomatic rather than a law enforcement mindset.

# Developing countries place great importance on visas in bilateral discussions.

# State Department managers are required to review only visa refusals - not issuances - forcing consular officers to routinely justify denials.

# DHS has not implemented meaningful exit controls or shared entry/exit data with consular officials overseas, leaving them without adequate information on visa renewal applicants.

# Officers evaluate how well-off visa candidates are by the standards of their home country, rather than by U.S. standards, and thus often fail to understand how a nurse from Ecuador, say, would prefer to wash dishes at a restaurant in New York.

# Refused applicants, their relatives, and members of Congress routinely pressure consular officials to overturn visa refusals.

# The simple reality that it is far easier to say "yes" to applicants than to dash their hopes by telling them that they don't qualify to come to America.





24 March, 2008

The Gurkhas have earned the right to live in Britain

This is truly amazing stuff. The Gurkhas are most highly thought of in Britain -- though not among the Leftist British government and bureaucracy, apparently. Warriors of any sort are just "incorrect" in Leftist circles

There are times when the routine irritation we all feel with the idiocies that take place daily in government is supplanted by splenetic anger caused by something truly outlandish. The sight of Gurkha ex-servicemen gathered in front of the Palace of Westminster [the British parliament] to return the medals they had received for fighting with the British Army was just such a moment. They were objecting to the fact that many of their number are denied the right to settle in Britain because they retired before 1997.

The grievances of the Gurkhas are legitimate and long-standing. You could be forgiven for imagining that they were resolved in September 2004, when Tony Blair, then prime minister, announced after an 18-month Whitehall review that Gurkhas who had served with the British Army and wanted to settle here with their families would be allowed to apply for citizenship.

The Government confirmed it would change immigration rules to let them stay. Prior to that decision, they had no pension rights, no leave to remain in the UK, and could not apply to become British citizens. David Blunkett, then the Home Secretary, said: "We have put together the best package to enable discharged Gurkhas to apply for settlement and citizenship. I hope this decision makes our gratitude clear."

But note the weasel word "discharged" in that statement; and, indeed, the devil was in the detail. The change meant that only Gurkhas who have served at least four years and were discharged after July 1, 1997 - the date at which the brigade's headquarters moved to the UK from Hong Kong - would be eligible for "fast-track" citizenship.

So an apparently generous gesture was instantly turned into something divisive. What possible moral case exists for saying that a Gurkha discharged in 1996 after 15 years' service is any less entitled to come here than one discharged a year later, after five years in the Army? For some Gurkhas falling outside the cut-off date who are already living in Britain, sometimes in penury, it means the prospect of deportation.

It is extraordinary that the authorities are prepared to deport someone who fought in our Army, yet last week the Court of Appeal ruled that under an EU directive, an Italian who served nine years for robbing a pensioner - and had a string of other convictions - could not be ejected because he did not pose a serious threat to the security of the nation.

Pre-1997 Gurkhas are not able to stay or settle because the Home Office says they cannot demonstrate "close ties" to this country. Even serving Gurkha soldiers are not treated equally. Their children are regarded as foreign students and must pay fees of up to 13,000 pounds a year if they want to attend university. Only when citizenship is granted after a lengthy application period once they leave the Army are their children regarded as home students in the UK.

All of this is particularly galling when you consider the mess the Government has made of our immigration system. Over the past 10 years, it has allowed hundreds of thousands of people who have no claim to settle here to do just that. Nepalese Gurkhas, by contrast, have been part of the British Army for nearly 200 years and about 200,000 of them fought for Britain in both world wars; some 43,000 were killed or wounded, and they have won 26 Victoria Crosses.

A few weeks ago, one of these VC winners, Havildar Bhanubhakta Gurung, died in Nepal aged 86. He was decorated with the highest award for valour when serving as a rifleman in the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Gurkha Rifles in Burma in 1945. It is worth quoting from the citation. "On approaching the objective, one of the sections of the company was forced to the ground by heavy machine-gun, grenade and mortar fire, and owing to the severity of this fire was unable to move. "While thus pinned down, the section also came under fire from a sniper in a tree 75 yards to the south. As this sniper was inflicting casualties on the section, Rifleman Gurung stood up and, while exposed to heavy fire, calmly killed the enemy sniper with his rifle, saving his section from further casualties."

Bhanubhakta then dashed forward alone, attacking enemy positions single-handed, using grenades, smoke bombs, his rifle and, eventually, his kukri. The citation continued: "He showed outstanding bravery and a complete disregard for his own safety. His courageous clearing of five enemy positions single-handed was decisive in capturing the objective and his inspiring example to the Company contributed to the speedy consolidation of the success."

Under the current immigration rules, had Bhanubhakta, whose three sons followed their father into the Gurkhas, wanted to come to live in Britain, he would not be allowed to stay and could be facing deportation were he here already.

When a big enough fuss is made, as in the case last year of Tul Bahadur Pun VC, 85, who wanted to move from Nepal for medical reasons, an "exceptional" visa can be granted, as it was in his case. But these men should not have to beg for entry. Given the sheer scale of immigration to Britain in recent years, this is a small group of people who are rightly insulted by the suggestion that their ties to this country are "insufficiently strong" when they see so many here who have none whatsoever, including some who would do us great harm.

When Gordon Brown was asked about this injustice in the Commons at Question Time by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, he said the right for retired Gurkhas to live in Britain had only been granted from 1997 because that was when Hong Kong, their former principal base, was handed over to Chinese rule. So what? The fact that previous administrations failed to treat the Gurkhas properly is no excuse to continue treating them badly. The Labour Government is entitled to be congratulated for making some attempt to rectify past mistakes, especially over pension entitlements; but the decision taken in 2004 was only half right and too many anomalies remain. It is time to honour our debt to the Gurkhas.

Source



Australia's Chinese suburbs are top-drawer

Safe, peaceful, affluent and a great place to eat. But they do tend to be targeted by robbers. If only all immigrants were as high-quality as the Chinese!

SUBURBAN multicultural hubs are on the rise, with overseas-born residents accounting for more than 50 per cent of the population in some suburbs. An analysis of Census statistics by RP Data research director Tim Lawless has found Robertson, in Brisbane's south, is home to the highest proportion of overseas-born residents, with migrants comprising 58 per cent of its population. Mr Lawless said the majority of foreign-born residents were from mainland China and Hong Kong.

"Robertson was followed by Stretton, with 55 per cent of the population born overseas, also mainly from China and Hong Kong," he said. "The Brisbane CBD comes in as the third highest suburb based on residents born overseas. This would be due to the high number of international students that reside within inner-city accommodation."

Rocky Lee and his parents, Ming Lau and Yiu Lee, have recently moved to Stretton. Hong Kong-born Mr Lee said he and his family had lived in Carindale, in the city's southeast, since they arrived in Brisbane about 10 years ago, but had wanted to move to the Stretton area because of its multicultural reputation. "And I think it's also got a reputation as a prestigious area," Mr Lee said.

Louis Soh, of Yong Real Estate, based on Brisbane's southside, said the majority of his clients were born overseas. "I would say that about 60 per cent are from overseas," Mr Soh said. He said migrants, particularly those from China and Hong Kong, were attracted to the southside because of its standing as an Asian hub. "There's the Chinese shopping centre in Sunnybank and a lot of people have relatives here," Mr Soh said.

Mr Lawless said migrant clusters were evident throughout Brisbane. Darra and Richlands, in the city's southwest, hold the largest migrant clusters - Vietnam-born residents account for 17 per cent of the suburbs' total population. The second largest cluster was the Chinese community living in Sunnybank, with 9.3 per cent of the overall population, while South Africans living in Anstead [Anstead has large semi-rural blocks of land] account for 6.2 per cent of the total population.

Conversely, Ipswich [a most unprestigious area], which forms part of the greater Brisbane area, is home to the most Australian-born residents. More than 93 per cent of the population in Purga, Deebing Heights and Tallegalla were born in Australia. The Australian Demographic Statistics report shows more migrants settled in Australia last year than in any other period in history.

Source





23 March, 2008

African refugee brings rare and dangerous disease to Britain

Health officials are screening the close contacts of a man who has become Britain's first case of a virtually untreatable form of drug-resistant tuberculosis. The man, believed to be a Somali asylum-seeker in his thirties, has a rare strain, Extremely Drug Resistant TB (XDR-TB), which has a high mortality rate.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that XDR-TB accounts for possibly only 2 per cent of the 9 million cases of tuberculosis in the world, but that it poses a grave public health threat, especially in populations with high rates of HIV and where there are few healthcare resources.

Health chiefs said yesterday that close contacts of the patient, who is in isolation at Gartnavel General Hospital, Glasgow, were being screened. He has been in the hospital since January.

Dr Oliver Blatchford, consultant in public health medicine in Glasgow, said yesterday: "It is no more infectious than ordinary TB but it does require different treatment. The contacts of this case are being screened in the same way as ordinary TB contacts. They will be monitored closely to ensure that any further cases are identified early and treated quickly."

A health board spokesman added that the man had been admitted to hospital at the end of January but was unable to give any personal details or provide information about his condition. It is understood that the man arrived at Heathrow last November and when screened for infectious diseases was found to have TB scarring on his lungs.

The condition was not active, however, and the man told doctors he had recently had a six-month course of treatment for TB. After an immigration interview, he was allowed to go to Scotland, where the disease became reactivated.

XDR-TB poses a far greater challenge to doctors than MDR-TB (Multidrug Resistant TB), which is resistant to at least the two main first-line tuberculosis drugs, isoniazid and rifampicin. XDR-TB is a form of MDR-TB that is also resistant to three or more of the six classes of second-line drugs. Doctors can only try to contain the disease with a cocktail of second-line drugs. In some cases, part of the lung can be cut out. This is the first case reported in Britain since the revised definition of XDR-TB was published by the World Health Oorganisation in 2006. Recent findings from a survey of data from 2000-04 found that XDR-TB had been identified in all regions of the world but was most frequent in the former Soviet Union and Asia.

Professor Peter David, the secretary of TB Alert in Britain, said that drugs could contain the disease but not cure it. Treatment takes 12-18 months and is estimated to cost more than 100,000 pounds per patient. [AND the patient has got to comply with his treatment regime]

Source



NYC DA: Immigration Agent Demanded Sex

The charges this guy is facing seem inadequate for the crime. He could be prosecuted for rape. I gather that he himself was originally an immigrant, a "diversity" hire, perhaps

A federal immigration official who was recorded demanding sex from a young Colombian woman in exchange for a green card was arrested on corruption charges, prosecutors said Friday. The woman, who is married to an American citizen, said she gave in to one demand for oral sex because she was afraid, but she also used a mobile phone hidden in her purse to record the December encounter and the conversation that preceded it. Days later she went to a The New York Times to tell her story. She also called the district attorney's office.

"I want sex," he said on the recording, according to the Times. "One or two times. That's all. You get your green card. You won't have to see me anymore." Queens prosecutors said Isaac R. Baichu, an adjudication officer at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Garden City, threatened to hold up the woman's application and even deport her relatives if she didn't acquiesce. Baichu was arrested March 11 after meeting with the woman again, this time with prosecutors listening in.

His attorney did not immediately return phone messages Friday. Baichu faces misdemeanor charges of coercion and sexual misconduct and a felony charge of receiving a reward for official misconduct. A judge released him on a $15,000 bond. Baichu was suspended immediately after his arrest, and his pay will be halted, Citizenship and Immigration spokesman Shawn Saucier said. Baichu was hired three years ago and made about $50,000 annually.

Source





22 March, 2008

Crazy Canada: AIDS no problem

Ottawa needs to tighten up its admission of HIV-carrying immigrants who are a drag on the country's strained medical system, a leading taxpayers' advocate said yesterday. Sun Media revealed yesterday that between 2002 and 2006 federal immigration officials had only refused 126 of 2,567 applicants who'd tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.

A more moral and practical approach would be ensuring foreign aid combats the disease, said John Williamson, national director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. "Canada could show its compassion best by using foreign aid money by delivering medicine overseas," said Williamson. The country's immigration policy, he said, should be to ensure a supply of productive new residents, "not as a back door to our health-care system."

Calgary immigration lawyer Gary Hansen said HIV-positive newcomers are too easily granted entry when others aren't. "I've known of people with cancer who've had to wait for five years after they're cancer-free," he said

Source



Negligent U.S. bureaucracy defeated only by luck

A Kenyan immigrant has achieved victory in his decade-long quest to fix a bureaucratic snafu that almost led to his deportation. This month immigration officials approved Charles K. Nyaga for a green card, a goal that was achieved after a host of legislative efforts by Sen. Saxby Chambliss failed, but a move made by Nyaga's brother more than 10 years ago came to light to save the day. The system doesn't always work, said Nyaga's lawyer, Charles H. Kuck of Atlanta, "but in this case, it did."

Nyaga's saga started on two tracks in 1997. That's the year his brother Kenneth, a U.S. citizen, filed a family member visa application for Nyaga, who came to the United States to attend technical college. That year Nyaga also won a State Department lottery that distributes about 110,000 diversity visa applications among would-be citizens from countries underrepresented on American immigration rolls. Nyaga submitted his application in February 1998, eight months before the deadline. But immigration officials failed to process it-other than sending his fingerprints to the FBI-before it expired at midnight on Sept. 30, 1998, the end of the federal fiscal year.

Immigration officials said they were overworked, but U.S. District Court Judge Orinda D. Evans didn't accept that excuse, ordering the government to complete the process. In 2003, a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to reverse, saying immigration officials didn't have the authority to revive Nyaga's application after it had expired. That case was Nyaga v. Ashcroft, 323 F.3d 906 (2003).

In February 2004, when he was chairman of the Senate immigration subcommittee, Chambliss submitted a bill that would have allowed officials to reconsider some visa applications like Nyaga's that had expired due to government inaction. But a month later Atlanta Immigration Judge William A. Cassidy ordered Nyaga to leave the country within 60 days. The judge stayed the order pending Nyaga's appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which ultimately upheld the order.

Nyaga testified on Capitol Hill in April 2004 when the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration was looking into fraud and abuse in the diversity visa program. But Chambliss' bill failed to get through Congress. Chambliss tried again the following year, attaching his proposal to an emergency Iraq war supplemental appropriations bill. Chambliss also tried a couple of so-called private bills, designed to help only Nyaga, in 2005 and 2007, but they didn't get out of committee.

In an example of the darkest hour coming just before the dawn, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came to arrest Nyaga and his wife last September. Kuck said last week when Nyaga called from ICE custody that day, one of Kuck's associates found buried in Nyaga's case file the receipt from the family visa application filed by Nyaga's brother. "It had become forgotten in the annals of time that this was there," said Kuck. Nyaga said in the back of his mind he had still "vaguely remembered something like that" but it had seemed his case was "almost irredeemable." The line for family visas is years long, said Kuck, but, amazingly, the application was set to reach the front of the line the following month, in October 2007. "We pulled out the file and were looking for some other documents," said Kuck, "and it was right there. It was one of those 'Oh my God' moments."

Nyaga, now 50, said when Kuck told him the news, "It was unbelievable, because it was almost a desperate situation at that time." Kuck said Nyaga was in custody only one day. "We were able to get him released right away with Senator Chambliss' intervention," he said. Lawyers for ICE cooperated in asking Cassidy to reopen Nyaga's case, according to Kuck. The immigration judge terminated removal proceedings in October.

At that point, said Kuck, it was just a matter of time-waiting for the green card interview with U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services that took place March 13. He said that day Nyaga and his wife and children received stamps in their passports saying they are permanent U.S. residents, and they'll get their actual green cards in a few weeks. That means they'll always be able to live and work in the United States, said Kuck, having to go through no more than a standard green card renewal process. And they plan to apply for citizenship in five years when that option is available. "I have rarely seen happier people," said Kuck.

Nyaga, who received a master's degree from Atlanta's Interdenominational Theological Center last year, cites Bible verse Jeremiah 29:11 to describe his story: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Despite his degrees, Nyaga still works at a local hotel and for a cleaning service. The Powder Springs resident said he plans to pursue a doctorate degree rather than taking on his own church right now. His wife works at a Wal-Mart, and his son, 18, and daughter, 21, attend Toccoa Falls College, a Christian school. After 11 years of up-and-down battling with the government, Nyaga sounds jubilant, not bitter. "One thing I've always known is that government does what governments do," he said. "But fortunately this land is a land of laws."

Source





21 March, 2008

'Speak English' Signs OK at Philly Shop



The owner of a famous cheesesteak shop did not discriminate when he posted signs asking customers to speak English, a city panel ruled Wednesday. In a 2-1 vote, a Commission on Human Relations panel found that two signs at Geno's Steaks telling customers, "This is America: WHEN ORDERING 'PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH,'" do not violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance.

Shop owner Joe Vento has said he posted the signs in October 2005 because of concerns over immigration reform and an increasing number of people in the area who could not order in English. Vento has said he never refused service to anyone because they couldn't speak English. But critics argued that the signs discourage customers of certain backgrounds from eating at the shop.

Commissioners Roxanne E. Covington and Burt Siegel voted to dismiss the complaint, finding that the sign does not communicate that business will be "refused, withheld or denied." In a dissenting opinion, Commissioner Joseph J. Centeno said he thought the signs did discourage some customers. "The sign appeared immediately above another sign that had the following words: 'Management Reserves the Right to Refuse Service,'" Centeno wrote.

Geno's and its chief rival across the street, Pat's King of Steaks, are two of the city's best known cheesesteak venues. A growing number of Asian and Latin American immigrants have moved into the traditionally Italian neighborhood in recent years.

Vento had threatened to go to court if he lost. His attorney, Albert G. Weiss, said he was "pleasantly surprised" by Wednesday's decision. "We expected that this was not going to go our way," Weiss said. In February 2007, the commission found probable cause against Geno's for discrimination, alleging that the policy discourages customers of certain backgrounds from eating there. The case went to a public hearing, where an attorney for the commission argued that the sign was about intimidation, not political speech. The matter then went to the three-member panel for a ruling. W. Nick Taliaferro, the commission's executive director, said he would not appeal.

Source

Previous story from 2006 here



EU Rules: Violent criminal cannot be deported from Britain

A foreign criminal who attacked and robbed a pensioner cannot be deported because he is not considered dangerous enough, the Court of Appeal has ruled. The decision has rendered the Government virtually powerless to remove even the most vicious offenders if they come from within the European Union. Ministers wanted to remove the 38-year-old Italian, who lives in Newport, Gwent, at the end of a nine-year jail term imposed for violent robbery

But the Court of Appeal said there were no "imperative grounds of public security" to justify throwing him out. These were the grounds on which the Government failed last year to deport Learco Chindamo, the Italian-born killer of Philip Lawrence, the London head teacher. Under a directive, an EU national living in another member country for 10 years or more cannot be deported except under exceptional circumstances.

The criminal, whose identity was protected by the court, moved to Britain as a teenager and has five convictions. In October 2001 he was jailed for nine years for attacking and robbing a pensioner. A judge called the offence a "brutal, cowardly attack". Last year, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that the robber should be deported on grounds of "imperative" public policy, public security or public health. It said he was a "very dangerous man" who posed a "very high risk indeed" to the public. He was also "unwilling to accept any real responsibility for the injuries to his victim".

However, the appeal judge Lady Justice Arden concluded that the tribunal had made an "error of law" and had not distinguished between "serious" and "imperative" threats to public security. The case will now be sent back to the tribunal, which will have to judge whether the offender posed an "imperative" threat - something -lawyers say applies only to terrorists

Source





20 March, 2008

Reuters pushes the same old baloney

Reuters is a "news" organization that thinks that there is no such thing as terrorism and that Israel is always in the wrong so I guess the baloney below is to be expected. Fortunately, lots of Americans know from their own experience that heavily Hispanic areas of their cities are also high-crime areas. It's mostly because of the youth gangs formed by the children of the illegals (See here) but the end result is the same: Allowing illegals to settle leads to unsafe neighborhoods.

I reproduce the Reuters report in full below. The whole thing is just epidemiological speculation -- claiming that because two things happened at the same time then one caused the other. But a Harvard sociologist cannot of course be expected to know one of the most basic principles of statistics: That correlation is not causation. The claim that crime dropped because more illegals came in is just crazy

Contrary to common beliefs, rising immigration levels do not drive up crime rates, particularly in poor communities, and Mexican-Americans are the least likely to commit crimes, according to a new study. Robert Sampson, a sociologist at Harvard University who studied crime and immigration in 180 neighborhoods in Chicago over seven years, found that first-generation immigrants were 45 percent less likely to commit violent acts than third generation Americans. "Immigrants have lower rates of crime and there is a negative correlation between the trends," Sampson said in an interview.

The study, which is published Contexts, a journal of the American Sociological Association, showed that incentive to work, ambition and a desire not to be deported were common reasons cited for first generation immigrants, especially Mexicans, not to commit crimes.

Sampson also studied data from police records, the U.S Census and surveyed more than 8,000 Chicago residents. The study showed there was significant immigration growth, including illegal aliens-in the mid-1990s, peaking at the end of the decade. But during that time the national homicide rate plunged. [But was it due to illegals being law-abiding? Or was it due to more law-enforcement -- such as more bad guys being locked up for longer? Correlation is not causation] Crime also dropped in immigration hot spots [Dropped from what level? From very high to high?, such as Los Angeles, where it fell 45 percent overall, San Jose, Dallas and Phoenix.

Sampson argues that public perception drives a large part of the debate so its easy for politicians to blame illegal immigration for driving up the crime rate. Although it is difficult to point to any data to substantiate it, not many people question it. "There is a pretty powerful underlying current of belief in society that is pretty resistant, stubborn if you will to the facts," Sampson said.

Source



More Visas, More Jobs

There's no reason for America to keep out brainy people when it lets in so many dummies. It might help restore the average IQ

Bill Gates appeared before Congress again last week to make a simple point to simpler pols: The ridiculously low annual cap on H-1B visas for foreign professionals is undermining the ability of U.S. companies to compete in a global marketplace. Congress's failure to pass high-skill immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation," said the Microsoft chairman. "The current base cap of 65,000 H-1B visas is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the U.S. economy's demand for skilled workers."

The Labor Department projects that by 2014 there will be more than two million job openings in science, technology, engineering and math fields. But the number of Americans graduating with degrees in those disciplines is falling. Meanwhile, visa quotas make it increasingly difficult for U.S. companies to hire foreign-born graduates of our own universities. Last year, as in prior years, the supply of H-1B visas was exhausted on the first day petitions could be filed.

"Today, knowledge and expertise are the essential raw materials that companies and countries need in order to be competitive," said Mr. Gates. "We live in an economy that depends on the ability of innovative companies to attract and retain the very best talent, regardless of nationality or citizenship."

Lest you think Microsoft and other companies are making this stuff up, we direct you to two recent studies published by the National Foundation for American Policy. The first, entitled "Talent Search," found that major U.S. technology companies average more than 470 job openings for skilled positions, while defense companies average more than 1,200 such openings. In all, more than 140,000 skilled job openings are available today in the S&P 500 companies.

The second study, "H-1B Visas and Job Creation," reports the results of a regression analysis of H-1B filings and employment at U.S. tech companies. The objective was to determine if hiring foreign nationals harms the job prospects of Americans -- a common claim of protectionists. In fact, the study found a positive association between H-1B visa requests and the percentage change in total employment.

Among S&P 500 firms, "the data show that for every H-1B position requested, U.S. technology companies increased employment by 5 workers," according to the study. And "for technology firms with fewer than 5,000 employees, each H-1B position requested in labor condition applications was associated with an increase of employment of 7.5 workers." Far from stealing jobs from Americans, skilled immigrants expand the economic pie.

Mr. Gates said his software company exemplifies this phenomenon. "Microsoft has found that for every H-1B hire we make, we add on average four additional employees to support them in various capacities," he told lawmakers. "If we increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to U.S. companies, employment of U.S. nationals would likely grow as well."

The preponderance of evidence continues to show that businesses are having difficulty filling skilled positions in the U.S. By blocking their access to foreign talent, Congress isn't protecting U.S. jobs but is providing incentives to outsource. If lawmakers can't bring themselves to eliminate the H-1B visa cap, they might at least raise it to a level that doesn't handicap U.S. companies.

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19 March, 2008

U.S. boosts deportation of illegals

But how many stay deported? Not many of the Mexicans. Some of them have been deported 7 times. To quote an old song: "Dere'a hole in da bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza". And you know the rest

Illegals awaited prosecution last month in the Val Verde Correctional Facility in Del Rio, Texas. Law enforcement has implemented Operation Streamline in select regions along the U.S.-Mexico border, removing 280,523 persons in 2007, but the program needs funding, detention space and manpower. The Department of Homeland Security, continuing to enforce what it calls a "strict policy of arresting, prosecuting and jailing" illegal immigrants, deported a record number of those caught on the nation's borders last year - more than 280,000 in fiscal year 2007 compared with 186,000 a year earlier. It was the largest number of illegals ever removed from the country in a single year.

The increase is attributable to what veteran law-enforcement authorities said is a revised apprehension process, adding that the department no longer is targeting only criminal illegals for removal, but seeks eventually to apprehend, charge and deport all those who cross illegally into the United States. To that end, Homeland Security has initiated "Operation Streamline" along some sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border, which brings illegal immigrants into the U.S. criminal justice system, where they are prosecuted either for a misdemeanor on their first offense or a felony if they have been caught before. "Under this program, individuals who are caught at certain designated high-traffic, high-risk zones are prosecuted and, if convicted, are jailed," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at a recent press briefing.

Mr. Chertoff noted that between October and December, the Justice Department prosecuted 1,200 cases under the new program and, as a consequence, apprehension rates dropped nearly 70 percent in those areas. "When people who cross the border illegally are brought to face the reality that they are committing a crime, even if it is just a misdemeanor, that has a huge impact on their willingness to try again and on the willingness of others to break the law coming across the border," he said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs said the agency's Office of Detention and Removal Operations deported to 195 countries a total of 280,523 illegal immigrants during fiscal 2007 - which ended Sept. 30.

More here



Evil British bureaucracy again

The wife of a soldier faces deportation as her husband prepares to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. Canadian-born Samantha Crozier, 23, has been given notice by the Home Office to leave the country by April 30, when her temporary visa expires after her application for British citizenship was refused. Mrs Crozier, who has a British mother, Antoinette, claims their children, Ethan, two, and Celeb, one, will have to be put into care while her husband, Lance Corporal Andrew Crozier, is sent on a tour of duty after he completes training. Mrs Crozier says she has spoken to 15 other Army wives facing deportation.

Mrs Crozier moved to England with her husband, also 23, in October last year. She said MoD officials failed to tell her of the complicated procedure to become a British citizen. Ethan and Celeb, who were born while her husband was posted to Osnabruck, Germany, were awarded full British citizenship and Mrs Crozier applied for a Status Stamp at the British embassy in Dusseldorf. The stamp allowed her to stay in Germany at the UK base for five years. She was stopped at Newcastle ferry port by Customs and Excise and advised to apply for citizenship. She said she was told that because she her husband was born in Northumberland her application would be successful.

However, Mrs Crozier received a letter last month, the day after her birthday, from the Home Office rejecting her application. It read: "You have applied for leave to remain in the United Kingdom on the basis of your marriage to Andrew Douglas Crozier. "However, the immigration rules direct that a person seeking such leave is to be refused if they do not meet the requirements set out in the immigration rules. "This includes that the applicant has limited leave to remain in the United Kingdom other than where that leave is of six months duration or less. On 30 October 2007 you were granted limited leave to enter as a visitor for a period of six months from 30 October 2007 until 30 April 2008 therefore you do not meet the requirements. "You are not entitled to appeal this decision."

Mrs Crozier, living in Bordon, near Petersfield, Hants, said: "We rang the MoD to tell them we were coming over and they gave us no advice other then to tell us to have a nice journey. "I think it is disgraceful. I came here to start a new life with my husband and my two wonderful little boys. My husband is very patriotic and would gladly fight for his country but it seems his country won't fight for him."

A Home Office spokesman said: "Overseas nationals wishing to come to the UK on the basis of marriage should apply for entry clearance from abroad. They will be given leave to enter the UK for two years, after which they can apply for settlement."

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18 March, 2008

Idaho Panel Rejects Immigration Bill

For the second time this year, Idaho lawmakers have killed a proposal that would have cracked down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. The Senate State Affairs Committee rejected a bill Monday similar to one that died in the House State Affairs Committee earlier this month. The proposal would have required employers to verify workers' immigration status. Companies who failed to comply could have had their business licenses suspended or revoked. The measure was modeled on an Arizona law that has caused scores of immigrants to flee to other states or back to their homelands.

Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden, told the committee that he didn't expect his bill to pass the Legislature. He said he introduced it as a way to start negotiations with employers to create a guest worker program. "I think it's sad commentary that the state's not even willing to look at this," Jorgenson told The Associated Press on Monday. "It's abundantly clear that there are interests in Idaho that don't have the drive to put these checks and balances in place."

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Temporary work permits for immigrants heavily sought in Australia

Computing professionals led the list of top 15 occupations for primary 457 visa grants in 2006-07, the Immigration Department said. Britain contributed the most workers in the past six months, followed by India

As the new temporary foreign workers change the face of Australia's workplaces, business groups last week called for an immediate boost to skills training positions and unions expressed concern that increasing reliance on developing-country workers risked lowering general wages.

Immigration Department figures obtained by The Weekend Australian provide a snapshot of temporary foreign workers brought into the country on skilled migrant visas, which allow the employees to stay for up to four years. The figures show the breadth of the skills crisis runs across the economy, as industries ranging from the healthcare sector to communications, mining and manufacturing import skilled workers to fill vacancies.

Workers from India, China and The Philippines are flooding into Australia's hospitals, factories and construction sites as employers increasingly look to developing countries to combat chronic skills shortages. In 2006-07, 46,680 temporary permits, known as 457 visas, were issued to foreign skilled workers. Health and community services accounted for 16 per cent of all 457 visas issued, communication services 10 per cent, property and business services 10 per cent, manufacturing 9 per cent and construction 9 per cent. Professionals exceed the number of other 457 classes, making up seven of the top 10 skills categories.

But as employers search for workers, Australia is increasingly turning to developing countries to fill its vacancies. Britain contributed the most workers in the past six months (6130), followed by India (3670), The Philippines (1870), China (1850) and the US (1570). British workers were most likely to work as doctors and nurses or in the property and business service sector. Americans were concentrated in communications.

But the use of Chinese workers grew rapidly, particularly in manufacturing. Indian workers were concentrated in communications and health, while workers from The Philippines were imported for building sites and manufacturing.

The rate at which the visas are issued continues to grow. While 46,680 visas were issued in the 12 months to June 30 last year, 25,750 were issued in the six months to the end of December - a 10 per cent increase on current trends. While the resource-rich states of Western Australia and Queensland have been driving the so-called "two-speed" economy, the slower growth states of NSW and Victoria took the greatest numbers of 457 visa holders.

The chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, Heather Ridout, said the 457 program had grown quickly and business had become "dependent on it". "But the economy is also very dependent on it and we're going to be very dependent on it if we want to keep the economy growing," she said.

The director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, Bob Birrell, said the most striking trend was the high take-up rate among citizens from the developing world. "In the six months since the end of the financial year, China has overtaken the US. That's a pretty good indication of where the program is going," he said. "Five or six years ago, that was not the case."

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17 March, 2008

More on immigrant crime

The writer below makes several good points. One is the great dishonesty of Leftist propaganda about immigrant crime. The Leftists in their statistics lump together both legal and illegal immigrants -- which are two very different populations. So the Leftist figures tell us nothing about the population of interest: illegals.

Probably wisely, he also fails to note that the level of native-born criminality is hugely inflated by the presence of blacks. Does anybody want to use blacks as an example of a law-abiding population? Obviously not. So the informative comparison would be with whites only. Leftists would shriek "racism" at that but screeching does not alter the facts.

Another point he may simply be unaware of is that the biggest problem with crime from illegals is not what they do themselves but what their children do. Illegals are usually too busy working to commit crimes but that is not true of their children. The children of illegals are much more likely than their parents to get involved in crime. Mexican-origin kids are EIGHT TIMES more likely than their parents to get locked up

Do illegal immigrants commit more than their share of crimes? According to a recent study that's been in the news, the answer is no. But if you look at crime statistics in Orange County, the answer can just as easily be yes.

For the sake of argument, let's dispense with the fact that every illegal immigrant in this country is, by definition, violating the law. Let's also set aside the fact that millions of illegal immigrants use fraudulent Social Security numbers to get work, which is also a crime. Instead, let's concentrate on crimes committed by U.S. citizens or legal residents and illegal immigrants alike - everything from murder to DUI to shoplifting.

The study mentioned above was published by the liberal Public Policy Institute of California. One of its seemingly startling conclusions is that U.S.-born men are statistically more than twice as likely to be incarcerated in prison as "foreign-born men" are - thus "proving" that immigrants are actually more law-abiding than non-immigrant U.S. citizens.

And that may be true when you're talking about "immigrants" in general, a vast population that includes everyone from World War II British war brides to Chinese-born math professors to illegal immigrant farm workers.

But the problem with the study - a problem that's common among pro-illegal immigration activists - is that it made no distinction between legal "foreign-born" residents and illegal immigrants. No one I know has ever suggested rounding up legal foreign-born citizens and residents and deporting them. The issue is people who are in this country illegally. So how do illegal immigrants - again, emphasis on "illegal" - stack up on crime? Let's look at some numbers in Orange County.

For more than a year the Orange County Sheriff's Department has had specially-trained deputies screening county jail inmates for immigration status. Arrestees who are determined to be in this country illegally are detained and turned over to federal immigration authorities after their criminal cases are resolved.

Out of about 68,000 arrestees who were screened between Jan. 2007 and January of this year, 4,683 were found to be illegal immigrants, or about 7 percent of all screened arrestees. (About 3,000 of them had been arrested for non-immigration-related felonies, the rest for non-immigration misdemeanors.)

That 7 percent figure would seem to be in line with the overall population of illegal immigrants in the county. Of course, that population is hard to document - pardon the pun - but a 2007 report by the Urban Institute put the number of illegal immigrants in Orange County at about 220,000, or about 7 percent of the county population. In other words, 7 percent of the population accounted for 7 percent of the people booked into the county jail system - which would mean that illegal immigrants are statistically no more or less likely to wind up in our county jail than citizens or legal residents.

But wait! Of the 4,683 illegal immigrants found in the jail, only a statistically insignificant 169 of them were women. So if you subtract the women from the illegal immigrant population, and you also subtract the estimated 16 percent who are children, it means that - hold on, let me consult my calculator here - it means that male illegal immigrants are arrested for crimes at a rate more than twice their percentage of the overall population.

So if we're concerned about crimes committed by illegal immigrants, the answer is obvious: Keep the women and deport the men. Now, I'm being somewhat facetious here. The truth is that anyone can massage crime and immigration statistics to arrive at any desired conclusion.

But the question is, so what? What difference does it really make if illegal immigrants commit less or more of their "fair share" of street crimes? They're still breaking the law, and they're still creating an impoverished and widely abused and exploited underclass - and somehow that has to be resolved.

Meanwhile, the fact remains that because of stricter immigration enforcement, thousands of accused felons in the Orange County jail - not to mention more than 19,000 convicted non-citizen felons currently serving time in California state prisons - either have been deported or are facing deportation when the criminal legal system is done with them. And would anybody argue that this country isn't better off without them?

So be wary of researchers and advocates - and to be fair, newspaper writers - who toss statistics around to obscure the real issues. Because the old saying is true. Sometimes figures lie. And liars can certainly figure.

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U.S. tries to shut revolving door of illegal reentry

The effort includes combing California prisons and jails for illegal immigrants who have previously been deported.

Federal authorities are cracking down on immigrants who were previously deported and then reentered the country illegally -- a crime that now makes up more than one-third of all prosecutions in Los Angeles and surrounding counties, a Times review of U.S. attorney's statistics shows. The surge in prosecutions reflects the federal government's push in recent years to detect illegal immigrants with criminal records in what may seem the most obvious of places: the state's jails and prisons.

Immigration authorities have long combed inmate populations for illegal immigrants, but additional money and cooperation with local law enforcement have fueled an increase in such cases by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. The illegal reentry charge is the single most prosecuted crime in the office. Prosecutors filed 539 such cases in fiscal year 2007, making up 35% of the caseload, compared with 207 in 2006 -- 17% of all cases. Statistics for the first four months of this fiscal year show the trend continuing.

Federal authorities touted the recent effort, saying the prosecutions serve as a deterrent for those who see the border as a turnstile. They said they were targeting violent gang members, career criminals and drug dealers who have returned to the country after being deported -- many of them repeatedly. "They are some of the worst of the worst," said Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington. "They are people that citizens of any community would want off the streets."

"I just wish that were true," said Jerry Salseda, a deputy federal public defender who has represented scores of illegal immigrants charged with reentering the country after having been deported. He and other critics say people who committed minor crimes years ago have been caught up in the wave of prosecutions.

Bruce J. Einhorn, a former immigration court judge, said the U.S. attorney's office should spend more resources going after smugglers rather than illegal crossers. "That would do more to stop dangerous illegal immigration than by prosecuting a few more undocumented people who have reentered illegally," he said. Einhorn also questioned the efficacy of the prosecutions, because people's motivations to return -- reuniting with small children and escaping poverty -- often outweigh time behind bars.

In years past, many of those now being prosecuted for illegal reentry would have simply been deported. Now they are being sent to prison first. Sentences can be as long as 20 years, but most defendants receive three to five years, prosecutors said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Los Angeles are largely responsible for the recent spike in prosecutions. In 2006, they created a nine-person team to scrutinize inmate populations for potential prosecution. ICE officials also placed an officer in the U.S. attorney's office to serve as a liaison with immigration officials on these cases. In addition, ICE agents look for possible defendants -- primarily gang members -- in communities around Southern California.

Prosecutions are likely to continue increasing nationwide as ICE expands its work in jails. Congress recently appropriated $200 million for the agency, which Myers said would be used to develop technology and to work with local and state officials to identify more illegal immigrants behind bars.

The effort in Los Angeles was recently cited by U.S. Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey, who said Justice Department officials were reviewing it "with an eye toward expanding it to the Southwest border districts" and elsewhere.

Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, said the cases make up a large percentage of the overall number prosecuted by the office, but they do not represent an undue drain on resources or hinder other types of prosecutions. That's because the reentry cases are easy to prove, he said, rarely go to trial and don't require much time. To win a conviction, prosecutors need to prove three things: that the defendant is in the United States, that he or she is not legally permitted to be here and that the person had been formally deported in the past.

A side benefit of such easy-to-prove cases is that they can be made when there isn't enough evidence to convict illegal immigrants on other charges, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates tighter enforcement of immigration laws. It's the same idea as when "you send Al Capone to jail for not paying his taxes," he said.

Curtis Kin, chief of the Domestic Security and Immigration Crimes Section of the U.S. attorney's office, which was created in 2006 in part to prosecute illegal reentry cases, chafed at the notion that most defendants are sympathetic. "The people we go after are demonstrated threats," he said. "The No. 1 reason to do this is to protect the community."

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16 March, 2008

New Zealand immigration bureaucracy pretty poisonous too

You can understand them getting things wrong but why do they have to stick to their guns until the bitter end? Why can't they look again when challenged? But bureaucracies often do refuse to consider that they may have got it wrong. They are so in love with their own wisdom and power

The Department of Labour has been ordered to pay $66,000 in costs to a Chinese immigrant after a judge ruled it had a blinkered approach in deciding her application. Xiufang Xi applied under the business investor category, but immigration officers told her they were not convinced the $1 million she had to transfer into a New Zealand bank as part of her application was from her own account in China.

Justice Simon France upheld her appeal against the Residence Review Board having declined her challenge to the Immigration Service decision. He said the plaintiff satisfied the immigration criteria and the department's failure to reach the same conclusion was due to a blinkered approach

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The Canadian version of a crackdown

The federal government has proposed sweeping changes to Canada's immigration policies that would give it greater selection powers to limit the number of new applicants. The proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which the government says are aimed at reducing backlogs of immigration applications, are embedded in a 136-page budget-implementation bill tabled Friday in the House of Commons. The budget-implementation bill is a confidence motion. More than 800,000 prospective immigrants are on waiting lists. The changes would:

* Give the immigration minister the authority to instruct immigration officers to set limits on what types of immigrants - "by category or otherwise" - can have their applications processed each year.

* Require an otherwise ineligible person who wants to immigrate on humanitarian grounds to already be in Canada for their application to be processed.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley said the government was acting to clear up the backlog left by the previous Liberal government, which she said had allowed the list to grow more than 15-fold since 1993. The legislation merely gives the government power to set priorities and speed things up for the skilled workers this country needs, she said, and added that any future policy changes will be transparent and announced in Parliament. "My priority right now is to get the legislation through first," Finley said in an interview with the Canadian Press on Friday.

Finley said it takes three to six years for someone to even get an application looked at - let alone processed. But she declined to speculate about which immigration categories could be banished to the lower rungs of the priority list.

Opposition parties immediately accused the Tories of trying to shut the door on immigration at a time when Canada's labour force needs a boost in numbers. Liberal MP David McGuinty said the government was reverting to failed closed-door policies similar to "short-sighted and misguided" measures introduced and then promptly abandoned by former Tory prime minister John Diefenbaker in 1959. "Why does the minister insist on closing Canada's doors to the newcomers we desperately need to fuel our labour and our population growth, even though history shows this is absolutely the wrong approach?" McGuinty asked in the House Friday.

NDP MP Olivia Chow said Canada needs to increase the target number of immigrants into the country to one per cent of the population - or 330,000 people - in order to renew the country's workforce and drive its economy. "Instead of allowing families into Canada, the Conservative government seems intent only to bring in massive numbers of temporary foreign workers who are vulnerable to mistreatment and abuse," added Chow, who is her party's immigration critic.

The proposals were tabled on the same day as the federal government announced that more than 400,000 newcomers came to Canada last year, setting a record for the number of temporary and permanent residents allowed into the country. Citizenship and Immigration Canada said that - according to preliminary data - in 2007 Canada admitted 429,649 permanent residents, temporary foreign workers and foreign students. The department said this number represents an increase of 60,000 from four years ago. Of the 2007 total, 251,000 permanent resident visas were issued, the department said.

But opposition members have dismissed the figures as being artificially inflated by the number of temporary residents, which includes students and seasonal workers. They also noted that more permanent residents - 262,000 - came in 2005.

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15 March, 2008

Canada: Fixing the Liberals' immigration mess

There are credible arguments that Canada needs a great deal more immigration than it allows now in order to secure its future prosperity. And there are credible arguments that Canada could do with a lot less. An honest person can defend either position. But here's one that can't be defended: that Canada should accept far more immigration applications than it ever intends to process. For two decades or more, the backlog of immigration paperwork has been growing, and waiting times for acceptance lengthening, without any serious attempt to shrink the gap. The Conservative government now finally intends to do something about it, while continuing to keep overall immigration at or above current levels. And the Liberals, who are mostly responsible for creating the problem, are not happy.

Family-class immigration may be the closest thing to a core principle that the Liberal Party of Canada possesses. It is universally acknowledged that the long chains of humanity that the family reunification regulations pull into Canada, free from official-language requirements and completely outside the points system imposed on economic-class immigrants, are a key to guaranteeing both the continued growth of the party's voter base and the loyalty of existing supporters who hope to transplant networks. The Liberals fear that any cap on applications will end up being applied more firmly to the family class, since the Conservatives are openly seeking to make immigration conform better to the labour market needs of Canada. It is hard to blame them, given their interests, for being afraid -- assuming their interests don't include what is actually best for the country.

That includes recent immigrants and low-skill Canadian workers, who face the toughest wage pressures from continuing mass immigration. In recent years it has become clear that the Liberal bargain with new Canadians has had a diabolical quality: they are let in the door, and no one warns them about the millions who will storm through it behind them, competing for the same work. In 1980, according to census figures, Canadian immigrants who had been in the country for 10 years enjoyed full wage parity with the Canadian-born. The same measurement in 1990 showed that they were earning 90% as much as natives. In the year 2000 it was 80%.

The math is easy to do, it's fixing the problem that requires some mettle. The Conservatives have pumped large amounts of money into helping immigrants use their professional and technical credentials here, recruiting foreign graduates of Canadian post-secondary schools, and building a better infrastructure for official-language education.

But what we get from the Liberals are the same platitudes we have been hearing for generations: complaints of veiled racism, and phony appeals to the mass immigration of a bygone age when unskilled labourers could homestead unbroken land or make a living supplying muscle power to technologically backward industries.

Liberal immigration critic Maurizio Bevilacqua had the chutzpah to say yesterday that "family reunification attracts many skilled workers to come here." The skilled workers we need are, practically by definition, in the economic category -- and their wives and children are officially counted in it, too. Mr. Bevilacqua presumably means to say that some of the best and brightest are attracted to Canada because of the chance that family reunification offers them to bring their parents, grandparents and dependent relatives here in the future.

If so -- and it is probably true -- then those newcomers might not offer such a good deal to a generous welfare state that will allow their older family members full eligibility for Canadian social benefits, old-age support and health care without contributing a lifetime of taxes to the treasury. And there is evidence that the sponsorship arrangements under which family-class immigrants come to Canada often fail, leaving provincial treasuries on the hook for heavy social service obligations. Maybe the Conservatives do intend to discriminate in favour of the immigrants more interested in founding new Canadian families than airlifting their existing ones here. And maybe it's about time

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Self deportation working in DC suburb

Months after Prince William County began one of the country's toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants, officials and residents report signs that substantial numbers of people have left the county, particularly from Hispanic neighborhoods.

Dave Whitlow, town manager of Dumfries, said officials started noticing the change a few months ago when they canvassed communities popular among Hispanic families and found roughly 165 residences vacant among 1,600 houses and town houses. Shopkeepers and teachers of English as a second language also have noticed a drop-off. "We are having many more leaving," said Mr. Whitlow, who could not estimate what percentage of those leaving were in the United States illegally. "It's been just in the past few months."

In July, the Board of County Supervisors unanimously agreed to have the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) train six police officers and one resident for a Criminal Alien Unit.

The detail began enforcement March 1 and is assisting officers who find probable cause that a suspect in a crime is in the country illegally. Before then, officers were not authorized to make arrests for illegal immigrationIllegal-Immigration-Ruling Dec-07 .

Board Chairman Corey A. Stewart said this week he was not surprised about signs that illegal immigrants were leaving. "There's no question the police have had the effect," said Mr. Stewart, a Republican who is planning to run for lieutenant governor.

This is another demonstration of the effect of self deportation and the wrong headedness of people like Barack ObamaClinton-and-Obama-Economic-Plans Mar-08 who claim that people who support tough immigration enforcement want to round up everyone and deport them. If we enforce the laws they will do it themselves saving them and the government money. Obama is using a straw man argument to support a position that would encourage more illegal conduct. He would be offering incentives for people to come here while ignoring the path to citizenship that already exist in the law.

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14 March, 2008

The disgraceful ICE bureaucracy again

Pennypinching costs a man's life. An SCC is perfectly treatable if treated early

In a stinging ruling, a Los Angeles federal judge said immigration officials' alleged decision to withhold a critical medical test and other treatment from a detainee who later died of cancer was "beyond cruel and unusual" punishment. The decision from U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson allows the family of Francisco Castaneda to seek financial damages from the government.

Castaneda, who suffered from penile cancer, died Feb. 16. Before his release from custody last year, the government had refused for 11 months to authorize a biopsy for a growing lesion, even though voluminous government records showed that several doctors said the test was urgently needed, given Castaneda's condition and a family history of cancer, Pregerson said.

But rather than test and treat Castaneda, government officials told him to be patient and prescribed antihistamines, ibuprofen and extra boxer shorts, the judge wrote in a decision released late Tuesday. In summary, the judge wrote, the care provided to Castaneda "can be characterized by one word: nothing."

Pregerson blasted public health officials' "attempt to sidestep responsibility for what appears to be . . . one of the most, if not the most, egregious" violations of the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment that "the court has ever encountered."

At this stage of the proceedings, "the only question is whether" the plaintiffs' allegations, if true, show that government officials "were deliberately indifferent to his condition. The court finds that they do," Pregerson said. "Everyone knows that cancer is often deadly. Everyone knows that early diagnosis and treatment often saves lives," the judge wrote. The government's own records, he emphasized, "bespeak of conduct that transcends negligence by miles. It bespeaks of conduct that, if true, should be taught to every law student as conduct for which the moniker 'cruel' is inadequate," Pregerson concluded in permitting the case to move forward.

Conal Doyle, an Oakland attorney who is co-counsel for Castaneda's family members, said the Salvadoran immigrant spent eight months in custody on a charge of possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell, then was transferred to immigration custody because he did not have legal residency. He first informed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement medical staff at the San Diego Correctional Facility on March 27, 2006, that "a lesion on his penis was becoming painful and growing," the judge wrote. The next day, a physician assistant at the facility examined Castaneda and issued a treatment plan calling for a consultation with a urologist "ASAP" and a request for a biopsy, according to government records cited by the judge.

Over the next 11 months, several doctors, with increasing urgency, made the same recommendations. For example, after conducting an examination June 7, 2006, Dr. John Wilkinson, an oncologist, wrote a report saying he strongly agreed that Castaneda had an urgent need for a biopsy and an assessment by a urologist because he might have "penile cancer. . . . In this extremely delicate area . . . there can be considerable morbidity from even benign lesions which are not promptly treated."

That same day, Pregerson said, Dr. Esther Hui of the Division of Immigration Health Services acknowledged Castaneda's condition but said the government would not admit him to a hospital because her agency considered a biopsy "an elective outpatient procedure."

Pregerson, who became a federal judge in 1996, said evidence presented by the plaintiffs suggested that Hui, one of the defendants, characterized the surgery as elective so the federal government would not to have to provide or pay for it.

In February 2007, after the American Civil Liberties Union intervened, a biopsy was finally scheduled. A few days before the procedure, however, Castaneda was abruptly released, the judge wrote. He went to the emergency room of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and was diagnosed with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma. His penis was eventually amputated, and chemotherapy ultimately proved unsuccessful.

Four months before he died, Castaneda testified at a hearing held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, as his teenage daughter listened. "Mr. Castaneda's case was just outrageous," Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), chairwoman of the subcommittee, said in an interview Tuesday. Lofgren said one of the things she found most troubling was that "bureaucrats" at Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington have the power to overrule recommendations of doctors who have actually seen the medical problems of detainees. "That is a recipe for disaster," she said.

Doyle said Castaneda's death "would have been prevented by the exercise of basic human decency."

Source



Britain wants Indian cooks to have academic qualifications

More bureaucratic rigidity. It just encourages illegality

The curry industry will die if action is not taken to address tough new immigration laws, restaurant bosses have warned the Scottish Parliament. They claim food quality will deteriorate and up to half of the Indian restaurants currently in business could shut. The comments came as 100 restaurateurs staged a protest at Holyrood over the changes to immigration rules. They claim a shortage of kitchen staff has been created as a result.

Restaurant owners said legislation which came in at the end of February makes it harder for them to bring in staff from outside the European Union. Foysol Choudhury, general secretary of the Bangladesh Samity Association in Edinburgh, criticised new rules requiring immigrants to speak English and have an academic qualification. "Our chefs don't need to speak English. Their curry talks," he said. [And most Brits like what they hear!]

"Whoever comes into my restaurant for a job will have to start as a kitchen porter and then he will have to climb the ladder. "A kitchen porter gets a minimum wage. Somebody with academic qualifications is not going to accept that. "The Indian restaurant industry contributes 3.2 billion pounds to the British economy. What is the British Government doing to save this industry?"

Asked about the consequences if action was not taken to tackle the issue, he said: "Half of the restaurants will close and we'll lose the food quality. "Eventually this industry will die." Edinburgh entrepreneur Tommy Miah, who is involved in the International Indian Chef of the Year Competition, added: "We're going to suffer big time. You guys won't be able to have chicken tikka masala anymore. "I've been offered a couple of other restaurants to take but I've said I can't do it because I'm struggling with one restaurant."

Immigration laws are reserved to Westminster, but Thursday's protest was about urging MSPs to lobby politicians in London on the issue. First Minister Alex Salmond, a well-known curry fan, said the issue was "really serious". Speaking as he met demonstrators, he said he would continue to draw the UK Government's attention to the matter. He said: "If people can't get the skilled staff then they can't operate their restaurants, and if they can't operate their restaurants then that's damaging for the economy and the social life of Scotland. It's something we feel very strongly about. "Ideally, the new system shouldn't have discriminated and prevented people coming in with key skills."

Source





13 March, 2008

Tight US immigration forces outsourcing: Bill Gates

A country that allows in millions of low-skilled Mexicans but keeps out all but a few people with top skills is obviously run by morons

US high-tech firms are forced to outsource jobs overseas because of immigration restrictions, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday as Congress debated a visa program for skilled workers.

Gates, echoing a longstanding complaint from the technology sector, told a congressional panel that the US immigration system "makes attracting and retaining high-skilled immigrants exceptionally challenging for US firms." "Congress's failure to pass high-skilled immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation," Gates said in remarks prepared for delivery to a hearing of the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee. "As a result, many US firms, including Microsoft, have been forced to locate staff in countries that welcome skilled foreign workers to do work that could otherwise have been done in the United States, if it were not for our counterproductive immigration policies."

Gates said the limits on so-called H-1B visas aimed at highly skilled professionals are far too low for the rapidly growing tech sector. He said the current cap of 65,000 H-1B visas "is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the US economy's demand for skilled professionals." The Microsoft founder noted that all the 65,000 visas for the current fiscal year were snapped up in one day last April and that employers are now waiting to apply for visas for fiscal 2009, starting in October. "Last year, for example, Microsoft was unable to obtain H-1B visas for one-third of the highly qualified foreign-born job candidates that we wanted to hire," Gates said. "If we increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to US companies, employment of US nationals would likely grow as well. For instance, Microsoft has found that for every H-1B hire we make, we add on average four additional employees to support them in various capacities."

Launched in 1990, the H-1B visa program allows foreign scientists, engineers and technologists to be employed for up to six years, at the end of which they must obtain a permanent residency or return home. A large number come from Asia, especially India. Although the tech industry has long pressed to ease visa limits, some labor advocates and other analysts argue the program depresses wages for the sector and that the worker shortage may be exaggerated. Gates argued that the US economy benefits from these skilled immigrants. He cited a study that found that one quarter of all start-up US engineering and technology firms created between 1995 and 2005 had at least one foreign-born founder.

"The United States will find it far more difficult to maintain its competitive edge over the next 50 years if it excludes those who are able and willing to help us compete," Gates said. "Other nations are benefiting from our misguided policies. They are revising their immigration policies to attract highly talented students and professionals who would otherwise study, live, and work in the United States for at least part of their careers."

Earlier this week, Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa said the H-1B program was riddled with abuses and fraud and that he would vote for an increase only if it were accompanied by better enforcement. "The fact is most H-1B visas are going to foreign based companies," Grassley said in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security. "Businesses that need highly skilled workers are getting the short end of the stick. Americans are seeing ruthless tactics by some companies to bring in foreign workers, pay them less, and increase their bottom line." Grassley added, "Despite continued fraud and abuse in the H-1B program, I have yet to see one thing from the administration to address the problem."

Source



EU SCARE STORY: GLOBAL WARMING WILL LEAD TO MORE IMMIGRATION

A scary European Union report is doing the rounds here in Brussels. The seven page summary of all the main alarmist climate change scenarios is well timed. There is something for everyone: the spectre of new conflicts with Russia over energy resources, a world plunged into eco-conflicts, rising sea levels and shrinking European territory, and more. It is all very frightening stuff, albeit of the "what if" variety. It is an unhealthy dose of what Tony Gilland has dubbed "Climate Porn".

There is even a bone for the British press. To bring onside newspapers and politicians not known for their love of Brussels, or green policies, the EU is playing the fear of immigration card. Read on:

"There will be millions of 'environmental' migrants by 2020, with climate change as one of the major drivers of this phenomenon. Such migration may increase conflicts in transit and destination areas. Europe must expect substantially increased migratory pressure. Climate change is also likely to exacerbate internal climate migration (within Europe, my note) with significant security consequences."

The report concludes with a predictable wish list of demands for new EU powers and policies. Panicky hyperbole and politics of fear you can be sure but the timing is cute. Gordon Brown and other EU heads of state and government gather here in Brussels this Thursday for a climate change summit. With much pomp and hot air they will agree the detail of CO2 reduction targets, agreed at the headline level last year.

Many of the proposals, particularly the 20 per cent target for renewable energy and a 10 per cent objective for biofuels, as Richard North has shown, are expensive and irrational. Ceilings on CO2 emissions, carbon must be cut 20 per cent by 2020 too, are painful for industry at a time when it is feeling the squeeze.

We the people, punters, voters and consumers will feel the heat too. Against a background of rising prices, people can expect to pay more for our energy bills and the cost of high carbon living. As well as being hit in the wallet, the targets will usher in a dreary miserablist decade as we are all hectored and lectured into switching off lights and recycling our rubbish.

I have not got the space (even here) to open the debate on climate change or migration (another time). That the EU is seeking to raise the spectre of mass immigration in a tactic to scare us into meek acceptance of its policies is bad enough on its own terms. It is certainly mean-spirited and unpleasant but its significance is deeper than that.

Not so long ago, politics was mainly (but not always) about appealing to our reason at the ballot box as the basis of government. Today wobbly and out of touch as never before, our leaders rely more and more on bureaucratic governance, as evidenced by the rise and rise of the EU. Instead of convincing or inspiring us, they seek our passive acceptance of policies by conjuring up nightmares.

The same politicians and officials who sneer at the capacity of the people to make decisions, via referendums, on the EU are here engaged in an attempt to manipulate voters on the assumption we have the critical faculties of easily frightened children. Don't play their game.

Source





12 March, 2008

Congressional GOP Moves to Force Immigration Vote

House Republicans are trying to force action on a Democratic-written immigration enforcement measure, the latest GOP attempt to elevate the volatile issue into an election-year wedge. Republican leaders hope that by pushing the bill - endorsed by 48 centrist Democrats and 94 Republicans - they can drive Democrats into a politically painful choice: Backing a tough immigration measure that could alienate their base, including Hispanic voters, or being painted as soft on border security in conservative-leaning districts.

The plan is fraught with political risks for both parties. A full-blown immigration debate could call attention to Republicans' divisions at a time when their expected presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, is fighting to gain the trust of the GOP base. McCain, R-Ariz., played a prominent role in failed legislative efforts to grant some of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already here a path to legal status, which conservatives deride as "amnesty." He now says he would consider such a plan only after the borders have been fortified.

House Republicans are eyeing a bill by Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., that would do just that, as well as mandate that employers verify that their workers are in the U.S. legally. Leaders are expected as early as Tuesday to use a parliamentary tactic that would eventually force a vote on the measure if 218 lawmakers - a majority of the House - demand it. Republicans are pressuring Democratic backers of the measure - including several first-termers and dozens from swing districts, all facing tough re-election fights - to defy their leaders and sign the petition. "Lots of Republicans and lots of Democrats would like to see something done," Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the No. 2 whip, said Friday.

The move would be a rebuke to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who opposes the Shuler bill unless it's paired with measures to allow undocumented workers a chance at legal status and allow legal immigrants to bring more family members to the United States. Democratic leaders have been working behind the scenes to craft an alternative that could dissuade their more conservative members who back Shuler's bill from joining the GOP effort to press forward on it.

They are considering pairing a widely popular measure by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., to allow more seasonal workers to come to the United States under so-called H-2B visas with proposals aimed at speeding the process of granting immigrants' spouses and minor children visas to join their parents in the U.S., among others. Also under discussion is a bill that would allow nonresident immigrants serving in the military to become citizens.

It's not clear whether Republicans can gather enough support for a vote on the bipartisan enforcement bill, which couldn't take place until April at the earliest. GOP leaders relish the idea of calling attention to Democrats' rifts on the issue in advance of Congress' 14-day Easter recess starting next week. They plan to blast Democrats who have endorsed the legislation but not signed onto the effort to force a vote on it. "I think it makes it harder for the majority to do nothing," Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla, said of the idea last week. "On a district-by-district basis, there will be places where this is an important issue."

Shuler has said he would sign the petition. He's one of several conservative-leaning freshman lawmakers whose elections in Republican or swing districts gave Democrats control of the House in 2006, handing Pelosi the speaker's gavel. He won his race amid Republican efforts to tie him to Pelosi, including an ad that accused him of plotting with Democrats "to take over Congress with the votes of illegal immigrants." "He does support the (legislation) and would like to see an up-or-down vote," said Andrew Whalen, Shuler's spokesman. "He would prefer that it didn't become a political issue."

Some Democrats said they are eager to debate the legislation. "It's a very big issue. I hear a lot about it, and that's why I want to bring it to the floor," said Rep. Jason Altmire, R-Pa., another first-termer who is co-sponsoring the bill. "We need to address it. Let's just bring it all to the floor and see what wins."

Even some Democrats who back Shuler's bill bristle at the idea of joining Republicans to force a vote on it, voicing concern that they're being used as political pawns. "For their presidential candidate to have supported amnesty and for them to be pulling a stunt like this is pure politics," said Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., a co-sponsor of Shuler's bill.

In the Senate, a group of mostly conservative Republicans last week unveiled a package of legislation to crack down on illegal immigration and secure the border. They, too, said they would use procedural tactics to get Democrats on the record on the volatile immigration issue.

Democrats are trying to turn the tables, hoping that Republicans' efforts to push get-tough immigration measures will hurt McCain with Hispanic voters and independents, two groups that have supported him in the past. In a letter to McCain last week, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., called on the Arizonan to reject the GOP leaders' plans, calling them "draconian and divisive." "Such a rejection will let this nation's 44 million Latinos know that demonizing them for political purposes will not be tolerated and that the more hateful rhetoric in the immigration debate has no place in our country's civic discourse," Menendez wrote.

Source



Brainless Brits: Illegal immigrants vanish after being given rail tickets and told to 'make their way to detention centre'

Blundering police officers put a group of illegal immigrants on a train, gave each of them free tickets and told them to make their way to a detention centre 80 miles away under their own steam. Unsurprisingly, none of the nine reported to the centre and all nine disappeared on their journey from Cambridge to Croydon. But police have defended their actions, claiming they were only acting on the advice of immigration officials and the decision was out of their hands.

James Paice MP for South-East Cambridgeshire where the men of Afghan origin were found under a lorry last week, has hit out at officials who co-ordinated the men's travel. "This is a ludicrous policy and bound to lead to increased numbers of illegal immigrants. As the police have made clear, the buck clearly stops with the Home Office," he said.

The nine men, who were found at Fordham, near Newmarket, were given the train tickets at Cambridge and the name of the immigration facility in Croydon and told to report there without supervision. DI Alan Savile, of Cambs Police, said: "In matters of this nature, the police are led by the UK Immigration Service which in turns follows the Home Office instruction. "In this instance, the Immigration Service in St Ives was consulted and the decision taken to direct individuals to the immigration facility at Croydon, which is accepted practice."

Mr Paice, who has now raised the matter with Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, said: "If this is the action that the Immigration Service actually encourages, it is hardly surprising that we have vast numbers of illegal immigrants in this country. "Surely when they are apprehended, as in this case, they ought not then be released into the community without any trace of where they may go. "It is naive in the extreme to expect nine illegal immigrants found in Fordham to voluntarily report to a facility in Croydon."

The men are thought to have boarded a lorry owned by well-known haulage company Turners in Europe. When the men were discovered at the firm's base at Fordham, staff at Turners informed police. Staff said police arrived with a minibus, took the men straight to the train station in Cambridge, then gave them tickets and allowed them on their way.

Source





11 March, 2008

SPLC Manipulates Crime Data

A press release from FAIR below. (Contact: Bob Dane, 202 328 7004 bdane@fairus.org)

(Washington DC) Today the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued a misleading release announcing a significant increase in the number of hate groups and hate crimes over the last few years. The release then suggests that our national debate over immigration reform has fueled the increase in both. Offering no criteria as to what constitutes a hate group, manipulating the data for self-serving purposes, and then making broad, unsubstantiated conclusions, this latest release from the SPLC constitutes one of its most reckless charges to date. It is calculated to be inflammatory, tarnish the reputation of leading immigration reform groups, and shut down meaningful public policy debate about immigration reform.

When examined responsibly, the FBI hate crime data show a dramatically different story than the one the SPLC portrays. First, in order to suggest an artificially large increase in the raw number of hate crimes, the SPLC selects 2003 as its base year, one of lowest years on record for hate crimes against Hispanics. If one compares the number of hate crimes between 1995 (the earliest report available on the FBI's website) and 2006 (the most recent statistical year available), one would see that the number of hate crimes has increased only 17 percent.

But even this is not the whole story. The SPLC conveniently forgets to index the raw hate crime data with the population, a step always taken by the FBI to more accurately depict an increase or decrease in crime. Thus, when one indexes a 17 percent increase in hate crimes against Hispanics with a 67 percent increase in the Hispanic population between 1995 and 2006, it becomes clear that the rate of hate crimes against Hispanics has in fact dropped dramatically - by about 40 percent.

This reduction in the rate of hate crimes against Hispanics is even more apparent when one considers that the number of law enforcement agencies that participate in the FBI's hate crime data collection program increased 33 percent between 1995 and 2006. Between 2003 and 2006 alone, the number of law enforcement agencies participating in the FBI's hate crime data collection program increased by over 700.

Finally, the SPLC claims that there has been substantial growth in the number of "hate groups" since 2000. However, the SPLC provides no definition of a "hate group" and offers no objective criteria that it uses to classify organizations as such. The SPLC appears to think that it can stick this label onto any organization it wishes, including long-standing, highly-regarded immigration reform organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) without being challenged as to its motivations or methodology. FAIR is confident the media and the American people will see through the SPLC's deceitful tactics.

"There is no level of hate crime that is acceptable -- period," says Dan Stein, President of FAIR. "However, the SPLC's calculated abuse of the term 'hate group' and manipulation of hate crime data for self-serving political interests is an affront to hate crime victims and those who advocate on their behalf. The SPLC manipulates data to reach deceitful conclusions, tosses the term 'hate group' at highly-respected organizations like FAIR, and then mixes the two in an attempt to stop our national debate over immigration reform. But this is consistent with the SPLC's growing practice of making allegations with no factual basis, no criteria and sadly, no one challenging their increasing habit of playing fast and loose with the facts. Unfortunately, it is the American people who suffer most through this irresponsible behavior."



A worthy fast-track to citizenship

When Pfc. Moses Nyumah was deployed to Iraq last year, the Brooklyn Park soldier was thrilled to learn his tour of duty would include a visit by U.S. immigration officials, who would swear him in as an American citizen right at his Army base.

A fellow National Guardsman, Specialist James Agada Idoko, missed that chance to become a citizen. So immigration officials showed up at the Roseville National Guard Armory for his return this week to administer his citizenship exam on the spot, although he delayed his citizenship ceremony for personal reasons.

The two men are beneficiaries of a government plan to reward immigrant soldiers for their service. While most immigrants enlisting the armed services now are quickly put on a fast track to citizenship, usually getting a certificate within a year, some continue to languish for years while awaiting FBI clearances or dealing with paperwork, an Army official said.

"Serving [in the National Guard] and at the same time becoming a U.S. citizen was a great achievement for me and my family," said a smiling Nyumah, 28, who emigrated from Liberia, as he was hugged by his tearful mother at the armory. "This [fast-tracked citizenship] is a great idea.''

"This is a country that has done a lot for me in a short period of time,'' added Idoko, 29, of Plymouth, standing tall in his military fatigues in the armory. "I went to college here, got a job here. ... I look forward to having the right to vote ... and being part of America, land of the free."

More than 20,000 members of the armed forces are not citizens, said Marilu Cabrera, spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. New immigrants keep rotating in.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, President Bush signed an executive order to fast track the citizenship applications of soldiers, she said. The federal government has trained military officers to help immigrant soldiers with their applications, assigned special teams to handle the paperwork, and begun holding "special ceremonies" for immigrant soldiers as they depart for overseas duty, return home and even while still stationed in countries ranging from Iraq to Iceland.

"What we saw yesterday was a unique situation," said Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, spokesman for the Minnesota National Guard, after seeing Idoko ushered to a side room Thursday at the armory and given his citizenship test. "I've never seen immigration [officials] reach out like this."

Idoko, a corrections officer for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, had applied for citizenship in March 2006. Nyumah, a radiology student at St. Cloud State University, applied in April 2007. While one is now a citizen and the other simply awaiting the swearing in ceremony, Nyumah's mother has been waiting more than five years to become an American.

Leslie Lord, the liaison between the Army and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the fast-track program has "worked well." However, two problems remain. The Immigration Services website that allows applicants to file address changes doesn't accept Armed Forces post office boxes. Plus, the FBI clearances can put the brakes on everything. "If someone's name is even vaguely similar to someone in the FBI's bad boy or bad girl list, that can cause delays," Lord said. "Most soldiers sail through the checks within 30, 60 or 90 days,'' he said. "But there are cases of more than a year or two. These are anomalies, but they do happen and are real.''

Both Idoko and Nyumah belong to the 247th Finance Detachment, which provided finance support to an operating base near Tikrit, the ancestral home of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Nyumah's mother, Louise Tamba, is thrilled with her son's new status. She's framed his citizenship certificate and hung it over the fireplace in her Brooklyn Park home. And she replays in her head the conversation she had with her son the day he became an American.

"He called and said, 'Mom, I'm a citizen!' " she recalled. "I said, 'Thank God. Now you are fighting for your country.'" As an American, Nyumah said he'll be able to help his mother become a citizen, travel to Liberia to directly help relatives there without worrying that he won't be able to return, and feel more a part of Minnesota life.

More than 37,000 immigrant soldiers have become citizens under the speeded-up processes since 2002, said Cabrera, who predicted that more and more of Minnesota's immigrant soldiers would become citizens as part of their military service. "We'll definitely do more of this in the future,'' she said.

Source





10 March, 2008

I thought only ICE was this crazy

Three illegal immigrants have been arrested after they were caught trying to get OUT of Britain

The Afghan men had sneaked into the back of a Polish lorry leaving Dover for France. They were discovered when it braked suddenly, causing its load of timber to fall and pin one of them down. The driver went to investigate after hearing noises from the back of his truck. The other two men, who were also injured, were seen trying to run away.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the pressure group MigrationWatch, said yesterday: "It seems crazy to stop illegal immigrants leaving the country of their own free will. "We would like to see an amnesty of departure so any illegal immigrant could leave, providing they were not wanted by police, as soon as they wish." Sir Andrew added: "We do not need them here and we certainly do not need to pay for their removal."

Charlie Elphicke, 36, the Tories' prospective parliamentary candidate for Dover, said: "The Home Office is a complete shambles. Why are we stopping them from leaving? "If they want to go, let them go. Why are we spending valuable resources in this way? "We should be making sure our borders are secure against people who are trying to enter our country illegally and helping those who are here illegally to leave. "It is ludicrous to prevent those wanting to leave to do so. The immigration system in this country is truly mad....

A Home Office spokesman said: "The men were taken to a holding room to be processed. "If they are failed asylum seekers we will be able to find their immigration background and there is a possibility of removal from the country. "Our border controls are very strong but this is not a case of the controls not working as the men were going in the other direction, out of the country."

More here . See here for the equivalent ICE insanity.



Australia: Ban on African refugees deceptive

A HIGHLY controversial "ban" on African refugees imposed by the former government last year did not happen, Immigration Department figures show. As immigration minister in the Howard government, Kevin Andrews sparked national fury in October when he declared African refugees were drunks and brawlers who were not integrating in Australia. To accusations he was playing election-year race politics, he said no more African refugees would be processed until the latter part of this year because the quota of 4000 for the 2007-08 year had been filled. But five months after his comments, figures reveal the quota has yet to be reached.

About 30 per cent of Australia's humanitarian intake of 13,000 for the 2007-08 year was allocated to Africans, with the rest divided between applicants from Asia and the Middle East. Immigration figures show that, up until January 31, 2100 visas for Africans under the special humanitarian program were issued.

Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, said no freeze had been imposed on the intake of African refugees and processing of applications continued. "African migration continues and we want to do more next year. The previous minister's comments were politically motivated," he said.

The Government was committed to helping African refugees under both the special humanitarian and family reunion programs. "The Rudd Government did not approve of Kevin Andrews's commentary. There is no doubt Australia's reputation was hurt [by Mr Andrews]. We have a job to do rebuilding confidence and our international reputation," Senator Evans said.

Influential refugee advocate Marion Le was astounded that the "freeze" on the intake wasn't real. "We were told the case load was full and no more could be processed until at least July this year," she said. "People who were in the pipeline were denied entry to Australia because of [Mr Andrews's] comments." Mr Andrews said the former government had not said it was ceasing the intake, only reducing it.

Source





9 March, 2008

America: Where the illegals are the smarties

Written by a man who lives in Spain. He is South African born of Scottish parents

We have a home in Virginia, and investments in the United States, so we are compelled to pay taxes. But, we are only allowed to visit our home for a maximum of three months every year. I expect I spend as much time over here in Spain opening and dealing with demands for some kind of charge or another from the US as I do enjoying our home over there.

But, so far as I am concerned, the People of the United States are free to decide who does and who does not live in their country - and that is how it should be. To me, one's country is like one's home - only the invited should be allowed to stay.

Yet, when I do visit, I have this feeling that all is not quite "fair." Each time I catch a taxi from the airport, or to get around DC, I seem to end up with a driver who speaks Arabic, or Farsi, or some other language from the Middle, Near, or Far East. And when I engage them in discussion, I inevitably hear about their parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and other far flung family members who have also found their way into the United States. When I ask how they manage that, I am usually met with a chuckle.

Now presumably all these people are in the United States legally, and I give them full credit for their success. All I know is that all our inquiries, and legal advice, tell us that we must "invest" large quantities of money AND employ a significant number of people (benefits and all) if we want any hope of getting in to the United States permanently. It is not enough, apparently, to buy a home, invest money, pay your taxes, guarantee that you will never take any state benefit of any kind, not avail yourself of the education system (we homeschool our children), and promise not to be a naughty boy.

Oddly though, none of those I have spoken to who have gained entry to the United States offered to, or were required to, make such a commitment.

On the other hand, I have been advised that if I could get a job and show that no American would be qualified to do that job, I could gain entry. Now I may be a vain person, but to assume that I am equipped with a skill that no American could match would be the ultimate indulgence in vain delusion - but still, it seems, there are a great many such "exceptionally skilled" people pouring into the United States. Remarkable!! And anyway, I find the prospect of working for someone else a quite undignified and humiliating prospect. I also thought that America was built on individual initiative and a commitment to independence, not servitude and dependence; but alas, it seems things have changed.

Apart from these "legals," I have also encountered a great many people who quite openly admit that they are in the United States illegally. They even tell me about their children in school, the great medical treatment they get, and other "goodies" that come with their status. They don't seem to have any shame in the fact that they should not be in the United States in the first place, or that my tax dollars may be used to help finance them, even though I cannot bring my own family to live in my own house with my own money; they seem to think that they have some sort of entitlement or right," not just to be there and avail themselves of the tax Dollars of Americans, but also my tax Dollars

Source



Once Deported Mexican Returns, Rapes 10-Year-Old

Post below lifted from Interested Participant. See the original for links

Deported in August 2007, a 23-year-old Mexican, Adrian Garcia-Garcia, returned to Ohio a month later and raped a 10-year-old girl.

On February 11, Garcia-Garcia pleaded guilty to rape and importuning a child under 13.

Yesterday, Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge A.J. Wagner sentenced Garcia-Garcia to life in prison.

So, would someone please tell me why I shouldn't just laugh when the government says that X thousands of illegal aliens were deported? Any number cited as deported is meaningless if they can just turn around and reenter the U.S.

Just think -- if the U.S. had a secure southern border, that little 10-year-old girl would not have been raped and the American taxpayer would not have to foot the bill to incarcerate Garcia-Garcia for Heaven knows how many years.





8 March, 2008

State Immigration Proposals widespread in USA

State lawmakers have already proposed more than 350 immigration-related bills in the first two months of this year. States with the largest number of proposals include California, Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona and Rhode Island. Highlights of bills offered:

_ Following Oklahoma's example from last year, legislators in eight states proposed comprehensive immigration bills that would restrict illegal immigrants' access to driver's licenses and other IDs; limit public benefits, penalize employers who hire them and boost ties between local police and federal immigration authorities.

_ Nearly 30 states also have bills focusing on cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

_ Twenty states are seeking to boost cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities and to increase penalties for illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

_ At least 14 states are looking to limit driver's licenses and other IDs.

_ Fourteen states are looking to cut public benefits for illegal immigrants, though such services are mostly regulated by the federal government and already heavily restricted.

_ In a number of states, dueling bills illustrate conflicting views. Delaware has a bill requiring that notices about predatory loans be written in Spanish and English, and another to make English the state's official language. California has bills both to deny any benefits to children of illegal immigrants and to provide those living in poverty with health care insurance.

Source



Australia: Half of Sydney businesses looking to immigration for workers

Nearly half of businesses in Sydney are looking to Australian immigration in order to fill job vacancies, according to a new survey. Research from the Sydney Chamber of Commerce has also revealed that a shortage in skilled workers is causing concern for around three quarters of the companies which were surveyed.

Patricia Forsythe, executive director of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, told ABC Online: "For companies wanting to grow with a strategy of expansion, having to face issues of skills shortages is an issue of real concern because clearly it impacts on their strategies of going forward." She added that she thinks this is one of the "critical issues" for "all levels of government". Skilled workers who are considering Australian immigration may find their job is listed on the Australia Migration Occupation n Demand list (MODL).

It appears it is not just the big cities in Australia which are suffering from skills shortages. Local newspaper Donnybrook-Bridgetown Mail recently reported that the skills shortage is also affecting all rural areas in Western Australia.

Source





7 March, 2008

Media bias again

You know, words mean things, right? That having been said, the Washington Post today employed a subtle wording in a headline that turns people who stand against illegal immigration into people who hate the immigrants themselves.

In their February 23rd piece, the Post headlined a report on illegal immigration in Maryland with a grave "Anti-Immigrant Effort Takes Hold in Md." With that headline, you'd expect the story to be revealing Marylanders who are against a certain block of people. But, as you read the story, you'll find that no one interviewed is saying they hate the immigrants. They are however, saying they are upset with untrammeled illegal entrance into this country. So, in the end, the story is about being pro-lawful immigration, and not about any hate for the immigrants themselves.

Even the subhead makes it seem as if the efforts of folks in Maryland to stop illegal immigration is directed at the immigrants themselves. "Grass-Roots Movement Expands Beyond Montgomery in Targeting the Undocumented," the Post claims. Yet, again, nowhere in the story are any of those interviewed saying they are against people. What they are for is an enforcement of our laws and new laws to stop people from breaking our immigration laws. What they are against is lawlessness.

This particular American conflict between classes of residents is one of far different tenor than the racial, or minority fights of America's past. In the early days of the Republic, Catholics were particularly despised by the bulk of the American people. Irish came in for their share of attack in the late 1800s - again with anti-Catholic sentiment playing a part. Jews and blacks were also put upon by haters and rabble-rousers in our past. And in each of these cases back in our early days (and as late as the 1960s in the case of the black oppressions here), people were barred from working, barred from government, and oppressed. At one time or another they were even physically attacked, their businesses and homes burned to the ground, their children refused schooling, their churches attacked and many were even killed in significant numbers.

But, not so today. We have a growing segment of the American public that truly hates illegal immigration. But that hate has yet to cross the line from a hate of the action of breaking our immigration laws to a hate of the kind of people who break those laws. Now, certainly you can find racists who hate Hispanics. Surely you can find incidents where Hispanics have been victims of racial bias but not in the same numbers and with the same vehemence as in past class struggles. There is a very obvious difference between this particular conflict and ones in our past. Hispanics are not being as widely mistreated as past races or classes of minorities have been treated in this country. There just is no way to say that they have.

On a side note, this isn't the only minority involved in controversy that has not seen a bias as strong as they might have in the past. Muslims in America are also not finding themselves as badly treated as past minorities have been treated even as their brethren have been responsible for some of the worst atrocities perpetrated by mankind. Americans have given Muslims quite an easy time of it in these very troubled days for Islam.

As to immigration, Americans who are against illegal immigration are far and away mainly interested in making sure that the integrity of our borders is secured and that entrants into this country are here legally. Few Americans have any thought that they wish to keep all of "them" altogether out. The large preponderance of Americans against illegal immigration have absolutely no problem at all with foreigners who come here legally and become Americans.

So, why the skewed headline from the Post? Why make the story seem to be about Americans who hate immigrants? Could it be that the Washington Post has an agenda to further and that agenda is to defeat Americans interested in legal immigration? Could it be that the Washington Post is doing their best to discredit the anti-illegal immigration advocates out there?

And the Washington Post isn't alone in portraying this social conflict as being far worse on the illegal immigrants than it really is, especially in the light of history. Advocates like the Washington Post do us all a disservice to inflate the conflict past the point at which it actually stands.

In fact, I'd say that papers like the Washington Post are actually attempting to fan the flames of race hatred and conflict with their coverage of the "news." Right now it is properly a political problem and less an overtly racial one. But, with efforts like the Washington Post's that could change. and for the worse.

Source



Dangerous hate speech from the Left and from Hispanic racists

"La Raza" means "The race". It is just projection when they accuse others of racism

In the nationwide debate over what to do about the United States failed immigration policies and border security those in favor of amnesty are feeling very strong. The National Council of La Raza ("the Hispanic people of the New World) is leading a charge and labeling all who use the phrase "illegal alien" as racists, xenophobes, and haters of the Latin community. On their website and in their conversations those many refer to as illegal aliens are merely "undocumented immigrants." On their WeCanStopTheHate.org website there's an entire section devoted to the latest outrages which states, "When mainstream media or politicians aid and abet hate or hate groups offend human decency, the Latest Outrage exposes their transgressions for all to see." There is also a section on the "code words" used by the hate-mongers, those being anyone who does not favor NCLR's position of amnesty and open borders.

Their message sent to the Latin community drives home the point anyone using the term "illegal alien" is among the enemies of their cause and enemies of Latinos. Geraldo Rivera, during an appearance on "The View" to promote his new book His Panic, specifically stated Lou Dobbs "has been shameful in his hate-mongering. I would not shake his hand because this is a man that's done more damage to the cause of sensible, comprehensive reform than anyone with a microphone." Yet often times Dobbs speaks very highly regarding Latin people while pointing to the real problem, our failed policies and politics surrounding immigration.

Addressing the National Press Club last month, NCLR President Janet Murguia pointed out a need to control free speech when it becomes hate speech. "Everyone knows there is a line sometimes that can be crossed when it comes to free speech. And when free speech transforms into hate speech, we've got to draw that line. And that's what we're doing here today. And we need to make sure that network executives will hold their people accountable and not cross that line." Those most outspoken against amnesty and open-borders with Mexico are referred to as vigilantes and hate-mongers. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now commonly being referred to as the Gestapo, bringing up bitter pictures of the Nazi treatment of people. The connection reached into the House of Representatives when Representative Sam Farr (D-CA) even used the description during a recent meeting by the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.

These words create a combination of fear and hatred within the Latino community. Many will begin to rally to these labels and embrace the belief anyone making a comment using the words "illegal aliens" are against them, their community, their nationality, and their country. As the fear increases and the Democratic Party takes office it is easy to imagine a time very soon when using the words together will constitute hate speech and even a hate crime. U.S. Constitutional rights will be trampled once again based on repetition and fear. It is understood some do say disparaging things against illegal aliens, sadly it is true. Yet the response from the community representing their cause has decided the best way to handle instances of such conduct is to retaliate with hateful words of their own.

At the very foundation of the phrase one must understand there is no such thing as an undocumented immigrant. The U.S. Department of State website discusses the processes required for immigrating to the United States. "This section provides information to help foreign citizens desiring to permanently immigrate to determine the visas, requirements, and related materials they will need to apply to immigrate to the United States." There are even ways aliens can enter this country with documentation if they are not planning to immigrate here. The term "alien" in connection with this topic is not a derogatory word.

If you enter as a legal alien or as a documented immigrant you have gone through the legal and proper channels for entering the United States. If you don't enter through legal and proper channels it violates the law, in other words it is illegal. A person cannot be classified as an immigrant since they have not notified the U.S. Department of State they intend to live here permanently, nor have they applied for and received approval of the proper Visa for doing so. Therefore they are in the U.S. as aliens and have done so illegally. Illegal alien must not be classified as hate speech when it is exactly what best describes any person living in this country without the proper approval and documentation to do so.

Confusing the language and creating hysteria, on either side of the debate, is dangerous for all people involved creating panic vs. panic. Right now there are no open borders and there are clearly defined legal steps necessary to immigrate here. To say anyone pointing this out is filled with hate or is a hate-monger is just as bad as anyone using the term illegal alien in a derogatory fashion. This debate cannot be allowed to crumble into a war of words because that will lead to fear, improper laws, and in the end benefit neither side of the debate. If we allow the use of "illegal alien" to ever become classified as hate speech citizen's freedoms will erode to no one's benefit.

Source





6 March, 2008

Why Mexicans can't get jobs in Mexico

Mrs. Clinton says that open trade with our neighbors -- under Nafta -- has been harmful to Americans because our partners don't play fair. Mr. Obama echoes her sentiments..... the whipping boy was Mexico, which stands accused of attracting firms by allowing worker exploitation. If an American lost a job in the past decade, the charge goes, it's because in Mexico business has no labor obligations. This claim is not only untrue, it is the opposite of reality. Mexico is home to militant, high-powered unions and the most burdensome labor regulation in North America.

Like Argentina, Mexico suffered the tragedy of repressive corporatism throughout most of the 20th century. A one-party system under the Institutional Revolutionary Party -- PRI -- ruled for more than 70 years, making sure there was no economic or political competition. But in the late 1980s and early 1990s a young, educated class of technocrats began to break the chains of protectionism, isolation and monopoly. Nafta, signed and ratified in 1993, was central to this. Its benefits include greater access to capital and trade for Mexico and also an increase in information flows, which are the source of innovation and progress in any country.

Nafta has done a lot for Mexico but there are some things it can't cure. Chief among these are the infirmities caused by too much labor-market regulation. Hiring, maintaining and firing a worker is so costly that employers go to great lengths to avoid taking on new employees. This produces an excess of workers relative to demand, depressing wages and benefits.

Yet it is not only high mandated costs that reduce opportunities. Employment in most cases requires union membership -- there is no such thing as a "right-to-work" state in Mexico -- and if a worker is expelled from the union, he loses his job. This gives union bosses extraordinary power, especially since there is no secret ballot in union elections. Promotions are based on seniority, not merit, so there is little incentive for workers to upgrade their skills or learn new technologies. This harms productivity and helps explain why Pemex, the oil monopoly with one of the country's most dominant unions, registered a net loss of $484 million last year, when oil prices were sky high. It's also one reason why the state-owned electricity monopoly known as CLFC is repeatedly unable to cover its costs with earnings and instead requires a federal subsidy every year....

What could be done to slow Mexican emigration is to liberalize Mexico's labor markets. But if last week's debate is any indication, what the candidates have in mind is not to make Mexico's labor market look more like the U.S.'s but vice versa.

More here



Illegal immigration costs border counties millions, university study finds

Illegal immigration is costing border counties millions a year for law enforcement and criminal prosecutions - diverting money away from parks, libraries and other law enforcement efforts, according to a study to be released Wednesday. The costs totaled $192 million for the nation's 24 border counties in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas in fiscal year 2006, researchers at the University of Arizona and San Diego State University found. The study was commissioned by the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition, a nonprofit group of border county officials who want the federal government to reimburse their county jails and prosecutors' offices for those costs.

"As immigration policy is a federal responsibility, the federal government should bear these costs," Tanis Salant, a public policy lecturer at the University of Arizona and the study's main author, wrote in the report.

The coalition, which has been studying the impact of illegal immigration on border counties since 1999, paid for the study using a Justice Department grant. Researchers estimate the costs of illegal immigration on county law enforcement at $1.2 billion in the past eight fiscal years. Researchers examined county budgets, court records and crime statistics and interviewed hundreds of county officials for the report. The report did not look at the impact of illegal immigrants on cities, states or Indian tribes.

The coalition wants Congress to spend more federal dollars on the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which gave border counties a total of $4.7 million in reimbursements last year. The money was less than a tenth of the actual costs the counties bore for detaining illegal immigrants, according to the report. The group also wants more funding for the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative, among other federal programs.

The costs of illegal immigration are placing "undue burdens" on people who live in border counties, the report says. Urban counties bore the highest costs, with San Diego County in California spending the most at $77.1 million, followed by El Paso and Hidalgo counties in Texas and Pima and Yuma counties in Arizona. Residents of three Texas counties, Hudspeth, Terrell and Zapata, carried the costliest per capita burden, costing each resident about $378, $126 and $112 last year. The costs came at the expense of other county services such as libraries, jails, courtrooms and parks, according to the report.

Officials in Presidio County, Texas, for example, say they don't have the money for a new ambulance they need; officials in Santa Cruz County, Ariz., say they need more money to offer better amenities at their local parks; and officials in Imperial County, Calif., want to enhance other law enforcement efforts.

Source





5 March, 2008

Comprehensive immigration bill headed to Utah governor

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is expected to sign a comprehensive immigration bill that would allow police officers to enforce immigration law and mandate some employers to verify that their employees can legally work in the United States. In a quick 24-4 vote, the Senate this morning approved amendments made to SB81 by the House. SB81 was supported by the Senate in a veto-proof vote last week. On Monday, the House also passed SB81 by a veto-proof margin. Only three Democrats - Reps. Janice Fisher, Karen Morgan and LaWanna Shurtliff - out of 20 in the House supported the measure.

Lisa Roskelley, a spokeswoman for Huntsman, said the governor thinks SB81 can be a "helpful" piece of legislation, especially since it would not go into effect until July 2009. "This could be a good step forward and give the federal government time to address this important national issue," she said Monday evening.

The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Michael Noel, R-Kanab, told lawmakers during Monday's House debate that the bill has nothing to do with racism or prejudices against people. He said it's about respecting the rule of law and welcoming only those who come to Utah legally. "The time is right, and it's time we pass an illegal immigration law in Utah," he said. "We have strong public support to pass this bill."

SB81 sponsor Sen. Bill Hickman, R-St. George, said he was aware and content with most of the clarifying amendments made by the House. He said he was surprised by the amendment to make trade unions verify their members' documentation status, but he's not concerned about it for now and plans to work it out later. A coalition of religious leaders and the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce support SB81. Other anti-illegal immigration groups were pleased with the bill, saying it was better than nothing.

Bill opponents said they are concerned about racial profiling and that the proposed law will make victims fearful of reporting crimes.

Also on Monday, the Senate approved a bill that would put stronger restrictions on the driving privilege card for mostly undocumented immigrants. HB171 would prohibit people who sell alcoholic beverages from accepting the driving card as evidence of a person's age and firearms dealers from accepting the driving card as a form of identification. It would also require the Driver License Division to suspend a driving card if a person's vehicle registration is revoked. An estimated 100,000 undocumented immigrants live in Utah.

Source



More pain in Spain



For the first time in Spain's electoral history, immigration has become a campaign issue. Over recent years the number of immigrants has risen steadily, with the majority from Morocco, Latin America and eastern Europe. Immigrants now make up 10 per cent of Spain's population - more than four million people in 2006. Between 2004 and 2007, 40 per cent of all the new jobs in the European Union were created in Spain.

In 2005, the Socialist government made between 600,000 and 700,000 illegal workers legal. It was a move demanded by employers, according to the Employment Minister, who estimated there were a million clandestine workers when the PSOE came to power in 2004. The measure will also boost government coffers, says Employment Minister Jesus Caldera: "It is undoubtedly the emergence of the biggest underground economy in Europe in the past 40 or 50 years."

However the opposition denounced the mass move, saying it would only attract more illegal immigrants. And with the approach of legislative elections, the PP has gone on the warpath. Leader Mariano Rajoy: "We must fight tough against illegal immigration. And I am going to say something else. We must expel foreigners who commit a crime in Spain."

The conservative Popular Party has suggested that immigrants from outside the European Union should sign a contract agreeing to respect the laws and customs of Spain. They have also floated the idea of restrictions over wearing the Islamic veil.

For the Socialists it is not that simple. Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba: "We should be told if these Spanish customs are the the customs of Mr Rajoy or me for example: are they the customs of grand-parents, of parents, of teenagers. Are they the customs of cardinals or agnostics."

Source





4 March, 2008

Study Suggests Tougher Words for Dems On Immigration

An obvious con job by the Center for American Progress, et. al.. In this "confidential" study, comprehensive reform boosters urge Democrats to seem tough by adopting the rhetorical attitude of their opponents.

"It is unacceptable to have 12 million people in our country who are outside the system," it reads. "We must require illegal immigrants to become legal, and reform the laws so this can happen."

In other words, we will take a tough stand against illegal immigrants by making them all ... legal. Sorry, by requiring them to become legal! That'll teach them to mess with our laws again! ... Of course, you can make any kind of amnesty seem like a triumph for the rule of law through this rhetorical trick: These [insert violators here] broke the law. But now we are bringing them into the system by making them all law-abiding residents again! Before: illegal. After: legal! How much more law-and-orderish can you get? ...

If the pro-legalization Dems do have to adopt faux-tough rhetoric to appeal to voters, however, that does suggest they are losing the public debate-- and bodes ill for the House Dem leadership's attempt at a last-minute Semi-Amnesty Sneak Play that would combine some popular border enforcement measures with a new visa that would legalize illegals for five years. ...

Source



Enforcement ratchets up in Virginia

The Prince William County Police Department activated its new policy regarding illegal immigration enforcement today. As part of the new policy, police officers will inquire into the citizenship or immigration status of persons who are lawfully detained for a violation of state or local law if probable cause exists to believe that person is in violation of federal immigration law. If such a violation exists, police officers will coordinate with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch concerning that individual. There are three key points to the policy, according to a news release from the department.

1. Officers will focus on criminal aliens - persons who are in the United States illegally and who commit crimes that would make them eligible for deportation.

2. Police officers will protect crime victims and cooperative witnesses - regardless of their immigration status.

3. Racial profiling is expressly prohibited. Police officers will not detain or arrest individuals based on their national origin, race, religion or creed. In addition to being morally wrong, racial profiling is a violation of federal law as well as existing Police Department policy.

All sworn members of the Police Department, as well as relevant civilian personnel, received comprehensive training regarding the new policy, and how to implement it in a fair, lawful, and reasonable manner. Topics covered during training included legal instruction, bias reduction/racial profiling, identification of false documentation, and procedural response to illegal aliens. Representatives from the County Attorney's office, ICE, and the Police Department's staff served as instructors. More information regarding the Police Department's immigration enforcement efforts can be found on the web site at https://www.pwcgov.org/police

Source





3 March, 2008

An inconvenient truth about rising immigration

The article below is from Australian economist Ross Gittins -- who generally leans Left if economic rationality permits. As you see, however, he does more than his fair share of pointing out unpopular truths

JOHN HOWARD never wanted to talk about his booming immigration program. It seems Kevin Rudd's lot doesn't want to either. Why not? Because it just doesn't fit. For Mr Howard, it didn't fit politically. Didn't fit with the xenophobic rhetoric he used to win votes back from Pauline Hanson and to wedge Labor. For Mr Rudd, it doesn't fit with any of his professed economic concerns - about inflation, about mortgage stress and about climate change.

You'd hardly know it, but we're in the biggest immigration surge in our history. According to Rory Robertson of Macquarie Bank, net immigration has exceeded 100,000 a year in 12 of the past 20 years, having exceeded 100,000 only 12 times in the previous two centuries. The Howard government planned for an immigration program of up to 153,000 this financial year, to which you can add a planned intake of 13,000 for humanitarian reasons, and maybe 20,000 New Zealanders. That doesn't count an increase in the number of skilled workers on class 457 "temporary long-stay" visas, nor the growing number of young people on working holiday visas. In his first 100 days, Labor's Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, announced an increase of 6000 in the skilled immigration program for this year, a liberalising of the working holiday visa scheme and a committee to propose ways of making the 457 visa scheme more effective.

The third point in Mr Rudd's five-point plan to fight inflation is to "tackle chronic skills shortages", and part of this is to do so through the immigration program. Clearly, the Government believes high levels of skilled migration will help fill vacancies and thus reduce upward pressure on wages. That's true as far as it goes. But it overlooks an inconvenient truth: immigration adds more to the demand for labour than to its supply. That's because migrant families add to demand, but only the individuals who work add to supply.

Migrant families need food, clothing, shelter and all the other necessities. They also add to the need for social and economic infrastructure: roads, schools, health care and all the rest. Another factor is that their addition to demand comes earlier than their addition to labour supply. Unemployment among recent immigrants is significantly higher than for the labour force generally. Admittedly, the continuing emphasis on skilled immigration - and on the ability to speak English - plus the fact that many immigrants are sponsored by particular employers, should shorten the delay before they start working.

Even so, we still have about a third of the basic immigration program accounted for by people in the family reunion category. You'd expect the proportion of workers in this group to be much lower. So though skilled migration helps reduce upward pressure on wages at a time of widespread labour shortages, immigration's overall effect is to exacerbate our problem that demand is growing faster than supply.

The Rudd Government professes to great concern over worsening housing affordability. First we had a boom in house prices that greatly reduced affordability, and now we have steadily rising mortgage interest rates. The wonder of it is that, despite the deterioration in affordability, house prices are continuing to rise strongly almost everywhere except Sydney's western suburbs.

Why is this happening? Probably because immigrants are adding to the demand for housing, particularly in the capital cities, where they tend to end up. They need somewhere to live and, whether they buy or rent, they're helping to tighten demand relative to supply. It's likely that the greater emphasis on skilled immigrants means more of them are capable of outbidding younger locals. In other words, winding back the immigration program would be an easy way to reduce the upward pressure on house prices.

Finally, there's the effect on climate change. Emissions of greenhouse gases are caused by economic activity, but the bigger your population, the more activity. So the faster your population is growing the faster your emissions grow. Our immigration program is so big it now accounts for more than half the rate of growth in our population. It's obvious that one of the quickest and easiest ways to reduce the growth in our emissions - and make our efforts to cut emissions more effective overall - would be to reduce immigration.

Of course, you could argue that, were we to leave more of our immigrants where they were, they'd still be contributing to the emissions of their home country. True. But because people migrate to better their economic circumstances, it's a safe bet they'd be emitting more in prosperous Australia than they were before.

My point is not that all immigration should cease forthwith but, leaving aside the foreigner-fearing prejudices of the great unwashed, the case against immigration is stronger than the rest of us realise - and stronger than it suits any Government to draw attention to.

Source



Immigration riot in Spain



Calling violent Fascist street thuggery "anti-Fascist" is an old dodge of the far Left. It is craven journalism that gives space to such barefaced lies

Spanish police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at anti-fascist protesters in central Madrid as they tried to stop a right-wing rally near an immigrant area of the city.

Anti-fascists threw rocks behind burning barricades in narrow cobbled streets and at least one car was set alight. Some of the far-right activists, separated from left-wing protesters by lines of riot police, gave Nazi salutes. More than 1000 anti-fascists gathered to protest the far-right meeting in Tirso de Molina, a few hundred metres from Madrid's main square, after local authorities sanctioned the rally.

The violence comes a little more than a week before Spaniards vote in a general election where immigration is a major issue for the first time. Migrants living in Spain have increased fivefold in the last 10 years and account for 9percent of Spain's 45 million people.

A spokesman for Madrid's ambulance service said no one had been injured. Left-wing media said one protester had been blinded in one eye.

Source





2 March, 2008

British border force to shut at weekends (!)

Officers in Britain's new border force have been told they should not arrest illegal immigrants and foreign criminals at weekends or on bank holidays. To cut costs, the new Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) has told them only a minimum number of staff should be on weekend duty to answer essential calls. Staff are entitled to extra payments for weekend working but the agency is trying to save 80m-100m pounds to keep its budget in line with Treasury edicts.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said it exposed as a sham Gordon Brown's claims that the new agency would secure Britain's borders. John Tincey, vice-president of the Immigration Service Union, which represents 4,000 immigration staff, said it would make Saturdays and Sundays virtually an "open season" for offenders.

The arrangements, due to take effect on April 1, are detailed in a memo to the agency's 1,500 enforcement staff. It says "no operational visits will be scheduled at weekends or on bank or public holidays" without giving three weeks' notice and obtaining the express written consent ofa senior BIA director. The new arrangements will not affect the manning of immigration desks at ports and air-ports, which is handled by a different division within the BIA. However, it will mean efforts to track down foreign criminals to be deported, failed asylum seekers and others who have slipped past port controls will effectively stop at weekends.

Source



Illegality advocates organize to thwart US immigration agents

ICE may eventually have to charge some of these guys with conspiracy to thwart the course of justice

When federal immigration officers visited over three days last October looking for an illegal Salvadoran immigrant, a neighborhood watch kicked into action each time. Dozens of immigrants, legal and illegal, phoned one another, warning of a raid. "I called my sister in the building next door and another sister in this building," said Maria, who said she is an illegal immigrant from Mexico and has two children who are U.S.-born citizens. She asked that her full name not be used. "They came and knocked on doors, but no one answered." Angelita Pascacio, an organizer of Madres Contra Redadas (Mothers Against Raids) who has since moved from the 16-unit apartment building, described the surveillance by immigrants as clumsy at first, but effective. "Thanks to our being organized, they didn't take anyone away," she said.

As the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency beefs up home-visiting teams seeking illegal immigrants, doubling arrests in each of the past two years, migrants and advocates are initiating countermeasures to make legal and illegal immigrants aware of tactics such as not answering their door or remaining silent. The grass-roots efforts try to help many immigrants who live in fear and ignorance of the law, but an ulterior goal is to stymie agents' door-to-door hunts and thwart "collateral" arrests--illegal immigrants who are discovered accidentally in a questioning for someone else who has absconded from a deportation order. Immigrants and advocates say they are trying to save families from being cleaved when an illegal immigrant parent is caught and removed from the U.S., leaving behind children or a spouse who are legal residents or citizens.

Both sides claim success. While one Mothers Against Raids group in the Los Angeles area boasted of its effectiveness, federal officials say their arrests have finally reduced the population of "fugitive," or deportation-fleeing, immigrants for the first time since ICE was created in 2003.

In addition to block watches and telephone trees, neighbors and activists are videotaping ICE's "fugitive ops" to hold officers accountable; distributing "Know your rights" T-shirts and cards; holding classes in churches; operating hot lines on enforcement actions; and, in one California case, following ICE officers from their office to a community to advise immigrants to reveal only their names.

These street-level activities have increased in the past year because Congress has been unable to pass significant immigration legislation--and apparently won't do so again this year because of the presidential election, experts say. "When that crashed and burned, I think many communities throughout the country began to focus their attention more on protecting the limited rights that immigrants do have," said Peter Schey, president of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a non-profit legal foundation for immigrants.

While federal officials don't object to free speech, they expressed reservations about efforts to thwart officers and agents. "One assumes they have something to hide," ICE spokeswoman Pat Reilly said. "They're threatening us that they're going to hamper our ability to enforce the law," she said of the neighborhood watches in particular. "You know, one has to be careful not to aid, abet or harbor people who are illegally in this country, because that's a violation of immigration law. That can be criminal."

The immigration agency's 75 fugitive operations teams --the ones assigned to visit residences--arrested 30,408 illegal immigrants in the fiscal year ending last September, a figure expected to grow with 28 additional teams this year, officials said. Almost 40 percent of those arrests were collateral, and the remainder were deportation-fleeing, or fugitive, immigrants, including criminals, Reilly said. For the first time, the backlog of fugitive immigrants fell last fiscal year, to fewer than 595,000, officials said.

The "home raids" have prompted activists in New York to hold more know-your-rights presentations in Mexican, Jamaican and Dominican immigrant communities, said Janis Rosheuvel, executive director of Families for Freedom. Illinois and Florida also have help programs for immigrants, some more aggressive than others.

In Santa Ana, Calif., Guillermo Zavala, 48, a construction worker, followed ICE officers in his car as they left their offices as early as 3:30 a.m. on 15 occasions last year, he said. Zavala said he didn't interfere with their operations, but he did approach immigrants to advise them not to open their door unless a warrant is slipped under it. "I go around and create a little bit of a hard time for those that are terrorizing my people--that's what the ICE agents do," said Zavala, who is of Mexican descent. "Once they split a family--because a kid is from here and they deport the mother and the father--that's a violation of human rights, especially when the family is working every day just to survive. That's not a crime."

Immigration officials say they won't be deterred. "We can wait people out," said Reilly of ICE. "Our folks do this every day. They're very good at figuring out how to find people."

Source





1 March, 2008

Indiana crackdown

Despite pressure from big business, Hispanic leaders and passionate lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the Indiana House passed a bill Thursday night to crack down on illegal immigration. The 66-33 vote came after two hours of heated debate on the House floor. The Senate approved a similar bill by a 37-11 vote in January. The legislation -- which can revoke an employer's business license for repeatedly hiring illegal immigrants -- is likely headed to a House-Senate conference committee, where differences between the bills would be worked out.

Earlier Thursday, Gov. Mitch Daniels declined to commit his support until he saw the final bill. "It depends entirely on what that bill says and whether it's well put together and fairly balanced," Daniels said. "I think I just really want to wait and see what conclusions they reach before I come to any of my own."

Supporters said the bill was necessary because illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from legal residents and costing state taxpayers money for education, law enforcement and incarceration. "Keep in mind, this is not a vote against immigration," said House Minority Leader Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis. "This is a vote against illegal immigration. "Immigrants are welcome here. But they need to do it the right way."

Opponents say this bill will not solve a national problem and will lead to racial profiling and discrimination against anyone who looks Hispanic. Rep. Mike Murphy, R-Indianapolis, voted against the bill, saying its potential for racial discrimination "rocks my soul to its core." Calling to mind a past racial profiling case in Carmel -- where a black driver once sued the city, alleging an unwritten "driving while black" policy -- Murphy fears the same is in store for Hispanics, and he coined a new phrase: "driving while Mexican." "It is easy to speak of the rule of law," Murphy said. "But history has shown repeatedly that (it) is only as just as the character of the men and women who administer it."

Sen. Mike Delph, the author of the legislation, took offense at that notion. "I think that is insulting to our law enforcement officials across the state," he said. "I was happy for the state of Indiana," Delph, R-Carmel, said of the vote. "The people are tired of the excuses and the bickering of the political parties. They want people to pull together and solve problems. And this is one of the problems they want us to solve."

In addition to the crackdown on employers, the legislation requires the Indiana State Police to enter into an agreement with federal officials to seek training and begin enforcing federal immigration laws. The attorney general would also be asked to investigate written complaints made against employers. "This takes us along the right path to trying to do something," said Rep. Vern Tincher, D-Riley, who sponsored the bill in the House. "The federal government is not doing it, so it is up to the states."

Some critics say the bill does not go far enough. Rep. P. Eric Turner, R-Marion, who wanted to also deny illegal immigrants certain social benefits and tuition support, called the legislation "illegal immigration light."

Others said any kind of crackdown will be harmful to Indiana when thousands of Hispanic workers leave the state out of fear, as has been the case in Oklahoma and Arizona. "How will we adjust to worker shortages in Indiana?" asked Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster. "The negative consequences of this bill will be costly to our economy." Candelaria Reardon read off a long list of business groups, farming concerns, chambers of commerce and manufacturing organizations that oppose the bill. They joined state and local Hispanic leaders in pressuring lawmakers to vote against it.

Mary Jane Gonzalez, president of the Indiana Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said she was not surprised at the vote. "I think they are being politically pressured by their constituents, their constituents who are not Hispanic," Gonzalez said. "They feel political pressure to move forward on this. There is no question in our minds about that. It's unfortunate."

Rep. Ralph Foley, R-Martinsville, said the bill was not the best piece of legislation, but he thought it should advance. "I was conflicted on this issue. But we have to support this," Foley said. "It's the only vehicle we have to address this issue."

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BBC's White Season will reopen immigration debate

Since Enoch Powell's day the great and good have kept quiet about race. The BBC's six-part season will change that

Time to update your calendars, everyone! It's the start of the White Season!! Or, to be wholly specific, it's the start of the BBC's "How the White Working Classes are Coping with Mass Immigration Season". As an almost entirely unprecedented tackling of the subject, it's already been heralded as the BBC "opening the floodgates" to racist polemic at the nation's pub tables and water-coolers. In terms of potential political fall-out, it makes a "Lesbian Season" on Channel 4 look like a "Kittens Wearing Mittens Season on Living".

Starting on Friday with Last Orders, White Season - comprising five documentaries and a drama, White Girl - sketches out its landscape quite quickly: Britain is a country entering the second stage of a gigantic social experiment - multiculturalism through mass immigration - for which, amazingly, no particular plans, projections or provisions were ever made. While immigration might be something the liberal left-wing are in favour of - and find very useful, vis-a-vis Ukrainian carpenters on œ2 an hour - it is, in the main, the working classes who are actually living this multicultural life, and sharing their shops, schools, hospitals, pubs and streets with dozens of different nationalities, cultures and beliefs.

A large part of the hitherto self-imposed broadcasting ban on discussing immigration can be laid at the doorstep, doubtless spotlessly white, of Enoch Powell and his "Rivers of Blood" speech. As the logical starting point for any debate, it's rather baffling that Rivers of Blood doesn't open the season. As the documentary makes clear, Powell's speech was such a Hiroshima of oratory - an outpouring of such extremity - that it deterred any Establishment discussion of immigration for 40 years.

Most of us will never have seen the whole speech - because the BBC cameraman filmed only parts of it. Watching what there is proves instructive: Powell, with his tiny pupils and raptor's head, looks like a peregrine falcon, and frames gut-fears in the language of a prophet-statesman. The seduction was so instant that had public polls decided such a thing, Powell would have become Prime Minister of Great Britain that week - and by a landslide. Rivers of Blood is a classic, authoritative BBC documentary on a difficult, fascinating subject, with loads of satisfying archive footage of people with 1960s hair coming out of factories, and sitting in pubs. It's 45 minutes of total Licence Fee Justification broadcasting.

Speaking of those pubs, Last Orders documents the dying days of Wibsey Working Men's Club. Where once the club was the heart of the white community, it's now a relic - anachronistic in the young, increasingly Muslim city of Bradford. Last Orders is, at 90 minutes, dreary, achingly over-long, and misguidedly sentimental. By the end, you are apt to feel that if these people can't even - pretty much literally - arrange a piss-up in a pub, it's no wonder that their city is being taken over by people with a bit more zazz.

And visually, the documentary concurs: along with Storyville, Last Orders - whether intentionally or not - shoots the old, white working classes as grotesques: crater-pored, cross-eyed, with tiny, pinprick eyes, mouths so wrinkled from smoking they look like combs, and noses crystalline with gout. They all look like Breughel peasants - unimaginably distant from the modern world of smoothies, iPhones and Lewis Hamilton. They look, unkindly framed, like they need to die out [What a disgraceful portrayal of working-class people!] -- although whether they should be replaced by, say, a tight-knit community of Muslims living under Sharia is another matter.

Storyville, as usual, winkles out a better plot with All White in Barking. Nosing around Barking, Essex, it finds a couple of stories that give a far more nuanced vision of a fast-changing, multicultural area - including the BNP campaigner who, in one scene, tries to hand a racist leaflet to his daughter's half-black boyfriend. Ironically, he actually seems to have the colour-blindness ("He's half African? Are you sure? I'll have to check that out") that the idealistic liberals who originally conceived multiculturalism dreamt of. It's just one facet of the current British working-class experience that makes this season such a great - and, rarely for TV, significant - intellectual chewing-point.

BBC Two's White Season begins with Last Orders on Fri, 9pm, and continues the following week with Rivers of Blood, All White in Barking and three other films: White Girl, The Poles Are Coming and The Primary

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