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30 September, 2007

Pelosi Calls Border Fencing Plan 'Terrible Idea'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a plan to build fencing along parts of the United States-Mexico border is a "terrible idea" that overlooks local communities. Pelosi made the comments during her trip to the Rio Grande Valley for the sixth annual Hispanic Engineering, Science & Technology Week conference hosted by the University of Texas-Pan American. "I have been against the fence, I thought it's a bad idea even when it was just a matter of discussion," said Pelosi, D-California. "These are communities where you have a border going through them, they are not communities where you have a fence splitting them."

The Department of Homeland Security this week announced plans to erect about 370 miles of fencing and 200 miles of vehicle barriers along the U.S. border by the end of 2008.

Also during her Thursday trip, Pelosi touted legislation that would make it easier for some illegal immigrants to receive higher education benefits. The legislation, known as the DREAM Act, would eliminate a federal provision that discourages states from providing illegal immigrants with in-state tuition rates. It would also allow permanent residency for illegal immigrants who entered the country as children and have been admitted to an institution of higher education. "It just isn't fair," Pelosi said. "Those young people who came to America one way or another ... their opportunities are curtailed because of the situation. And it's not only harmful to them - it's harmful to the country."

Pelosi spoke about her plans to add 100,000 new scientists, mathematicians and engineers to the work force by 2010. "Some of the best contributions (to science) have come from the very young," Pelosi said. "This is an issue of the highest priority and it's important that we do so involving the children of America." Pelosi said she supported U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa's efforts to make college more affordable for children from poor and middle-class families.

President Bush this week signed legislation co-sponsored by Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, that increases grants for the poorest college students and cuts the interest rates by half on federal student loans over the next four years.

This week's conference drew more than 5,000 area students for activities designed to inspire them to pursue careers in science, mathematics and technology. "The purpose of this conference is to generate interest, momentum, excitement among the young people looking into careers in science and technology," said Roland S. Arriola, vice president for community engagement at UTPA. "What we are hoping is that if you increase the base, there is going to be more industry coming into the Valley.

Source



Schools show the new make-up of Britain

White British schoolchildren are now a minority in parts of England, and make up just one in ten pupils in some areas, according to new government figures. The data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families reveals the extraordinary demographic changes that are taking place in 21st-century England and highlight dramatic variations in the ethnic make-up of the school population across England. They also show that more than one in ten pupils in primary and secondary schools in England do not have English as their mother tongue. This rises to more than half of primary pupils (53 per cent) in Central London.

As the numbers of nonwhite and non-native-speaking pupils are much higher in primary than in secondary schools, the figures also suggest that the full extent of current demographic changes in England's schools have yet to make themselves felt.

Damian Green, the Conservative immigration spokesman, said that the changes were putting an extra burden on teachers. What was important, he said, was whether or not these children arrived in school able to speak English. "If they can't, and they are being taught in overcrowded classrooms, this makes it much harder for teachers to do their job." The Conservatives have complained that schools do not always intervene early enough to teach pupils English, often preferring to teach them in their own languages initially.

The latest figures, from January 2007, show that more than a fifth of pupils are now of ethnic minority origin. Nationally, 21.9 per cent of primary school children are from ethnic minority backgrounds, up from 20.6 per cent in 2006. There was a similar rise in secondary schools. The figures also show that the number of primary school pupils who do not speak English as their first language increased by about 7 per cent on the 2006 figures to 447,000, or 13.5 per cent of the total. Figures for secondary schools showed a similar rise in the number of pupils not speaking English as their first language, to 342,000 or 10.5 per cent of the total.

The Government has said that English should be the main language of teaching in schools, and children should become fluent as quickly as possible. Research suggests that although pupils who are not native speakers struggle at first, most make up any lost ground by the time they reach secondary school.

Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that the Government had put guidance in place to help teachers to support children who have English as an additional language. He said that a new statutory duty on schools to promote community cohesion had focused the minds of head teachers on these issues. "Schools are the building blocks of our communities so it's vital that they promote tolerance, respect and understanding across society," Mr Knight said.

Source





29 September, 2007

Self-deportation is working

Illegal immigrants living in states and cities that have adopted strict immigration policies are packing up and moving back to their home countries or to neighboring states. The exodus has been fueled by a wave of laws targeting illegal immigrants in Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and elsewhere. Many were passed after congressional efforts to overhaul the immigration system collapsed in June.

Immigrants say the laws have raised fears of workplace raids and deportation. "People now are really frightened and scared because they don't know what's going to happen," says Juliana Stout, an editor at the newspaper El Nacional de Oklahoma. "They're selling houses. They're leaving the country."

Supporters of the laws cheer the departure of illegal immigrants and say the laws are working as intended. Oklahoma state Rep. Randy Terrill, Republican author of his state's law, says the flight proves it is working. "That was the intended purpose," he says. "It would be just fine with me if we exported all illegal aliens to the surrounding states." Most provisions of an Oklahoma law take effect in November. Among other things, it cuts off benefits such as welfare and college financial aid.

There's no hard demographic data on the trend, partly because it's hard to track people who are in the USA illegally. But school officials, real estate agents and church leaders say the movement is unmistakable. In Tulsa, schools have seen a drop in Hispanic enrollment.....

Illegal immigrants also are leaving Georgia, where a law requires companies on government contracts with at least 500 employees to check new hires against a federal database to make sure they are legally authorized to work.

Mario Reyes, senior minister at the Tabernacle of Atlanta, says his church lost about 10 families this summer. His daughter, a real estate agent, is helping them sell their homes. Churches across the city report similar losses, says Antonio Mansogo, a board member of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders. "There's tension because you don't know when immigration (agents) might show up, and a lot of people don't want to take those chances," he says.

Real estate agent Guadalupe Sosa in Avondale, Ariz., outside Phoenix, says migration from the state began about three months ago, shortly after Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, signed a law that will take effect in January. Employers who hire illegal immigrants can lose their business licenses. Of the 10 homes Sosa has on the market, half belong to families that plan to leave because of immigration tensions....

Colorado has approved several immigration measures. One gives employers 20 days to check and photocopy documents such as driver's licenses and Social Security cards, which new workers present to prove their legal status.

Source



NY's Democratic Governor meeting resistance on Drivers Licenses for Illegals

Post below lifted from Ace. See the original for links

Last week NY Governor Eliot Spitzer(D) announced that the state would no long require proof of citizenship or legal residence to get a drivers license. This week, county clerks who issue the licenses in NY voiced concern as did NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"Many of us think the whole idea is crazy and ill-fated," said Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola. "I myself will not process any driver's license renewal or driver's license verification for someone who cannot prove legal status."

The Democratic governor's decision comes as the Department of Homeland Security is pushing all 50 states to tighten their identification standards. Merola said Spitzer's approach "is going just the opposite way" as the federal government. ....

Bloomberg said Wednesday that the city's lawyer "does believe that in fact this would make New York's state driver's licenses ineligible to be used to get on an airplane. People would need other form of identification, generally a passport, and that would be a very big problem." "I'm really skeptical that we should be issuing driver's licenses willy-nilly," he added Thursday, "because it then leads to lots of other problems in terms of voter registration and other things. But it's the governor's call."

Spitzer replied with some of that hyper logic liberals are always claiming they suffer from by saying it's `morally wrong' to oppose his plan. Thanks to Spitzer things will be easier for illegal aliens but actual citizens will have to find a new way to get acceptable ID to do basic things like get on an airplane or enter a federal building.





28 September, 2007

Senate temporarily sidelines immigration legalization bill

Democrats vow to pass measure aiding 1 million youths

The prospects for immediate Senate action on the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, disappeared Wednesday amid Republican opposition. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pledged that senators would vote on the the measure, which is strongly opposed by anti-illegal immigration groups, before the Senate finishes its work for the year in mid-November. "All who care about this matter should know that we will move to proceed to this matter before we leave here," he said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., had sought to attach the DREAM Act to the defense authorization bill. But Reid announced Wednesday night that Democrats were shelving the effort because of difficulties getting past legislative roadblocks. "Unfortunately, some Republicans are opposed to this proposal and are unwilling to let us move forward on this bill," Reid said.

Durbin and immigrant rights advocates were dismayed by the setback but vowed to find other means to pass the legislation, which they have sought since 2001. "There is no question that this issue doesn't stop here," said Cecilia Muñoz, senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza. "The longer we wait, the more talented young people we close the door of opportunity to."

The bill — officially the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — would allow illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. before the age of 16, and who have lived here at least five years, to receive conditional legal status if they have graduated from high school and have a clean record. After six years, they could become permanent legal residents if they serve in the U.S. military for at least two years or complete at least two years of college. As with most green card holders, they could apply for citizenship after five years. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that slightly more than 1 million high school graduates and children still in class could gain legal status under the legislation.

With conservatives being barraged with calls, faxes and e-mails from anti-illegal immigration groups that view the DREAM Act as amnesty, some Republicans who supported the measure in the past have been reluctant to do so now. Durbin needed 60 votes to surmount an expected filibuster. Some Senate Republicans, including Texans Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, objected to the measure being brought up on a defense bill. "Putting extraneous things on this bill isn't helpful," Hutchison said.

Other Republicans aren't ready to revisit a debate that imploded in June when the Senate scuttled an overhaul endorsed by the White House that would have given most illegal immigrants a chance for legal status. "People, I think, want to let the immigration thing cool off a bit before we jump back in," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who helped derail the comprehensive immigration bill.

Josh Bernstein, federal policy director for the National Immigration Law Center, predicted DREAM Act supporters eventually will prevail. "The politics is right and the commitment is there," Bernstein said. "We're not giving up."

Source



Amazing coverup hiding lack of action?

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill has made repeated requests for the number of prosecutions of employers who hire illegal immigrants during the tenure of Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Julie Myers. When McCaskill suggested at Myers’s confirmation hearing on September 12th that her vote hinged on obtaining the statistics, Myers said she would provide the information at a later date. With less than 24 hours before the scheduled committee vote, McCaskill is still waiting. “Frankly, I don’t understand how the person responsible for immigration enforcement can tout her record of going after employers who hire illegal immigrants, but not have a shred of proof that a single employer has gone to jail even for a day,” McCaskill said.

Six days after the Myers hearing, McCaskill sent a letter formally requesting the information Myers had promised during the hearing. Shortly thereafter, staff at ICE indicated during verbal conversations with McCaskill’s staff that the information would require significant time to obtain. Therefore, McCaskill asked that the committee to delay the vote on Myers’s confirmation until adequate information had been supplied.

McCaskill also asked for the total number of persons charged criminally as a result of ICE workplace enforcement actions at the hearing on September 12th. Myers confirmed at that time that there had been a total of 716 arrests made during fiscal year 2006, including illegal immigrants and any alleged arrests made of employers. Friday, McCaskill requested that Myers turn over the names of those individuals, so McCaskill's staff could try to determine if any employers had been charged. ICE has yet to provide that basic information as well.

McCaskill continued, “I’ve been more than patient. Information about a case in Missouri was requested this past summer. My staff gave ICE time to come up with statistics about employer arrests before the hearing two weeks ago. We even asked for the names Ms. Myers cited in her hearing so that we could attempt to investigate these cases ourselves. Still, nothing. This is unacceptable.” Specifically, McCaskill has asked for the number of employers who, as a result of ICE’s workplace enforcement actions, were arrested in 2007, served jail time in 2007, or were fined in 2007. She also requested similar statistics for the entire Bush Administration.

Source





27 September, 2007

Danbury sued over immigration enforcement

This sounds pretty frivolous. Do illegals have ANY constitutional rights?

HARTFORD, Conn. - Lawyers for 10 Latino men arrested in Danbury in the past year filed a civil rights lawsuit Wednesday, accusing city and federal officials of a plot to harass immigrants through illegal arrests and intimidation. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Haven, alleges authorities violated the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to due process, equal protection, free speech, free association and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Nine of the 10 were arrested during a sting targeting day laborers, while the 10th was arrested during an unrelated traffic stop

Professors and students at Yale Law School, who are representing the men, put much of the blame on Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who denied the allegations. "The arrival of new Latino immigrants, and the failure of the federal government to address immigration's local effects, has sparked a backlash from Mayor Boughton's administration, which has targeted, harassed, and intimidated these new city residents through a number of discriminatory policies," the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs say police officers have made civil immigration arrests despite not having the authority to do so. They also say the city has discriminated against Latinos in enforcing city ordinances, shutting down neighborhood volleyball games and encouraging police harassment of day laborers. "These policies aim ultimately to drive unwanted immigrants from Danbury and to deter future immigrants from making Danbury their home," the lawsuit says.

Nine of the men were day laborers arrested in a sting operation on Sept. 19, 2006. They were waiting at a park and got into a vehicle driven by a man who they thought had hired them to demolish a fence, but who was actually an undercover Danbury police officer, according to the lawsuit. When the men arrived at the purported work site, they were arrested and shipped to detention centers around the country. All nine are free on bond and their immigration cases are pending. The lawsuit says the 10th plaintiff was deported to Ecuador earlier this year after a racially motivated traffic stop by Danbury police.

The plaintiffs say police did not know who the nine laborers were before the sting and had no probable cause or warrants to justify the arrests. All nine were shipped to detention centers as far away as Texas and were denied access to phones to call their families and lawyers, the lawsuit says.

Boughton disputed the allegations Wednesday. He said local police provide support to federal operations and that they comply with the Constitution. "Frankly, we are not going to be bullied by Yale or by anybody else as it relates to the equal application and the neutral applications of the laws of the city of Danbury," Boughton said at an afternoon news conference. Boughton sparked controversy in 2005 when he proposed deputizing state police as federal immigration agents, but Connecticut's public safety commissioner rejected the request.

Danbury has been transformed in recent years with waves of new immigrants from Brazil, Ecuador and other countries. Boughton has said that the influx has strained schools, created overcrowded housing and led to other problems such as unlicensed and unregistered drivers. The mayor has called for federal legislation that secures the country's borders, heightens enforcement and reimburses cities for what they spend on services for immigrants. He also wants a path to citizenship for the nation's illegal workers.

Lawyers for the 10 Latino plaintiffs declined to say whether they are in the country legally, citing the pending federal immigration cases.

Mike Gilhooly, spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said ICE officials had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on the allegations. He offered only a general statement. "All enforcement actions undertaken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are done fully within the law and fully within the policies and procedures," Gilhooly said.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to declare the actions of Danbury and federal immigration officials unconstitutional. It also seeks compensatory and punitive damages. The 10 plaintiffs are Juan Barrera, Jose Cabrera, Daniel Chavez, Jose Duma, Jose Llibisupa, Isaac Maldonado, Edgar Redrovan, Nicholas Segundo Sanchez, Juan Carlos Simbana and Danilo Brito Vargas. No criminal charges have been filed against any of the nine plaintiffs arrested in September. Barrera, 42, told The Associated Press through an interpreter Wednesday that he supports the lawsuit because he wants to make it clear that he and the other plaintiffs are not criminals. He said he just wants to contribute to society and be able to work. "I was treated poorly," he said about his arrest and detention in the September sting. "I asked what I did wrong, what did I do. I was just looking for work. They never explained why I was being treated like this."

Source



Australia: Multiculturalism is poison for social capital

We have heard little in this year's political debate about immigration or multiculturalism, although immigration is running at record levels. Yet a change of government has the potential to bring with it a marked change in both these policy areas, and one that most Australians may not like much. Kevin Rudd has, as on other issues, kept a low profile and told his shadow immigration minister to do the same. It has been left to Paul Keating to remind us what things were like under the Hawke and Keating governments, with his attack on John Howard earlier this year.

Keating said then that when Howard disparaged elites over what he celebrated as the mainstream, he was in fact disparaging cosmopolitan attitudes vis-a-vis the certainties of the old monoculture. There was even a comparison drawn and then withdrawn between Howard's populist appeal to ordinary Australians and Hitler's to the German Volk.

In the Labor years it was the role of cosmopolitan elites to keep ordinary, red-necked Australians and their inherent racism on the straight and narrow. It was an era of stifling political correctness, where critics were howled down with cries of racist by the cosmopolitan internationalist elites of the progressive Left. It was also an era of corrupt immigration policies, with family stream migration rorted to provide branch-stacking fodder. It was a time when ordinary Australians had the cosmopolitans' virulent multiculturalism shoved down their throats, with the result that support for immigration plummeted. This is no right-wing Liberal fantasy. Former Labor finance minister Peter Walsh described immigration policy under Hawke as a process of blow-out and cave in. The immigration program numbers blew out above target, bloated by regular cave-ins to the ethnic lobbyists.

Another former Labor minister, Gary Johns, saw its immigration policy as part of vote buying and branch-stacking. But most telling of all was the findings of the FitzGerald committee inquiry into immigration policy set up by the Hawke government. The committee, headed by Stephen FitzGerald, found a key problem in maintaining support for immigration was a profound distrust by Australians of the policy of multiculturalism. Historian John Hirst wrote in 1994: "Mainstream Australian society was reduced to an ethnic group and given an ethnic name: Anglo-Celt. Its right to primacy was denied; indeed, it became the most suspect of all ethnic groups given its atrocious past."

The Howard years changed all this and Rudd is unlikely to revert to the excesses of the Hawke years; however, there are signs that are worrying nonetheless. For example, Labor's platform, where immigration is dealt with in the section on human rights, itself a worrying sign of a return of the Left to policy formulation, speaks of restoring a fairer and more balanced immigration program. At the moment the program is 70per cent skilled migrants, an economic focus that is very much in Australia's interest. Restoring balance suggest Labor will increase the role of family reunion, an ominous possibility given the record of the Hawke years.

However, the real worry, given Australia will want to continue to run a strong immigration program, is a Labor government's ability to retain a national consensus in favour of immigration. There is a substantial body of research that shows the ethnic diversity driven by immigration is destructive of social capital. The most comprehensive of these studies is by American political scientist Robert Putnam, best known as the author of Bowling Alone, a book on the breakdown of community in the US. Putnam defines social capital as "social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness".

Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History, told an International Monetary Fund conference on social capital some years ago: "Social capital is important to the efficient functioning of modern economies and is the sine qua non of stable liberal democracy."

Putnam, himself from the progressive Left, is somewhat embarrassed by his findings that ethnic diversity leads to the breakdown of trust and community networks that are a vital part of any society's social fabric. While his study is of the US, he says it would apply to other countries such as Australia. Worried about the impact of his research given the increased sensitivity on immigration issues since September 11, he said nothing about it for four or five years, before delivering a paper in Sweden last year. While he is at pains to say that in the long run immigration and ethnic diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal and development benefits, his own research doesn't establish this. What it does show is that over several decades immigration and ethnic diversity lead to mistrust, challenge social solidarity, break down community and are poison to social capital.

This isn't an argument for stopping immigration or for racial purity, since, as Putnam says, ethnic diversity will inevitably increase in all modern societies. But it is a powerful argument against multicultural policies that encourage ethnic separatism and discourage assimilation. The litmus test for a Rudd government will be what it does in response to the Howard Government's changes to Australian citizenship laws designed to increase the value immigrants place on citizenship and insist on competent English and an understanding of Australia's laws, history and culture.

Australian sociologist Katharine Betts and demographer Bob Birrell provide an excellent discussion of the changing approach to citizenship since the Whitlam government in 1973 in the March issue of People & Place. What they show is that under successive Labor governments the value of citizenship was reduced to little better than a certificate you could pull out of a corn flakes packet. They note two very different concepts of citizenship, which they label the procedural position and the patriotic view. The procedural view holds that migrants should have no other commitment to Australia beyond respect for the law and rights of others.

The patriotic position, which surveys show is held by a clear majority of Australians, attaches a strong value to citizenship as a national bond and expects immigrants to live like Australians. This is the position the Howard Government has moved to in recent years. Rudd has yet to declare his attitude to the Government's citizenship approach, but Labor emphatically rejects any suggestion of assimilation. Yet the strongly adverse effect of immigration and ethnic diversity on social capital suggests a policy that brings Australians together rather than encouraging cultural separation will be essential to sustaining immigration and its long-term benefits.

Source





26 September, 2007

U.S. sues Illinois over immigration law

The Bush administration took the gloves off Monday in its fight over immigration enforcement, suing the state of Illinois for banning use of a federal system that checks whether workers are in the United States legally. The United States of America vs. the State of Illinois is the latest court battle the administration is waging with immigrant advocates and business groups over its crackdown on workers here illegally and the companies that hire them.

Brought by the Justice Department on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, the civil suit is intended to preempt an Illinois state law that bars businesses from using the employee verification program until its databases are faster and more accurate. The suit is also intended to send a clear message to other states and cities about the way they handle immigration enforcement. The Illinois law "is a direct assault on the federal law," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Monday in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "This is about as bold an anti-enforcement measure as I've ever seen."

As Congress has struggled and failed to pass broad immigration reform, state and local governments have taken up the challenge, introducing record-breaking numbers of bills concerning immigration in the first half of 2007. Most have toughened their own enforcement laws; some have put in place protections for the immigrants in their communities or moved to make their lives easier.

Because immigration law falls exclusively under federal jurisdiction, many states have struggled with the issue. On Monday, Chertoff made it clear that his agency will not countenance interference from states, and he blamed interest groups for trying to impede his department with lawsuits. He told a House committee this month that he would take action against any city that hampered his ability to enforce the law. On Monday, he said: "I'm living up to my promises."

Advocates cited the Illinois lawsuit as yet another blow to immigrants -- along with an increase in work-site raids and high-profile deportations -- in the aftermath of the Senate's failure to pass a comprehensive immigration law. They argued that the suit was meant to stifle states that take a more protective stance toward immigrants and that Homeland Security was applying its legal argument inconsistently.

But supporters of tighter controls said the suit was good news. "It's an indication that the federal government is finally stepping up to the plate and accepting its responsibilities in the field of immigration," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington public policy center that favors restrictions on immigration.

Illinois officials defended the law, one of two related bills that passed with veto-proof majorities in both chambers. State lawmakers introduced the bill and Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich signed it into law Aug. 13 "to protect employees from unfair treatment under the federal government's flawed program," Abby Ottenhoff, a spokeswoman for the governor, said of the employee verification system.

Illinois has the fourth-largest illegal immigrant population in the nation; out of the state's 12 million people, about 500,000 are thought to be in the country without papers. Blagojevich, the son of a Serbian immigrant who in speeches often draws on his father's experiences, has a strong track record of supporting pro-immigrant initiatives.

The worker verification program -- once known as Basic Pilot and renamed E-Verify -- is a voluntary Internet-based system that allows employers to check workers' eligibility through databases at Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. If a discrepancy cannot be resolved within eight business days, an employer has to fire the employee or face possible Homeland Security sanctions.

As of Aug. 31, 22,205 businesses had agreed to participate in the program, 750 of them in Illinois. Homeland Security estimates that 800 employers are signing up each week and that 2.9 million firms have made inquiries about the program this fiscal year. But Social Security officials estimate that about 17.8 million, or 4.1%, of their records contain inaccuracies related to names, dates of birth and citizenship. Almost 13 million of those records belong to U.S. citizens.

The accuracy of those databases is at the center of another court fight over Homeland Security enforcement measures. A California court is expected to rule on Monday whether the department can go forward with an aggressive plan that would push employers to fire workers if discrepancies in their Social Security information cannot be resolved. Advocates who helped write the Illinois law say the Social Security inaccuracies mean that many legal employees could be hurt by E-Verify, the use of which would have been mandatory nationwide under the failed Senate immigration bill.

The Illinois law, effective Jan. 1, prohibits employers from using the system until its databases can settle 99% of problematic records within three days. Current law requires E-Verify to respond to employers within 10 days. Chertoff, saying that inputting data and figuring out mistakes takes time, called the three-day standard "for all intents impossible to meet."

Christopher Williams, a lawyer who helped draft the Illinois law, objected to Chertoff's claim that the state was obstructing federal law. "Nothing could be farther from the truth," Williams said. He said that the law provided an exemption for businesses that were required to use E-Verify, including those that have been investigated for hiring illegal immigrants, and that the state Chamber of Commerce backed the legislation. "The fundamental issue is are we going to require a flawed database as a means of enforcing immigration law," Williams said.

Immigration lawyers questioned the department's consistency, pointing out that Homeland Security was not taking action against Arizona, which in July adopted a law requiring all employers to use E-Verify or have their business licenses suspended or revoked. "The question is: Is this going to be an equal opportunity litigation campaign, or are they only going to file against states that are trying to be more protective of their immigrant communities?" said Marshall Fitz of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.

Chertoff said Homeland Security was not eyeing other suits at the moment but stressed his intent to end public cynicism about the administration's commitment to enforcing immigration law. "I'm determined to prove that cynicism is wrong and that there's a new sheriff in town," he said. Likening the struggle to the toughest in his career as a prosecutor, Chertoff said he was working with the same persistence and aggressiveness he brought to targeting organized crime. "I have a pretty determined mind about this stuff," he said.

Source



L.A.: Bypassing the voters to go soft on illegals

In previous columns I have written on the absurd lengths the city government of Los Angeles has gone to in acquiescing to the demands of illegal aliens. The illegal-alien lobby would of course be powerless were it not for its many sympathizers at all levels of government, and now some in the management of the Los Angeles Police Department have again demonstrated they can be just as nakedly partisan as even the most shameless of politicians

Over the past three weeks, a minor skirmish in the battle over illegal immigration has been raging here in Los Angeles. At issue is a provision in the California Vehicle Code that gives police officers the authority to impound cars driven by unlicensed drivers. The Los Angeles Police Department impounds more than 40,000 such cars every year.

But on August 21, under the dubious premise of following the mandates of a two-year-old court case, LAPD Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger issued a memo throughout the department instructing officers to cease making these impounds in most circumstances.

In Miranda v. City of Cornelius, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a particular seizure of a car in Cornelius, Oregon, was unwarranted. Jorge Miranda, a licensed driver, had been teaching his wife Irene to drive when they were stopped by an officer from the Cornelius Police Department. After discovering that Irene Miranda had no driver's license, the officer ordered the car to be impounded pursuant to a city ordinance. The case made its way through the courts before coming before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, which ruled unanimously that because Irene Miranda had already parked the car in the driveway of their home, and because her husband had a valid license, the seizure of the car could not be justified.

There is scant foundation for the LAPD's impound moratorium to be found in the Miranda decision. In fact, the decision clearly states that impounding the cars of unlicensed drivers is justified in most circumstances. "The violation of a traffic regulation," wrote Judge Ronald M. Gould, "justifies impoundment of a vehicle if the driver is unable to remove the vehicle from a public location without continuing its illegal operation." Most law enforcement agencies in California, including the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the California Highway Patrol, have continued impounding cars as the vehicle code prescribes.

Nonetheless, the Miranda case offered the open-borders lobby here in Southern California a ray of hope in their efforts to end the practice of impounding cars driven by unlicensed drivers, a substantial number of whom are presumably illegal aliens. Los Angeles city councilman Jose Huizar, an outspoken advocate for illegal aliens, asked the city attorney and police department to study the matter, but he was less than careful with the truth in doing so. "According to the [Miranda] case, you cannot constitutionally impound a car because the driver does not have a driver's license," Huizar told the Los Angeles Times. "So I sought that clarification. I wanted to ensure the city complies with the law."

We'll give Councilman Huizar the benefit of the doubt in concluding he was simply misinformed on the Miranda decision and not, as the more cynical among us might suspect, lying through his teeth. In the present controversy Huizar joins a long list of local and state politicians who have sought to grant illegal aliens driving priveleges in California. There have been several legislative attempts to do just that (discussed here, in 2005), but all of them were at some point derailed short of enactment. So, where does one go when the democratic process fails to deliver the goods? Why, to the courts, of course, where even causes soundly rejected by voters and legislators can find new life before sympathetic judges who, by virtue of their exalted positions, are far more enlightened than any group of simpering politicians or the rabbling proles who elected them.

More here





25 September, 2007

Special preference for immigrants from terrorist states!

You couldn't make this stuff up!

Nearly 10,000 people from countries designated as sponsors of terrorism have entered the United States under an immigration diversity program with relatively few restrictions, a report released on Friday said. The report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the State Department's inspector general warned in 2003 that the Diversity Visa Program posed a significant risk to national security and recommended it be closed to people from countries on the U.S. list of state terrorism sponsors. But four years later, the program remains open to people from those nations and little is known about what becomes of them once they enter the United States, the GAO said.

From 2000 to 2006, the program allowed 3,703 people from Sudan, 3,164 from Iran, 2,763 from Cuba and 162 from Syria to enter the United States and apply for permanent legal resident status, the report said. That totals 9,792 new immigrants. "We found no documented evidence of ... immigrants from state sponsors of terrorism committing any terrorist acts," said the GAO, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress. "However ... the Department of Homeland Security, terrorism experts and federal law enforcement officials familiar with immigration fraud believe that some individuals including terrorists and criminals could use fraudulent means to enter or remain in the United States."

The report quoted a U.S. security officer in Turkey as saying it would be possible for Iranian intelligence officers to pose as applicants and not be detected if their identities were not already known to U.S. intelligence. The GAO said the State Department expressed disappointment with the report's findings and rejected recommendations that the department compile more comprehensive data on fraud activity and formulate a new strategy for combating it. The Department of Homeland Security did not comment on the report, the GAO said.

The Diversity Visa Program was created by the Immigration Act of 1990 and provides up to 55,000 immigrant visas each year to people from countries with relatively low rates of immigration to the United States. People from 179 countries are eligible to participate this year. The program has enabled more than half a million immigrants -- mainly from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia -- to gain permanent legal status in the United States.

But unlike most U.S. visa programs, the diversity program does not require applicants to have family members or employers in the United States to petition on their behalf. Applicants from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism normally are granted non-immigrant visas under limited circumstances. But the GAO report said no parallel restrictions exist for diversity visas.

Source



Crackdown in France

A Russian boy suffers head injuries after falling from a window while trying to elude police. A North African man slips from a window ledge and fractures his leg while fleeing officers. A Chinese woman lies in a coma after plunging from a window during a police check. As France races to deport 25,000 illegal aliens by the end of the year — a quota set by President Nicolas Sarkozy — tensions are mounting and the crackdown is taking a toll.

Critics say the hunt threatens values in a nation that prides itself on being a cradle of human rights and a land of asylum. Protesters have gathered by the dozens in Paris to protect illegal aliens as police move in. But with three months left in the year, police have caught at least 11,800 illegal aliens, less than half the target, so Mr. Sarkozy has ordered officials to pick up the pace. "I want numbers," Mr. Sarkozy reportedly told Brice Hortefeux, head of the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development, which Mr. Sarkozy set up after taking office in May. "This is a campaign commitment. The French expect [action] on this."

There are no solid estimates of the number of illegal aliens in France. The Immigration Ministry puts it at 200,000 to 400,000, many from former French colonies in Africa. France has a population of about 63 million.

The president, who cultivated a tough-on-crime image while serving as interior minister, says France needs a new kind of immigrant — one who is "selected, not endured." His government is fast-tracking tighter immigration legislation. Parliament's lower house Thursday approved a bill that would allow consular officers to request DNA samples from immigrants trying to join relatives in France. Even some Cabinet ministers dislike the measure, which critics say betrays France's humanitarian values.

Source





24 September, 2007

NY disregard for illegality

You might think that a former attorney general would have some regard for the law. But he was a DEMOCRAT attorney general



Gov. Spitzer announced yesterday that illegal immigrants will get driver's licenses - but at a cost to legal citizens because they'll now be useless as airport ID. Spitzer said the state would no longer require a Social Security number or proof that a person is not eligible for such a number in order to qualify for a driver's license. That change clashes with the 2005 REAL ID law passed by Congress that states require, among other things, a Social Security number in order to get a license. States have until December 2009 to be in compliance. States that fail to meet the standards will lose their certification by the Department of Homeland Security, meaning that driver's licenses in those states will no longer be valid for air travel, entry to federal facilities and for tax purposes.

Travelers will now have to carry a second form of ID, like a passport, which was met with criticism yesterday. "To outright dismiss the security needs of our state and nation and provide illegal aliens documentation is dangerous and inconceivable," said Sen. Dale Volker (R-Depew). "Gov. Spitzer should not view New York state driver's licenses like baseball cards - handing them out just to score political points." Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), the ranking member on the House Committee on Homeland Security, said: "I strongly disagree with giving state-authorized IDs to illegal immigrants. More importantly, this proposal raises serious homeland-security concerns."

New York is the eighth state to give licenses to undocumented aliens. Spitzer defended the policy, which was implemented unilaterally and first reported in yesterday's Post, by saying, "We will not extend the DMV to be a surrogate of the INS." He said it will actually bolster security by bringing more people into the system, which could "help law-enforcement agencies in their investigations. "We can bring people out of the shadows and into the system," he said at a news conference.

State Homeland Security Director Michael Balboni said New York would have to create a two-tier licensing system for citizens and non-citizens to be in compliance with the REAL ID act, which would require state legislative approval. He said that few states would be compliant under the current Real ID system, which has drawn criticisms because of delays by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in releasing long-awaited regulations for implementing the law. "We're only as strong as your weakest link, and if you have some states that aren't compliant, there's a huge security risk, which is why Real ID is in real trouble," Balboni said.

A Spitzer spokesman took it a step further, saying that even before the change, New York, along with the other 49 states, would not be compliant with the system. Spitzer claims the change will reduce insurance-premium costs by 34 percent, because the number of insured drivers will go up. The plan will be implemented in two phases. The first, which will begin immediately, involves letters being sent to the roughly 152,000 state residents who have or previously have held licenses, but cannot renew them because of a change in their immigration status. They can begin the process in December. Six to eight months after that, the second phase will begin, allowing any New Yorkers with proof of identity, date of birth and fitness to drive to get a license.

Source



Current British immigration policy

A "Times" journalist interviews Trevor Phillips

Last weekend I went for a walk on Hampstead Heath. As we meandered beneath the trees we saw lots of other families just like us; but none of them was speaking English. A few days later I took the bus to Soho – again not one of the many conversations going on around me was in my language. I love the diversity, energy and prosperity that people from all over the world bring to London. But sometimes I get that strange sense of not feeling at home in my own town. And I’m not the only one: last week one of Gordon Brown’s “ask the people” roadshows found the public rate immigration as a more urgent priority than education or terrorism.

And while a plethora of races and cultures is the norm now in Britain’s multi-ethnic cities, the recent influx (in the 1990s 1.2m more people came to live here once those who’ve emigrated are accounted for – and that’s just the official statistics) means that rural areas and smaller towns are having to integrate large foreign populations too. Julie Spence, the chief constable of Cambridgeshire, spoke last week about the cost and cultural clashes of having large numbers of eastern Europeans on her patch.

It is not just the police who are being squeezed, but doctors’ surgeries and schools all over Britain. To get a sense of the scale of the nonplanning, the Home Office estimated that no more than 13,000 eastern Europeans from the accession states would come to Britain annually: 720,000 have registered. And nobody is counting the Iraqis, Kurds and Afghans sneaking in every night through our ports. Or the Chinese smuggled in by people traffickers, the Somali refugees . . . No wonder the public is worried.

So to get a sense of where all of this is going, I went to meet the man who is paid to engender social cohesion, Trevor Phillips, formerly the head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) and now in charge of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights which takes over the responsibilities of the CRE, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission next week. A veteran of race politics, it was Phillips who declared that multiculturalism wasn’t working, sounding the death knell for that oh so British doctrine that for 30 years decreed we should live alongside each other, let different communities and races do their own thing and not worry about integration, helping immigrants learn English or inculcating British values. It was a doctrine that died on 7/7 when British-born Muslim suicide bombers murdered their fellow citizens.

Though undoubtedly the right thing to do, Phillips’s condemnation of multiculturalism made him massively unpopular with many of his former brothers – as I found out when I interviewed him about his new job on stage at the CRE’s farewell race convention last year. I was there to talk to him about the role of the new commission. Questions from the floor were hostile. Voices were raised. Many veterans of the race riots of the 1970s saw Phillips as a sell-out, furious that the focus on race was to be lost as the CRE merged into a wider body. Phillips was taken aback by the “bullying” attitudes.

This time we are in his offices in Victoria Street without an audience, but he is still uncompromising on his old comrades. “They have to grow up. That militancy must be consigned to the dustbin of history. The CRE was set up to deal with a different set of circumstances. Now we have to chart a course for how we can deal with difference. We have to be more proactive and more friendly.” Race is, as he puts it, “no longer black and white”. In terms of life chances, a black African girl is likely to do better than a white British boy. A Chinese baby born today will probably be much better paid than his or her white contemporaries. It is no longer the case that ethnic minority kids get a raw deal because of white racism.

But despite such progress, Phillips is aware of the challenges we face to integrate the new arrivals. “We are now in the age of difference, not just in our big cities, but everywhere. We are all struggling to get used to this. But people like Andrew Green at Migrationwatch are saying these new arrivals can’t fit in. I believe that shows contempt for the tolerance of the British people. As a nation, because of being Welsh, Scots, Irish, English and still British we are pretty good at absorbing people. Once we get our brains in gear and stop being frightened about race, we are pretty good in this country at doing the immigration job. We just have to treat it positively. We have to tell immigrants the rules and what we expect.” Tell that to Cambridgeshire police.

He puts much of the anxiety about this down to “bad government planning which has made this all much more difficult. It’s not controlled and not managed. There are definitely issues of competence over the numbers coming here. And many of the problems we are seeing are happening because of that bad management”.

Now, he believes, the government is getting to grips with it. He cites Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, with whom he says he has worked closely on this, (not one for hiding his light under a bushel, Phillips) for going in the right direction. Byrne, he says, has started counting both the number of people coming to Britain and the number leaving. And it was Byrne who this year finally admitted the public was right to be worried about immigration. Labour is realising they have to talk about this which is why Gordon Brown has been banging on about Britishness: expect to hear lots about “identity politics” at the Labour conference this week. Slowly politicians are beginning to grasp the nettle. Why has it taken so long?

“Governments since the 1960s have been terrified of talking about race because of the spectre of Enoch Powell,” says Phillips. “They are scared of raising these issues for fear of being branded racist. But we must be able to have an honest conversation about racial difference and immigration. We must recognise diversity, not pretend it doesn’t exist. It is okay to say ‘I don’t like what you do’, but not okay to say ‘I don’t like what you are’. Many of us don’t know how to talk to each other. My job is to work out how to make it work.”

So what are his proposals? He thinks that in divided communities such as Oldham or Burnley that rather than quotas to mix the races in schools, or bussing pupils from one part of town to another, the key is getting different kinds of kids together for music or sport – or sending them on summer camps (all things his new body will be advocating and funding).

As for the political challenge, Phillips is upbeat. “Gordon is pretty smart on this, he’s seen that there are two great challenges at the moment. 1) How do we live with the planet? 2) How do we live with each other? The one most likely to destroy civilisation in my view is that we can’t live with each other. “Gordon has spotted that what we really fear is the consequence of this rushing tide of turbulence of diversity, which is why he is concentrating on the identity, Britishness, which will form a glue that will keep us together while everything is conspiring to force us apart.”

I’m not so sure that “Britishness” is the superglue he and Brown believe. What is it? Its purest expression is the Rule Britannia fest of the Last Night of the Proms – and there were precious few brown faces there, however hard the BBC tried to find them. But luckily, as well as Britishness, Phillips has some radical prescriptions for our unease. First he says that every immigrant must learn English, that the days of council-funded interpreters and translations on tap are over. “English is a sine qua non. And when we’ve surveyed this, the people who are most keen that immigrants learn English are former immigrants. They know that if you don’t have English you are shut out.”

He tells me about going to Bradford and Oldham and the middle-aged Bangladeshi ladies he’s met learning English alongside their children on a special bus. Looking stern, he says there is no place in society for wives forbidden by their husbands from taking part – these men must “get over it”: it’s official, the “live and let live” attitude to subjugating women, or honour killings or extremism is over. Multiculturalism RIP.

Even more controversially, Phillips is advocating a two-track immigration system. The United Nations says 200m people do not live and work in the country they were born in. “This is not a fearsome tide of refugees, but people coming to find work. We need them.” But, he says, we need to distinguish between those who want to work for a while and go home and those “wanting to be citizens”. Most crucial, he thinks, is “to have a system where, frankly, people can leave easily. One of the reasons people come and they stay is that they are worried that if they leave they won’t get back in . . . I think we should make that entry and exit easier – give people a permit to be a waiter or whatever, rather than coming in on a lorry.” That requires a more flexible and coherent system. “It’s different from 50 years ago when my parents came from Guyana – then it was difficult to go back home. Whereas now people virtually commute from Warsaw. If we are too scared about immigration we force people to be here all the time.”

That would be one track, a kind of semi-citizenship for transitory workers where temporary migrants pay for public services such as health, education and welfare before being entitled to work here. “Then there needs to be another track for people who want to come and be British. There are lots of people who like what we are and want to be part of it. I like proposals that such people should do voluntary work, that they have to display their desire for citizenship. It is all part of the desire for integration.” He is passionate about “equality” – a key part of the new body. White people are part of this too. “It’s not right that whites should be queue-jumped on things like housing.”

Does he think America has lessons for us? “Absolutely not. It’s a myth that they are a nation of immigrants that all muck in together. The US is a racially segregated society. I don’t want that for this country. When I go to America to see my relations I can be there for four or five weeks and never speak to a white person. I hate that.”

Source



23 September, 2007

The DREAM act: Amnesty For Foreign Criminals By the Millions

Post below lifted from JS Bolton. See the original for links

SA 2919 [BAD]DREAM act: The week of Sept. 17-21 is the Senate's opening of debate for this anti-American piece of deceitful betrayal, but there is still time to shine light on this proceeding, which must transpire swiftly in darkness, where the powerful and unrighteous can deceive the honest. NumbersUSA [www.numbersusa.com/actionbuffet] describes the legislation, and urges that Senators' staffers receive phone calls, not just faxes and e-mails: SA 2919 DREAM act: " is still an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens [...]

Please fax your senators and let them know that you are aware of the changes that have been made to the DREAM Act, but you still find the DREAM Act amnesty unacceptable.[...] the following things remain unchanged:

- The DREAM Act allows illegal "teens" to petition for their parents, leading eventually to their aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins: [...] But as soon as DREAM amnesty citizens are over 21, they can bring in their parents who broke the law to get them into the country.[...] And because of Chain Migration, the amnestied "teens" can see their aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents getting permanent U.S. residency as well.

- The DREAM Act does not Protect Americans from Terrorists and Criminals: Illegal immigrants are not required to submit fingerprints or undergo background security checks at any point in the DREAM Act process. Therefore, DHS has no way of learning whether an alien seeking DREAM Act amnesty is a terrorist or criminal. This security failure is compounded by the confidentiality section of the DREAM Act [...] basically requires DHS to hide information about terrorist and criminal aliens from itself. If a DHS adjudicator at USCIS learns from a DREAM Act application that an alien poses terrorist or criminal concerns, the adjudicator is prohibited from alerting ICE enforcement officers at DHS, and in fact, if the adjudicator did volunteer such information to ICE, he could be fined $10,000. To cap it all, DHS is prohibited from removing from the United States all aliens, including criminals, terrorists, fraudsters, and other ineligible aliens while they have a DREAM Act application pending, even if that application is based upon fraud or the alien is ineligible.

- The DREAM Act Offers Citizenship to Illegal Aliens Who Lack Good Moral Character: The DREAM Act does not require that aliens have a history of good moral character; it only requires that they have good moral character from the time that they apply. This means that criminal aliens, terrorists, and other aliens who lack good moral character before they apply get an amnesty for their pre-application period conduct, no matter how bad or extensive that conduct.

- The DREAM Act is Not Just for Young People: Sponsors insist that the point of the DREAM Act is to provide legal status to "kids" and "young people." However, the DREAM Act is not directed just at minors. Under the "new" DREAM Act, anyone 29-years-old or younger, who illegally entered the United States before the age of 16 and has illegally remained here for 5 years or more will qualify for lawful permanent residence [...]

- The DREAM Act is a Big Amnesty: It's estimated there are some 2 million illegal immigrant children in the United States. They are only a portion of the millions of aliens who will likely qualify for the DREAM Act amnesty, because the DREAM Act does not place a cap on the number of people who qualify, provides exceptions to the newly-formed under-30 age limit, and applies retroactively to anyone who first entered before age 16. Furthermore, the recipients of the DREAM Act amnesty will be permitted to petition for their illegal parents and adult relatives once they become citizens.

- The DREAM Act is Deceptive: [...] the bill as written ensures that illegal immigrants don't have to attend high school or go to college to qualify for the amnesty: they need only take an ability-to-benefit test and complete a 1-year vocational program to get eventual citizenship (and there's no requirement that they actually complete their college education). Nor do aliens have to join the Armed Forces: they need only go to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or Public Health Service for 2 years to get eventual citizenship.

- The DREAM Act is a Fraud Machine: We know from experience that amnesty from immigration laws generates massive fraud, and the DREAM Act is no exception. Nothing in the DREAM Act will prevent a 29-year old alien from asserting that he entered the United States before the age of 16 and has remained here ever since. The DREAM Act is silent on how DHS will determine the veracity of such claims. The DREAM Act will actually promote fraud because it prevents DHS from deporting aliens who've applied for the amnesty until their applications are resolved - a process that will likely take years, because DHS lacks the resources to rapidly process the millions of applications it will receive. Even if DHS eventually decides that some aliens do not qualify for the amnesty, DHS cannot use the statements aliens made in their applications to deport them, because their statements are protected by the confidentiality section in the DREAM Act.

- The DREAM Act is Unfair to American Students and Taxpayers: The "new" DREAM Act removed the in-state college tuition section. However, aliens who get the amnesty will become legal residents and will therefore be automatically eligible for in-state tuition anyway.

- The DREAM Act Puts Illegal Immigrants at the Front of the Line for Green Cards: The DREAM Act requires that applications for its amnesty must be expedited, bars DHS from charging fees for expedited service, and fails to provide DHS the additional personnel and equipment needed to handle expedited applications. Because millions of people will file applications for DREAM Act amnesty (regardless of whether or not they eventually qualify), DHS will experience a significant backlog of cases that will necessarily slow DHS' ability to process conventional business and family visas, and applications for naturalization. This will adversely impact our economy, and disrupt the settled expectations of intending legal immigrants to the United States.

- The DREAM Act Will Allow Dangerous Criminal Aliens to Remain At Large in the United States: DHS lacks the resources to detain all criminal aliens it encounters in the United States, and so DHS has to pick and choose which criminals to hold for deportation. When DHS deports a criminal alien, the detention or "bed space" vacated by the out-going criminal is immediately filled by another criminal alien. The DREAM Act does not disqualify anyone (even criminals) from filing an application and bars DHS from removing any alien who's filed an application for amnesty. Thus, criminal aliens who have no desire to be deported will file DREAM Act applications to halt or slow their deportations, which means they will spend more time taking up detention space which could be used to house other criminal aliens. That means more criminal aliens whom DHS cannot house will be free to roam the United States.

The DREAM Act also creates an opportunity for extremely dangerous criminal aliens to be released into the general population. By law, a criminal alien who is subject to a final order of removal must be released from DHS custody within 90 days if his removal is not "reasonably foreseeable." As mentioned previously, the DREAM Act does not allocate resources to DHS to process the millions of applications that are sure to be filed, which will result in very lengthy delays. The result? A dangerous criminal alien who would otherwise have been removed from the United States files his DREAM Act application, and when that application stalls at DHS with millions of others, he can file a petition in a district court after 90 days to effect his release because his removal is not "reasonably foreseeable."

JB comments: what is to stop an illegal from qualifying under two sets of false ID, then getting disability payments under both names? They only have to enroll or have completed some post-high school course, which could be easy to get fake papers for as well.



Some history of Chinese immigration to Australia

It is certainly true that the Chinese adapt very well to Western society -- something clearly attributable to large areas of cultural compatibility between the two groups -- plus the high Chinese IQ. I have reproduced below just the history -- ignoring some rather silly political point-scoring

At the age of about seven, I have to confess, I took part in one of the earliest and smallest race riots in Sutherland Shire. Our gang at Jannali Public School somehow thought it would be a good idea to line up outside the local Chinese greengrocer's shop and chant "Ching-chong, Chinaman". Duly reported to our parents by an outraged neighbour, some of us were sent to make a formal apology, the first but not the last embarrassing encounter in a lifetime largely focused on Asia.

At that point, in the 1950s, the identifiable community of Chinese descent in Australia had dwindled to about 10,000 from about 50,000 at the time of Federation, thanks to steady application of immigration laws enforcing the White Australia ideology. Subject to this kind of cheap taunt, you must wonder why any stayed at all.

The answer is supplied in a powerful new book by John Fitzgerald of La Trobe University that combines the skills of an excellent China specialist, Australian historian and fine writer. The Chinese were as "Australian" as the rest of us, and despite all the rejection - which started immediately after the Federation parades they joined with dragon and lion dances - they held keenly to what are now called Australian values. While our early statesmen were fulminating about the subservience, cruelty and depravity of "John Chinaman", John was punting on the Melbourne Cup, as a frayed Chinese SP bookie's ledger in the Launceston Museum attests.....

Fitzgerald shows us that right from the 1850s gold rushes, Chinese immigrants to Australia were caught up in the revolutionary fervour starting to sweep their homeland. Indeed, some arrived fresh from the millenarian Taiping rebellion against the Manchus. They quickly appreciated the benefits of the British rule of law and the labour movement beginning to form in the colonies, and were early supporters of the imperial reform movement, then Sun Yat-sen's republicanism.

Far from seeking to stay outside the emerging Australian society - running the opium and gambling dens of popular perception - the Chinese sought respectability and participation, with the biggest secret society, Yee Hing, going public as the Chinese Masonic Association of NSW in 1911. If Australian Chinese travelled more frequently back to their homeland than British migrants, it was because China was that much closer, and because of the White Australia laws blocking entry of wives and family.

The republican period also saw Australian Chinese tycoons marshalling share capital in Australia for some of the biggest overseas investments in the modern Chinese economy, with the four biggest department stores on Nanking Road in Shanghai modelled on the Australian retailer Anthony Hordern's formula of impressive display, reasonable fixed prices, and polite uniformed staff.

Other Chinese Australians went back consciously trying to plant Australian and Christian values in the new China, with the journalist Vivian Chow drawing on the "Anzac spirit" in his writings (there were many diggers of Chinese descent in World War I). But partly this offshore business move reflected the restricted opportunities in Australia (in 1921, Queensland even applied the infamous dictation test, whereby port officials could test anyone arriving in any European language, for entry to its banana industry).

Even so, some who remained found ways to flourish. In 1925, Leslie Joseph Tingyou changed his father's name for that of his old profession, a "hooker" on the railways, and went on to set up the real estate agent L.J. Hooker, with most of his big business peers unaware he was a "Chinaman". This background was hardly known in the 1980s when the Malaysian share raider Lee Ming Tee was mounting a hostile takeover of L.J. Hooker, frequently complaining of racism when his manoeuvres were queried. Maybe the irony was on all of us.

It was not just in business. As a baby, John Yu, son of a Kuomintang minister, was smuggled out of Japanese-occupied China in a wicker basket and raised in Sydney, becoming a pediatrician and chancellor of the University of NSW.

Source





22 September, 2007

Brits not allowed to prefer British doctors

The threat of unemployment among UK medical graduates is being blamed on the failed computerised recruitment system (MTAS), but an article in this week's BMJ argues that the real problem is government policy on medical immigration.

In the late 1990s UK medical schools produced nearly 5,000 graduates each year, considerably fewer than the NHS needed, writes Graham Winyard, a retired Postgraduate Dean. But in 1997, an expansion of medical school places began and the number of graduate doctors is set to rise to 7,000 in 2010, an increase of 40%.

The planners assumed that UK qualified doctors would replace those from overseas. But Government immigration policies have encouraged thousands of overseas doctors to compete for postgraduate training posts, and it is of course illegal for trusts and deaneries to discriminate on the basis of country of qualification when making appointments. Expanding medical schools makes little sense if extra graduates cannot pursue a career in medicine, says Winyard.

UK trained doctors began to voice concerns about possible unemployment in 2005 and these concerns were dramatically realised this summer, when MTAS was introduced to select doctors for training posts. While there were broadly sufficient posts to accommodate UK applicants, together with those from the rest of the European Economic Area, he argues, the inclusion of thousands of overseas doctors has transformed the prospects for all applicants and has made widespread failure to secure a proper training post inevitable.

The UK urgently needs policy coherence on immigration and medical training, he writes. The direct connection between policy on medical immigration and the likelihood of unemployment for UK medical graduates is inescapable. The most obvious action, he says, would be to suspend the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme - a scheme allowing highly skilled people to migrate to the UK to seek work without a specific job offer - as it applies to doctors, and establish a two stage recruitment process similar to that used in other countries, whereby overseas applications are considered after those of domestic graduates.

The rights of overseas doctors already in the system must be safeguarded, but if decisive action is not taken the situation will be worse next year, he warns. This muddle is in no one's best interests and needs open and honest discussion and clear leadership, however difficult that may be, he concludes.

Source



Australia's Reserve Bank "destroys the myth" of migrants on welfare(not)

What a huge crock! The most the story below proves is that immigrants tend to be younger. Figures that are allegedly about the dole don't in fact discriminate between those on the dole and those not on the dole! Quite amazing! Propaganda does not get much more blatant than this

THE stereotype of the dole-bludging immigrant is a myth, research by the Reserve Bank has found. Drawing on unpublished figures from the Bureau of Statistics, the bank's researchers found workforce participation among immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2005 was higher than for the total population. The proportion in or looking for work in July this year was 68.2 per cent, compared to 65 per cent for the population as a whole.

A strong economy, increased skilled migration and the fact that immigrants were more likely to be of working age were behind the result, the bank said. "With immigrants relatively more concentrated in the prime working-age group, it may not be surprising that they have participation rates above the national average," a paper released yesterday said.

Immigrant unemployment had also fallen dramatically over the past two decades, the bank found, from above 30 per cent during the 1991 recession, to roughly 7 per cent last year. The longer someone had been in Australia, the further this fell. For migrants who arrived between 2001 and 2005 their jobless rate in July this year was almost the same as the national rate, 4.9 per cent compared to 4.3 per cent. For more recent arrivals, in 2006 or 2007, it was still higher at 13.1 per cent. "While in the year after arrival the immigrant unemployment rate is consistently higher than the national unemployment rate, in recent years this gap has narrowed significantly," the Reserve Bank said.

Immigrants accounted for almost a third of all jobs growth between 2001 and 2006. In an economy close to full employment, migrant workers and increased participation by older and younger workers have helped keep pressure off wages and inflation - the trigger for higher interest rates. "Immigrants have accounted for a considerable proportion of employment growth in a historically tight labour market," the bank said.

More than 180,000 permanent visas were granted in 2005-06, with more than half granted under the skilled migrant scheme. A quarter were granted to family members of Australians, 24,000 for New Zealand settlers and 14,000 for humanitarian reasons. The bank said there was still scope for increased participation by older people in the workforce. While participation had increased dramatically in the past decade, Australia had fewer people aged 55 to 64 in the workforce than comparable economies. It was 57.5 per cent in Australia, 59 in Canada, 63.5 in Britain and the US, and 73 in Sweden.

Source





21 September, 2007

The hate myth in the immigration debate

Post below lifted from Prairie Pundit. See the original for links

Michael Gerson is the latest to buy into the myth that those Republicans who oppose illegal immigration hate immigrants and that Hispanics will see themselves as the focus of that anger and hate.

One gets the impression of decent men, intimidated by the vocal anger of elements of their own party.

That anger is pushing Republicans into some powerful symbols of indifference to Hispanic voters. The Univision Republican debate, scheduled for last Sunday with simultaneous translation into Spanish, was postponed when only Sen. John McCain agreed to show up. Rep. Tom Tancredo objected to the event on principle: "We should not be doing things that encourage people to stay separate in a separate language" -- which raises the question: Is saying "Viva Cuba Libre" no longer permissible for Republicans? And this snub came on the heels of conspicuous Republican absence at a forum held by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, and at the National Council of La Raza convention.

Take a breath people. Encouraging assimilation is an act of kindness and compassion, not anger and hate. I have been living around Hispanics for most of my life and there is one thing that is blatantly obvious about the many successful Hispanics. They can all communicate with ease in English. They do not need the crutch of being pandered to in Spanish. There should be nothing wrong about encouraging assimilation and discouraging illegal immigration. In fact many of the Hispanics who are hear legally resent the fact that those coming here illegally have a negative impact on their opportunities. There should be no reason that a stand for the rule of law would be a negative in an election.

Until the government can persuade the majority in this country that it is serious about enforcing the rule of law, there will be no political advantage in pandering to those here illegally.



After deportation, shooter was caught, freed again

Erik Jovani Martinez should have been in prison and not jaywalking the day he gunned down Phoenix police Officer Nick Erfle. But despite a lengthy criminal history and a deportation, Martinez remained free, even after he was arrested again in the Valley just two months after he had been forced to leave the country in 2006. Scottsdale police say they didn't know Martinez, 22, was an illegal immigrant or that he had been deported when they arrested him in May 2006 for grabbing his girlfriend's arm twice during a quarrel. Martinez was deported in March 2006 after a felony conviction for theft.

Had Scottsdale police known, Martinez should have been jailed and should have faced federal charges for returning to the country illegally. A conviction would have earned him up to 20 years in prison. Instead, he posted $300 bail and was released.

On Wednesday, one day after Martinez gunned down Erfle on a central Phoenix street, the officer's death reignited the ongoing immigration debate. Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called on Washington officials to "secure the border and secure it now" before another officer pays the ultimate price. "This individual that took our officer's life is a perfect example, a poster child, of our failed Washington policy for securing our borders," Gordon said.

But others say Martinez shouldn't necessarily be a flashpoint in the acrimonious debate over where immigration policy and law enforcement should intersect. Martinez was brought to the United States as an infant and lived his whole life here. Clearly, he also was a career criminal, racking up a dozen arrests before he turned 18 and continuing to have brushes with the law afterward.

Even law-enforcement officials said they were hesitant to say Erfle's murder could be blamed on immigration issues. "It's a big, complex issue," said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been in the national forefront when it comes to pursuing undocumented immigrants. Still, Arpaio admitted, "You can't catch 'em all. We have a lot of violence out there, whether you're legal or illegal."

Martinez has an extensive juvenile record that includes assaults and auto thefts. He was a documented gang member who admitted in court papers that he drank and smoked marijuana and crack cocaine. His first arrest, in July 1999, came after his parents reported him as incorrigible. Martinez spent most of his teens on probation. Arrests for truancy led to more serious things: underage drinking, several threats and assault and stealing a vehicle. Martinez was serving time in juvenile detention for auto theft when he turned 18 and had to be released, according to court records.

Just months later, he was in trouble again, arrested for auto theft. He served time in a Maricopa County jail, then violated his probation and eventually wound up in prison in January 2006. Two months later, Martinez was deported. Typically, illegal immigrants convicted of a felony must serve all or part of their sentence before being deported.

Martinez apparently sneaked back across the border almost immediately. Scottsdale police arrested him on May 15, 2006, after an officer saw him quarreling with his girlfriend. Scottsdale police spokeswoman Shawn Sanders couldn't say whether officers had contacted immigration officials after the arrest. She would say only that information about Martinez's deportation was "not available to us at that time."

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20 September, 2007

Immigrants boost crime in Britain

A chief constable today said an increase in immigration had left police struggling to deal with certain offences, including knife crime and drink-driving. Julie Spence, of Cambridgeshire police, said immigrant communities, often from the new EU states, had "different standards" from the UK. She issued an outspoken plea for more government funding to cope with the problems, posed by a sharp rise in immigration over recent years. Between 2003 and 2004 the number of foreign nationals arrested in the county for drink-driving soared from 57 to 966, although it has since fallen by two-thirds.

Mrs Spence also argued officers could take three times as long dealing with an immigrant offender, partly due to language difficulties. She was backed by the chairman of the Cambridgeshire Police Federation, who added many officers' time was also taken up educating new arrivals about British culture and laws. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mrs Spence she attacked the government for starving the force of funds to deal with the immigration influx. "The profile of the county has changed dramatically and this simply isn't taken into account when government allocates funding," she said. "We are now dealing with people from many different countries, speaking more than 90 different languages."

Mrs Spence said the new communities needed to adjust to British standards of behaviour. "When they arrive they think they can do the same thing as in the country they have come from," she said. "There were a lot of people who ... because they used to carry knives for protection, they think they can carry knives here. "We have worked with the communities because they don't necessarily come to commit crime but they need to be told what you can and can't do. "We can identify a significant rise in drink-drive, which was down to people thinking that what they did where they came from, they could do here." She said immigrants' attitudes to drink-driving were probably what they were in the UK 20 years ago.

"While the economic benefits of growth are clear, we need to maintain the basic public services infrastructure which means increasing the number of officers we have."

Research from the East of England Development Agency showed that between 50,000 and 80,000 of the region's 2.8 million "economically active" people were migrant workers, and they contributed about 360m pounds a year to the regional economy. Many worked in the food-processing and agricultural sectors.

Mrs Spence also said "feuds" between rival foreign gangs could involve investigating officers travelling to other countries to interview witnesses. "We recently had a murder and it was a Lithuanian on Lithuanian and it could easily have happened in Lithuania," she said. "But it didn't, it happened in Wisbech, so one of my staff spent a lot of their time in Lithuania trying to get underneath what was actually happening with the crime and criminality, which brings costs that you wouldn't have had before, which means something else has to give."

Speaking later on Sky News, Mrs Spence said her force had been "short changed" by 15m pounds over the past five years. Last year alone Cambridgeshire police spent 1m on translation - leading to "difficult choices" on where to find the money. "I think there's a London-centric, a metropolitan-centric view which says all the big issues happen in big cities, but we're not a sleepy rural county, if we ever were." She said government statistics underestimated the growth in the county's population and the police force was being denied a "fair slice of the cake".

David Smith, the chairman of Cambridgeshire Police Federation, said officers were becoming so stretched they were spending less time on the beat preventing crime. "Half of migrant workers in the east of England come to Cambridgeshire. That is obviously putting great pressure on resources," he said.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, accused the government of a "shambolic approach to immigration". "The government estimated that 13,000 people would come from accession countries. At least 700,000 have now arrived," he said. "Labour's open door approach to immigration failed to consider, let alone cater for, the impact of this influx on housing and public services. Senior officers are now providing damning evidence of the strain Labour's shambolic approach has placed on the police and their ability to fight crime."

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said: "The way ministers fund local public services, including the police, makes it incredibly difficult for communities to cope with the rapid changes in population that can be caused by immigration. "It takes years for the extra money to come through from the government for areas with high immigration, so it is no wonder the police can find themselves struggling."

The Home Office minister, Liam Byrne, said in a statement: "It's vital that we take the social impact of immigration into account when we make migration decisions. "It's because we want to hear voices like Julie Spence's that I set up the Migration Impacts Forum, so public services can help shape our tough points system which is introduced in around 150 days' time." A Home Office spokesman said spending on police services nationally had risen by nearly 5b from 6.2b to 11b since 1997. A spokesman for Gordon Brown said: "The chief constable has given her views but I think it's important that we keep this in context. "If you look at what's happening to total crime in Cambridgeshire, it's been on a clear downward trend."

Source



Canada: A haven for villains

The political reasons behind Canada's controversial asylum policy

SINCE the 2001 terrorist attacks, America has been criticising Canada for lax border controls, claiming they had turned the country into "a safe haven" for criminals and terrorists. Canada had seemed to ignore the charge. But on August 31st Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government proudly announced that, for the first time, 80 customs officers along its border with America had been equipped with guns in a first step to arming all its 4,800 border guards by 2017.

Despite government denials, all kinds of undesirables are getting into Canada under the country's dysfunctional "refugee" system. While doing little to save genuine refugees in camps abroad, it has opened the door to queue-jumping economic migrants, big-time crooks and terrorists, as documented in numerous reports (notably from the federal government's security service and auditor-general) over more than 20 years. In 1999, the Americans nabbed an Algerian asylum-seeker as he tried to cross the border from Canada with explosives intended to blow up Los Angeles International Airport.

Canada is the easiest country in the developed world in which to obtain refugee status. Most countries accept no more than around 15% of all applicants, whereas Canada accepts more than half. Attracted by an entitlement to the same legal rights and social benefits as for Canadian citizens, some 25,000 asylum-seekers make their way to Canada every year. Many come from safe, but less generous, third countries, often paying people-smugglers up to $50,000 each for false passports and airline tickets.

Once in Canada, they know they will be able to stay-and work-there for at least four years, while pursuing their appeals through the courts. Even if their claims are ultimately rejected, there is a good chance they will never actually be deported; the backlog of unexecuted removal orders is around 50,000. Many end up as citizens.

Canadians have become increasingly incensed by a series of high-profile cases of failed asylum-seekers who should be long gone. The most glaring is that of Mahmoud Mohammed Issa Mohammed, a Palestinian terrorist who took part in an Israeli airline hijacking; one passenger was killed. Ordered to be deported in 1988, he is still in Canada after some 30 appeals and reviews. Lai Changxing, one of China's most wanted criminal suspects, continues to launch appeals from his Vancouver home after being ordered to leave in 2000. And Rakesh Saxena, wanted in Thailand on embezzlement charges, who also lives in Vancouver, has been fighting extradition for the past ten years.

Remembering their own immigrant roots, most Canadians like to be generous to newcomers. But another refugee case, involving a paralysed Sikh, is beginning to test their patience. After entering Canada on a false passport in 2003, Laibar Singh applied for asylum, claiming that he would be tortured if returned to his native Punjab, where he was "falsely" accused of being a Sikh militant. His application was turned down, three times.

Last year, he suffered a stroke that left him paralysed, unable to feed himself and dependent on state-provided medical care. Faced with imminent deportation, he sought sanctuary in July in a Sikh temple near Vancouver, but was arrested when he went to hospital to get treatment. Last month Stockwell Day, Canada's public-safety minister, granted him a 60-day reprieve on "humanitarian" grounds, after the Sikh community had announced plans for a big protest demonstration. It is now widely expected that Mr Singh will end up being allowed to stay in Canada.

The main reason behind the refugee mess, critics say, is politics. If the Conservatives are to have a chance of forming a majority government after the next general election, they will need to pick up seats in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, where ethnic communities are concentrated. All three national political parties pander to the ethnic vote. None wants to close the back door to new immigrants. Although the polls suggest that ordinary Canadians want the abuse to end, there is no political will. As James Bissett, former head of the Canadian immigration service, says: "It might take a bomb going off here to change this system."

Source





19 September, 2007

New rules for France?

Proposals to tighten entry conditions for the relatives of immigrants who want to join their family in France are to be debated in the French parliament. Under the new bill, immigrant families would have to prove they are solvent financially and can speak French. In some cases the legislation would demand the relatives take a DNA test to prove their applications were genuine.

Civil liberties groups say the bill is inhuman but the government has vowed to clamp down on illegal immigration. President Nicolas Sarkozy has set up deportation quotas, promising to send home 25,000 illegal immigrants this year alone.

The bill would require immigrant family members aged over 16 to take a test in their country of origin demonstrating a good knowledge of French language and values. Applicants would also have to prove their family in France can support them and earn at least the minimum wage.

If immigration officials doubt an applicant is truly a genuine relative of the person he or she seeks to join in France, that person could be asked to take - and pay for - a DNA test to prove a biological link with other family members.

Source



Finn says "too bad" about labor shortages

Comments by Foreign Trade and Development Minister Paavo Vayrynen (Centre) on recruitment of immigrants to alleviate labour shortages have been sharply criticised by experts.

Vayrynen said in the Centre Party's Internet publication Apila on Sunday that Finland should not promote extensive work-based immigration. In Vayrynen's view, jobs for which there are no workers in Finland should to go to other countries.

Promotion of immigration is mentioned in the government's policy programme.

Rauno Vanhanen, head of the government's political programme for work and enterprise, was surprised by Vayrynen's comments. Vanhanen says that all sectors face a shortage of labour in the future, because the ageing population means that the number of people of working age is declining. "Only between five and ten per cent of immigrants have come here for work it would be better if a significantly larger proportion were work based." Vanhanen notes that economic growth requires an increased input of labour. "If we accept that labour can decline, it would be a surrender to the weakening of a key element of economic growth." ...

On Monday, Vayrynen sought to clarify his comments, noting that he does not oppose labour-based immigration as such, but he does not favour widespread immigration. He wanted to take up the matter before it is discussed in a ministerial group for immigration policy.

Foreign Trade Minister Vayrynen suspects that the "net benefit" of immigration would remain small, because services need to be provided for the families of the immigrants, for which more labour is needed. In addition, Finland must care for the employees when they retire.

Vayrynen says that it would be better for Finland to take guest workers, who would not move permanently to Finland, and whose families would stay in their home countries.

Source





18 September, 2007

Congress returns to immigration

Three months after Congress failed to pass a broad immigration overhaul, lawmakers are quietly returning to the hot-button issue, discussing narrower measures that address illegal immigrants and low-skilled laborers. Already, critics are promising fireworks.

As early as this week, Democratic senators are set to introduce an amendment that would give conditional legal status to young illegal immigrants. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) hopes to bring up a visa program that eventually would allow farmhands to gain citizenship, whereas Republican senators are discussing a short-term guest worker program for low-skilled laborers. Republicans also are considering a bill that would overhaul visas for high-skilled foreigners.

In the House, Republicans have been steadily introducing initiatives aimed at ensuring that illegal immigrants could not gain access to federal benefits. "We may be heading for another immigration battle," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said of the measures headed for the Senate floor. "Hopefully it can be avoided."

After the Senate failed in June to pass the broad immigration bill, rebuffing President Bush, who supported it, many on Capitol Hill predicted the issue would lie fallow until after the 2008 presidential election. But that has not been the case.

The Bush administration in August unveiled a roster of aggressive enforcement initiatives, provoking a legal challenge from labor and business groups and outrage from immigrant advocates. The Department of Homeland Security has continued its stepped-up raids on work sites that use illegal laborers, and in August it deported a high-profile illegal immigrant activist who had spent months in a Chicago church, declaring it a sanctuary.

Immigrant groups nationwide have staged vigils, protests and letter-writing campaigns to demand changes in policy. Groups that want to limit immigration also have kept a sharp eye on Congress, on the lookout for any attempts to pass what they view as "amnesty" -- proposals that would open the way to legalization for illegal immigrants.

Since the comprehensive bill's failure, some of the focus on immigration has served political goals. Republican senators quickly brought up an enforcement bill, a hit with their conservative base. The Democratic-sponsored measures generally appeal to Latino voters. Staff members from both parties say immigration-related amendments could turn up on any major piece of legislation expected to pass.

Some of the measures now in the works don't have much bipartisan support, limiting their chances of success. And some lawmakers express doubts that it is possible to restructure the immigration system through separate bills rather than sweeping legislation. "I'm personally very skeptical of a piecemeal approach," said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan coalition that tried to pass the overhaul earlier this year. "The hardest thing to do . . . is take care of" the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. "The minute we start doing the easy things, like taking care of agribusiness interests because they need the workers, . . . then we're leaving the hard things" unaddressed.

The central conflict that tripped up the comprehensive bill remains the question of whether illegal immigrants should be given the chance to earn legal status. That question will be an issue in at least two of the measures headed for the Senate. The first to come up is expected to be the "Dream Act," a bill championed by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) that would give conditional legal status to immigrants brought to the U.S. at a young age.

To qualify under it, they must have been in the country for at least five years, have a high school diploma and meet other requirements. Over the next six years, they would have to spend two years in college or the military, after which they could become legal permanent residents, a step toward citizenship.

Durbin plans to attach the bill as an amendment to a defense funding measure scheduled to come before the Senate today, his staff said. The bill has broad support, prompting immigration restrictionist groups to send alerts warning that the Senate was planning "to pass an amnesty act by hiding language in the defense authorization bill."

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'Gods And Generals' Filmmaker Takes on Illegal Immigration

"Gods and Generals" filmmaker Ron Maxwell casually relaxed recently at the home of businessman Walter Curt in Rockingham County. Until, that is, the subject turns to immigration. Immigration is the subject of Maxwell's next project, a documentary film scheduled to be released in December. U.S. immigration policy, Maxwell said, is controlled by the corporate, political and intellectual elite who want to bring down U.S. borders for their own gain at the expense of the country's institutions.

Curt agrees with Maxwell on immigration and contributed $100,000 to fund the film through the Conservative Caucus Foundation of Vienna. Charles Orndorff, administrative vice president, estimated the budget for the documentary at between $500,000 and $1 million. The Conservative Caucus lobbies Congress on legislative issues, Orndorff said. The foundation participates in research and education activities, he added. Curt, who made millions with the company he founded, SEI Inc., has historically contributed to conservative political candidates and causes.

On immigration, Curt said he has direct experience on how the federal government handles the issue. When he owned the Harrisonburg-based SEI, Curt, with 2,000 employees, had one of the largest private companies providing services, including green cards, to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Curt said he has seen how immigration service employees try to do their job in an ever-changing political environment. "That is one of the most politically whip-sawed agencies I have ever seen," Curt said from his home. "They were torn in half no matter what they did."

Curt's insight into the immigration service has convinced him that Maxwell is right on the issue and led to his backing of the film. "It needs to be done," he said. Maxwell's previous films include "Gettysburg" (1993) and "Gods and Generals" (2003), both feature films on the Civil War. Maxwell of Flint Hill filmed portions of "Gods and Generals" in the Shenandoah Valley. His latest film is being filmed outside the region.

Some estimates place the number of illegal immigrants at about 12 million people nationally. Locally, Harrisonburg has struggled with 38 percent of its public school students in the English as a Second Language program. The percentage was tops in Virginia this past school year. The figure for this fall was not available.

Maxwell considers himself a maker of makes films based on historic subjects. But he has taken a year off to make the documentary on immigration, which in the last year or two has become one of the most hotly debated issues on the political and social scenes. "Immigration is totally out of control and our infrastructure is totally overwhelmed," he said in an interview on Wednesday. Maxwell said he was not singling out any particular immigrant group. Those people who say the issue is about race are trying to stop the conversation, he said. The issue, he said, "is about a huge number of people who come here illegally and don't belong here."

Maxwell's documentary grew out of his growing awareness of the immigration problem as he traveled back and forth from New York City, where he grew up, to Los Angeles. He was raised in an ethnic neighborhood in New Jersey in the 1950s that included Italians, Polish and German immigrants. Assimilation into the culture was important to them, he said. "There was no inkling of separatism. There was no inkling of anti-Americanism," he said. But that is not the same feeling, he says, among immigrants today, "One way or another, either by out right annexation, which could happen in 20 to 30 years from now, or through demographic change, they see it as a re-conquering," Maxwell said of some Mexican politicians and intellectuals.

A central part of the problem, Maxwell said, are "post patriotic non-citizens" running large corporations that put financial interests above those of the country. The corporate leaders are in an alliance with politicians and opinion leaders in the Hispanic community, he said. "They are taking America to the New World order, which will have no borders," Maxwell said. Because of this coalition, politicians are disconnected to the desires of the country's citizens, Maxwell said. "They are not elected," he said, "to be representatives of the billions of people in the world that want to come here."

Maxwell favors cracking down on illegal immigration by enforcing current laws. He favors stiff penalties for large businesses that hire illegal immigrants. Maxwell supports no amnesty for illegal immigrants. He wants to make sure that those here illegally have no chance of gaining U.S. citizenship. He also supports building a wall to protect the international borders. Walls along highways for noise abatements are built but none are constructed for national security, Maxwell pointed out. "It's a complete collapse of will," he said. "It's worse than that: It's a betrayal of the American people."

As grim a picture Maxwell paints on immigration, the filmmaker believes it is not too late for Americans to do something to curb the tide. Every election, even those at the local level, are important, he said. "This is now about reclaiming our sovereignty," he said. "It's going to happen at the grassroots." If politicians do not listen to voters, Maxwell said an alternative is for people to stop paying taxes. "The American people are funding their own suicide. If we stop paying taxes, this craziness stops," he said.

Source





17 September, 2007

Pro-Minuteman Grandmother Accosted in her home!

Press release from Minuteman HQ below:

73 year old Frances Semler was accosted by illegal-alien supporters last week. Semler called the police saying that she was confronted at her home by a group of 8 or 9 individuals and was pressured to resign from her position on the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Board. The reason for this threat? She is a volunteer with the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps.

Semler is a staunch supporter of legal immigration. She says, "Our government seemed to be consciously neglecting the enforcement of immigration laws, I felt the need to join with others and selected the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps". Semler believes in an America where people respect and obey the laws of the land and feels that one of the major threats to a moral way of life is coming from illegal immigration.

Because of her willingness to stand up for what she believes in, she has come under-fire from ruthless liberals. La Raza, a Hispanic rights organization, has threatened to cancel their 2009 convention that is to be held in Kansas City because Semler holds the beliefs she does. The NAACP is also gunning for her and they have urged her to step down from her position.

There are even those on her own recreation board that want her gone. Councilwoman Beth Gottstein says that Semler should resign for her affiliation with the Minutemen because they are "just one step away from the KKK." Two of the largest civil rights groups in American are ganging up on this grandmother like a lynch mod violatiing her civil rights instead of protecting her when people in her own community are saying she is a racist, but Frances Semler is not alone and does not intend to run away, step down or hide.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps won't leave anyone behind to fight on their own. The United States Justice Foundation is a group of lawyers who have risen to defend Minutemen who have come under attack. The USJF provides pro-bono legal aid for upstanding Minutemen just like Frances Semler. The Minuteman Protection Program was created for times just like these. The USJF has contacted Semler and has learned firsthand that she intends to stand against this unjust harassment and retain her position on the Kansas City Parks Recreation Board. She will not stand alone, the USJF will be there, to watch her back and give her the finest legal support she can receive.



Immigration groups rally in Kansas

Anti-illegal immigration groups are marshaling their forces in Kansas, saying crackdowns on illegal immigration in neighboring states like Oklahoma and Missouri have driven hordes of undocumented workers to the state. "They come to the path of least resistance -- and right now that is Kansas," said Susan Tully, national field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

About 30 people met in Wichita on Thursday to hear representatives from FAIR, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and You Don't Speak for Me during a grass-roots strategy session on how to push local and state measures against illegal immigration. Among the featured speakers was Carol Helms, director of Immigration Reform for Oklahoma, whose lobbying efforts were credited for passage last spring in Oklahoma of a sweeping anti-illegal immigration law. She gave participants a primer on lobbying tactics for state legislatures. "Trust me, the masses do care," she said. "They just have to be told what to do."

The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act In Oklahoma, hailed as one of the toughest among the states on illegal immigration, seeks to block undocumented workers from getting jobs by imposing tighter screening procedures on employers. The law also seeks to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to obtain public benefits. The Oklahoma measure, which is expected to draw legal challenges, is slated to go into effect on Nov. 1.

In Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt announced last month a two-pronged crackdown on illegal immigration. He directed Missouri State Highway Patrol officers to check the immigration status of every person they incarcerate. He also directed the Missouri Department of Economic Development to tighten oversight of contractors who receive state tax breaks or funding.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps announced at the Wichita meeting that it planned to hold its national convention Dec. 1 in Kansas City, Mo., citing the controversy in that city sparked by the presence of an anti-illegal immigration activist on the city's park board.

The appointment of Frances Semler, a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, prompted officers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Council of La Raza to threaten to cancel national conventions in Kansas City.

"The border is no longer in the desert -- it is all over America, and especially in Kansas," said Ed Hayes, Kansas director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

Source





16 September, 2007

EU official asks for more immigrants

The proposal is dressed up as a search for skilled workers but since many poor African countries are on his list, the "skills" demanded will apparently be minimal

The European Union's top justice official is advocating for the bloc to open it's doors to 20 million more immigrant workers over the course of the next two decades. Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini called on the 27-member states to "look at immigration as an enrichment and as a inescapable phenomenon of today's world, not as a threat," in a speech delivered at an immigration conference in Lisbon Thursday.

He said that he is weighing proposals to develop a "Blue EU Labour Card" program, which would "attract the workers needed to fill specific gaps." Under the proposal, highly qualified foreigners would enter one of the EU's member states for a period of two years before either returning to their home countries or applying for a renewal in the same or a second member country. After five consecutive years in any one state, they would be able to seek longer-term residency status, at which point they would be entitled to move freely across borders. The proposal would also include boosting the legal immigrants rights to work under fair conditions. He plans to formally unveil the proposal on October 23.

The plans have immediately encountered opposition in some of the EU's more well-off nations. "Germany could not take in large quantities of foreign workers just because it needs them at one particular moment," Economy Minister Michael Glos told Spiegel magazine.

"Since this would be likely to be in addition to already large-scale immigration, the stress placed on housing, public services and community relations in the UK would be enormous," said British shadow Home Secretary, David Davis." We would introduce an explicit annual limit on the numbers of non-EU migrants who can come to the UK which would be set by Parliament," he added.

According to Frattini, 18.5 million third country nationals, mainly from Asia and Africa, were living inn the EU as of January 2007. They comprised roughly four percent of the bloc's total population.

Source



Pro-illegal group reveals its socialist ideology

They oppose that wicked profit

A Georgia civil rights and prison advocacy group ended a weeklong 105-mile (169-kilometer) march with a protest Saturday outside a private prison that houses about 1,600 undocumented immigrants. The protest came at the end of the Prison & Jail Project's annual Freedomwalk to highlight what they perceive as racial and social inequities in the criminal justice system in the state's rural southwest.

The protest happened outside the Stewart Detention Center, a private prison run by the Corrections Corp. of America. The prison opened in October 2006 and with about 500 employees it has become the largest employer in Stewart County, one of the poorest counties in Georgia. "The prison and jail project opposes the privatization of the prison system. We believe as long as we have prisons, they need to be in the public domain," said the project's founder John Cole Vodicka. "I think it's immoral to make a profit off the misery of human beings. The Corrections Corp. of America is in it to make a profit."

The protesting groups said they also opposed the fact the Stewart Detention Center was located in such a remote area, miles (kilometers) from large cities, creating difficulties for visits by inmates' attorneys or family members.

"This is a for-profit prison. Is America about turning prisoners into commodities?" said Anton Flores, a leader of protesting group Alterna. Flores said he planned to visit inmates from El Salvador and Colombia in the prison later Saturday.

There were about eight counter-demonstrators from the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the Atlanta Minuteman Project, urged strict enforcement of immigration laws and held banners that said, "Enforce our existing laws" and "Secure our borders."

Vance Laughlin, the prison's warden, said the prison meets the same detention standards as public jails. CCA has 66 prisons around America, including four in Georgia. The federal government is one of the largest customers of the company, which has been housing undocumented aliens for at least 25 years, Laughlin said.

Source





15 September, 2007

Minutemen To Continue Until Herndon, VA Returns to the Rule of Law

Press release from Minuteman HQ

Nearly two years after being organized, the Herndon Minutemen group was set to deactivate upon the closing of the formal day laborer center in Herndon, VA on Friday, September 14th. With the public announcement that the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) is coming to Herndon to attempt to keep the day laborers active in the area, it appears that instead, the Minuteman mission will continue.

George Taplin, President of the Herndon chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, told the Washington Post and other media at the time the Minuteman chapter was organized, "When the Herndon Day Labor site is closed we will have accomplished our mission." Taplin today said, "We were prepared to disband and move onto the political side of the debate, however, because outside organizations are trying to assert their influence on the citizens of Herndon, we are obliged to postpone our deactivation indefinitely."

Taplin continued, "Despite the fact that the citizens and elected officials of Herndon, and those of the surrounding towns and counties, have decided in open political process that they do not want the day laborers here, NDLON is attempting to force their agenda upon our communities - and it is one that continues to wreck our economies and break our laws."

During the past two years, the Herndon Minutemen focused their efforts on the employers of illegal aliens, who exploited cheap illegal labor in violation of numerous federal and state laws and local ordinances. Starting at the original day labor pickup site at the Elden Street 7-11 convenience store in Herndon, and continuing at the Herndon Official Worker site set up by the now-deposed Town Council in December 2006, the Minutemen observed, recorded, and photographed the many employers who would pick up day laborers for their business activities. This information would then be reported to the appropriate local, state, or federal agencies for further investigation and penalties. Contrary to the statements by editorialists and pro-illegal advocacy groups like Casa de Maryland, the Minutemen never once harassed a day laborer or followed any laborers to their homes.

The Minutemen uncovered many employer violations including lack of licenses, non-payment of state and federal taxes, failure to file Social Security and Medicare information and tax withholding, lack of liability insurance, and failure to contribute to Workman's Compensation funds. Minuteman actions reversed the ratio of hiring from primarily business hiring to mostly residential. The long parade of construction, painting, and landscape business trucks picking up illegal day laborers has been replaced by mostly homeowner vehicles. Many of these business employers admitted that it was fear of exposure and discovery of their violations that drove them away from using the Herndon day labor site.

Now the Herndon Minutemen will continue to observe and report on all employers who hire illegal aliens, as they have done for the past two years. The Minuteman organization finds it ironic that its activities return to the same streets of Herndon where they started just two years ago, but significant political change during that time has been achieved. Once derided, the Minuteman mission is now lauded and imitated, often by the same politicians who ignorantly denounced Minuteman citizen patriots in the beginning. The Herndon Minutemen have been doing the right thing for two years, and they will continue to do so as long as it is necessary to return Herndon to the will of the people, and the rule of law.



Swiss democracy thwarts the multiculturalists

The Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP), the largest in the Federal Parliament in Berne and a member of the country's ruling coalition, has launched a campaign to collect the 100,000 signatures necessary for a referendum to reintroduce into the penal code a measure that would allow judges to deport foreign felons once they have served their jail sentence. In addition, the party intends to table a law allowing the entire family of a criminal under the age of 18 to be deported as soon as his sentence is passed.

"We believe that parents are responsible for bringing up their children," says Ueli Maurer, the Party's president. "If they cannot do it properly, they will have to bear the consequences." The SVP campaign resonates with many Swiss voters, since foreigners are five times more likely to commit crimes than Swiss nationals. In addition, to the shrieks of shock and horror from European bien-pensants, the Party's current campaign poster shows three white and one black sheep on a Swiss flag-with the latter being discretely kicked out by one of the former.



In 2004, the SVP successfully campaigned for tighter immigration laws using the poster showing dark hands reaching into a pot filled with Swiss passports. It further drove the multiculturalists wild with a poster featuring Osama bin Laden on a Swiss identity card and the caption, "Don't let yourself be bullied." As it happens the warning was based on a sound precedent: one of the al-Qa'ida leader's half-brothers, Yeslam, lives in Switzerland-and holds a Swiss passport! Another advertisement that appeared in newspapers across the country had the banner headline "Will Muslims soon be in the majority?" It warned that "the birth rate in Islamic families is substantially higher than in other families," that at present rates of growth Muslims would outnumber Christians within 20 years, and that "Muslims place their religion above our laws." All three claims were true, but nevertheless they were termed "racist" and "xenophobic" by the press all over Europe. Had Switzerland joined the EU in 2002 such ads would have been illegal.

The party also has put forward a proposal to ban the building of minaret towers alongside mosques. One of the SVP leaders, Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, is an outspoken opponent of the country's Orwellian anti-racism laws, which he rightly sees as a major violation of the freedom of speech.

A person with the title of the "United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism" and with the befitting name of Doudou Diene declared earlier this year that a "racist and xenophobic dynamic" that used to be the province of the far right was becoming a regular part of the democratic system in Switzerland. The SVP is unimpressed. "He's from Senegal where they have a lot of problems of their own which need to be solved," says Dr. Ulrich Schlueer, a senior Party official who is one of the authors of its current proposals.

He has already succeeded in his campaign to ban the minaret: "We are not against mosques but the minaret is not mentioned in the Koran or other important Islamic texts. It just symbolizes a place where Islamic law is established," he says-and Islamic law "is incompatible with Switzerland's legal system." There are but two mosques in the country with minarets and planners are turning down applications for more, after opinion polls showed that half the population favors a ban.

Switzerland already has the strictest naturalization rules in Europe. If you want to become Swiss you must live in the country legally for at least 12 years-and pay taxes, and have no criminal record-before you can apply for citizenship. It still does not mean that your wish will be granted, however, and the fact that you were born in Lausanne or Lugano does not make any difference. There are no "amnesties" and illegals are deported. Even if an applicant satisfies all other conditions, the local community in which he resides has the final say: it can interview the applicant and hold a public vote before naturalization is approved. If rejected he can apply again, but only after ten years.

All this is intolerable to the country's enlightened Europhiles who run the federal government in Berne. They want citizenship applications to be processed centrally, "along national guidelines," taking the decision out of the hands of local communities. They insist that resident aliens, a fifth of the country's 7.5 million people, need to be "fully integrated" and that the natives must accept the "reality" of multiculturalism. For the second time in a decade such proposals were defeated in a nation-wide referendum two years ago. Swiss voters rejected a government initiative to grant automatic citizenship to third-generation Swiss-born aliens and to simplify naturalization for the second generation. Most French-speakers (18 percent) supported the proposals, but they were heavily outvoted by the country's German-speaking cantons which account for two-thirds of the population, and by the Italian-speaking Ticino (6 percent).

The successful "no" campaign was orchestrated-you've guessed it-by the SVP. Its leader, maverick millionaire Christoph Blocher, first achieved prominence twenty years ago when he founded a lobby group, the Campaign for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland (CINS). Blocher (66) is a strong opponent of the European Union who successfully fought a proposal to take Switzerland into the European Economic Area in 1992. He has also successfully campaigned against the abolition of the Swiss army (1989), against involving Swiss troops in UN peacekeeping operations (1994), and against the country's EU membership (2001). He also campaigned against UN membership in 2002, but in what appears to have been an untypical fit of absent-mindedness the Swiss decided otherwise.

Swiss local democratic institutions of very long standing are still managing to survive in spite of the tendency of state bureaucracy to centralize all power. Except for a few years of centralized government of the "Helvetic Republic" during Napoleon's occupation, Switzerland has been a confederation of local communities as established in the Pact of 1291, with most responsibility for public affairs in the hands of the local authorities and its 20 cantons and 6 half-cantons. In other words, Switzerland is still today what the United States had been before 1861.

At least one civilized country in the world continues to uphold the right of local communities to decide who will qualify for naturalization. Unique in today's Western world, this healthy sense of Swiss citizenship reminds us of the Greek polis. It reflects an underlying assumption of kinship among citizens that cannot be fulfilled by mere residence and observance of the rules. Naturalization in Athens was possible but difficult; it was a rare privilege and anything but a right.

Likewise in today's Switzerland if you want to belong, but do not belong by blood, you have to prove a high degree of cultural and civilizational kinship with the host-society. Like in Athens, in today's Switzerland citizenship includes the right and duty to fulfill certain functions, among which military service is very important. It is remarkable that to this day every Swiss male over 18 must be prepared to serve in the country's citizen-army; after completing their basic training they keep their weapons at home, and refusal to perform military service is a criminal offence. The thought must have crossed the mind of a few Swiss reservists that all too many aspiring foreigners could never be trusted with those weapons. The Swiss understand, even when they do not know, that the collective striving embodied in "We the People" makes no sense unless there is a definable "people" to support it. They sense that many immigrants have no kinship with the striving and no connection to the "people," except for the unsurprising desire to partake in its wealth.

This sense is light years away from the "multicultural" understanding of citizenship promoted in the European Union and in North America. A widely reported sob story from the time of the last referendum on citizenship illustrates the gap. The Swiss are not "quite ready to accept the reality of a multi-cultural society," complained Radio Netherlands International. It bewailed the fate of one Fatma Karademir, 23, who was born in Switzerland and has never lived anywhere else but under Swiss law she is Turkish just like her parents. The Independent was equally indignant that Fatma's application for citizenship was rejected by her village and she'll be able to reapply in ten years:

And when she finally does come before the citizenship committee, Fatma knows the fact that she has lived all her life in Switzerland will count less than the answers she gives to the committee's questions. "They ask if I can imagine marrying a Swiss boy, or do you know the Swiss national anthem, or which team I would support if the Swiss have a soccer game with Turkey. They ask such stupid questions."

The fact that Fatma calls such questions "stupid" illustrates (1) that she was quite properly denied naturalization; and (2) that the village (town, commune), and not some enlightened bureaucrat in Berne, should continue to have the final say in the matter.

And talking of soccer, let us recall that match in Los Angeles between Mexico and the United States in February 1998. The stands were full of Mexican flags. The fans booed The Star-Spangled Banner, and a few brave souls who dared wave American flags were pelted with beer cans and food debris-as were the American soccer players. No doubt many of the offenders were U.S. citizens. One can only wish that they, and people like them, were subjected to the test of a Swiss village naturalization board.

Source





14 September, 2007

Warmer Reception for Immigration Nominee

Uh, Oh! This must mean she is seen as doing a satisfactorily bad job of keeping illegals out

Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Julie Myers defended her record Wednesday at her second confirmation hearing in three years, and key senators said she has overcome doubts about her ability to do the job. President Bush installed Myers, 38, at the Homeland Security Department agency in 2005 while the Senate was in recess. Her appointment as assistant secretary expires at the year's end, but Bush already has nominated her a second time.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, opposed Myers when Bush first named her to the post. But now the independent from Connecticut said Myers' performance at the agency has impressed him. "I believe you have what it takes to get this job done," Lieberman told Myers at the hearing Wednesday.

The Bush administration's effort to win her confirmation the first time stalled because lawmakers were concerned she lacked experience in immigration matters and the skills to manage the government's second-largest investigative force. At that time, the administration was coping with the fallout from the slow response to Hurricane Katrina and questions about the job qualifications of Michael Brown, who headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Myers told senators she had made progress in improving the immigration agency's financial problems, increased enforcement against illegal immigrants who commit crimes and pursued employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Despite endorsing Myers, Lieberman said the agency suffers from low morale among workers and a lack of coordination among its numerous divisions. It's not clear when the committee will vote on her nomination.

Of the committee members, only Sen. Claire McCaskill indicated she might vote against Myers. McCaskill, D-Mo., said the administration is not doing enough to crack down on businesses that employ illegal workers. McCaskill challenged Myers to say how many employers, under her tenure, have faced criminal or administrative penalties for hiring illegal employees.

Myers did not provide a number and said law enforcement statistics do not break out records that way. She said businesses have paid $30 million in criminal fines and forfeitures this year, compared with just $600,000 in 2006. "I agree with you on targeting egregious employers and getting U.S. attorneys to take these cases," Myers said. "The bottom line is that we are looking to change behavior."

But McCaskill said it was "outrageous" that Myers would appear at the hearing without having an answer. Last year, there were 716 criminal arrests and 3,667 administrative arrests under immigration laws. The agency does not break out how many arrests are of employers charged with breaking the law. After the hearing, McCaskill said she has sought the information on employers for months. She contends the agency refuses to disclose the number "because it's going to make them look really bad." The agency would have to sort manually through every record to determine occupation, spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. [So?]

Source



Swiss immigration rules blasted as racist

Switzerland's immigration process is unfair and, in some cases, racist - that is the view of the country's racial discrimination watchdog. In a hard-hitting report it criticises the practice of allowing members of a community to vote on an individual's citizenship application. [Allowing people to vote! How AWFUL!!]

Muslims and people from the Balkans and Africa are the most likely to be rejected, it says. A senior official from the agency said: "We've had cases where all Muslim candidates have been refused and when they've applied two years later have been turned down again. And the reason when given - because it's not always given, as some people are afraid to admit their xenophobia - when they do give they say it's because they're not integrated Muslims."

Switzerland has Europe's toughest naturalisation laws. Foreigners must live for 12 years in a Swiss community, and being born in the country does not give an automatic right to citizenship.

Source





13 September, 2007

FAIR Congratulates Senate for Putting the Brakes on Mexican Trucks in the U.S.

Press release below from The Federation for American Immigration Reform (media@fairus.org)

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) congratulated Senators Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) for sponsoring an amendment to the Transportation Appropriations bill that cuts-off funding for a program that would have allowed hundreds of Mexican trucks to haul cargo on U.S. highways. The amendment was approved Tuesday by a 75 to 23 margin.

The program, promoted by the Bush Administration, would have cost many Americans their jobs and endangered motorists on our interstate highways because of laxer safety standards for Mexican trucks. The Mexican trucking program would also have posed a threat to homeland security, compounding the already difficult task of inspecting cargo entering the U.S. Fittingly, the vote on the amendment took place on the sixth anniversary of 9/11.

"FAIR joins everyone who is concerned about protecting the jobs of American workers, protecting the safety of people who drive on our highways, and protecting the security of our nation, in congratulating Sen. Dorgan for putting these interests ahead of the desire of large corporations to cut their trucking costs," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "It seems it is finally dawning on members of Congress that the American people believe there are important national interests that must take precedence over the desire of some to save a buck."

The overwhelming approval of this amendment, combined with the support of organized labor, is a hopeful indication that a new coalition that supports border and immigration enforcement may be developing. "People are becoming aware that ill-conceived trade policies and unenforced immigration policies are a threat to national security and to our embattled middle class," Stein noted. "Whether by default - because we do not enforce laws against illegal immigration - or by design, such as policies that open our highways to foreign truckers, there are actual American workers and their families who pay a heavy price for some businesses' insatiable thirst for lower cost labor.

"Likewise, whether we have people and goods moving across our borders illegally, or whether we institute policies that allow people and goods to enter with little or no inspection, the consequence is the same. America's homeland security is compromised," declared Stein.

The same principles that were applied to the decision of Congress not to allow Mexican trucks to haul good across the U.S., must be applied to our border policies in general. "The basic litmus test for determining immigration policies should be, Will American workers be harmed? Will public safety be compromised? Will homeland security be put at risk? If the answers to any of these questions is yes, then the policies need to be reconsidered," concluded Stein.



Young Germans emigrating

One of the most popular programmes on German TV at the moment is called, somewhat ironically, Goodbye Deutschland. This docu-soap shadows families who choose to burn their bridges and build a fresh life abroad. It includes an unemployed couple with five children and grandmother in tow, who recently headed off to Denmark with neither money, nor foreign language skills, nor any plan of what to do when they got there. This has led to a heated debate over whether such TV programmes are encouraging reckless emigration just to boost their ratings.

Fortunately, the majority of people leaving Germany are much better prepared and not quite so penniless. An increasing number of highly qualified young people are upping sticks - in spite of a rapidly improving economy and seven-year record-low unemployment rate. The German media is sounding alarm bells - there's even talk of a brain drain.

Is the "Powerhouse of Europe" really losing its brains? Psychotherapist Andrea Mathy, of Kommunikation & Coaching, certainly thinks so. She advises a growing number of frustrated professionals who, seeing Germany as a land of high taxes and heavy bureaucracy, are asking themselves "What's the point?" Seriously considering leaving Germany herself, she detects an ever increasing desire, especially in the 25-35 age range, to fulfil their dreams abroad. "People want to make a move - in whichever direction," she says.

Few graduates, however, take their job hunt as far afield as Hannah Lippert. When her contract with an architecture firm in Munich expired back in 2005 she headed down under and landed work in Sydney. The 25-year-old Bavarian has no regrets about turning her back on Germany, where she toiled long hours on a low salary. She now works comparatively less and was recently promoted for the third time in just six months. Lippert is glad she did Jobline LMU, an EU-funded job-application course, which aims at improving the English language skills and prospects of graduates on the international job market.

Students are encouraged to seek work and intercultural experience abroad as part of their studies, which range from Business Administration to Mechanical Engineering.

Hannah not only had her application papers corrected online, but also picked up tips on how to interview successfully through role-playing face-to-face and phone interviews. She particularly enjoyed this blended-learning teaching methodology, a combination of class and online tuition.

I meet up with a group of graduates in a Munich pub. Fresh from the job-skills course, they tell me about their career plans. Several intend to work in the UK. For Nicole Giesl a move is imminent - her husband is being sent to Brighton. She hopes to pick up work once there. Ingrid Minz, an Environmental Science undergraduate, also has her sights set on London, where she hopes to learn more about typically British solutions to ecological problems. Thanks to Jobline LMU her application papers are word perfect and grammatically impeccable. Kornshulee Nikitsch from Bangkok, originally came to Munich to take a degree in Political Science, but won't be staying much longer either: "There's simply more life in Asia - I miss it," she says.

All agree they will first seek several years' work experience abroad, regardless of how well the domestic economy performs. Few seem concerned about long-term issues, such as missing pension contributions. The work/life balance seems to matter more. "Life is too routine," says Andrea Heister. "Here you just follow the rules and fulfil your life - step after step." Heister, who has a double MA in Humanities, feels this is the downside of Germany's healthy economy and hopes to find work - and adventure - in Canada. [Adventure in boring Canada??]

One Business Administration student also believes it is harder for young people to realise their dreams in Germany. "We're not as open-minded as most English-speaking countries. There are too many obstacles here." Describing how German employers often write off potentially good candidates who lack a very specific skill, she says "British and Americans are less interested in where and what you studied. They are more prepared to shape you."

Whatever their motives for seeking vocational experience abroad, almost everybody interviewed was either required to do so as part of their studies or felt it was expected of them. Jens Schmidt, a job counsellor at the Central Placement Office in Bonn confirms this: "If you want to make a career these days, it certainly helps to spend time abroad." Graduates going abroad with work experience can generally expect to earn as well as or even better than their German counterparts. According to graduates currently over in the USA, earnings are particularly high in California.

Those without relevant experience, however, generally find themselves accepting poorer conditions. But, according to Schmidt, they benefit from the relaxed working environments often prevalent abroad. And they welcome the notion commonly held in Anglo-American society that frequent job-changers are not failures.

The good news for the German economy is that the brain drain is only temporary. Most graduates appear not to be emigrating but only migrating. Few express a desire to leave Germany for good and - most seem happy to return after a few years. [That's the spin, anyway. I know a lot of Germans in Australia who have stayed] Back, most likely, to the same old rules and routine.

Source





12 September, 2007

Democrat candidates on immigration

Questions about immigration dominated a forum for Democratic presidential candidates put on Sunday by the Spanish-language television network Univision. Front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton condemned what she called "very destructive" rhetoric on the issue. Other Democrats blasted Republicans for demanding to clamp down on the U.S.-Mexico border. The candidates also took implicit jabs at GOP contenders who refused to sign up for a similar Spanish-language forum.

"There are many in the political world and, frankly, in the broadcast world today that take a particular aim at the Latino population," Clinton said. "I think it is very destructive. It undermines our unity as a country." She cited an immigration bill the House of Representatives passed in 2006 as a "particularly egregious example." She said the bill, which would have punished people who aid illegal immigrants, "would have criminalized the Good Samaritan. It would have criminalized Jesus Christ." [So much for Hillary the Bible student. The good Samaritan was NOT helping someone to break the law]

Univision offered a similar platform for Republicans, but it was shelved after only one of the nine GOP contenders -- Sen. John McCain of Arizona -- agreed to appear. Among the Republican field, McCain has been a lonely defender of the White House-backed immigration bill that foundered in the Senate earlier this year. That bill would have created a path to legal status for the estimated 12 million-plus undocumented workers believed to be in the United States -- a provision many conservatives denounced as "amnesty" for illegal immigrants.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said construction of a fence along the Mexican border to block illegal immigration was "a terrible example of Washington's misguided policy." "Congress only funded half of the wall," said Richardson, who also served as energy secretary and U.N. ambassador in the Clinton administration. "If you are going to build a 12-foot wall, you know what is going to happen? A lot of 13-foot ladders. This is a terrible symbol of America."

Clinton said she favored tighter border controls, but said the nation needs comprehensive immigration reform. The failed immigration bill also would have created a guest-worker program for immigrants.

Sen. Barack Obama, who has placed a consistent second in national polls, said President Bush missed a chance to defuse the fears of American workers who believe illegal immigrants will take their jobs. "They feel that they are losing jobs. They feel like they are losing health care," the Illinois senator said. "They feel that they are falling behind, and their children won't have a better future. So a president has to speak out forcefully against anti-immigrant sentiment and racist sentiment, but also has to make sure that all workers are being tended to." [Like how? More empty-headed rhetoric]

Source



British immigrants in France

We are gathered on a sunny Normandy afternoon in a county council meeting room to discuss the "British problem". Except that there is no "problem", of course. Everyone is very careful not to use the word "problem" - especially as there are a couple of Brits in the room. Instead, we are "nos amis Britanniques" (marginally less cumbersome than "les sujets de sa gracieuse majeste" so beloved of the local newspapers). And there is not a problem, but a situation.

The situation is that we are arriving in ever-increasing numbers, but without a clue how to register with a doctor or enroll the children into school or join the French health and social security system. Or, points out the lugubrious representative from the departmental tax office, file a tax declaration. "I would certainly like to help nos amis understand how to fill out their tax returns," he sighs.

Through sheer ignorance, usually, we fail to our homework or get the right bits of paper before converting our barns or building our extensions, and we carry on driving around with UK numberplates because we can't follow the complex rules for re-registration. Despite huge efforts to oblige, we still make a mess of filling in forms or requests for information and don't turn up for PTA meetings because we can't understand the notes the children bring home from school. A few of us - and yes, I know people who do this - simply bin anything that comes through the letter box that is written in French.

"Didn't EDF warn you that they were going to cut you off for not paying the bills?" I asked a hysterical compatriot recently. He thought for a minute. "There was something from EDF in the post," he conceded. "But it was in French. I didn't understand it." So? "I threw it away."

I have been invited to this meeting as editor of the Rendezvous, the monthly English-language magazine for Normandy. The woman at my side has been invited as a shining example of active integration, having co-organised the region's annual Franco-British Bonfire Nights for the past couple of years (with a diplomatic lack of emphasis on the burning-a-Catholic bit). We are here to have our brains picked.

The assembled French officials represent schools, job centres, social workers, tax officers, local communes and health authorities, and they are tearing their hair out. How can they treat people who don't have the right forms? How can they stop Brits employing other Brits on the black market and encourage them to use registered artisans or set up legal businesses instead? Or, on a kindly note, encourage incomers to come to tea dances or join the gardening club or take advantage of the daytime OAP rates at the local swimming pool?

But before we get down to business, there is that burning question that bewildered French people never tire of asking and the woman from the mayor's office can resist no longer: why are so many British coming to live here? The numbers are indeed extraordinary: in Lower Normandy alone, official statistics show more than 9,000 registered British households. And there are plenty of unregistered households: those who remain "officially" domiciled in Britain for whatever reason as well as those who simply fail to declare their arrival to anybody. The Rendezvous has more than 20,000 readers already. Even when British incomers give up and go home, there is a queue of other Brits waiting to buy their houses; indeed, nowadays there are as many British vendors - often moving to their second French property - as buyers.

"We are not here to discuss whether this immigration is a good or a bad thing," says the chairman. "We are here not to ask 'why?' but to accept the situation and decide how we accommodate it. How do we help these incomers become part of the system?"

We British incomers to France don't tend to liken ourselves to East European plumbers or Asian brides newly arrived in Britain, but all this "outreach" talk has a vaguely familiar ring to it. Although we are not economic migrants in the sense of being after better-paid jobs, we are nevertheless migrants in search of something better: "quality of life" or, as I have also heard us referred to, "affordable space migrants" (cheaper, bigger houses with bigger gardens, in other words). In any case, "integration" is the buzz word on local lips and as Normandy is not the banlieue of Paris, this means Brits rather than Poles or North Africans.

"Tea?" asks the charming woman from the local council. "This is a meeting about the English, after all!" she titters. Indeed, even if it is only a bag of herbal tea wafted near a mug of warm water, it is still the only meeting I have attended in France where refreshment is offered during, rather than at the end of, business.

So, over tea and biscuits, we decide to produce a brochure called Bienvenue chez vous! (Welcome home! - ie, to your new home) with chapter headings such as: "Do I have to Register with a GP?" and "What Help is Available for Mature Citizens?" It will run through everything the immigrant needs to know about settling into France and I am particularly intrigued by the audacious section heading: "How France Works".

"Crikey! Will the budget stretch that far?" I ask.

There is a moment's silence while it is ascertained that there has been no insult of the Fifth Republic and that I only meant that this might be a rather large topic for one meagre chapter. It is, everyone concludes happily, an example of "British humour".

And, in fact, the budget can stretch as far as we like. This, it turns out, is a Europe-funded project, so the coffers are virtually bottomless. Having mortgaged the house to start the Rendezvous, I can only wilt with envy. On the subject of integration, how, exactly, do I get a slice of this pie?

Source





11 September, 2007

The latest from CIS

Re: 'Fixing Immigration' by Yuval Levin

EXCERPT: But I am afraid that Mr. Levin does not dig down deep enough to the source of our current immigration difficulties. The problem with immigration is not simply that we have (as he writes) 'a badly broken system of selecting, directing, managing, and assimilating' immigrants, true as that is. The fundamental problem is that mass immigration as such – regardless of how it is managed – is incompatible with the needs of a modern society. Mr. Levin himself suggests such a critique when he writes that our current policy arose 'in response to a very different world,' but does not follow the thread to the end . . .

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100 Million More: Projecting the Impact of Immigration on the U.S. Population, 2007 to 2060

EXCERPT: This study uses Census Bureau data to project how different levels of immigration impact population size and the aging of American society. The findings show that the current level of net immigration (1.25 million a year) will add 105 million to the nation’s population by 2060. While immigration makes the population larger, it has a small effect on the aging of society.

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Illegal Immigration and Gangs in Virginia: Preliminary Findings

PPT presentation



Caught in a bureaucratic black hole

Applicants seeking U.S. citizenship languish for years as the FBI conducts cumbersome records checks. Lawsuits are a result.

Seeking to become a U.S. citizen, Biljana Petrovic filed her application, completed her interview and passed her civics test. More than three years later, she is still waiting to be naturalized -- held up by an FBI name-check process that has been criticized as slow, inefficient and a danger to national security.

Petrovic, a stay-at-home mother in Los Altos, Calif., who has no criminal record, has sued the federal government to try to speed up the process. She said it's as if her application has slipped into a "black hole."

"It's complete frustration," said Petrovic, who is originally from the former Yugoslavia and is a naturalized Canadian citizen. "It's not like I am applying to enter the country. I have been here for 19 years."

Nearly 320,000 people were waiting for their name checks to be completed as of Aug. 7, including more than 152,000 who had been waiting for more than six months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. More than 61,000 had been waiting for more than two years.

Applicants for permanent residency or citizenship have lost jobs, missed out on student loans and in-state tuition, and been unable to vote or bring relatives into the country. The delays have prompted scores of lawsuits around the country.

Already this fiscal year, more than 4,100 suits have been filed against the citizenship and immigration agency, compared with 2,650 last year and about 680 in 2005. The mandamus suits ask federal judges to compel immigration officials to adjudicate the cases. The majority of the cases were prompted by delays in checking names, spokesman Chris Bentley said.

"There is nothing in immigration law that says that a citizenship application should take two, three, four years. That's absurd," said Ranjana Natarajan, an ACLU staff attorney who filed a class-action lawsuit in Southern California last year on behalf of applicants waiting for their names to be checked. "People who have not been any sort of threat . . . have been caught up in this dragnet."

In addition to the bureaucratic nightmare that the lengthy delays present, attorneys and government officials say there is a far more serious concern: They could be allowing potential terrorists to stay in the country.

Fallout from 9/11

The backlog began after 9/11, when Citizenship and Immigration Services officials reassessed their procedures and learned that the FBI checks were not as thorough as they had believed. So "out of an abundance of caution," the agency resubmitted 2.7 million names in 2002 to be checked further, Bentley said.

Rather than simply determining if the applicants were subjects of FBI investigations, the bureau checked to see if their names showed up in any FBI files, including being listed as witnesses or victims. About 90% of the names did not appear in the agency's records, FBI spokesman Bill Carter said.

But for the 10% who were listed, authorities carefully reviewed the files to look for any "derogatory" information, Carter said. Because many documents aren't electronic and are in the bureau's 265 offices nationwide, that process can take months, if not years. "It is not a check of your name," said Chuck Roth, director of litigation for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, which also filed a class-action suit. "It is a file review of anywhere your name happens to appear. It has just created a giant bureaucratic mess."

Although many of those stuck in the backlog are from predominantly Muslim countries, there are also people from Russia, China, India and elsewhere. They include government employees and Iraq war veterans. Many have been in the U.S. legally for decades.

In one case decided in Washington, D.C., recently, a federal judge wrote that a Chinese man's four-year wait for permanent residency was unreasonable and ordered the government to decide on the application within three months. Petrovic, who has two U.S.-born teenagers, doesn't know what delayed her application. The only explanation she can think of is that her name is common in her native country.

She and her husband, Ihab Abu-Hakima, also a Canadian citizen, applied for citizenship in April 2003 and had their interviews in February 2004. Her husband was sworn in that summer, while her application continued to languish. She checked the mail daily.

When she still didn't hear anything, Petrovic contacted immigration officials, who told her that the FBI had her file and that it was still active. She also contacted her representative and her senator, whose offices asked Citizenship and Immigration Services to expedite the application. She filed a Freedom of Information Act request for her FBI file, which simply showed that she had never been arrested. "I have a feeling that the system has broken down," she said.

Source





10 September, 2007

Race-baiting in America's heartland



A comment from the Minutemen on the campaign against one of their members. See also here for more on the attempt to "get" the lady concerned

This is a tale of three cities: the one in which I was born and raised, Newark, N.J.; the second in which I live, Kansas City, Mo; and the third in which I have spent some time of late, Los Angeles. At the heart of this tale is the procrustean effort by Hispanic activists to impose the black civil rights paradigm on their undocumented amigos. To do this, however, they need black support, and that is slipping away.

Here is how the effort plays out in an overly sensitive town like Kansas City. Earlier this summer, new mayor Mark Funkhouser, a maverick Democrat, picked a Hispanic guy to chair the traditionally blue-blooded Park Board. Funkhouser, in fact, turned the Park Board into a veritable Mod Squad, adding an eccentric ex-councilwoman, a guy who wants reparations for slavery, a suburban rose-growing grandma and a black male ballet dancer.

Hispanic activists and their fellow travelers, black and white, were not satisfied with just the chair. They insisted on a board that while "looking like America" thought exactly as they did. And one of Funkhouser's picks clearly did not. Yes, the grandma! To embarrass Funkhouser, an old-line Dem rival had ratted out the 73 year-old Frances Semler as a card-carrying member of the not-so-secret organization known as the Minutemen. Although a clear majority of Americans think positively of the Minutemen and their non-violent mission - volunteering to help the United States Border Patrol protect our borders - the racially enlightened in Kansas City do not.

My councilwoman, Beth Gottstein, counts herself among the enlightened. To prove it, she plucked a card from deep in the race deck and played it against Semler. The Minutemen, Beth lamented, are "just one step from the KKK." Now admittedly, most of us would have a hard time linking an organization that works for peaceful, race-free enforcement of the laws to one that breaks laws in a violent, racist matter, but that's why we don't get quoted in the mainstream media, and Beth does.

"My world is totally rocked by this," the soulful Beth reminded the Kansas City Star. "We fight this every day. I am grieving for my friends in the Hispanic community." Beth and her council cronies promptly voted 9-2 to condemn Semler and wish her gone. To his credit, Funkhouser ignored them.

On Aug. 4, just a few days after I wrapped up my annual week at the Jersey Shore - Seaside Park to be precise - my attention was forced back to New Jersey. All of America's was. Some unknown killers in Newark had lined up four promising, college-bound black kids, two of them girls. They sexually assaulted the girls, sliced at least one of them with a machete, and put a bullet in the back of all four of the kids' heads. Three died.

In Los Angeles, the media, which I have been monitoring for my book "What's the Matter with California," would have known enough to sit on this story until they sorted out the details. The machete angle alone would have alerted them to how far wrong this story was about to go. In fact, so effective have the L.A. media been in suppressing stories of brown on black violence, now epidemic in schools and prisons, that it was not until early 2007 that one such story escaped their grasp.

What prompted national attention was not so much the murder of 14-year-old Cheryl Green by Hispanic gang members in L.A.'s volatile Harbor Gateway neighborhood, but the killing's gratuitous nature. The gang had been looking for a black person - any black person - to shoot. Despite the horror of the shooting, it took weeks of concerted pressure by L.A.'s black community to break this story out of Southern California.

In the New York area, however, the politicos and their media allies are still a little na‹ve. They did not hesitate to beat their breasts loudly about the multiple killings in Newark, still one more seeming injustice in a city plagued by the same. They quickly trotted out all the liberal bromides as to why such a horror could happen: suburban indifference, inadequate schools and, of course, guns. When it turned out that the chief suspect was an illegal alien from Peru and his partner-in-mayhem a Nicaraguan whose green card should have been revoked for an earlier crime, it was too late to put this undocumented genie back in the ink bottle.

The truth silenced the amnesty crowd just about everywhere but Kansas City. Here, incredibly, our Cesar Chavez wannabes continued to fret more about a law-abiding grandma than a gang of machete-wielding illegals.

More here



The unbelievably stupid Brits want to keep out SKILLED immigrants

While allowing huge numbers of unskilled illegals and refugees to live there

The British Government will announce that more immigrants from outside the European Union will have to learn English proficiently, in a move that cut the intake of skilled migrants from 95,000 to 60,000. The Government says that around a third of the skilled migrants who entered the UK from outside the European Union last year would not have been able to show that they they could speak English well enough to pass the equivalent of a high school exam. In the past, this test applied only to workers in the highly-skilled category.

The move will be announced in a speech by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Ministers say that in the future they are looking to extend the test to low-skilled workers as well.

The Conservative Opposition say the move will do little to cut immigration. International footballers will be exempt from the new test.

Source





9 September, 2007

Giuliani: Illegal Immigration No Crime

As NYC mayor, Giuiliani was soft on illegal immigration and it seems that he still is. He is clearly not to be trusted on the issue. Fred Thompson seems to be the safest so far

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said illegal immigration is not a crime, prompting rival Mitt Romney to accuse him of not taking the problem seriously. The two have clashed for weeks over illegal immigration, an issue that inflames GOP conservatives who influence primary elections. The irony is that both candidates have in the past taken more liberal stands on the issue. "It's not a crime," Giuliani said Friday. "I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime."

Giuliani's comments came in an interview with CNN Headline News and radio talk-show host Glenn Beck. "I was U.S. attorney in the Southern district of New York," he said. "So believe me, I know this. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it's not a criminal proceeding. It's a civil proceeding." Illegal immigration shouldn't be a crime, either, Giuliani said: "No, it shouldn't be because the government wouldn't be able to prosecute it. We couldn't prosecute 12 million people. We have only 2 million people in jail right now for all the crimes that are committed in the country, 2.5 million." He added: "My solution is close the border to illegal immigration."

The former New York mayor has been defending his city's so-called sanctuary policy, which stopped city workers from reporting suspected illegal immigrants. The policy is intended to make illegal immigrants feel that they can report crimes, send their children to school or seek medical treatment without fear of being reported. It did require police to turn in illegal immigrants suspected of committing crimes.

A Romney spokesman said the comments show Giuliani doesn't take the problem seriously. "His advocacy for sanctuary city policies and his troubling lack of interest in making enforcement of our nation's immigration laws a priority puts him at odds with those who want to secure our borders and end illegal immigration," said Romney spokesman Matt Rhoades.

Giuliani's campaign accused Romney of showing a lack of interest in enforcement as well, pointing out that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney did not try to punish sanctuary cities in his own state. Giuliani spokeswoman Katie Levinson said: "Mitt Romney's position of the hour probably shouldn't be taken seriously considering he rewarded four Massachusetts sanctuary cities with hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid and allowed the illegal population to skyrocket. "We'll wait a minute and see if he changes his mind again," she said, alluding to criticism that Romney has changed his position on several issues.

Also Friday, Giuliani said he would mark the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Tuesday at ground zero, where the World Trade Center towers stood before the attacks. Some victims' families have criticized those plans, saying presidential politics shouldn't be part of the ceremony. "I was there when it happened, and I've been there every year since then. If I didn't, it would be extremely unusual. As a personal matter, I wouldn't be able to live with myself," Giuliani said after touring the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office in Largo, Fla. "That's personal, that's not political," he said. "That's a personal thing. I will do that for as long as they have a ceremony out there."

Source



Awareness of crime among illegals increasing

With a single sentence in a news release, a slaying in Prince William County [Virginia] gained high-profile treatment this week, not because of how the crime was committed, but because of who police say did it: a twice-deported illegal immigrant. What was not mentioned before -- a suspect's legal status -- is now un-ignorable in a county that is leading the charge against illegal immigration

The homicide slipped into a blog headline yesterday: "Another resident dies at the hands of an illegal alien." It also created piles of paperwork for police officers who were told to research other alleged crimes by illegal immigrants. And, perhaps most telling, a drunken fight between two men that left one dead was the subject of a news conference yesterday held by the county's top law enforcement officials -- one that they said wouldn't have been held except for the current atmosphere. "The public's become more aware, more concerned about the problem," Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert said. "It's more on the forefront."

As a person's legal status has seeped into the daily debate in a county that passed a tough resolution this summer to deny services to illegal immigrants, it seemed only logical to mention that Christian Molina, 30, was deported twice before he was charged with murder, said First Sgt. Kim Chinn, a police spokeswoman. The news release Wednesday said he was deported in 2003 and 2005. "We're getting asked by the media anyway," Chinn said. "We're just going to go ahead and put it out there" if the department knows the person's legal status and if it knows whether the person has been deported.

Checking the legal status of people facing serious charges is not new -- police have been doing it for years and have placed 364 people in the deportation process over the past 3 1/2 years. But at the news conference, authorities pointed to three cases in which an illegal immigrant was a suspect in a violent crime in the past week. Mug shots were taped on the wall.

One was a rape case in which the man is thought to have fled to El Salvador. In another, two teenagers were walking in Woodbridge when two Hispanic men are alleged to have stopped them, assaulted the man and sexually assaulted the woman. One of those men was deported in the past, police said. In the latest case, Molina, also known as Jose Maximino Flores-Perales, is charged with strangling Ronald D. Hollingsworth, 51, Sunday night in a drunken fight.

During his arrest, Molina gave police a fake name, but a fingerprint analysis revealed his identity and his lack of legal standing in the country, authorities said. His law enforcement history showed a series of incidents in Texas, starting with an allegation of marijuana possession in 2000, they said. His second deportation came after he was convicted of aggravated robbery in January 2004 in San Antonio.

The three cases point to the complexities that police in enforcing a local resolution that calls for officers to check immigration status. On Sept. 18, Chief Charlie T. Deane, who cautioned the board about the resolution's effect on the relationship between law enforcement and the Latino community, will present his plan for meeting the mandate. New technology will help officials better identify illegal immigrants, but the solution extends beyond deportation, as evident in the recent cases, he said.

"Deportation is part of the equation. But we're seeing cases where individuals reenter the country, and that has us concerned that the borders are porous," Deane said. Ebert said that although he does not know what percentage of serious crimes are committed by illegal immigrants, he knows of at least three pending murder cases and two rapes alleged to have been committed by illegal immigrants. "A lot of these guys come into the country quicker than a tourist can come back into the country, and it's not right," Ebert said

Source





8 September, 2007

MA: Customs raids spur training on rights

The ACLU are keen to get the minutiae of the law observed when it comes to mentions of religion but they do their best to thwart the law when it comes to immigration

In living rooms, laundromats, and community centers across Massachusetts, immigrant-rights groups are running an underground campaign to teach illegal immigrants to protect themselves from federal agents. Their instructions to the immigrants: Keep their lips sealed and doors shut unless authorities have a warrant. The grass-roots training sessions, coming in response to recent federal raids through immigrant enclaves from Nantucket to Boston to Springfield, have ignited controversy on all sides.

Federal customs officials criticize the nonprofit groups for aiding anyone in this country illegally and say that agents generally target criminals. But the advocacy groups, worried that the raids are more widespread, say that even illegal immigrants have rights under the Constitution. "We understand trying to remove violent people," said Maria Elena Letona, executive director of Centro Presente, a Cambridge-based nonprofit that aids immigrants. "But in doing so, you end up terrorizing entire communities."

One steamy night last week in Springfield, a handful of immigrants here illegally from Mexico and Honduras gathered in the sparse kitchen of a tiny apartment. They sat on nylon folding chairs facing a laptop computer that Joel Rodriguez, a trainer for the Alliance to Develop Power, had placed at the edge of the sink. Their faces tense, they watched a DVD in Spanish that simulated encounters between immigrants and federal officials and police. In one scene, two men wearing jackets emblazoned with "police" and "ICE" pounded on the door, shattering a couple's morning coffee. The couple froze. Through the closed door, the father asked to see the warrant, which the agent slipped underneath the door. After reading the warrant, the father returned it, saying it did not list his name. Rebuffed, the agents left.

After the video, Rodriguez told the immigrants that they should not lie or carry false documents, or run away. "The best thing you can do is stay silent," or ask for a lawyer, he said.

Federal immigration officials and others say such training undermines federal immigration law, and worry that the advice could leak to criminals, as well. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter controls on immigration, called the training "immoral." "It troubles us tremendously," said Kelly Nantel, press secretary for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, maintaining that the agency does not conduct random sweeps for illegal immigrants. "We would encourage organizations that are engaging in that kind of information distribution to stop."

Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said the training sessions are a form of constitutionally protected free speech designed to help families who are unaware of their legal options. Many unauthorized immigrants have applied for legal residency or asylum and are awaiting hearings, she said. "Having those people know their rights isn't in any way going to give them any safety or comfort," said Rose, whose group has been doing the training for years.

More here



CA: Farmers to replace illegal workers with robots

With authorities promising tighter borders, some farmers who rely on immigrant labor are eyeing an emerging generation of fruit-picking robots and high-tech tractors to do everything from pluck premium wine grapes to clean and core lettuce. Such machines, now in various stages of development, could become essential for harvesting delicate fruits and vegetables that are still picked by hand. "If we want to maintain our current agriculture here in California, that's where mechanization comes in," said Jack King, national affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau.

California harvests about half the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the state Food and Agriculture Department. The California Farm Bureau Federation estimates that the job requires about 225,000 workers year-round and double that during the peak summer season. More than half of all farm workers in the country are illegal immigrants, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.

Last year, amid heightened immigration enforcement, California's seasonal migration was marked by spot worker shortages, and some fruit was left to rot in the fields. "There's a lot of very nervous people out there in agriculture in terms of what's going to be available in the labor force," said Robert Wample, viticulture and enology program director at California State University, Fresno.

Mechanized picking wouldn't be new for some California crops such as canning tomatoes, low-grade wine grapes and nuts. But the fresh produce that dominates the state's agricultural output — and that consumers expect to find unblemished in supermarkets — is too fragile to be picked by the machines now in use. The new pickers rely on advances in computing power and hydraulics that can make robotic limbs and digits operate with near-human sensitivity. Modern imaging technology also enables the machines to recognize and sort fruits and vegetables of varying qualities.

"The technology is maturing just at the right time to allow us to do this kind of work economically," said Derek Morikawa, whose San Diego-based Vision Robotics has been working with the California Citrus Research Board and Washington State Apple Commission to develop a fruit picker. The process involves sending a mechanized scanning unit into orchards and orange groves. Equipped with digital-imaging technology, it creates a three-dimensional map displaying the location, ripeness and quality of fruit. A robotic picker then follows the maps, using its long mechanical arms to carefully pluck the ripe produce. A prototype was tested last month, but it is still a few years from being ready for widespread commercial use, said Ted Batkin, a grower and president of the citrus board. A set of scanning and harvesting units will likely cost about $500,000 when the equipment reaches market, Morikawa said.

Elsewhere, a team led by wine specialists at California State University, Fresno, is working on an automated picker to further mechanize the wine-grape business. Growers of low- and mid-grade wine grapes already use mechanical harvesters, but picking and sorting premium grapes still requires a human touch. The new technology includes a device called a near-infrared spectrometer, which measures the sugar levels and chemical content of grape samples before they are picked, Wample said. The data is then plotted to a global positioning system map, which a mechanical harvester uses to navigate the vineyards and pluck specific bunches at ideal ripeness. The system has been under development for the past four years and is being tested in vineyards. The approximate cost of the two components is $230,000.

Salinas Valley-based Ramsay Highlander sells machines that partially automate lettuce picking by using band saws or water knives to cut the lettuce from the earth and convey it into bins for cleaning and processing. The company is nearing completion on a new model that picks, cleans, cores and packs lettuce and other greens, chief executive Frank Maconachy said. It will likely cost between $250,000 and $400,000, he said. "Because of the immigration issue, migrant workers are becoming a difficult entity to find," Maconachy said. "If growers have a crop that needs to be harvested and there aren't the people to do it, they'll need to find a mechanized way to do it."

Philip Martin, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis, said it was still unclear if heightened immigration enforcement would drive away enough workers to justify huge expenditures by growers on new machinery. And the number of variables involved makes it difficult to determine how much, if anything, growers could save by switching to automated systems. But some growers are excited by the prospect of having robots and a few trained technicians who know how to operate them replace the droves of manual laborers they currently depend on. "It will open up a lot of opportunity for better paying jobs in the agriculture industry and perhaps get us out of the mentality that being a farm worker is a dirty job," said Batkin, the citrus farmer.

Source





7 September, 2007

"Sanctuary cities" under Federal attack

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday told a House panel that his agency will not tolerate interference by so-called "sanctuary cities" when it comes to hiring illegal aliens. Mr. Chertoff said his agency will enforce the Basic Pilot Program that requires businesses to check the legal status of new employees by matching Social Security numbers and information in Homeland Security Department databases.

Mr. Chertoff told the House Homeland Security Committee: "I certainly wouldn't tolerate interference" by cities who attempt to block the program. "We're exploring our legal options," Mr. Chertoff said. "I intend to take as vigorous legal action as the law allows to prevent that from happening, prevent that kind of interference."

Mr. Chertoff stopped short of threatening "sanctuary cities" by withholding government funding. "I don't know that I have the authority to cut off all Homeland Security funds if I disagree with the city's policy on immigration," Mr. Chertoff said. "And of course, I have to say the consequence of that might be to put the citizens at risk, you know, in the event of a natural disaster. "I don't want to put people's lives at risk, but I do think where the law gives me the power to prevent anybody from interfering with our activities, we will use the law to prevent that interference," Mr. Chertoff said.

Sanctuary cities are those that have adopted policies banning police officers or other city employees from asking about immigration status. Some sanctuary cities have gone further: The city of New Haven, Conn., now issues identification cards regardless of legal status.

Source



An amazing idea for California: Curb immigrant health care

Faced with a tight budget and requests for additional law enforcement spending, Sacramento County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan suggested Wednesday that the county eliminate non-emergency medical care to undocumented immigrants to come up with the money. "That is not a mandatory service," MacGlashan said afterward. "It's a source of discretionary funding that is available."

In fiscal year 2007-08, the county's Medically Indigent Services Program treated between 2,500 and 4,000 illegal immigrants, costing the county between $1.4 million and $2.3 million.

It's unclear how much support MacGlashan has. Supervisor Jimmy Yee said he had "some concerns" about cutting the care.

Wednesday's budget hearing was strictly an informational session, with County Executive Terry Schutten stressing the direness of the current budget situation and predicting tens of millions of dollars in red ink down the road. Supervisors are expected to finalize the county budget by Sept. 14.

After Schutten's comments, county departments pressed their case for more money. Law-and-order requests headlined $11 million in additional spending requests made Wednesday. Sheriff John McGinness asked for 21 additional deputies. The Probation Department wants more than $1 million to add new supervisory positions. District Attorney Jan Scully wants to boost the countywide crime lab staff. And a collection of court officers collectively asked for $458,000 to start a night court for probation offenders. "This is going to be tremendously beneficial for our system and therefore the county," Scully said of the night court proposal.

Schutten urged supervisors to hold the line on spending, noting that county finances are tight and next year's situation may be even bleaker. He said the deficit for the 2008-09 budget year could be at least $31 million and likely would require program cuts. The county was able to avoid significant program cuts this year by selling county land in Elk Grove and taking funding away from departments with positions that have been vacant for months, said Linda Foster-Hall, the county's budget officer.

McGinness said he hopes that increased staffing will bring down the crime rate. The additional deputies would be in two-deputy patrol units and would be dispersed over the county's service area. The request would add $2.2 million to county spending.

Source





6 September, 2007

A declining Mexican birthrate may help

In the 1960's my father moved from southern Italy to Switzerland looking for work. Things improved in Italy and now instead of emigration, Italy receives people from other countries looking for work. Italy's economy expanded but its population is now decreasing and only manages to remain stable because of immigration. Will the same thing happen to Mexico in the near future, solving the immigration ``problem'' the U.S. faces?

Population changes seem to point that way. Birthrates in Mexican women decreased from 5.7 children per woman in 1976 to 2.1 in 2006. This figure matches the rate in the U.S. for 2005. That means zero population growth in both countries. However, the U.S. achieved zero population growth thanks to immigrant women who made up for the 1.7 birthrate of American women.

A number of years ago it was predicted that Mexican population would reach 150 million within a few decades. That is not going to happen. Mexico's population will become stable in the not-too-distant future. That means a significant reduction in available hands to do work and look for opportunities north of the border. Competition for jobs in Mexico will therefore decrease and will in all likelihood keep workers at home.

This will reverse the trend of the last 20 years which has seen significant emigration from Mexico to the U.S. Mexicans moved north primarily because their country was not able to provide them with employment opportunities. In part this was due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which created competition for agricultural products and made Mexican crops no longer viable since imports became cheaper. It is estimated that 15 percent of the Mexican labor force is in the U.S.

To a significant extent emigration has been beneficial to both countries. Mexico ``solved'' some of its economic problems by exporting workers and at the same time receiving significant benefits in remittances. Last year more than $20 billion was sent by Mexicans to their relatives living at home.

The benefits to the U.S. have come about because the vast majority of Mexicans in the country tend to be young and accept work Americans stay away from. This is particularly true in agriculture where the vast majority of workers are undocumented. In some states such as Colorado, which passed harsh anti-immigrant laws, workers have left in large numbers and the state has had to pilot a program to use convicts to pick fruits and vegetable. But labor shortages have been occurring in other states, particularly California, which relies on significant numbers of workers to keep the economy going. Agriculture is especially sensitive since crops must be picked as soon as they ripen otherwise it leads to financial disaster.

As Mexico's population becomes stable and emigration will slow down to a trickle, wages will inevitably rise as the supply of workers diminishes. The gap in wages between Mexico and the U.S. will likewise be reduced and the urge to risk one's life crossing the border for economic improvement will disappear.

Demographic changes will also happen in the U.S. which will require young workers. American baby boomers will retire and the likelihood of labor shortages is realistic. If Mexican immigration dries up, the U.S. could look to other Latin American countries to provide us with guest workers. But the same kind of demographic changes happening in Mexico are also occurring elsewhere.

Globalism may have some negative effects but one significant effect is that women are becoming less likely to have more than one or two children even in very poor countries. Globalism's effects are easily seen in the cheap products made in third world countries ending up in rich ones.

Yet there is work that cannot be outsourced. In Italy women from eastern Europe care for aging middle-class Italians. An American friend of mine is learning Spanish because she thinks it will come in handy in communicating with caregivers in her golden years. Maybe she needs to learn another language?

Source



Poor U.S. treatment of Polish visitors

People from America's best friend in Europe are treated like a bad smell

Congress's recent changes to American visa laws will be of little comfort to people in Central Europe who wish to travel to this country. Citizens of these countries will continue to undergo visa application procedures whose rules they do not understand and which they consider to be anachronistic, unjust and even humiliating.

American visa policy is driven by two concerns: fear of unwanted immigrants and concern about U.S. security. These concerns are reasonable, but it's difficult to understand why they should create a barrier against people from Central Europe. Those who think that the first priority of every Pole is to settle in Chicago have a rather outdated view of how things are in my country today. First, the economic situation has changed radically in Poland and in other countries in the region in recent years. Second, those seeking jobs outside of Poland can find them much closer to home -- in Britain, Ireland and other places in the European Union, which have opened their job markets to people from the new member states.

Poland continues to be excluded from the American visa waiver program, which allows quicker and easier entry to the United States. The main problem is an arbitrary and inflexible standard on the rejection rate for people in a particular country applying for U.S. non-immigrant visas. The requirement is meant to exclude those who might overstay their visas and seek work in the United States. But it has little relationship to the situations of Poland and the rest of Central Europe.

The waiver program is designed for visitors who want to come to the United States on business, to see their families or just to go shopping in New York. They are the kind of people who are representative of the new Poland, visitors whom the United States should be trying to attract. Instead, it keeps them away.

What about security? Central Europe is one of the safest and most stable regions on the continent. And the countries in that region have sided with the United States in the global fight against terrorism. Poland has fought in Iraq from the very beginning of the operation and is also one of the biggest contributors to the mission in Afghanistan.

Warsaw and the other Central European capitals have declared that they are ready to work with the United States to gain better control of the movement of people. Indeed, expansion of the visa waiver program would bring about more, not less, security for the United States and Europe. This is one of the reasons that the U.S. administration has supported including Central European allies in the program. Many members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have also endorsed this change. But they failed, unfortunately, to pass a law that would enable the countries of Central Europe to join the waiver program.

While many Poles were shocked and angered by this latest failure, others saw it as not particularly important to them. According to one opinion poll, 80 percent considered the decision on visas important for the nation, but only 39 percent said it was relevant to them or their families.

This isn't good news for the United States. It shows that for Poles, traveling to America does not have the same importance it did 10, 20 or 30 years ago. More and more Poles seem to be saying: "America doesn't want us? We'll travel elsewhere. The doors of the European Union are wide open to us. The European passport allows us to travel without visas to dozens of countries around the world."

But what do such attitudes mean for future relations between the United States and Central Europe, which is still one of the most pro-American regions in the world? The mainstream political elite will certainly remain committed to an alliance with the United States. But what made this part of Europe unique was widespread popular support for close cooperation with the United States. This support is threatened. If America is to be considered only as a partner in the arena of security -- important but not dominant in the lives of Central Europeans -- the "American dream" will fade in the region. Perhaps in time someone will ask: Who lost Central Europe? This need not happen. It is possible to lower the visa rejection rate; the rules that American consuls have to follow in granting visas could be rethought. Such a process would require more cooperation between U.S. authorities and those in countries seeking to join the visa waiver program -- overall a good thing.

The United States played a major role in Central Europe's fight to free itself of communism. It was extremely successful in transforming Cold War enemies into friends in the free world. Now it needs to seek similar success in dealing with its new friends

Source





5 September, 2007

Virginia crackdown coming?

Republican lawmakers representing Fairfax, Stafford and Henrico counties introduced the package of legislative measures at a press conference last week. In a statement issued Aug. 29, House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell, Senate Majority Leader Walter A. Stosch, Sen. Jay O'Brien and Delegate David B. Albo, said the package includes proposals that would "allow state and local authorities to cooperate with federal immigration officials."

The proposed legislation would also "strengthen Virginia's enforcement capabilities in dealing with illegal immigrants who have committed additional crimes." One element of the proposed legislative package would call for all sheriff's deputies to confirm someone's legal residency in the United States upon making an arrest. Police would have access to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement database (ICE) in order to determine that status. The Republican lawmakers said this change would "streamline and strengthen statewide immigration enforcement."

Fauquier deputies already check immigration status whenever someone is arrested on felony or misdemeanor charges, Fox said. When necessary, deputies notify ICE agents and the appropriate consulate about the arrest, he added. Another part of the proposed package would mandate that at least one person on duty in every jail at all times has received specialized federal training. In the statement issued last week, lawmakers explained, "This change means that, upon a positive identification of an illegal alien, there will be a person with federal authority readily available to detain and begin deportation proceedings after that individual has served his or her sentence."

As proposed, additional elements of the legislative package would: Create a "presumption of no bail" for any person who has been charged with an offense punishable by jail or prison time and who has been determined (through ICE databases) to be illegally present in the United States. Make a federal conviction for hiring illegal aliens grounds for a suspension of a business license issued by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Prohibit illegal aliens from attending state colleges and universities unless they have a valid student visa.

Jill Holtzman Vogel, a candidate for the Virginia Senate from the 27th District, and Delegate Mark Cole, (R-88) quickly endorsed the legislative proposals last week. "In March, I released the Vogel Plan to crack down on illegal immigration that focuses on increased cooperation between Virginia and federal authorities, finding better ways for employers to identify illegal aliens, and using all the technology at our disposal to eliminate counterfeit identification," the former said.. "I'm pleased to see Republicans in Richmond took the initiative this week to propose legislation that is consistent with these goals."

Cole said that he has "been out meeting and talking with a lot of people...and they are fed-up when it comes to illegal immigration, The governor and his allies seem content to throw up their hands and leave this issue to the federal government. But the federal government simply is not doing its job when it comes to securing the border and enforcing immigration law. Because of this, we must step up and continue efforts to try to address this issue at the state and local level."

The package will be considered when the General Assembly convenes on Jan. 9.

Source



Ireland now has a substantial immigrant population

Including many black faces

In the past ten years, Ireland has experienced a greater rise in the percentage of immigrants than Britain experienced over the past half century. In 1999, fewer than 6,000 work permits were granted to non-Irish migrant workers; last year, 48,000 were handed out. According to the 2006 census, which has been gradually released over the summer, 420,000 foreign nationals, or about 10 percent of the population, now live here. In some primary schools in Dublin, some 50 percent of the children are from nonnational backgrounds. In some districts, the number of immigrants has risen by 120 percent since 2002.

A combination of low and highly skilled workers, the newcomers have fueled the Celtic Tiger economic boom – as well as social upheaval. But while Ireland has struggled with racism and other tensions, it's experienced nothing like the Paris riots of 2005 or the homegrown-terrorist attacks that rocked London in 2006 and Madrid in 2004. Some newcomers credit the proactive stance of the government, which has allowed noncitizens to participate in local politics and join the police force. "By allowing immigrants to participate in society, Ireland has accepted the first generation of immigrants," says Rotimi Adebari, a Nigerian who in June became Ireland's first immigrant mayor. "I think my election is a model that can be showcased throughout the world. What Ireland has done is very unique."

Bryan Fanning, editor of Immigration and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland, also applauds the efforts of Ireland, which allows nonnationals to vote in local elections. "That is unusual and a very positive initiative," says Dr. Fanning. "It is unhealthy to have large proportion of your population outside citizenship. Two problems arise. First of all, they are not stakeholders in a positive way in society, and second, if they are voiceless, then they are powerless. It would be easy for pressures of marginalization to build up." Mr. Adebari, who sought asylum after fleeing Nigeria with his wife and two children seven years ago, agrees. "Nonnational workers pay taxes, so the fact that they can have a say on how those taxes are spent locally – on roads, schools, or services – makes them feel more integrated with their community."

But many immigrants don't feel welcome, let alone integrated. A 2006 report from the Irish-based Economic and Social Research Institute found that 35 percent of immigrants were insulted, threatened, or harassed in public because of their ethnic or national origin, a figure that climbed to 53 percent for black Africans. It found, however, that the incidence of racism in Ireland was lower than other European countries. In recent general elections, there were three candidates representing the Immigration Control Platform, but they received just 1,329 votes. There are no far-right political parties in Ireland, like the British National Party or Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in France. Attempts to politicize the issue have been largely unsupported.

One reason for this is historical. Many Irish emigrants were themselves the victims of racism – many British boardinghouses had signs that read "No blacks, no Irish, no dogs" – and these experiences have helped temper local attitudes to the new arrivals. But also, the most common nationality of immigrants between 1995 and 2000 wasn't Polish or Chinese or Nigerian. It was Irish, returning migrants who are reversing the flow of emigration (in the US, nearly 35 million people claim Irish ancestry).

Still, the Irish government has been proactive. "One of the recommendations from the World Conference on Racism, held in South African in 2001, was for governments to design national action plans," says Kensika Monshengwo, training and resource officer with the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism. "The Irish government was quick to put in place a National Action Plan Against Racism that is used by the police, education institutions, and service organizations." Ireland's Employment Equality Act outlaws discrimination on nine specific grounds. "You don't find that in many other countries. Even the European Union directive only has six grounds," say Mr. Monshengwo.

As part of its response to the National Action Plan Against Racism, the Irish police force, An Garda Siochana, changed its entry requirements to allow nonnationals to apply for positions. Speaking recently, Brian Lenihan said that the Garda "must be broadly representative of the community it serves, and the changes in Irish society are starting to be reflected in the intake of Garda recruits." At present, it has trainees from China, Poland, Canada, Romania, and Denmark. "I don't know of any other country where nonnationals can be a member of the police force," says Monshengwo. "It is a major step that is mindful of the future, when the force will be policing a diverse community."

But problems have arisen. In July, a member of the Sikh community completed his exams and training for the Garda Reserve, but was told he could not wear a turban on duty. Wearing a turban is obligatory for Sikh men, and police forces in the US, Canada, Malaysia, and Britain allow it. "On one hand they are being pioneers in opening the door for non-nationals," says Harpeet Singh of the Irish Sikh Council, "and on the other hand they refuse to follow the example of other police forces in including Sikhs."

This present impasse mirrors a broader debate. Does Ireland follow the multicultural model of countries like Britain, where common public values don't necessarily trump individual cultural practices, or the assimilation model of France, say, where the dominant national culture prevails? Ireland recently appointed a minister of state for integration policy, but a clear position has yet to emerge. "[M]any NGOs ... are concerned about the separation between developing an integration policy and our immigration policy," says Denise Charlton, chief executive of the Immigrant Council of Ireland. "We must ensure that our immigration policy does not create barriers to integration. The forthcoming Immigration, Residence, and Protection Bill should clearly define migrants' rights to family life, permanent residence, protection against discrimination, access to services and ... information." The bill will come before the Irish parliament convenes this fall.

Irish policy has been slow to evolve, but many say it's off to a good start. "Remember that diversity and multiculturalism is only 10 years old in Ireland," says Adebari. "By allowing immigrants to participate in society, Ireland has accepted the first generation of immigrants."

Source





4 September, 2007

Kansas City Minutewoman Attacked by La Raza

A press release from Minuteman HQ below

La Raza, an exclusive, not inclusive, racially motivated group which actively denigrates "Anglos" and African-Americans, and which promotes bigotry towards anyone who is not Hispanic is threatening to move their scheduled national conference from Kansas City unless the mayor removes long-time community volunteer Frances Semler from the city's park board for her views on strengthening border security and enforcing the laws of our nation.

There is, indeed, something troubling here. That a racially motivated group based outside of Kansas City feels it has the right to tell a city how to run their business and threaten economic boycott if it doesn' get its way is the issue. The mayor's response should be "Hasta la vista, La Raza." The fact that La Raza is encouraging the NAACP to do the same, "to play the race card," is despicable.

This bullying move by "La Raza" literally, "The Race" is troubling; however, we must seize the opportunity for logic to shine down on their message. This will help the cause of law and order and will forever put a face on the problem -- on one side stands a militant anti-American organization which advocates sedition and openly encourages a double standard of law enforcement based on ethnicity and "race"; on the other side stands an inclusive American movement consisting of millions of hard working, law abiding citizens who welcome loyal, legal immigrants and want the laws of our land enforced.

Which group would you want in your community?

Mrs. Semler is presented as the "bad guy" in this attempted shake-down for her association with the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers, a citizens' inclusive activist organization focused on the goal of securing our nation's borders, both north and south, and supporting the rule of law.

La Raza, a dangerous, militant racialist organization is constantly attempting to intimidate and strong-arm politicians around the country with threats of violent street demonstrations and economic sabotage if they don't get their way. Kansas City is simply the latest target. And of course, politicians all too often are bending over backwards to appease this La Raza, racist organization based on economics and race-based political calculation instead of holding fast on principle.

The mayor of Kansas City, the members of the city council and law enforcement officials should openly encourage La Raza to hit the road, and show support and respect for the local city leaders, our laws and communities and stand up for what attracts legal immigrants to this great country, the ordered liberty of a nation of laws.

We encourage you to contact the mayor, city council and the media -- as well as their local NAACP and ACLU chapters -- and tactfully tell them to support the rule of law, LEGAL immigration, and to NOT cave in to the extortion and threats of the racist La Raza.

U.S sovereignty is under a direct political assault waged by the open-borders advocates and their fellow-conspirators in the media. Minutemen are increasingly under legal assault from politically motivated liberal prosecutors and well-funded special interest groups. As a result, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the USJF developed the Minuteman Protection Program (MPP).

In the wake of victory over the amnesty bill many politicians have lost their focus. While the debate in Washington rages, thousands of illegal aliens pour into our country unchecked. Fickle politicians are quick to jump to safer-seemingly issues and greener political pastures. But there are those that remain stalwart and stand strong. They are those that stand for justice and press forward on their thankless journey toward a safe and secure America. The United States Justice Foundation is committed to making sure that we have the strength to secure our border. USJF works to watch the backs of those that need it most, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers. These volunteers give tirelessly with all their heart and soul to make America's borders safe. But there are those that would seek to bring down these brave volunteers by striking from the shadows.

Frivolous lawsuits are filed and unfounded claims are made against Minuteman volunteers. Some of the very people protected by their efforts are harassing and oppressing them. But never far behind the brave Minutemen is the USJF legal staff, quick to take action to counter false claims and allow the Minutemen to continue on their fight to protect America. The USJF brings to bear legal expertise and a passionate fervor to see that justice is done and that no harm comes to the Minuteman volunteers or their families.

The Minutemen are the largest national Citizens Neighborhood Watch -- Securing the American Border. The nearly 9,000 border watch trained volunteers of the Minutemen Defense Corps have reduced the unchecked flow of illegal aliens crossing the border in their patrolled areas by as much as 90%. On the other hand, the government has yet to take promised action and create an effective presence to defend our border, and it is doubtful they will do anything about it in the future.

Because of their effectiveness Minutemen have been vilified and assaulted by liberals and even open-borders RINOs across all fronts. Minuteman volunteers have been sent hate mail, threats of bodily harm, and have been the victims of physical and legal attacks. While the brave Minuteman volunteers are out on the border and in local communities defending our country they are being undermined by fellow citizens whose security and national sovereignty they are defending. These valiant and honorable volunteers need legal support from USJF, and they are getting it.

In the past year USJF has successfully defended a Minutewoman who was fired from her job because she opposed illegal immigration; a volunteer who was branded with an illegitimate restraining order for his involvement in a documentary video that was speaking the truth about what is going on at the border; and a Minuteman who was arrested for defending himself from an attack from a supporter of illegal aliens. USJF has stood beside these brave Minutemen and is winning the battle against the assaults on those Minutemen volunteers who legally observe and report illegal activities.



Mexican President Calderon blasts U.S. immigration policies

President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying "Mexico does not end at its borders." The criticism earned Calderon a standing ovation during his first state-of-the nation address. "We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers," he said. "The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle ... for their rights." He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: "Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

Since taking office in December, Calderon has maintained strong ties with the United States, but he has often denounced U.S. immigration policy, including more deportations that have divided many families, sometimes forcing U.S.-born children to build new lives in Mexico. In one of the most high-profile cases, illegal immigrant Elvira Arellano was deported recently to Mexico after spending a year in a Chicago church to avoid being sent home. Her 8-year-old son Saul, who is a U.S. citizen, flew to Mexico on Friday to be reunited with his mother and said he plans to stay indefinitely, helping her fight to return to the United States.

Calderon addressed the nation Sunday from the National Palace, avoiding a showdown with leftist opposition lawmakers who had vowed to prevent him from making the speech in Congress, as Mexican tradition dictates. Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal declared Calderon the winner of the July 2006 race nearly a year ago, rejecting leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador claims that Calderon's narrow victory was fraudulent.

Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, was also blocked last year from making his state-of-the-nation address in Congress after leftist lawmakers stormed the stage and refused to give him passage. The lawmakers claimed Fox unfairly aided Calderon's win, which Fox denied. Both are members of the conservative National Action Party.

Lopez Obrador refused to recognize Calderon's eventual victory and declared himself leader of a parallel government. But he has largely disappeared from the public eye amid sharp divisions within his leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party. Calderon, meanwhile, has garnered some of the highest approval ratings in Mexico's history.

He said Sunday that Mexico has created 618,000 new jobs since January and needs to do more to close the giant gap between the rich and the poor. He also promised not to let up in his nationwide crackdown on drug gangs who control large swaths of Mexican territory. "We can close our eyes to the reality, and because we are afraid or irresponsible, let organized crime take over our streets," he said. "Or we can decide to fight and defeat crime with all the risks and costs that implies."

Source



Australia: Labor Party to restart illegal immigration?

Labor has already promised to close the detention centre on Nauru and has previously stated that if people smugglers make it to Christmas Island with their human cargo, then entry to the mainland is guaranteed. Even if they don't make it to Christmas Island, Rudd has promised to take them there in the first instance. On the Alan Jones show (July 12, 2007) Rudd said that under a Rudd Labor government illegal boat arrivals would be "processed in the normal way and probably taken to Christmas Island for processing purposes". Such an equivocal response demonstrates that Labor is unfit to protect Australia's borders and maintain the integrity of our immigration program. This will simply give the green light to people smugglers that their repugnant criminal activity will be tolerated by a Rudd Labor government.

More disturbingly, Rudd makes no distinction between illegal and legal migrants. Labor's policy of "come one, come all", is further evidence that it does not have any policy to deal with illegal arrivals.

There will always be criticism of the Government's tough stance on protecting our borders from illegal boat arrivals. Regardless of where this criticism comes from, it will not deter the Howard Government from implementing its policies and ensuring that they are a success, and by any reasonable measure they have been.

More here





3 September, 2007

Racists support illegals

The report below is about the "La Raza" organization -- apparently now quite respectable in U.S. Hispanic circles. But what does "La Raza" mean? It means "The Race" -- the Mexican race (though anthropologists would be hard-put to identify any Mexican race). The organization is explicitly devoted to promoting the interests of the Mexican race, in other words. So who is introducing race and racism into the immigration debate? We hear furious accusations of "racism" flung at people who think America should have control over who enters the country but the actual racists are never accused of racism! Conservatives and patriots in America are just too polite. Maybe they should be less polite

For many in the Hispanic community, it has become a time of high anxiety, said Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. The debate over immigration, once simmering, has now begun to boil: This year's struggle over comprehensive immigration reform legislation drew out impassioned voices on both sides. Local laws and ordinances are sprouting up to make Latinos feel harassed and discriminated against, she said. [Wrong! It's only some Latinos. Latinos who are in the country legally have exactly the same rights as everybody else]

Latino leaders have long seen the warning signs, but now they are impossible to ignore, Murguia said at a talk Thursday to Hispanic community members at the Guadalupe Center, 1015 Avenida Cesar E. Chavez. She said the failure of efforts to pass bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform has led to local laws that imperil the rights of Hispanics [Only law-breaking Hispanics] A directive issued by Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt is an example, she said. Blunt ordered the Missouri Highway Patrol to check the immigration status of anyone who is arrested and in some cases, only stopped.

"It's a dark moment in our history," Murguia said of the current wave of anti-immigration sentiment. "We are in real trouble. . This is not just a political debate anymore," she said to an audience of more than 35 people. "It's now getting personal." Murguia asked concerned citizens to join forces with her to "strategically combat" these anti-immigration forces. She asked people to promote "civic engagement" by helping immigrants gain citizenship, by registering naturalized citizens to vote and by bringing out the vote in historic numbers for the 2008 election. She also said that an alliance of Hispanic organizations was "going to be ramping up our efforts" to use new media and the Internet and would offer downloadable tool kits and tips on how to get their message out.

Murguia emphasized that political power would no longer be the only kind of power Latino leaders would be willing to exercise. "We have political power, but we have growing economic power we can leverage, and we can speak with our economic power as well," she said. She said that in the past several years, Hispanic leaders have learned to focus less on boycotts and more on targeted economic strategies. An example is La Raza's recent decision to consider pulling the 2008 convention out of Kansas City because of the appointment to the city's parks board of a member of a militant group opposing illegal immigration.

The possibility of moving the convention was met with enthusiastic applause and open support at Thursday's meeting. Kansas City Councilwoman Beth Gottstein was among those who stood up in support. "If you have to come back to make that announcement (that you've chosen not to have the convention in Kansas City), I will stand with you," Gottstein said. "We know we are right on this." Murguia said Hispanic leaders were successful when they applied similar pressure in Los Angeles by threatening to take their convention elsewhere because of a labor dispute involving Hispanic workers.

Source



Britain: David Cameron wobbled, but didn't fall

By Iain Dale

During the last general election campaign, the Conservatives deployed a series of billboard posters with the slogan: "It's not racist to talk about immigration".

Never a truer word spoken, but all the same I thought it was reprehensible that a Tory poster should have the word "racist" on it, as it appeared to give some credence to Labour's accusation that they were somehow extreme, or closet racists. I made myself very unpopular with Conservative Central Office when I told them that, if they put it up in the constituency I was standing in, I would personally rip it down.

So to wake up yesterday to headlines of "Cameron gets tough on immigration" was a slight shock. I have no problem with being tough on immigration and taking measures to secure our borders, and I have no problem with David Cameron saying so either. But the way it was being reported you'd have thought Michael Howard was back in charge. "Return to the core vote" and "lurch to the Right" were just two of the more colourful phrases being used. And all because Cameron had the temerity to answer a reasonable question on Newsnight in a reasonable way. He made the rational point that our borders need to be secure and that insecure borders led to mass immigration, which our public services infrastructure has found difficult to cope with. He also said that new transitional measures may be needed to cope with further influxes from new EU members.

He was asked about Margaret Thatcher's use of the phrase "swamped" to describe immigration in the 1970s and said he would not have used that phrase. He was calm, collected and rational in all his answers. A lurch to the Right? I don't think so.

The Dizzy Thinks blog reckons that framing new immigration within the prism of public services is a masterstroke of "Clintonian" triangulation. It makes it very difficult for the Left to criticise what Cameron is saying, as it would appear that it doesn't care about the quality of public services. No dog whistles there, because the tactic enables Cameron to sound eminently reasonable to centre-ground voters and refute the persistent Labour accusation that any Tory who dares to talk about immigration must by definition be a racist. So, in a week when Cameron has announced tough proposals on law and order, reiterated his support for a European referendum and talked about immigration, it might be easy to see all this as falling into the trap of talking to an audience of Tory supporters. This is to misread what he is doing.

Crime will be one of the top three issues at the election. Talking tough on crime, but at the same time looking at social policies that can help the most deprived areas in our country, is what Mark Oaten used to call "tough liberalism", but David Davis prefers to call "tough love". It's also another classic piece of political triangulation, in that it appeals to people whose instincts might be to support another political party, but makes them sit up and think. This strategy is already working with GPs and hospital doctors, 48 per cent of whom now intend to vote Conservative. When Stephen Dorrell's public services commission report is published on Tuesday, expect to see a similar strategy relating to teachers and other public servants. The public sector has grown to such an extent over the past decade that any politician who wants to win an election needs the public sector vote, too.

The main lesson to draw from recent events is that David Cameron is a politician of remarkable tenacity. There used to be an advert for a children's toy called a Weeble. It was impossible to knock over and the slogan its owners used was: "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down". No one would deny that there has been a wobble over the summer, but if the past 10 days are anything to go by, David Cameron has grabbed back the initiative from a remarkably silent Gordon Brown. He has also displayed great resilience, and that should be of great comfort to Conservatives who were beginning to lose heart.

Source





2 September, 2007

Judges versus the people again

A federal judge in San Francisco on Friday temporarily blocked the U.S. government from starting its planned crackdown against employers who hired undocumented immigrant workers. U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Social Security Administration from sending so-called no-match letters to companies whose employees' names do not match the Social Security numbers they used when they applied for their jobs. It also prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from fining companies that don't act on those letters.

"This is a critical and important first step," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. "It means that workers will not be threatened as a result of an improper rule or inaccurate notices that were about to be sent out."

But Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said she believed the government strategy would ultimately be implemented. "We are disappointed by the delay and expect to prevail once the court has the benefit of full briefings and arguments," she said. The letters were scheduled to be sent Tuesday to about 140,000 employers with at least 10 workers whose names and Social Security numbers don't match. Under the Homeland Security rule, the affected companies would have to resolve any discrepancies within 90 days or face sanctions.

The judge's ruling came two days after a coalition of labor and immigrant rights groups sued Social Security and the Department of Homeland Security. In its lawsuit, the coalition argued that the new rule would lead to discrimination against documented and U.S. citizen workers and result in unfair firings. The coalition, which included the AFL-CIO and the American Civil Liberties Union, also argued in the suit that the Social Security database was full of errors.

After a hearing Friday, Chesney wrote in her ruling that the plaintiffs "raised serious questions as to whether the new Department of Homeland Security rule is inconsistent with statute." "The balance of harms tips sharply in favor of a stay based on plaintiffs' showing that they and their members would suffer irreparable harm if the rule is implemented," Chesney wrote.

A hearing before District Judge Charles Breyer is scheduled for Oct. 1 to let Homeland Security argue against a request for a permanent injunction that would prohibit the agency from implementing the new policy. Marielena Hincapie, director of programs at the National Immigration Law Center, said the organizations had anticipated that Chesney might delay the mailings but the fact that she temporarily stopped the department's rule from going into effect Sept. 14 was a "great victory." Hincapie said she was hopeful the court would find at the October hearing that the rule was not valid and that Homeland Security had acted "beyond its legal authority."

Meanwhile, Keehner said the department would continue to enforce immigration law and go after employers who hired illegal workers. In the last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has investigated and raided numerous workplaces, resulting in deportations of workers and civil and criminal sanctions against employers. "We will continue to uphold and enforce the law and restore the public faith in our immigration enforcement capabilities," Keehner said.

Source



British Tories urge 'firm immigration plan'

Controlling immigration to the UK will lead to greater community cohesion, the Tories said. Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said a "firm immigration policy" was necessary to enable local authorities to provide services for people arriving in the country. Tory leader David Cameron said that immigration into Britain had been "too high" and called for "tough and rigorous" action to control the numbers coming in.

Mr Green, speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, said recent waves of immigration had put public services under strain. He said: "Local authorities in various parts of the country have pointed out the difficulties. "For instance, in Slough, they found themselves suddenly having to find school places for large numbers of children who they didn't know were there, who couldn't speak English. That puts a huge strain on particular social services. "Inevitably many of the incoming communities do cluster together, it's a natural thing to do, and therefore if that's unplanned and unexpected then it's very difficult for the local authorities to cope. "So actually having a firm immigration policy is a way of contributing to better community cohesion in this country."

Mr Cameron used an appearance on the BBC's Newsnight to call for tighter immigration controls. He said: "I think the levels of migration we see in the early part of the decade of this Government, when the asylum numbers were very high, and the later part of the decade, when immigration settlement numbers were very high... I think we have put too great a burden on public services and I think it needs to be better controlled."

Mr Green denied the Tories' recent emphasis on classic right-wing issues such as crime, Europe and immigration was a plan to woo their traditional supporters. He said: "In no way is this a move back to a core vote strategy. When you look at what David Cameron has been talking about over the past few weeks, he has talked about health, he has talked about crime, he has talked about social breakdown. He was asked a straight question about immigration policy last night and he gave a straight answer."

Mr Green added: "What's happened over a long period is that all mainstream politicians have been very sensitive to the fact that, if you deal with issues like immigration, you have to deal with them in a moderate and sensitive tone. But I also believe very strongly that it is an issue that mainstream democratic politicians need to address because otherwise it leaves the floor clear for extremists, particularly on the far right."

Source





1 September, 2007

Big cutback in U.S. immigration enforcement

Immigration and Customs Enforcement criminal investigators will no longer be involved in immigration work site enforcement or conduct checks for illegal alien prisoners. Almost 1,000 ICE Office of Investigations agents will be reassigned exclusively to customs investigations, reducing the manpower involved in detention and removal of illegal aliens to 4,000 nationwide, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times and interviews with ICE union representatives. ICE officials refused to comment on the internal documents or clarify the number of investigators that are to be reassigned.

The Washington Times has obtained an internal August memorandum written by ICE Office of Investigations Director Marcy Forman and Director John P. Torres, with Detention and Removal Operations (DRO), listing the new protocols for the agency. Prior to the memorandum, the Office of Investigations worked hand in hand with Detention and Removal agents to remove and deport illegal alien absconders.

"[Detention and Removal] is a rapidly expanding program with the responsibility for ensuring that all removable aliens are detained in a safe environment and expeditiously removed from the United States. DRO has the responsibility for detaining and removing illegal aliens apprehended by ICE, [Customs and Border Protection] and, as resources allow, other law enforcement entities," states the Aug. 20 memo. "It is the vision of ICE for DRO to assume primary responsibility for non-investigative administrative arrests, for example, state and local law enforcement response to interdiction of immigration violators or probation and parole referrals."

Resources and manpower, however, are scarce, ICE agents say. "They're just not there," said Jim Brown, a spokesman for American Federation of Government Employees. "Again, the bottom line is our folks are going to work this to the best of their ability, but the agency is leaving us short by not providing staff and resources. I don't think our members will be able to carry out that mission. Eventually, something is going to give."

The agency's interior enforcement strategy has long been criticized for not addressing the millions of illegal aliens living and working in the United States. Since September 11, critics argue that the government has committed far too few resources and agents to the task. Adding to the problem, critics say, is the absence of real sanctions on employers who hire illegal aliens but rarely face charges or fines. "Despite the costs, the country's interior-enforcement program historically has been neglected and understaffed," Michael W. Cutler, a retired U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services senior agent and criminal investigator, told The Times in a 2004 article. "We have only been given the illusion of making a serious effort to enforce our immigration law." Mr. Brown touted similar complaints.

Before the August memo, roughly 5,000 federal agents were assigned to the task of detecting, detaining and deporting millions of foreign nationals. With the removal of the criminal investigative agents from internal enforcement, "ICE will be left with 4,000 agents nationwide to handle the estimated 12 million people here illegally, and that's just not enough," said Mr. Brown, who is also an agent with the Fugitive Operation unit.

Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican and outspoken critic of lax immigration enforcement, said resources need to be allocated to ensure the removal of criminal illegal aliens from the U.S. "It lacks wisdom to take 20 percent of your work force who know how to deal with criminal detainees — experienced officers — and make grapefruit inspectors out of them," Mr. Poe said.

For example, Mr. Brown said, only 14 new officers were reassigned in June to assist with the jail program for all six of the New England states. The jail program allows ICE agents to root out illegal aliens from being released into the U.S.; instead the violators are extradited back to their home country. Mr. Brown points to a former illegal alien parolee charged in the early August killing of three New Jersey college students as an example of why more agents are needed. The suspect had been granted bail on child rape charges unknown to immigration officials. "We don't have the manpower to do all the checks," Mr. Brown said. "It's just not there, and we may see the same situation like Newark happening again."

Source



Illegals in Italy

Illegal immigrants in Italy earning a few coins by washing windscreens at traffic lights could face up to three months in jail after Florence launched a crackdown and other cities said they might follow suit. Many cities are already taking action against what is seen as "imported" behavior such as tourists taking off their shirts or eating hamburgers in the piazza in Venice, or getting drunk in public in Rome -- something image-conscious Italians avoid.

Foreigners are also blamed for much of the street crime in a relatively safe country. Most people wielding sponges on street corners are Romanian gypsies, often young women and children. But word got round quickly in historic Florence that city hall had introduced new rules enabling police to bring charges against window-washers, confiscate their equipment and start prosecutions that could end in fines and a prison sentence. Florence police chief Alessandro Bartolini personally led the first patrol which resulted in 15 people being charged. "There are no more on the streets. Word has got around, apparently," Bartolini said.

Rome's Mayor Walter Veltroni, who has taken action against illegal gypsy camps and now vows to clean up rowdy nightlife and public drug-taking and drinking in popular neighborhoods like Trastevere, said window-washers are so pushy "that people are virtually ravaged at every traffic light and street corner." "People must realize that behind the window-washers there is exploitation of minors, which is a crime. Like prostitution this is a racket that must be smashed," Veltroni told reporters.

In Verona, Mayor Flavio Tosi, who has previously taken action against people eating sandwiches in public, said he would monitor the experiment in Florence: "If the new regulation manages to deter the window-washers, we will adopt it too."

Some civic groups in Florence applauded the rules which city officials said acted on complaints of window-washers "becoming more aggressive, especially to women alone in their cars." The city's public safety officer Graziano Cioni stressed that the aim was "not to punish beggars or poor people" but to combat "arrogant and violent" behavior against motorists. However, leftist groups in the city called the new measure excessive and regional Communist party chief Niccolo Pecorini termed it "unworthy of Florence's hospitable traditions."

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