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31 December, 2007

Sheriff Seeks Leader Who Can Halt Illegal Immigration

SPENCER, Iowa -- The tiny jail here has housed many a typical small-town Iowa criminal since its bricks were laid in 1938 -- drunk drivers, drug abusers, the occasional thief. These days, though, Sheriff Randy Krukow walks the cell row and behind the bars sees a new kind of increasingly typical lawbreaker: illegal immigrants. Six of the eight men locked up this month were in the country illegally, accused of identity fraud and drug dealing.

They worry Krukow, as did the 99 illegal immigrants he watched being arrested on television last year when federal agents swarmed a meatpacking plant three hours down the road. Krukow has never entered the variety store that advertises "envios de dinero" -- money transfers -- to Mexico and Central America that opened two years ago on Grand Avenue in Spencer, where antique lampposts are a reminder of the town's founding more than 100 years ago. And across from Krukow's three-bedroom rancher, on a block filled with flags for the local high school and ribbons for U.S. troops, sits a worn beige rental with a sheet in the front window that is home to a group of Hispanic immigrants. "When the weather's nice, they're all out there talking on their cellphones. All 10 of them," said Krukow, 57. "Don't speak a lick of English, but they are hardworking."

Krukow understands and even sympathizes with what has brought his new neighbors. The hog and chicken confinement plants that opened a decade ago promise a decent wage and a better life. But he wants illegal immigrants gone before Clay County starts to resemble neighboring Buena Vista County, where half of the workforce at a Tyson meat plant is Hispanic and where one in eight residents is an immigrant. "We've only seen the tip of the iceberg," said Krukow, who has lived in these parts all his life and serves as an elder at a Pentecostal church. "It's still 'God, family, country' here. Illegal is illegal."

The sentiments of voters such as Krukow have propelled the issue of illegal immigration to the fore of the Republican race for president in Iowa, where a relatively small but concentrated influx of newcomers has begun to transform the largely rural, largely white state. Immigrants are drawn to jobs in the agriculture industry that Americans are not filling. About 20,000 immigrants, most of them Hispanic, have moved to Iowa in the last six years, and the state is now home to about 112,000 of them, according to 2006 U.S. Census figures. More than half are undocumented, according to a 2006 study by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The Republican presidential hopefuls, particularly front-runners Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, have seized on these numbers and are telling voters on the stump, in TV and radio commercials, and at debates that they will do the most to stem illegal immigration. Like many other Republicans, Krukow is torn between Huckabee and Romney, who has repeatedly criticized Huckabee's support for tuition breaks for the children of illegal immigrants while he was governor of Arkansas. Krukow agrees with Romney that undocumented immigrants should not receive government benefits such as tuition breaks, but he understands Huckabee's biblical argument about not punishing children for the sins of their fathers.

The sheriff also admires the Baptist-minister-turned-politician's unabashed Christian faith. It is the same faith that leads Krukow to services every Sunday morning at DaySpring Assembly of God, where the U.S. flag and a cross-bearing Christian banner adorn the stage. He and his wife, Suzanne, also host a Sunday night prayer group for couples at their home. Still, Krukow wonders whether Huckabee is too soft on immigration. The sheriff is looking for a hard-line candidate who will wall off the border and ensure that taxpayers are not subsidizing illegal immigrants.

More here



Border enforcement works as deterrent

A strict policy to arrest, prosecute and jail illegal aliens who cross into the U.S. has shown significant success in reducing crossings and crime along the Texas border, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials said this month.

The first 45 days of Operation Streamline - a collaborative effort of local, state and federal agencies in Texas - has resulted in decreased illegal border crossings and crime since its implementation Oct. 31 compared with last year's numbers, said Laredo Border Patrol Sector chief patrol agent Carlos X. Carrillo.

"As more and more illegal aliens are prosecuted and incarcerated under Streamline-Laredo, the word is spreading quickly that illegal entry has its consequences," Mr. Carrillo said. "Those found guilty of violating this statute face penalties that can include fines and up to six months in prison."

During the first 45-day period of Operation Streamline in the Laredo sector only 2,833 illegal entries were reported, compared with last fiscal year, when 4,424 illegal entries were reported during a similar period.

The operation covers a 60-mile span along the U.S.-Mexico border at Laredo. Mr. Carrillo also noted that there was an overall reduction of 33 percent in apprehensions along the entire 171-mile Laredo border corridor.

The Laredo Police Department's crime data for Oct. 31-Dec. 15 indicates a year-to-date reduction in reported crimes of approximately 30 percent, and a 36 percent decrease in major crimes during the 45-day Streamline-Laredo reporting period....

The program also shows the benefit of local law enforcement partnering with the immigration enforcement authorities and how it leads to a reduction in crime in general. There is a lesson here for sanctuary cities.

Source





30 December, 2007

Michigan: Illegal immigrants can't get licenses

Michigan joined the nation's majority on Thursday, when state Attorney General Mike Cox ruled that illegal immigrants no longer can get a state driver's license. State Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, said it's a matter of national security, but those who work with immigrants called the move political and unnecessary. "We were becoming a magnet for illegals, and it's dangerous," said Jones, who requested the Cox opinion overruling the 1995 official stance from former Attorney General Frank Kelley, a Democrat. Cox is a Republican. Jones said he was surprised to learn how easily illegal immigrants have obtained licenses. "Since 9/11, we've got to be more aware of these kinds of practices," the legislator warned.

Michigan has been one of seven states to allow undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses. Attorney general opinions are legally binding on state agencies and officers unless reversed by the courts. It was not known how soon the ruling might take effect nor what it means for illegal immigrants with currently valid licenses.

Michigan law prohibits the secretary of state from issuing a driver's license to a nonresident. Cox, whose opinion noted that a driver's license is routinely accepted as proof of identity, said it would be inconsistent with federal law to regard an illegal immigrant as a permanent resident in Michigan. His decision could boost momentum for legislation pushed by Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, a Republican, creating a new driver's license and state ID card. Only those who are Michigan residents and legally in the United States could get the new license under the plan.

"I thought the attorney general was above politics," said John Roy Castillo, executive director of the Cristo Rey Community Center. "We should be more concerned about more important things than this issue." He'd rather see politicians turn their attention to jobs, the economy and education. Without that focus, he's concerned that some populations will experience unfair treatment. "There's going to be more discrimination against Hispanics and more individuals that don't look white," Castillo said.

Maria Zavala, a Lansing resident who does health care outreach in the local immigrant community, also criticized Cox's decision. She believes illegal immigrants contribute more to the state's economy than most people understand. Without the legal ability to get driver's licenses for identification purposes, Zavala is concerned they will be more apt to falsify documents. "The people who come here really come here to work so they're not a burden on the state," she said. "Passing that law is helping to eliminate a whole working class - a nonvisible working class - that does help."

Source



The pain in Spain

The dream of most immigrants - at least when arriving to Spain - isn't to stay here. Rather its to strike it rich and then move back home. Striking it rich is relative, given that in many of the countries these people come from the monthly salary can be around 200 dollars. But with a small nest egg, perhaps a home that was built in the country of origin while living in Spain, and hopes of a small retirement pension, many immigrants are willing to take their chances living in a foreign country.

One such case is Cesar Augusto, who came with his cousin to visit Spain in 2002. The two Venezuelans caught a flight from Caracas and arrived on three-month tourist visas. Like thousands before them, they didn't bother returning when the visas expired. "My cousin decided to stay, so I thought I'd stay to accompany him," said Augusto. "Besides, things are very bad in Venezuela." And in Ecuador. And in Colombia. And in Argentina. And in Peru.

The economic and political upheaval in South America, along with a common language, have sent the numbers coming to Spain from that continent soaring into the hundreds of thousands, up from just tens of thousands at the turn of the century. That wave of late has been supplanted by workers from Eastern Europe as the borders drop and the European Union enlarges.

The face of Plaza Olavide has changed in the last 10 years. Nestled in the center of Madrid, the Chamberi neighborhood is one of the capital's most expensive areas to rent an apartment. But high prices haven't stopped poor immigrants from making this neighborhood their home to take advantage of its central location. Apartments are often rented, and then subsequently sublet to dozens of people - the going price can reach 300 euros for the right to a slot in a bunkbed and to use a communal toilet down the hall. The purchase price for a 130 square meter apartment in Chamberi can easily touch 750,000 dollars. One industrious Ecuadorean woman sublet to 30 people to finance the spacious apartment - when no immigrants were living there - where she and her family were living. The living room was divided into three rooms by curtains. With the rent money she was able to purchase a second apartment - and then move her family to London.

In the central plaza nearby the playground is filled with a rainbow of children from Africa, China, Eastern Europe and Latin America. In general, their parents have more children than the average Spanish family, sometimes even more than in their home countries - one of the local Chinese merchants has three children.

A walk around the circular plaza shows Romanian bartenders, a Cuban carpenter, a Peruvian sweets vendor, a French florist, an Egyptian ice cream vendor, and and Ecuadorean family in competition with their Peruvian colleagues across the square - and both selling Spanish tapas and drinks on popular terraces.

Make no mistake - there is work in Spain for immigrants. But immigrants - and I include myself in that number, not only as a US citizen, but also via my Peruvian wife - have to be willing to just that: work. These waves of immigration have helped prop Spain's economy, both by contributing to its welfare system and by supplying unpopular work to crucial sectors, such as construction and services. Included in the services sector is tourism, which contributes 12% to Spain's gross domestic product, or construction. But there are concerns as the construction sector is now seen on the decline, with a recent report from the large Spanish bank BBVA even suggesting there could be losses of upwards of a quarter of million jobs.

The concern is where those people will turn - the vast majority of them being immigrants. Many are already taking courses sponsored by the govenment to learn new job skills. But the fear not all will have taken such an opportunity.

Often the needs of the Spanish economy don't mesh perfectly with the needs of the arrivals. Many immigrants run the risk of being trapped in marginalized jobs, experts warn, preventing them from fully integrating into Spain's economy and society even while their numbers grow. Where just five years ago it was impossible to speak of immigrant ghettos, today there are neighborhoods where a Spanish face is foreign. With roughly 11% of the European Union's population and about 10% its GDP, Spain accounts for around 25% of Europe's immigration.

Ecuador alone sent more than 200,000 citizens to Spain from 1998 to 2001. Now, in 2007 there are over 420,000 legal Ecuadorians in Spain, with estimates that number could swell to over 750,000 if illegals were included. Colombia added almost 150,000 during the same years. Argentine net migration to Spain rose nearly threefold for the same period, although the absolute numbers were lower. By comparison, Morocco, a mere eight miles away and a country whose migration problems with Spain are widely publicized, sent just more than 100,000 to Spain during the same three years.

According to the latest figures, the largest single immigrant population remains Morocco with 575,000, followed by Rumania (525,000) Ecuador, United Kingdom (315,000), Colombia (260,000), Bolivia (200,000), Germany (165,000), Argentina (140,000), Italy (135,000), Bulgaria (120,000), China (105,000) and Peru (100,000). A closer look at those numbers shows that Latin American immigrants as a whole are the largest group in Spain.

With such numbers it should be no suprise that there is also talk that political parties are actively seeking the immigrant vote - most South Americans can claim Spanish nationality after living and working legally two years in the country. On top of those numbers are immigrants from other European Union countries. As Spain heads into General Elections in March there will most likely be initiatives that seek to woo this potentially crucial swing-vote.

One important area will be how immigrants view their as of late loss of purchasing power - many of them, while still sending money home, have bought into the dream of buying an apartment. But as of late mortgages are rising, with many immigrants finding that the price of paying the bank is now surpassing what they make. To make ends meet many immigrants fall back on the tried-and-true method of subleting any available space in their apartments. In one more than one case a bed placed on a cold hastily glassed-in terrace can fetch an extra hundred euros a month.

South American, and other, foreign workers are helping to pay unemployment benefits Spain can ill afford. But despite their contribution, the arrivals are bringing tensions often hidden by the common language and which bode ill for the future. It is often conjectured that for every one legal immigrant there are between three and five others who are illegal. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development routinely warns that immigrants face precarious conditions because they aren't legal, work on temporary contracts and tend to work long hours, sometimes paid below the contractual rate.....

Source





29 December, 2007

The latest from CIS

1. Immigration, Mainstream Media, and the 2008 Election

EXCERPT: The narratives about the election of 2008 and the rebellion against Establishment immigration policy are intertwined: their nexus will become increasingly palpable in the months ahead. Strange as it will therefore strike politically savvy Americans, a confluence that could significantly influence or prove decisive in the campaign will likely become known largely despite mainstream media rather than because of it - the exception being the rigged but ultimately uncontrollable debates among primary candidates. If this seems professionally unaccountable, a dereliction of the role of the press in a democracy, or just extremely curious that mainstream media appears determined to pass up what may be the scoop of the 2008 election, there's a reason if no rational justification. The explanation has nothing to do with a journalistic assessment of newsworthiness and everything to do with what the elite that controls the nation's traditional sources of news and opinion deems ideologically outre.

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2. The Case Against Immigration: Amy Chua gets a lot of things right but a few big things wrong

EXCERPT: . . . But Chua's useful note of caution is almost lost in a mountain of nonsense. First, to imply that Huntington, this nation's preeminent social scientist, is capable of 'scapegoating vitriol' is absurd. In his book, 'Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity' Huntington argues not that only WASPs can be Americans. He simply says that our institutions and culture were permanently shaped by British low-church Protestantism -- and that diluting that inheritance would undermine much of what has made America such a successful multi-ethnic society.....

The other restrictionist 'mistake' Chua points to is neglecting 'the indispensable role that immigrants have played in building American wealth and power.' The present-day examples she cites have nothing to do with 'a fierce global competition to attract the world's best high-tech scientists and engineers.' Intel cofounder Andy Grove, for instance, is a manager, not a technician, and Google cofounder Sergey Brin came here as a child as part of a refugee family. The push by high-tech firms to import more talent from abroad is simply a 21st century version of the eternal search for cheap labor.

And Chua's examples from the past are just that. Although today's immigrants are very similar to those of a century ago, we are a completely changed society. As I argue in my forthcoming book, 'The New Case Against Immigration,' immigration is simply incompatible with modern society. Our economy places a much higher premium than ever before on education. The United States already spends too much on an extensive welfare state. And advances in communications and transportation make immigration, even of the educated, deeply problematic for assimilation and security and sovereignty. In other words, the immigrants are the same, but we are different.

NOTE: "Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity," by Samuel Huntington can be purchased on line here

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3. Immigration, both legal and illegal, puts huge strain on the country

EXCERPT: The debate over immigration has become one of America's most heated. In a new report published by the Center for Immigration Studies, we provide a detailed picture of the nation's immigrant population. Our conclusions will probably not surprise most Californians: First, legal and illegal immigration is at record levels. Second, immigrants are generally hardworking, yet they create enormous strains on social services. Why? Put simply, many are uneducated.

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4. State Immigration Law Training and Enforcement Programs Enhance Homeland Security and Public Safety

EXCERPT: Nevada's adoption of a carefully thought out program of immigration law training and enforcement for state law enforcement agencies will contribute significantly to homeland security and enhance public safety for all its residents. Due to geography, the presence of a number of high-profile sites, and a history of significant crime problems with a nexus to illegal immigration, Nevada is an ideal candidate for participation in the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(g) program. This program provides advanced training in immigration law for selected state law enforcement officers, and enables trained officers, under the supervision of ICE, to identify, detain and begin the removal process for certain illegal aliens who come into contact with law enforcement. While a total of 34 jurisdictions have implemented 287(g) programs, there are three state programs in particular (Alabama, Colorado, and Florida) that seem best suited to Nevada's situation and homeland security objectives. In addition, the state should take further steps to achieve these objectives, such as adoption of state anti-smuggling and document/identity fraud laws; establishment of document verification protocols for licensing and other state benefits; mandatory screening for status of incarcerated foreign-born individuals; uniform state-wide policies on handling foreign-born encountered by police; universal immigration law training for law enforcement agencies; and deterrence of illegal employment.

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5. Immigrants in the United States, 2007: A Profile of America's Foreign-Born Population

EXCERPT: Among the report's findings:

* The nation's immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007.

* Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13.

* Overall, nearly one in three immigrants is an illegal alien. Half of Mexican and Central American immigrants and one-third of South American immigrants are illegal.

* Of adult immigrants, 31 percent have not completed high school, compared to 8 percent of natives. Since 2000, immigration increased the number of workers without a high school diploma by 14 percent, and all other workers by 3 percent.

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6. Farm Labor Shortages: How Real? What Response? Teleconference Transcript

Speakers:

Philip Martin, Professor of California Resource Economics, University of California, Davis Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies

Dr. Philip Martin's Backgrounder, entitled "Farm Labor Shortages: How Real? What Response?," is on line here

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7. Farmworker Farce: The shortage simply doesn't exist

EXCERPT: The lobbyists' "crops are rotting in the fields" story line has been repeated often and with little to back it up. This is one of those stories into which reporters buy so wholeheartedly, that they find no reason to actually check it out - like church burnings, or "Jeningrad." The New York Times, of course, is the gold standard for this sort of thing, though it's quite widespread . . .

Since only two percent of Americans still work in agriculture, many of the rest of us fall for this baloney. The research in this area, however, paints a very different picture. In a new paper, published by my Center for Immigration Studies, agricultural economist Philip Martin of the University of California, Davis, finds "little evidence" to support claims of a labor shortage on America's farms.



Austrian company offers to remove UK's 'disruptive' migrants in adapted aircraft

A company specialising in removing failed asylum-seekers is to approach the Government with plans to use specially adapted aircraft to deport hundreds of "disruptive" refugees. Asylum Airways, run by an Austrian aviation consultant with ties to British security firms, will operate aircraft for European countries which do not wish to use established airlines for the forced removal of asylum-seekers. The planes will have specially designed seats so that the "passengers" can be strapped down and restrained by guards. A deal could save the Government millions of pounds compared with the piecemeal contracts it has negotiated with dozens of airlines as well as reduce the number of aborted deportations.

Hundreds of asylum-seeker removals have had to be aborted in the past two years because of what the Home Office describes as "disruptive behaviour". And in the past few months airlines have been criticised for carrying failed asylum-seekers, many of whom allege they have been physically and racially abused by private security guards paid to escort them.

Earlier this year XL airlines announced that it would no longer work with the Home Office in removing failed asylum-seekers. But British Airways and others argue that they have a legal duty to take asylum-seekers on their aircraft.

Heinz Berger, who has set up the Asylum Airlines company and has worked with British companies providing security at British airports, says that he is still involved with the "bureaucracy" of the scheme but has identified Britain as a key market for his service. Mr Berger said that Britain was on a list of countries with whom he was seeking to do business. He said there was "ongoing interest all over Europe" for an airline that will organise flights around Europe, picking up failed asylum-seekers from various countries and then flying them back to their home nations around Africa, the Middle East and Asia. A special feature will be bespoke aircraft with padded rooms and restraining equipment.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the removal of hundreds of asylum-seekers each year has to be cancelled because of "disruptive behaviour". But this can include medical problems as well as complaints from passengers. A spokeswoman for the Home Office said that while the Government was "open to new ideas" she said the present arrangements were working "pretty well".

Source





28 December, 2007

Immigrant-rights groups critical of upcoming radio event

The usual Leftist attempt to silence opposition rather than debate it

Immigrant-rights groups are criticizing the organizers of an upcoming radio event that will promote a crackdown on illegal immigration. The groups accuse the Federation for American Immigration Reform of endorsing bigotry and racism. FAIR is sponsoring a broadcast marathon for Thursday and Friday in a downtown Des Moines hotel. The event is expected to attract 22 radio talk show hosts from across the country to discuss immigration. ``We don't agree with their views that are demonizing immigrants, and we don't appreciate their coming to Iowa telling us what we should think about immigrants,'' said Alicia Claypool, chairwoman of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

Dan Stein, president of FAIR, said his group is being demonized. ``They're trying to discredit an entire side of the debate,'' Stein said. FAIR held a similar radio event last spring in Washington that it claims influenced the U.S. Senate's defeat of a bill that would have created a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. FAIR placed an advertisement last week in The Des Moines Register taking note of the defeated legislation and promoting the upcoming marathon. ``Earlier this year, talk radio shook things up in Washington and helped stop an amnesty for illegal aliens,'' the ad stated.

Critics have said FAIR's hard anti-immigrant line has discouraged a fair debate. They note that the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, recently added FAIR to its list of hate groups operating in the United States. Stein said the law center's report contains ``serious fabrications. ... It's absolutely defamatory.''

FAIR's Web site - www.fairus.org - says the group advocates for improved border security, an end to illegal immigration, and immigration levels ``consistent with more traditional rates of about 300,000 a year.''

The Center for New Community, a Chicago-based immigrant rights advocacy group, disagrees with FAIR's purpose and encourages the hotel to cancel the event. The Rev. David Ostendorf, the center's executive director, said hotels and other places ``have no obligation to provide a platform for hate speech.'' Stein accused critics of the planned broadcasts of trying to obstruct free speech ``and people's right to be heard on public policy issues.''

Source



Iowa: Republicans take tough line as immigration becomes key election issue

The snow and fairy lights make Main Street resemble a scene from It's a Wonderful Life, with only a glimpse of a Mexican flag in the grocer's window or a handwritten sign in Spanish indicating that this is different from dozens of other mid-Western towns. But on the outskirts of Marshalltown, the grey windowless bulk of the Swift & Co meat plant looms out of the fog like a battleship. And it is there that workers hurry away from the gates, waving away questions with a polite "No hablo ingles".

In December last year US immigration agents raided the factory at dawn, divided the workers into two groups - US citizens on one side, Mexicans on the other - and detained 99 people for lacking legal documentation. Children arrived home to find that their parents were gone, others were left crying at school because there was no one to pick them up.

This Christmas, fears of deportation among the 7,000-strong Hispanic community have been exacerbated by a presidential election in which illegal immigration has emerged unexpectedly as the principal concern for Republican voters in Iowa. In this crucial state, where the nomination process begins on January 3, candidates for the White House have been loudly trumpeting - or tripping up over - the immigration issue.

Although Iowa remains overwhelmingly white - with Latinos accounting for less than 3 per cent of its population - the arrival of immigrants in places such as Marshalltown, where Hispanics number 7,000 and represent a proportion of perhaps 25 per cent, has caused some resentment. Bobbie Sullivan, 58, waiting for her boyfriend outside Swift & Co, describes a feeling of being "overwhelmed" in her church, where three quarters of the congregation are Spanish speakers. "It hurts when poor people here are without jobs to see all the Hispanics there," she says. "And they get all the overtime there is to be had, 'cos they work so hard."

Swift & Co denied The Times access to the plant where many of the 2,000-plus employed there undoubtedly have tough jobs. Notices in the security office refer to rooms dedicated to a "blood trough" or "old green meats" and, in a country built by immigrants, there is still much admiration expressed for the can-do attitude of Hispanic labour. This, however, has become tempered by a growing sense of insecurity fed by a constant diet of reports about America's "broken borders" and its 12 million-strong army of illegal immigrants.

The rapidly rising salience of the issue in presidential politics has taken some candidates by surprise. John McCain was almost destroyed this summer for backing, with President Bush, legal rights for undocumented worker immigrants. Other Republicans have largely fallen into line with a new orthodoxy with Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney stampeding to sound the toughest. Karl Rove, who masterminded Mr Bush's two presidential victories, worries that the Republicans are cutting themselves off from pro-family, socially conservative Latino voters, the fastest-growing section of the US electorate. But Hillary Clinton's recent fumbling of a question on whether illegal immigrants should be allowed driving licences illustrates why Democratic candidates are also viewing the subject nervously. Some strategists fear it has potential to be another "wedge issue" driving working class Democrats away from the party just as abortion and gay rights did before.

For Mary Ibarra, who grew up in Iowa as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and an American Indian mother, it has all become too much. Her partner, Mario, was deported for not having papers, and she has been left struggling to raise four children and hold down her job at the plant. She plans to move her family to Mexico. "If they don't want him here, that is their mistake," she says.

Source





27 December, 2007

Self-Deportation A Reality

Post below lifted from Captain's Quarters. See the original for links

While Congress tried to offer more and more legislation for immigration reform, a number of people wondered why the government didn't try harder to enforce the laws already on the books. Many suggested that employer enforcement would remove the incentives for illegal immigration and illegals would just return home. Reuters now reports that those predictions have proven accurate already (via Power Line):

The couple are among a growing number of illegal immigrants across the United States who are starting to pack their bags and move on as a crackdown on undocumented immigrants widens and the U.S. economy slows, turning a traditional Christmas trek home into a one-way trip. ... The toughening environment has been coupled with a turndown in the U.S. economy, which has tipped the balance toward self deportation for many illegal immigrants left struggling to find work.

Remember the concern over anchor babies, those children born in the US who have American citizenship despite the illegal status of their parents? It turns out that no one wants to split families. The Mexican government reports a "spike" in requests for Mexican citizenship for children born in the US, so that they can attend Mexican schools instead. Requests to bring household items duty-free across the border have also increased, indicating that those returning have little desire to cross back into the US.

As it turns out, the declining dollar has provided even more incentive for the illegals to self-deport. The value of the money they sent back home has dropped, and combined with the perceived economic stagnation here in the US and the much tougher enforcement environment, the risk outweighs the potential gain. The economy grew at an annual rate of 4.9% in the last quarter, but perceptions in this case is reality.

Some have just decided to move elsewhere in the US from hostile states like Arizona. Reuters suggests that some may even come to Minnesota. If they come this week, they won't stay long; we're already having the coldest winter in at least 10 years. They may try California instead, just in time to see government go bankrupt and precipitate another push to shut illegals out from public services. Tough enforcement of existing law can solve much of the problem; as long as we secure the border, we can then focus on a much smaller problem.



Britain rapidly becoming less English

At least a dozen British towns and cities will have no single ethnic group in a majority within the next 30 years. Leicester will become the first 'super-diverse' city in 2020, then Birmingham in 2024, followed by Slough and Luton, according to a new study of population trends in the UK.

The report reveals that Leicester has seen the proportion of its white population fall from 70.1 per cent in 1991 to 59.5 per cent today. By 2016 the white population will make up 52.2 per cent of the population, falling to 44.5 per cent by 2026. 'Britain is becoming ever more plural; our diversity ever more diverse,' said Danny Dorling, professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield, whose predictions are based on the most comprehensive study into the country's population trends. 'This increased diversity is most evident in its cities, with plurality becoming commonplace.'

The immigrant and ethnic populations are no longer characterised by large, well organised Afro-Caribbean and South Asian communities, said Dorling. Instead, increasing numbers come from countries scattered across the globe - from Germany to Guyana, from Sweden to Singapore.

'It is going to become increasingly difficult to generalise about Britain's plurality because different cities are experiencing different levels and types of diversity,' he said. 'This creates a complex challenge for those responsible for successfully managing the country's changing population.'

In the Thirties, the proportion of people living in Britain who were born in foreign countries was 2.5 per cent. Typically these individuals came from one of 15 countries, in particular Ireland and India. Today more than 10 per cent of the population were born abroad, with no single ethnic group dominating.

Sukhvinder Stubbs, chief executive of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, which commissioned Dorling's research, said the findings indicate key challenges facing Britain, including a need to reframe the immigration debate and to focus on the changing pressure on the country's resources. 'For Britain's major urban centres, ethnic diversity is the reality,' she said. 'Regardless of future immigration patterns, it is just a matter of time until cities such as Birmingham become plural. Even if we prohibited another single soul from entering the country, the trends have already laid root.'

In the period from 1991 to 2026, which will see Leicester's white population fall from 70.1 per cent to 44.5 per cent, the city's second largest ethnic group, Indians, is predicted to rise from 22.9 per cent to 26 per cent. The Pakistani population will triple to 3.3 per cent, while the proportion of Africans will rise from 0.4 per cent in 1991 to 11.2 per cent.

Birmingham's transition to plural city status will, however, be markedly different to Leicester's, added Dorling. The proportion of white people in its population will fall from 77 per cent to 47.7 per cent. But while much of Leicester's growth in ethnic minorities will be driven by African growth, Birmingham's population shift will be dominated by those of Pakistani descent.

Dorling's research also looks at the shifts in population patterns in towns that are not expected to become plural in the foreseeable future. Oldham, for example, will remain a town with an overwhelmingly white population. However, it will witness a significant change in its demographic profile, with the town's white population falling from more than 90 per cent to 74.4 per cent in the 30 years from 1991. 'Contrary to popular opinion, Oldham's ethnic minority population is not homogeneous,' said Dorling. 'The town's second largest ethnic group after whites is Pakistani, but by 2021 there are likely to be as many Bangladeshis in Oldham as there are Pakistanis.' [Few others would be able to tell the difference]

Dorling's research also shows that, although Greater London's population is already significantly diverse with a white population of 67.5 per cent, it is not likely to become plural in the near future. By 2026 the white population is predicted to reach 60.7 per cent, with just eight of London's 33 local authority areas predicted to become plural.

Source





26 December, 2007

Race for '08: Latino influx the talk of Iowa

Issue reverberates as GOP candidates hunt for caucus support

In 1990, this tranquil prairie town in central Iowa had 47 Latinos. But after 15 years of steady migration from Mexico and Central America, Latinos account for more than a quarter of Perry's 8,000 residents, co-existing with the descendants of the white European immigrants who settled the farm belt community in the 19th century. The demographic upheaval in Perry and other towns in Iowa, all hundreds of miles from the Mexican border, illustrates the extent of immigration into America's heartland. Since 1990, the number of Latinos in Iowa has increased from 32,647, which was then 1.2 percent of the state's population, to 112,987, or 3.8 percent of the current population of 2.9 million. Some demographers expect the number to triple again in just over 20 years, increasing to 335,000 by 2030.

The trend has pushed illegal immigration into the forefront of presidential politics - at least among Republicans - as Iowa prepares for its first-in-the-nation caucuses on Jan. 3. The topic reverberates through town hall meetings and Republican debates, with candidates scrambling to outdo one another in getting tough on illegal immigrants as they compete for fed-up voters who constitute a broad and vocal chunk of the GOP political base. "The immigration issue, just like security, is right at the top of the list," said state Republican Party Chairman Reinhold "Ray" Hoffman, adding that Iowans are "very frustrated" with what they perceive as unchecked illegal immigration to their state. "I've never been at a function when someone didn't ask about it."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has moved up in the polls, came to Iowa's immigration center on Thursday to appear at a rally in Marshalltown, the site of a highly publicized roundup of illegal immigrants at a Swift meatpacking plant just over a year ago. Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee also crossed the state in a six-day bus tour that included stops in Marshalltown and other communities with surging immigrant populations.

"I'm not prejudiced toward Mexicans. It's the illegal ones who are the problem," said Dennis Barnes, 63, of Marshalltown, after attending the Huckabee rally. Barnes said he worked for 19 years at the Swift plant but left in the 1980s as management began hiring Mexican immigrants at $3 an hour less than he was making. "It's a big issue and something has to be done," said Robert Ames, a 58-year-old retiree who lives near Marshalltown. "There are too many illegals in here, and if we don't do something, there is going to be a bigger problem later."

Perry's modern-day transformation, depicted in a documentary called "A Little Salsa on the Prairie," began less than two decades ago with a change of ownership of the local plant - the current owner is Tyson's Fresh Meats - and expanded as word-of-mouth and family connections brought more Latino immigrants. Latinos settled in then-vacant homes in various neighborhoods, rather than in one area, blending into the community. Latinos make up 40 percent of the school enrollment, and many high school graduates have gone to college and returned. Latino-oriented services are enmeshed in the community.

Renaldo Morales, 50, originally from Nicaragua, moved to Perry from San Diego with his wife and three children in 1993. He's a part-time manager at Tienda Latina, a downtown store stocked with Spanish-language videos and CDs, Latin cuisine and stocking caps with the logos of Latin soccer teams. His 22-year-old daughter attends Drake University, and a son, 21, plans to go to college next year.

A more recent transplant, who identifies himself as Jose Sanchez, came to the United States from El Salvador three years ago and acknowledged that he doesn't have "papers." A sister-in-law picked him up in Houston and brought him to Perry, where he works as a janitor. His wife and two teenage children have since joined him. Eddie Diaz, director of the Community Action Agency in Perry, said there undoubtedly are illegal immigrants in the community but the exact number is impossible to determine. But, legal or illegal, he said, they all share common goals: finding work, buying homes and pursuing "all the other issues in life."

With Huckabee moving to the front of the GOP pack, many Iowa voters are now closely scrutinizing his immigration positions. As Arkansas governor, Huckabee embraced legislation to grant college scholarships to illegal immigrants but, as a presidential candidate, he has toughened his tone with a recently released nine-point plan. He told Marshalltown residents that he welcomed an endorsement by Jim Gilchrist, the controversial founder of the Minuteman Project, a self-described "citizens' vigilance operation" that patrols the border. Pro-immigration groups said Huckabee's plan and the Gilchrist endorsement demolish any perception that he's a moderate on immigration.

Nearly all GOP candidates have spoken out against "amnesty" - the buzzword for unconditional legalization - although they differ on details. State and local leaders acknowledge that social acceptance of the cultural changes varies widely across the state. "It's a very tough issue," said former Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack, whose administration pursued an orderly flow of immigration to avoid an economic decline. "Some communities have embraced this. Some communities are probably having a difficult time with it."

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Immigrant Crackdown Falls Short

Despite Tough Rhetoric, Few Employers of Illegal Workers Face Criminal Charges

In its announced clampdown on companies that hire illegal workers, the federal government has arrested nearly four times as many people in the past year as it did two years ago, but only a tiny fraction of those arrests involved criminal charges against those who hired the workers, according to a year-end tally prepared by the Department of Homeland Security.

Fewer than 100 owners, supervisors or hiring officials were arrested in fiscal 2007, compared with nearly 4,900 arrests that involved illegal workers, providers of fake documents and others, the figures show. Immigration experts say the data illustrate the Bush administration's limited success at delivering on its rhetoric about stopping illegal hiring by corporate employers.

"I know what it takes to get a criminal case," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a former state prosecutor and member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. ". . . Why is it that hundreds of bar owners can be sanctioned in Missouri every year for letting somebody with a fake ID have a beer, but we can't manage to sanction hundreds of employers for letting people use fake identities to obtain a job?"

Democratic political consultants have advised the party's lawmakers -- who already are on the defensive about immigration policy -- that the Bush administration's failure to more aggressively target powerful corporations may be a vulnerability for Republican candidates who are seeking to make immigration a campaign issue.

Bush administration officials have promised to strike at the "magnet" of jobs luring illegal immigrants into the country, a goal supported by experts across the political spectrum. "The days of treating employers who violate these laws by giving them the equivalent of a corporate parking ticket -- those days are gone. It's now felonies, jail time, fines and forfeitures," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at a Nov. 6 news conference. In a year-end review this month, Chertoff added that the enforcement crackdown will "make a down payment on credibility with the American people." He said Americans' "profound public skepticism" about government efforts to control illegal immigration helped kill a broad, White House-backed overhaul in the Senate this summer.

But even though DHS has ratcheted up its enforcement effort, this year's 92 criminal arrests of employers still amount to a drop in the bucket of a national economy that includes 6 million companies that employ more than 7 million unauthorized workers, several analysts said. Only 17 firms faced criminal fines or other forfeitures this year. In one case, Richard M. Rosenbaum, the former president of Rosenbaum-Cunningham International, a nationwide cleaning contractor based in Florida, pleaded guilty in October to harboring illegal immigrants and conspiracy to defraud the government, agreeing to pay more than $17 million in restitution and forfeitures.

For decades, political opposition by the businesses that rely on such workers and by the communities where they are employed has helped water down the laws and other tools needed for a more sustained, less scattershot effort. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) "has gotten the message that employer enforcement is essential. . . . Nonetheless, the numbers show the chronic failure of employer enforcement under current laws," said Doris Meissner, commissioner of the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 through 2000 and now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, which studies migration patterns. "The whole point of employer sanctions is to punish those who provide jobs -- the primary incentive -- to illegal workers. That goal continues to be largely unmet," Meissner said.

Late in the Clinton administration and early in the current administration, the number of illegal immigrants arrested in work-site cases fell -- from 2,849 in 1999 to a low of 445 in 2003 -- although there has since been a rebound. The number of criminal cases brought against employers during that period fell from 182 to four. ICE reported that the 92 criminal arrests made in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 included 59 owners and 33 corporate officials, human resources workers, crew chiefs and others in the "supervisory chain." Of the remaining 771 criminal arrests, nearly 90 percent involved workers and other people accused of identity theft or document fraud, money laundering, providing transportation or documentation to illegal workers, or other crimes. Criminal fines and other penalties grew from $600,000 in 2003 to more than $30 million in 2007, but they were dominated by a few large payments, including Rosenbaum's.

ICE Director Julie Myers, who served as chief of staff to Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division from 2001 to 2003, wrote in response to McCaskill's criticism that it takes time to build criminal cases, and that DHS's tougher criminal enforcement approach is "fundamentally different" from the weak administrative fines and pinprick raids that resulted from a congressional backlash against actions against corporations in the late 1990s. In an interview, agency spokesman Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery said ICE focuses on "egregious" violators whose business models rely on hiring illegal immigrants, especially those whose practices may promote fraud or border breaches.

McCaskill called such arguments an excuse for not punishing big-money business and farm interests that want cheap labor, effectively penalizing law-abiding business owners and exploiting illegal immigrant workers. "The reality simply doesn't match their rhetoric," said McCaskill, who began pressing ICE to release the employer statistics in September.

In a bluntly worded memo last week, a consortium known as Democracy Corps, organized by Democratic Party consultants Stan Greenberg, Al Quinlan and James Carville, warned Democratic incumbents, candidates in House and Senate battleground districts, and presidential hopefuls that they "ignore the [immigration] issue at their peril." "If leaders do not show their own frustration with the problem, they will not be heard on this issue -- and many others," they wrote. "There is particular appeal for cracking down on unscrupulous corporations that exploit illegal and legal workers. Voters are eager to believe that companies' preferences for cheap labor are a source of the problem."

The Bush administration has said it is trying to improve its Internet-based E-Verify program, through which less than 1 percent of U.S. employers now voluntarily check new hires' Social Security numbers. It is also fighting major business, farm and labor groups in federal court to use Social Security data generated when suspect numbers are submitted to the government as a sweeping nationwide enforcement tool. A federal judge blocked the program from going forward in October, but the government is appealing. The administration is also attempting to modify its plan to mail "no-match" letters to 140,000 employers to meet conditions set by the judge.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to restrict immigration and has opposed the Bush administration's proposals for giving legal status to some illegal immigrants, said the importance of a sustained crackdown involving both raids and the "no-match" program "is to change businesses' expectations, in order to change their behavior." "Past enforcement actions have been regarded by business correctly as a passing thing. . . . They need to believe it's not just going to go away in a couple of months," Krikorian said. Illegal immigrant labor laws should be enforced as rigorously as child labor laws, he said.

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25 December, 2007

The GOP's Immigration Opportunity

Candidates Should Be Bold In Addressing Borders, Illegal Aliens

Republicans have an opportunity on immigration, if only they will seize it. The Democrats are positioning themselves to the left of public opinion. Howard Dean denounces Republicans for using "outrageous phrases like `illegal aliens.'" Hillary Clinton ties herself in knots for days over granting drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, almost everyone in public life favors - or, at any rate, feels compelled to claim to favor - tougher enforcement measures.

Yet Republicans are blowing the opportunity. They are engaged in petty backbiting over one another's records. Since very few politicians have good ones on this issue, that's a strategy of mutual assured destruction. It also obscures the choices we face now. Worse, the Republicans are picking on secondary or even tertiary issues. Gov. Mike Huckabee has taken a lot of criticism from the other presidential candidates, for example, for allowing the high-achieving children of illegal immigrants to receive favorable tuition rates at colleges and universities. It is the sort of question that would not even arise in a country that was serious about controlling its borders. A politician's position on the narrow question is important only insofar as it bears on what he or she would do about the broader one.

Even more beside the point has been the spectacle of Mitt Romney's attacking Rudy Giuliani for letting illegal immigrants in New York City talk to police without fear of being deported, or Giuliani's counterattack on Romney for employing a lawn-care company that hired illegals. A sensible federal policy would not place cities in the position of choosing between solving murders and turning a blind eye to illegality. It would also not place the onus of law enforcement on individual consumers.

The important divide concerns what we should do now. John McCain and Giuliani would step up enforcement, create a guest-worker program to meet employers' desire for immigrant labor, and allow illegal immigrants already here to become citizens if they meet certain conditions (such as learning English). We think that policy mix is a mistake. There is no pressing national need to bring illegal immigrants "out of the shadows," and the possibility that we will do so will only serve as a magnet for more illegal immigration. Moreover, immigrants would succeed, and assimilate, faster, with less friction from the native-born, if we took in fewer immigrants each year. Neither candidate takes any notice of this point.

Huckabee's campaign has outlined a pretty strong proposal - taken largely from the pages of National Review - to enforce the immigration laws, but the candidate himself has seemed ambivalent about it in public forums. Romney has said he opposes amnesty and favors increased enforcement, but has not been forthcoming about his overall approach to immigration policy. Fred Thompson, finally, has argued that we should follow a policy of attrition: If we step up enforcement, we can shrink the illegal population over time without having to deport millions of people all at once.

We would like to see more of the candidates pick up Thompson's banner, and wave it about with a bit more vigor than he has done. They should also explain that they will make it a priority to deport illegal immigrants who commit violent felonies. (Most people will be outraged to hear that we have not made it a priority already.)

Republicans should by all means remain open to immigrants of every hue. It would not be untoward for them even to express sympathy for people trapped in kleptocracies that crush their dreams and drive them to seek a better life elsewhere. But they should make no apologies for wanting a successful and sustainable immigration policy, and that requires both setting and enforcing limits. It requires that we keep up the pressure on Congress to build a fence at our southern border, and on the administration to penalize scofflaw employers.

And it requires one more thing, which may be the hardest of all to find: Republicans who are smart enough to see an opportunity and bold enough to take it.

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Britain: 'This isn't the country I grew up in. No one speaks a word of English these days,' says Dame Shirley Bassey



Few would recognise this rather slight figure as the vertiginously high-heeled, big-bosomed diva of Big Spender or Diamonds Are Forever, but this may be no bad thing. She is safe enough here within the portrait-lined walls of Cliveden House in Berkshire, the sort of hotel where the staff remember she is a Dame Commander of the British Empire. But a recent brush with the criminal classes has left her shaken. "It was all rather nerve-racking," she says. "I was Christmas shopping in Knightsbridge with my daughter Sharon. We'd been into Harvey Nichols to find some presents. "Somebody must have seen all the money and cards when I opened my bag to pay and followed me. I felt a bump but nothing more than that. And when I opened my bag at the next shop, there was no purse."

It seems unremarkable, perhaps. Pickpockets are a fact of life in most big European cities, and ever more so in London. But to someone used to the security of life in Monte Carlo - the ritzy, casino-laden side of Monaco - it was a genuine shock. "The worst of it is the worry," she says. "My cards can be cancelled but I worry who has my details or a picture of me. They took my residence card for Monaco."

She spends most of her time in the principality these days and, as she explains in her first interview for two years, the comparison with the life she sees back here is far from flattering. "This isn't England any more - at least it is not the country I remember growing up in," she says. "You don't hear English spoken here. You read about terrible things - not just drugs but all the killings. "When you live in a safe place like Monte Carlo, you can walk home at any time of the night and you don't have to worry. I don't feel at risk there. If I drive myself, I can leave the car doors unlocked. I wouldn't do that in London."

But at Christmas, not even the balmy warmth of the Mediterranean will keep her from flying over to be with her daughter Sharon and partner Des, and the rest of the family. Her business interests, too, are based in London and Shirley is at pains to say that she has not rejected Britain. However, the rising sense of physical danger here is not the only change to worry her. When the conversation comes to the unstoppable spread of reality television, she becomes animated, sitting forward on a silk chair in the Cliveden library for a heartfelt denunciation of what now passes for showbusiness.

"It seems there's no place for people with talent any more," she expostulates. "You have only to look at television to see that. And if people do have any talent, they get voted out of the shows. It's disgusting. It's an abuse. It seems that people want to be famous for doing nothing - or drinking. "It was totally different when I was breaking into the business. I learned by standing in the wings and watching established acts on stage. Today, no one seems to have any training. "I'm always being asked if I watch The X Factor and I do from time to time. I know it makes for great TV and that Simon Cowell has a real gift. "But it is a crying shame that kids who ought to have a great future are being ignored. "Another difference is that I was well looked after. Who advised Rhydian to have that hair? I don't call that looking after him."

Shirley had to scrap for her breaks. Raised by a lone mother in the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff, she was repeatedly dismissed until that extraordinary voice finally won over the record labels. By the early Sixties she had a string of hits and an EMI recording contract. Then, in 1964, she found international fame with the title song of Goldfinger, the Bond film. "If hard work and talent can't get you anywhere, what hope is there?" she asks, warming to the theme. "Someone like Tallulah Rendell, a young singer at my 70th party last Sunday, she's got a wonderful voice. "What can she do to get a chance? Why should you have to wear a dress slashed to your backside to get recognised alongside all these no-talent-nothings out there? "I'm for old-fashioned glamour. There's not enough of it. Glamour has gone out of our lives. It's very sad."

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24 December, 2007

Huckabee defends his record

So what happened to Tom Tancredo's Iowa supporters after his 'big announcement' earlier this week? We know that the former-candidate threw his support behind Mitt Romney, but on Friday Tancredo's Iowa state chairman Bill Salier announced that he was supporting Fred Thompson. And while riding through Muscatine on the Huckabus this week, Mike Huckabee was confronted by a very well informed former Tancredo staffer who argued with the Iowa frontrunner over the issue of immigration.

Deb Miller described herself as "looking" for a candidate after her old boss dropped out of the race, and she came to the afternoon rally at the Rendez Vous Banquet Hall equipped with a stack of information compiled from Newsmax and ImmigrationWatchdog.com to help her with her search. Reading from the papers in her lap, Miller asked Huckabee about a passage from his book that described enforcing current immigration laws as "sheer folly" and about three incidents from his time governor that showed questionable strength on combating illegal immigration.

Huckabee addressed her issues point by point, defending his immigration record as compassionate but firm. On giving welfare benefits to illegal aliens: "The point was not, that I supported giving benefits, the deal was I opposed creating another law to do what the law already did," Huckabee said, on his battle against a state legislator to defeat a law that would have curtailed the distribution of welfare benefits in Arkansas. According to Huckabee, the fight was to prevent redundant legislation, not protect illegal immigrant rights.

On his conflict with Immigration and Customs Enforcement regarding the raid of an Arkansas factory that employed illegal immigrants, Huckabee said that his issues surrounded ICE's failure to notify local authorities and to properly care for the children of the immigrants who were arrested. "You should never allow a six month old, a three month old or a six year old to wonder where his mother and father are," Huckabee said. "Nothing can be more traumatic to a child and I don't care if that child is here illegally. I don't want to be a part of a country that would ignore the humane treatment of a child."

But despite Huckabee's best efforts - including a one-on-one conversation after his speech in which he asked her to take a second glance at his record - the generally undecided Miller was still unconvinced. "The scripture says we're supposed to obey the laws of the land," Miller said. "As a Christian, that was my question. You know, how can you justify furthering - rewarding someone who has broken law upon law upon law."

Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul are the only candidates left in the race who truly address the immigration issue, Miller said, but "they don't have a chance," and so she is seriously considering following her old boss towards the Romney camp.

After it became clear that Miller was not going to be persuaded by Huckabee's stance on illegal immigration, the candidate made one last ditch effort for her vote, but couched it in his now infamous good humor: "I hope you'll take a look at our plan and vote for me before it's over, and if not, then stay home that night."

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American Jews still moving to Israel

And an organization which encourages and facilitates "Return" is helping to keep the numbers up



While Immigrant Absorption Ministry data show that aliya figures are down about 9.3 percent for 2007, immigration is up in countries in which Nefesh B'Nefesh operates, according to the organization.

Nefesh B'Nefesh said in a statement that more than 3,000 immigrants had come to Israel from the countries in which it operated this year. "Despite these discouraging figures, Nefesh B'Nefesh is celebrating our sixth year of consistent growth in the amount of olim we bring to Israel," said Nefesh B'Nefesh co-chairman and former ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon. "In truth, we could have brought many more people to Israel if we had more funds available to assist the growing number of Westerners wishing to make aliya."

According to aliya statistics provided by Nefesh B'Nefesh, the numbers of immigrants from North America have jumped from 1,848 in 2000 (when the organization was founded) to 3,190 this year. Because the total number of immigrants from around the world has dropped significantly over the last seven years (from 61,813 in 2000 to an estimated 19,330 this year), the percentage of immigrants from North America has gone up significantly - from just 3% in 2000 to 16.5% this year.

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23 December, 2007

Eyes on Arizona as it turns off immigration magnet

Arizona's get-tough approach on immigration is being watched closely around the nation, and here in Washington, by federal immigration enforcement officials, policymakers, lawmakers immigration advocates and opponents, just about anyone with any interest in the issue. What they're seeing so far is that in advance of a new Arizona law cracking down on the hiring of illegal immigrants that is set to take effect Jan. 1, employers are firing undocumented workers and illegal residents are also leaving the state, some saying they're departing for good.

The Arizona Republic, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and others, have all produced stories recently looking at what's occuring in Arizona. The Republic story, by reporter Daniel González, which ran earlier this week starts this way:

NOGALES, Sonora - It's a common scene this time of year: streams of overloaded cars, pickups and vans with U.S. license plates crossing into Mexico for the holidays. Most are filled with Hispanic families from Arizona and other states on their way to visit relatives south of the border for a few weeks before heading back to the U.S. But this year, the holiday travelers are being joined by scores of families such as Jorge and Liliana Franco, who are driving to Mexico not to visit but to stay - permanently.

Congress' failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform, immigration crackdowns, Arizona's new employer-sanctions law and a sluggish economy have combined to create a climate that undocumented families such as the Francos no longer find hospitable.

The number returning to Mexico is difficult to calculate, but there is no question that many families are leaving, according to Mexican government officials, local community leaders and immigrants themselves. "The situation in Arizona has become very tough," Jorge said minutes after driving into a Mexican immigration and customs checkpoint south of the border on Mexico 15.

Dozens of immigrants are leaving the U.S. daily, and even more are expected to leave once the sanctions law takes effect in January, provided the law survives a last-minute legal challenge, said Rosendo Hernandez, president of the advocacy group Immigrants Without Borders. "If people can't find work, they won't be able to pay their bills, so they will leave," Hernandez said.

The Associated Press had its own version of this story today. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal had a story last week by Miriam Jordan about business response to the new law.

PHOENIX - Arizona businesses are firing Hispanic immigrants, moving operations to Mexico and freezing expansion plans ahead of a new law that cracks down on employers who hire undocumented workers. The law, set to take effect on Jan. 1, thrusts Arizona into the heart of the national debate on illegal immigration, which has become a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail. Republican candidates, in particular, have been battling to show how tough they are on the issue.

Arizona's law, believed to be the strictest in the nation, is shaping up as a test of how employers will react when faced with real sanctions for hiring undocumented labor. It is being closely watched by businesses across the country. While proponents say the crackdown will save the state money on services for illegal immigrants, some businesspeople fear Arizona's economic growth may be at risk.

As the AP story indicates, some of the departing illegal residents could be "trying their luck in other states" which is likely. There are plenty of other states for them to try since no other state has yet gone as far as Arizona, essentially making it a state crime for any employer to knowingly keep an illegal immigrant on the payroll. According to this Stateline.org article, a few states -- Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia--have laws on the books that prevent state contractors from employing undocumented workers.

The manner in which many states have decided to crack down on illegal immigration is currently one of the most fascinating trends and exercises in public policy in the U.S. States have long been called the laboratories of democracy because of their cutting-edge role in trying out new policy initiatives that, when found effective, are expanded to other states and sometimes nationally as the federal government adopts them. (The Stateline.org article does an exhaustive job of describing who's doing what on the state level.)

Of course, some states, like Illinois, New York and California haven't been inclined to crack down, just the opposite. Illinois lawmakers, for instance, passed a law banning in-state employers from checking their employees' legal work status against a federal database. The state and the federal government recently agreed the state wouldn't enforce the law immediately, letting a Homeland Security Department lawsuit against Illinois work its way through the federal courts. But the states that are enacting the anti-immigration legislation appear to have the momentum on their side. And that momentum may become so forceful that we eventually see a defacto national program of immigration enforcement that will force the federal government to eventually act to acknowledge that new reality.

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Britain: Asylum-seekers from Congo face deportation

Britain won't ACTUALLY deport them, of course. They will just sit around being a drain on the taxpayer. That's British logic for you. Even being a criminal is not usually enough to get you deported from Britain -- in that respect rather like the USA

Thousands of failed asylum-seekers face forced removal to the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo, where they say they face rape, torture and even death, after a landmark immigration ruling. The hopes of Congolese asylum-seekers whose cases have been refused rested with one woman, known only as "BK". After a judicial review this year, it was decided that all removals would be put on hold until a ruling was made in her case. With BK's appeal dismissed on the grounds of insubstantial evidence, all those who fled the country's regime are now at risk of being returned.

Immigration experts belive there are 10,000 failed DRC asylum-seekers in the UK, although some think the figure may be as high as several hundred thousand. A two-year moratorium on removals to Zimbabwe ended last month after it was ruled that failed asylum-seekers would not necessarily face persecution on their return.

The DRC is widely acknowledged to be plagued by human rights abuses, and campaigners say returned asylum-seekers become prime targets on arrival because they are seen as traitors.

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22 December, 2007

British government relaxed about foreign criminals

Amusing that the BBC have substantially altered the article below since I downloaded it!

Immigration officials have "no interest" in deporting foreign prisoners who have served less than 12 months in jail, a leaked memo says. The admission was made in a memo from Prison Service deputy director general Michael Spurr to prison governors. The Tories say it means at least 4,000 foreign criminals a year being released rather than deported.

Ministers promised tougher measures after 1,013 foreign prisoners were not considered for deportation last year. They included serious offenders such as murderers and rapists, and the crisis led to the sacking of former home secretary Charles Clarke.

In May 2006 the then prime minister Tony Blair said he was prepared to change the law to ensure most foreign prisoners were deported automatically. Ministers pledged to remove 4,000 overseas prisoners by the end of 2007.

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said that the memo presented a different picture. While it did not go against official policy, the dismissive language used was potentially embarrassing for the government, he said. Mr Spurr wrote that immigration officials had confirmed that "as a rule they have no interest" in pursuing for deportation foreign nationals jailed for less than 12 months. The document also says foreign nationals who are awaiting removal for immigration offences could be moved to open prisons, to create space in other jails.

The Conservatives say that would increase the risk of foreign prisoners absconding, and ignoring prisoners who serve less than 12 months would mean at least 4,000 criminals would escape deportation. Shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert said: "The result will be that foreign thieves, fraudsters, burglars and drugs dealers will be released back into the community. "Gordon Brown claimed that he wanted to send a message that foreign criminals would be deported. "It takes a special kind of cynicism to promise tough action on foreign criminals while simultaneously instructing that the majority of them are to be released."

In October, it was revealed that two prisons, Bullwood Hall in Essex and Canterbury Prison in Kent, had been converted to hold only foreign prisoners. The Ministry of Justice said the jails, which have immigration and language services, were part of a plan to deport as many foreign prisoners as possible. In total, 2,784 prisoners from abroad were deported or removed between April 2006 and March 2007. More than 11,000 of the 81,000 prison population are foreign nationals

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Thompson Says Enforce Immigration Law

Republican Fred Thompson said Thursday there should be few if any exceptions when it comes to enforcing U.S. immigration laws, or the flow of illegal immigrants would continue. Thompson was responding to a question from a man who told of a friend who is a chicken farmer and has to hire workers from Mexico, hoping they have legal status.

While the U.S. president represents that chicken farmer, Thompson said, he also represents millions of other people and future generations who want the nation's laws enforced. "It is not good, in my opinion, for our country to start becoming dependent on a constant flow of illegal immigrants that are usually less educated and come here only because they'll work cheaper than somebody else will," he said. "And when and if they were to assimilate into American society, we would need another 11 or 12 million (illegal immigrants), and another 11 or 12 million after that."

Thompson said the legal immigration system in the U.S. has inefficiencies and people get caught up in the bureaucracy. But he said the rule of law must be the top priority. "We have to look out No. 1 for what is right, what is the law. If you're coming and saying 'It's against the law, but,' I think you've got to have a very good reason, and I very seldom see a reason that justifies the 'but' if it's against the law."

Thompson said the U.S. is capable of making changes to immigration laws that allow employers to meet their work force demands. "We can address, I think, our needs ... without succumbing to the notion that we have to have a constant flow of illegal immigrants," he said.

When the same man pressed Thompson further to talk about his plan for illegal immigrants already in the country, the former Tennessee senator said he believes the issue will be resolved through "enforcement by attrition." Thompson proposes cutting off incentives to illegal immigrants. That means keeping employers from hiring them in the first place, and sealing the borders to keep illegal immigrants going back and forth between jobs and family. He said it also means shutting down sanctuary cities and keeping illegal immigrants from getting college and other breaks. "Over a period of time, I think the situation will reverse itself," he said.

After the event, Thompson was asked by reporters what should happen to children who are born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. - making the children citizens - if their parents are deported. "The parents make that decision, just as parents would under any circumstances," he said. "If they are going to be leaving the country, I would expect them to make the decision to take their child with them. But, if they make other arrangements with a loved one or someone who is here for that child, then they could do that, too."

When asked if the policy allowing those children to have U.S. citizenship should be altered, he said that would require a difficult change to the Constitution. "That's not really as much of a current issue in terms of our illegal immigration problem as chain migration is," he said. "These children can be used as so-called anchor babies and they can grow up and bring in many, many other members of their family. I think that ought to be limited ... to spouses and children. I think that's where our concentration needs to be focusing."

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21 December, 2007

U.S. Senate OKs Myers for Immigration Job

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Julie L. Myers as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two years after President Bush appointed her to the position amid questions about her qualifications to lead the government's second-largest law enforcement agency. Myers was among more than 30 people whose appointments were approved by a voice vote of the Senate as it concluded its session.

Bush had used a recess appointment in 2005 to put Myers, then 36, in charge of ICE, the branch of the Homeland Security Department that enforces immigration laws, when the Senate appeared unlikely to confirm her. Although she was a former Treasury official and assistant U.S. attorney, lawmakers debated whether she had enough experience to lead the agency.

Critics also noted her personal connections within the Bush administration. She was engaged - and is now married - to John F. Wood, who was chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and is now the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo. Ret. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is her uncle. Myers herself was Chertoff's chief of staff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division. However, her appointment in 2005 came after Hurricane Katrina, which brought criticism over the experience of those handling the federal response to the disaster.

Her appointment ran into trouble again this fall when she gave the "most original" costume award to a white employee who came to the agency's Halloween party dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and darkened skin. The incident drew complaints of racial insensitivity and elicited an apology from Myers.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., the Senate's most vocal opponent of Myers' permanent appointment as head of ICE, placed a hold on her nomination after the Halloween incident. The senator's spokeswoman, Adrianne Marsh, said McCaskill "still believes Julie Myers isn't focused enough on employer enforcement and she's not the right pick, but there simply were not enough votes to oppose her nomination."

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the Senate's approval validates Myers' hard work and accomplishments. ICE was formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when parts of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs agencies were merged.

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Democrats immigration dilemma

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

Democracy Corps is made up of Democratic operatives like James Carville and Stan Greenberg. They recently did a comprehensive study of the immigration issue and noted some key vulnerabilities.

They note that benefits beyond emergency care and education are opposed by most Democrats, not to mention Republicans. Counter arguments on safety were clearly rejected. Employer enforcement is also strongly supported. In other words on this issue the Democrats are much closer to Republican positions than their own candidates.

What the study does not address is a key vulnerability of the Democrat candidates on the issue of benefits. Around one third of the uninsured in this country are illegal immigrants, yet every Democrat candidate has a proposal to give them health care coverage. They appear to be headed for a collision with their own supporters on this issue and not one has addressed it. Hopefully, Republicans will not make that mistake.

Health care which Democrats think is their issue will turn out to be a real problem for them before this campaign is finished.

BTW, the study appears to suggest that a path to citizenship plan might get majority support. I think Republicans can counter this with an obvious solution. There is already a path to citizenship called an application, and those who came here illegally should not jump in line ahead of those who play by the rules.

This study was not good news for Democrats on an issue that is important to voters of both parties. It will be interesting to see how Democrat "core beliefs" confirm to the survey.



Business as usual

Post below lifted from Dinocrat. See the original for links

The United States government, ever unserious, is busy at work in the final hours before Christmas recess - in a reasonably bi-partisan effort, of course. Washington Times:

Congress last night passed a giant new spending bill that undermines current plans for a U.S.-Mexico border fence, allowing the Homeland Security Department to build a single-tier barrier rather than the two-tier version that has worked in California. The spending bill, written by Democrats and passed 253-154 with mostly their votes, surrenders to President Bush's budget demands.The 2006 Secure Fence Act specifically called for "two layers of reinforced fencing" and listed five specific sections of border where it should be installed. The new spending bill removes the two-tier requirement and the list of locations.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas Republican who has led the charge to change the 2006 law, said she wants to give Homeland Security more flexibility and wants local officials and landowners to be consulted.Rep. Peter T. King, who sponsored the Secure Fence Act, said if the goal was to give DHS flexibility, the senators have failed. "This is either a blatant oversight or a deliberate attempt to disregard the border security of our country," the New York Republican said. "As it's currently written, the omnibus language guts the Secure Fence Act almost entirely. Quite simply, it is unacceptable."

In some important ways, the controversy last summer about the immigration bill was really about the unwillingness of the political elites to honor the mandate of the majority of citizens (of virtually every party and ethnic background) that the government execute some of its bedrock responsibilities with at least a minimum of competence and respect for the electorate - an electorate whose wishes were routinely mocked, belittled, and then ignored by the grandees. Apparently the people are still held in the same disdain by their betters in Congress. Last March, when stumping for his comprehensive bill, President Bush said:

A lot of Americans are skeptical about immigration reform primarily because they don't think the government can fix the problems. And my answer to the skeptics is, give us a chance to fix the problems in a comprehensive way that enforces our border.

"give us a chance to fix the problems." A chance was given; from the looks of things, the government appears to have failed once more. (Congress did choose to fund attorneys for illegal immigrants, so Congress would appear to be making a definitive statement about its priorities.) Though we understand that this is a tiny provision in a large bill, a veto might be an interesting idea in the interests of the GOP in 2008 - but then again President Bush has never really seemed to be serious about border enforcement.





20 December, 2007

No Immigration Reform May Cost NY Farms

This is an old wail but agricultural subsidies have given America far more farmers than it needs so losing a few would be a boon to the taxpayer. And how come American farmers are so piss-weak that they need cheap illegals to operate? Australian farmers export to world markets without such labor

Congress' failure to ensure that there are enough migrant workers in the nation's labor force could eventually cost New York agriculture hundreds of millions of dollars in lost crops and hundreds of thousands of acres in lost farmland, analysts say. "Our country is reaping what Congress has sown," said Craig Regelbrugge, a vice president of the American Nursery and Landscape Association and co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a national coalition of more than 300 agricultural producer associations. The federal government's failure to deal with immigration reform — particularly ensuring there are enough legal migrant farm workers for agricultural states like New York — "constitutes nothing short of a national emergency," Regelbrugge said Tuesday during an agribusiness conference at Cornell University.

The annual conference also took up other farm issues — soaring fuel costs, collapsed housing prices and the impact of biofuel on livestock feed costs. But access to migrant labor is critical for agriculture, which differs from other economic sectors in that most farm work is seasonal. In the 1990s, the American economy created more jobs than it had domestic workers, leaving agriculture even more reliant on an illegal labor force. Nationwide, there are about 1.6 million full-time farm workers, said Regelbrugge. About 80 percent of those workers are foreign born — and nearly seven out of ten are working illegally, he said.

Despite repeated attempts, Congress and the Bush administration have been unable to come up with a long-term strategy on immigration reform and the current temporary worker program is "hobbled by bureaucracy, excessive and burdensome paperwork and restrictive wages," Regelbrugge said. "The situation in agriculture is bad and deteriorating and agriculture needs relief," he said.

Data collected by the Farm Credit Association of New York indicates that failing to develop a functional immigration worker program could cripple operations on over 800 New York farms and put sales of approximately $700 million of agricultural products at risk, said Regelbrugge. Without enough workers, as much as 750,000 acres of farmland could be converted to less labor-intensive — and less profitable — crops, while as many as 16,000 jobs that depend on the farm sector could be lost, he said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported there were approximately 35,000 farms in New York in 2006, down about 600 from 2005. Those farms produced roughly $3.7 billion in products on about 7.5 million acres.

Reports from around the state indicated that labor supplies were sufficient this year, said Thomas Maloney, a senior extension associate in applied economics at Cornell who studies agriculture-immigration issues in New York. Maloney said he knew of no reports of measurable economic losses due to labor shortages. But he said surveys showed the lack of reform has led to anxiety among growers, who worry that they will not have enough workers for future harvests. "As a result of immigration enforcement activities, New York's farm managers are beginning to make choices they would not otherwise make," Maloney said. Such choices include holding off expansion plans, exploring alternative labor pools, and switching to less labor-intensive crops.

Maloney said Cornell researchers are trying to come up with an exact number of unauthorized immigrant farm workers in New York. In a survey last year of 105 Hispanic dairy farm workers, Maloney found nearly two-thirds were in the U.S. illegally. If the federal government cannot resolve the larger issue of immigration reform, it should at least come up with a separate worker program for agriculture, Maloney and Regelbrugge said.

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English a minority language in 1,300 British schools

Children with English as their first language are now in the minority in more than 1,300 schools, according to official figures. The Daily Telegraph has obtained data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families illustrating the impact of high levels of immigration on the education system. The figures show that in a total of 1,338 primary and secondary schools - more than one in 20 of all schools in England - children with English as their first language are in the minority. In 600 of these schools, fewer than a third of pupils speak English as their first language.

The disclosure led to warnings that the rising number of foreign pupils without a decent grasp of English was putting intense pressure on teachers and undermining education standards. The figures have fuelled demands from teachers' leaders for more money to help meet the costs of teaching foreign-born children. Teachers' unions said educating a single non-English-speaking pupil could cost as much as ś30,000 a year. Coping with large numbers of foreign children risked undermining the quality of teaching given to all pupils, they said.

Philip Parkin, the general secretary of the Professional Association of Teachers, said rising levels of immigration and a lack of multi-lingual teaching staff were "providing serious challenges" for schools trying to maintain standards. Dealing with non-English- speaking children "makes it much harder to deliver the curriculum", Mr Parkin said. "Schools that are in that position need considerable support in order to give those children help with English and help with our curriculum. "The Government needs to be looking at funding the employment of teachers or teaching assistants, in addition to the staff they have, who are bilingual or multilingual."

Last month, the National Association of Head Teachers said some schools were struggling to cope with the influx of foreign pupils. Mick Brookes, the union's general secretary, told a Lords committee that the situation was "out of control". A rush of migrants into an area can "strain or even break the resources of the school", he said. Last night, Mr Brookes said the latest figures proved the case for putting additional resources into the areas dealing with large numbers of non-English speakers. "There are children who cannot speak the language," he said. "Others are refugees who may have witnessed some horrible things. "These children may not just need support to speak English, but often they require counselling to talk them through the trauma they have witnessed."

Data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families show that in 574 of the 17,361 primary schools in England, children without English as a first language make up between 51 and 70 per cent of all pupils. Another 569 primaries have more than 70 per cent who count English as a second language. In 112 of the 3,343 secondary schools, children without English as a first language make up 51 to 70 per cent of all pupils. In another 83 secondary schools, the proportion is above 70 per cent. The total number of schools where pupils with a first language other than English make up at least 51 per cent of the population is 1,338.

Following patterns of immigration, children who do not speak English as a first language are heavily concentrated in certain areas of the country, especially London. The 20 councils with the highest concentration of non-English speaking children are in London. In the borough of Newham, nine out of 10 schools have a non-English first language majority. The same is true of a third of schools in Leicester and in Blackburn, and a quarter of schools in Birmingham.

Gordon Brown last week repeated calls for immigrants to learn English, but critics say he is not doing enough to fund proper language teaching for immigrant children. David Davis, the Conservative shadow home secretary, accused the Government of failing to meet the costs of its immigration policy. "We have been warning the Government for years now of the consequences for schools of the very high rate of immigration," he said. "This shows how many schools will face real difficulties."

The Government said last night that it was properly funding schools facing extra costs from children struggling with English. A DCSF spokesman said: "We have listened to the unions' concerns and are increasing funding in the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant to ś206 million by 2010. "We have also introduced new guidance for teachers to work with new arrivals. There's actually surplus money in the school system to deal with any 'exceptional circumstances'."

But even Labour MPs have expressed concern that the Government is failing to keep up with immigration. Phyllis Starkey, the Labour chairman of the communities and local government committee of MPs, last week warned Mr Brown that funding delays risked inflaming "community conflict". Many of the pupils without English as their first language are the children of the 600,000 eastern Europeans who have come to Britain since the European Union's eastward expansion in 2004. Official statistics last week showed that one in five births in Britain last year was to a woman from overseas.

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New Australian Immigration Minister grants residency to wrongfully detained refugee

This is mere justice for a man who has been so badly hurt by official bungling

Tony Tran, a refugee whose health and family life was blighted after he was wrongfully detained 5« years ago, has been granted permission to live in Australia. The resolution of his case marks the first step by the new Labor Government to resolve the cases of 247 people found to have been unlawfully detained by immigration authorities in recent years. The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, announced yesterday that he had granted Binh Van Tran, known as Tony Tran, permanent resident status.

Mr Tran was detained for breaching immigration laws. It was later discovered that the Immigration Department had failed to notify him that his visa had expired. After being detained, he was separated from his wife, who returned to South Korea, and from his young Australian-born son, whom officials sought to deport. During his detention, Mr Tran was stabbed and bashed by another detainee and still suffers from health problems as a result. His case was aired by ABC television during the election campaign and was one of 247 cases referred to the Commonwealth Ombudsman by the Immigration Department in 2005 and last year.

Mr Tran had lived in Australia for seven years, married and had a mortgage before his detention. He was detained months after coming to the attention of immigration officials, when he inquired about a spouse visa for his wife. Mr Tran, who was born in Vietnam but had grown up in the United States as a refugee, had come to Australia on a visa. He had believed he was on a valid visa at the time of his arrest in Brisbane for being an illegal resident.

"I am committed to resolving outstanding issues I have inherited in this portfolio," Senator Evans said. "Part of the process of resolving these outstanding issues is my decision today to grant Mr Tran permanent residence. This is a longstanding case on which the Ombudsman has reported, and which my department has been working on to reach a resolution. "We need to continue to resolve these outstanding cases so that we can rebuild confidence in the system."

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19 December, 2007

Intifada On The Mexican Border

Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links

This is just lovely. It seems that US Border Patrol agents are coming under increasing numbers of attacks - mostly by rock-throwing Mexicans - at the US border with Mexico. Agents have responded more aggressively in recent months as longer-range, non-lethal weapons have become available. The agents are firing pepper ball weapons and teargas back at the rock-throwers.

The Border Patrol says its agents have been attacked nearly 1,000 times during a one-year period. The agency's top official in San Diego, Mike Fisher, said agents are taking action because Mexican authorities have been slow to respond. When an attack happens, he said, American authorities often wait hours for them to come, and help usually never arrives. "We have been taking steps to ensure that our agents are safe," Fisher said.

Mexico's acting consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda, has insisted that U.S. authorities stop firing onto Mexican soil. He met with Border Patrol officials last month after the agency fired tear gas into Mexico. The agency defended that counterattack, saying agents were being hit with a hail of ball bearings from slingshots in Mexico.

U.S. officials say the violence indicates that smugglers are growing more desperate as stepped-up security makes it harder to sneak across the border. The assailants try to distract agents long enough to let people dash in the United States.

The head of a union representing Border Patrol employees said the violence also results from the decision to put agents right up against the border, a departure from the early 1990s when they waited farther back to make arrests. "When you get that close to the fence, your agents are sitting ducks," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

Border Patrol agents were attacked 987 times along the U.S.-Mexico border during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, the agency said. That's up 31 percent from 752 attacks a year earlier, and it's the highest number since the agency began recording attacks in the late 1990s. About two-thirds of the attacks were with rocks. Many of the rest involved physical assaults, such as illegal immigrants getting into fist fights with guards. About one of every four attacks occurred in San Diego, and most of those happened along a heavily fortified, 10-mile stretch of the border starting at the Pacific Ocean.

By refusing to deal with this on their side of the border, Mexico is inviting a tragedy. When it comes - and it likely will - it will be their fault, not the fault of the United States.



Illegal immigrant was working at front desk of Britain's Home Office

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith faced huge embarrassment last night after it emerged that an illegal immigrant had been caught working on the front desk at the Home Office. The Nigerian man was picked up as immigration officers examined the status of more than 11,000 foreigners mistakenly cleared to work across Britain. Aides said the Home Secretary was furious over the discovery of an illegal worker within her own department. The security guard had been in the department for about 18 months, checking the passes of visitors to the Home Office. The man, supplied to the department by a sub-contractor, faces deportation after being arrested on Friday night.

The Border and Immigration Agency had been examining the records of 11,100 non-European Union nationals given permission to work by the Security Industry Authority (SIA). It uncovered problems with a sub-contractor and the trail led it to the Home Office, its own department headquarters. One security guard was detained and the immigration status of all others supplied by the sub-contractor to Ms Smith's department are being checked.

The Home Secretary added in a written statement to MPs last night: "The Permanent Secretary has taken immediate steps to tighten the procedures for checking the immigration status of those working in the Home Office, whether as a civil servant, employed by a contractor, or in any other capacity."

The latest episode echoes the discovery last year of five illegal immigrants working as cleaners in immigration offices just days after John Reid became the Home Secretary.

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said Ms Smith had been at pains last week to blame employers for the "SIA shambles". He said: "If she is going to try and avoid responsibility in such away she should at least check her own house is in order. "Who will the Home Office now prosecute and fine? Itself?" He added: "It is clear this Government is part of the problem, not the solution." Jeremy Browne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "The Home Office seems to mess up with depressing regularity, but this latest breach of security goes literally to the heart of government."

The blunder over security guards emerged in the summer after an illegal immigrant was found guarding the yard where the Prime Minister's car was taken for repairs. It was also disclosed that Ms Smith had accepted Home Office press office advice in August not to tell the public about immigration control mistakes. When the problem became public, initial estimates put the figure of numbers affected at 5,000. But last week Ms Smith indicated the figure could be as high as 11,100. She disclosed that the SIA handed permits to 6,650 illegal workers, plus a further 4,450 people who officials believe may not have the right to work.

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Italy: Jail for immigrant who murdered commuter with umbrella

A ROMANIAN woman who killed a Rome metro passenger by stabbing her through the eye with an umbrella was jailed for 16 years today, judicial sources said.

The crime shocked Italy and was one of a serious of violent crimes that rallied anti-immigration activists this year to strengthen the hand of law enforcement. Doina Matei, 21 was caught on closed-circuit security cameras fleeing the subway station after attacking the 23-year-old woman victim.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government issued a decree last month that has allowed officials to expel potentially dangerous immigrants from European Union nations like Romania.

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18 December, 2007

GOP Candidates Get Religion On Immigration

By Michelle Malkin

EVERY DEMOCRAT RUNNING for president thinks anti-illegal immigration activists are all racists and xenophobes. Do we really need a Republican nominee for president who thinks the same way?

Breakout GOP candidate Mike Huckabee, the soft-on-border control former governor of Arkansas, scored a jaw-dropping endorsement Tuesday from Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. Despite a long gubernatorial record opposing employer sanctions and pushing tax-subsidized illegal alien education benefits, Huckabee won Gilchrist's support by unveiling a last-minute, tough-sounding homeland security plan Trouble is, Huckabee has downright and longstanding contempt for his new bedfellows of convenience.

Just two years ago, Huckabee appeared before the open-borders Hispanic group, The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), preaching an open-door policy. According to the Arkansas News Bureau, Huckabee also criticized state legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and enhanced reporting of illegal aliens as un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life - not to mention "inflammatory," "race-baiting" and "demagoguery." Just last year, Huckabee lambasted opponents of the bipartisan shamnesty bill providing a mass pardon to illegal aliens as "driven by racism or nativism."

He called strict immigration enforcement - the kind he now supports - "sheer folly" in his campaign-timed book released earlier this year. He actively invited the Mexican government to establish a consulate in Arkansas - giving its office a $1 per year special office space rate - so that its foreign officials could start dispensing security-undermining matricula consular ID cards to illegal aliens for banking and employment purposes. And he's not only for government in-state illegal alien discounts, he's for expanding them far beyond what the federal DREAM Act proposed.

But now that he needs to establish his border control bona fides, Huckabee is all honey. "Frankly, Jim," he said to the Minuteman Project founder at a press conference in Iowa on Tuesday, "I've got to tell you there were times in the early days of the Minutemen I thought, `What are these guys doing, what are they about?' I confess I owe you an apology."

It's Gilchrist and those who allow themselves to be snowed by Huckabee's cynical conversion who'll be sorry and deep in apology debt, I guarantee you.

Huckabee showed his true colors at the Univision Spanish-language debate last weekend, when he pandered to the crowd by lamenting "racial profiling" of immigrants - while remaining silent about catch-and-release policies that fail to detain criminal aliens who go on to commit more heinous crimes because politically correct politicians and police chiefs are more concerned with being accused of "racial profiling" than protecting the public.

Huckabee isn't the only shameless border control cross-dresser in the GOP field, of course. Rudy "I-supported sanctuary-policies-before-I-was-against-them, but-my-sanctuary-policy-wasn't-really-a-sanctuary-policy,-anyway" Giuliani now quotes "the advice of a great man, Father Hesburgh, who said, `We must close the back door of illegal immigration in order to preserve the front door of legal immigration.'" In an interview with Washington Examiner reporter and author Bill Sammon, Giuliani now says he really, truly would have deported 400,000 illegal aliens in New York if he could have. Never mind that small matter of the lawsuit he brought against the feds to block them from enforcing immigration laws. Never mind that he was openly inviting illegal aliens into his open-borders safe harbors.

Reports Sammon: "Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens," the mayor said at a 1994 press conference. "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair."

Bringing up the false convert rear is Sen. John McCain. Earlier this year, he was the most vocal critic of grass-roots conservatives who mobilized against the amnesty bill. He now says he has learned his lesson and supports securing the border. He has learned nothing.

During the shamnesty debacle, he called Rush Limbaugh a "nativist;" over the weekend, he repeated such contemptuous "straight talk" at the Univision debate by assailing what he called anti-Hispanic rhetoric. In an interview with the New Yorker, he dismissed immigration concerns in Iowa as marginal and irrational - just a bunch of "senior citizens" in Iowa caught up in the "emotion" of a cultural assault.

Bad enough that the Democrat candidates are still stuck in a 9/10 mentality on the nexus between immigration and national security. The question for conservatives is: Would a Republican immigration drag queen be any better - or worse?

Source



Britain: Immigration centre riot after detainees 'went wild'

Detainees at an Oxfordshire immigration centre "went wild" on Monday after security guards in riot gear removed an inmate from his cell, campaigners said. Police and fire services were called to Campsfield House near Kidlington after reports of a disturbance in the early hours. Supporters from the Campaign to Close Campsfield said that "a handful" of detainees had broken CCTV cameras and light fittings, flooded toilets and set fire to blankets. They said the violence erupted shortly after 5.20am when ten officers entered the cell of Davis Osagie in Blue Block.

Campaigner Bob Hughes said: "They told me that the guards did not give the man a chance to go quietly. Ten men in riot gear walked straight in at 5.20am and almost went straight in with boots and fists." A handful of detainees "went wild and broke things", he said. He said that detainees reported that the building was now cold with water everywhere and some men had not eaten breakfast and were all confined in their rooms "too exhausted" to create any more trouble.

The centre holds 218 male detainees and was converted in 1993 to hold immigrants awaiting deportation. It has been the subject of a campaign to close it for many years.

In March this year nine people were taken to hospital suffering smoke inhalation after violence broke out and fires were set. Months later, in August, 26 men broke out after starting fires. Police recaptured 12 men the following day but some still remain at large.

A Border and Immigration Agency spokesman said: "The Prison Service and police have assisted the Border and Immigration Agency by securing the perimeter which has not been breached. GEO, who run the site, have asked the Prison Service for assistance, and a number of specially-trained prison officers have been sent to Campsfield."

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17 December, 2007

Immigration issue of concern to Democrats too

The prairie fire ignited by immigration is turning into an inferno, with potentially explosive impact on the 2008 election. Already, it has become the defining issue in the battle between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee for first place in Iowa's Jan. 3 presidential caucuses. But while immigration is drawing attention as a Republican issue - driven by attack and response ads on TV - it's not solely a concern of Republican voters.

Immigration is also a worry for a significant, and possibly growing, number of Democrats and independents, too. And that could pose an especially tricky problem for the Democratic nominee, who will almost certainly have to deal with Republican attempts to use immigration as a wedge issue to split off Democratic votes in the fall election.

The other day, when Democratic candidate John Edwards came to Marshalltown, about an hour's drive through the countryside from the capital city of Des Moines, getting the immigration problem fixed was on the minds of some of those who heard his pitch. "It has taken a lot of our jobs away," says Clyde Knoll, 74, who has lived in this town of 27,000 all his life. "What are you going to do about immigration, to stop all the erosion of our jobs and stuff that's coming into this country?"

Edwards assured the roomful of prospective caucus-goers that he was fully aware of just "how hot and divisive this issue is. I do understand that." Still, the "mess" on "our southern border" can be remedied, he says. Technology, including unmanned drones, more border patrol agents and new fences at strategic spots along the U.S.-Mexico line could help stop illegal entry into this country. The government also needs to crack down on employers who violate the law, he says. Then he added a final point, one that, he acknowledges, is "a little more controversial - If you want to become an American citizen, you ought to learn to speak English." The nearly all-white audience burst into applause.

As they left the room, Iowa voters confronted a table arrayed with a variety of Edwards campaign literature, one of which omitted his English-before-citizenship message: A stack of full-color brochures, printed on slick magazine paper with text completely in Spanish, promoted "John Edwards para Presidente. Caucuses de Iowa - 3 de enero."

The Spanish-language fliers, aimed at Iowa's small but expanding Latino population, touted his plans to end the war in Iraq, strengthen schools for all children, toughen civil rights enforcement and gain passage in Congress of the DREAM act, which would offer a way for younger illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens. The brochure also detailed Edwards' immigration plan: strengthen border enforcement, punish employers and devise a path to citizenship that would reunite families kept apart by immigration problems. His proposal to make proficiency in English a requirement for citizenship wasn't mentioned. (The flier did give the Internet address of Edwards' Spanish language Web site, which includes the English-language requirement.)

Once the general election campaign gets under way, it may not be so easy for Democrats to offer selective messages to different audiences on this incendiary issue. And while most of the Republican candidates seem ready, if not eager, to capitalize on anti-immigrant attitudes, the Democratic nominee will have to walk a more nuanced line.

The reason for that balancing act lies in one of the biggest advantages Democrats are thought to enjoy in the '08 election: lopsided support across the country from Hispanic voters, whose influence could be pivotal. These voters are concentrated in a number of states that President Bush carried narrowly in the last election, including New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Florida. If Hispanics vote Democratic in large enough numbers next fall, they could bring those states to the Democratic side.

The meeting with Edwards left Knoll dissatisfied with the candidate's answer to his question about immigration. The Democratic voter said that his party's politicians aren't getting nearly tough enough on the problem. "I'm sorry to say, a lot of them even favor this immigration," Knoll says.

This heartland state might be far from the Mexican border, but the immigration issue has become inflamed in recent years. Politicians of both parties point to a variety of causes, from economic anxieties to racism to the drumbeat from conservative and populist commentators such as CNN's Lou Dobbs. Here in Marshalltown, where anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 Mexicans have moved in since the early 1990s, local officials have worked hard to cope with the influx. A raid by the Immigration service at a meatpacking plant last December drew national attention, but some residents say the community has turned a corner in dealing with the strains on local schools and other social problems.

Many remain troubled, though. Ken Callen, 58, retired from his job as a production controller at the Lennox Industries factory, feels that things were better before Hispanics migrated to his hometown. An independent voter who plans to caucus for Edwards, he believes the recent arrivals should have to learn English. Shown a copy of his candidate's Spanish language brochure, he shrugged. "Well, you've got to reach the masses," he says with a smile. He also thinks folks in other parts of the country are kidding themselves if they believe illegal immigration won't become a problem for them, too. "This is probably a bad comparison, but it's like your neighbor has 10 or 12 cockroaches," he says. "Or mice. Or rabbits."

Recent national opinion surveys confirm a sharp swing toward the Democrats among Hispanics, who increasingly regard the Republican Party as hostile to their interests. That shift is due, at least in part, to Congress's failure to approve comprehensive immigration reform this year and a perception that Republicans were largely to blame. Registered Latino voters favor Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 34 percentage points, up from 21 points from last year, according to a nationwide survey by the Pew Hispanic Center. But Latinos may cast less than 7 percent of the vote in next fall's election, the Pew center also reported.

Democratic gains among Hispanics could be neutralized in the selection of the next president if a tough Republican line on immigration attracts a significant number of independent and Democratic votes. That could certainly be the case in closely contested Iowa, where Democrats barely won in 2000 and Republicans prevailed by a narrow margin in 2004. Strategists will be watching other swing states as well, to see how one of the hottest issues plays out next fall.

Source



Britain fiddles with immigration restrictions

If they were serious, they would start arresting the huge numbers who have been denied residency but who just stay on anyway

Plans for a crackdown on foreign visitors to Britain are to be unveiled this week in a fresh attempt to tighten the country's borders. Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, will propose restrictions on millions of people, including those who take advantage of a system of "sponsored family visits". Families who "sponsor" visits, on temporary visas, from relatives abroad may have to put up a cash bond - possibly of 1,000 pounds - before their visitors are allowed in.

The move is also set to see the ordinary tourist visa having its limit halved from six months to three. The plans will potentially affect millions of people who come to Britain on temporary visas every year from outside the European Union.

Mr Byrne told The Sunday Telegraph last night: "Over the next 12 months we will see the biggest shake-up of the immigration system in its history. The final front, I believe, is foreign visitor routes where change is needed."

The crackdown comes as Gordon Brown's Government seeks to regain the political initiative, following a series of crises over the past few months which have seen Labour's sup