IMMIGRATION CONCERNS AROUND THE WORLD

Taking on the Week's Big Issue: Immigration

 

Most Brits 'want immigration limits'

Monday, 3rd April 2006 Manchester Evening News.

MORE than three quarters of Britons want to see an annual limit on immigration, a survey said today.

The poll for right-wing immigration think-tank Migrationwatch said 69% of people also feared Britain was losing its own culture.

Asked if there should be an annual limit on foreigners coming to the UK, 50% strongly agreed and 26% agreed. Only 4% strongly disagreed and 6% disagreed, with the rest not expressing a view.

The YouGov poll of more than 2,000 people found that 71% believed the Government's priority should be getting more British people back to work rather than bringing in more immigrants to fill job vacancies.

Migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said: "It is difficult to see how the Government's handling of this issue could be more thoroughly rejected by the British people.

"The survey shows that they fundamentally disagree with the Government's open ended immigration policy and feel that their views are being ignored in the process."

He added: "These are very high numbers and the results are similar across all social classes."

Six out of 10 questioned in the poll said current levels of immigration were making it difficult to achieve good community relations.

Nearly seven out of 10 agreed Britain was already overcrowded.

Segregated

And 73% agreed society was becoming increasingly racially segregated.

The survey found 10% of the public agreed the Government was listening to public opinion about immigration.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "The report issued by Migration Watch today represents the comments of a small fraction of the UK population.

"The Government has made very clear its migration policy is based on the needs of the UK economy by attracting skilled individuals the country needs not on arbitrary quotas.

"The system will be robust against abuse and along with new measures announced in the new Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act tackle illegal working and ensure our borders are secure."

She added: "The UK has a smaller foreign-born population than Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, the US and France.

"Figures published in 2001 showed that migrants generate 10% of UK GDP while representing only 8% of the UK population.

"The Government has been and will continue to listen to the views of the public."
 

IDENTITY CARDS BILL RECEIVES ROYAL ASSENT

Written by Administrator   http://uksecuritydirectory.co.uk

Friday, 31 March 2006

The Identity Cards Bill received Royal Assent today, placing on the statute book important measures which will help Britain meet the challenges of the 21st century. The National Identity Scheme will provide all UK residents aged over 16 with a universal, highly secure means for safeguarding their identity.

The new agency that will issue passports and ID cards will be called the Identity and Passport Service (IPS). Incorporating the United Kingdom Passport Service (UKPS) and working closely with the Home Office's Immigration and Nationality Directorate, it will become operational on 1 April 2006.

The Home Secretary Charles Clarke, said:

"Being able to prove who we are is a fundamental requirement in modern society. Building on the experience and proven excellence of the Passport Service, the IPS will ensure the UK is at the forefront of the worldwide drive to increase document security, safeguard borders and protect identities for use by those who are entitled to them.

"I believe that the National Identity Scheme will bring major benefits. It will give UK residents an easy and convenient way to prove their identity; deter illegal immigration and illegal working; help tackle organised crime and terrorism; and provide a means to defend against the abuse of public services. At the heart of the scheme, a secure national database linking basic personal details to unique biometric information will strengthen, not erode, civil liberties by protecting individual identities."

The National Identity Scheme, to be phased in over a number of years, will link basic personal information, such as name and address, to secure biometrics - a computer image of a person's iris, face or fingerprints. These are unique and provide a hi-tech form of security for every citizen.

The new agency will be responsible for:

* issuing passports and providing passport services;

* issuing ID cards and providing the means of verifying the identity of individuals for accredited organisations;

* delivering the National Identity Scheme including the establishment of the National Identity Register; and

* promoting the use of the National Identity Scheme across the public and private sectors to improve identity management and ensure full realisation of the benefits of the scheme.

It will not be compulsory to carry a card and there will be no new powers for police to demand to see a card. However, this would be a universal scheme for everyone legally resident in the UK and, subject to further primary legislation, it will be compulsory to register on the scheme.

MEPs' comments on illegal immigrants

Stanley J. A. Clews, Sliema.

So the MEPs have gone back to their plush offices in Brussels after being "disgusted" and "shocked" by Malta's detention centres.

French MEP Patrick Gaubert is said to have lost his appetite for dinner after visiting the detention centres that day. No doubt he was able to find his appetite after he got back to his hotel later on. But he probably lost it again when he heard of the riots in Paris when students demonstrated against new employment laws and French police had to use tear gas and water cannon.

Italian MEP Giusto Catania said he was taken aback by what he called the general "degradation" and "inhumane" conditions at the centres.

How easy it was for them to criticise a small country like Malta with its large population living in such a small area. Our own MEPs had asked for this visit to take place in all good faith and I hope something tangible will result. But the EU must understand that we cannot afford to continue supporting these illegal immigrants much as we sympathise with their very real problem.

None of the visiting MEPs came up with a solution as to where to put these illegal immigrants once they are let out of detention. We cannot leave them wandering penniless around the streets. And one does not have to be a racist to say this!

But what disgusted me about this visit was that there was not a word of praise from these MEPs (at least none were reported) for the wonderful work of the Malta Police and Armed Forces of Malta. Nor it appears did they comment on the fact that four members of the police force were taken to hospital during these riots.

While I am sure we all agree that these illegal immigrants must be treated in a humane manner let us remember those policemen and soldiers (or should I call them sailors?) of the AFM who rescue these unfortunate human beings from the seas around.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=219891

More illegal immigrants intercepted off the Canaries
04 Apr 2006

A boat carrying 52 illegal immigrants has been intercepted 5 miles to the south of Tenerife.
The vessel was spotted by the SIVE electronic surveillance system, as it was approaching Punta de Rasca. The passengers were all male, and were all said to be in good health.

Thirty two immigrants drowned while trying to reach the Canary Islands on Sunday. They were amongst the 57 passengers on a boat which sunk to the North of Mauritania, after being at sea for 17 days. Another 35 people were intercepted 100 miles off El Hierro Island that same day, and a boat carrying 44 passengers was intercepted just one mile off Tenerife on Monday.

The 54-year-old sociology professor was a flamboyant character who combined custom-made Italian suits and a flashy lifestyle with hard-hitting anti-immigrant views.

Fortuyn was known for his love of expensive clothes

He provoked controversy wherever he went

Austria - Freedom Party & Immigration

The Ugly Europeans

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Jörg Haider, and other xenophobes.

By Chris Suellentrop
Posted Friday, April 26, 2002, at 10:49 AM ET

 

Filip Dewinter, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Pim Fortuyn

After Sept. 11, many observers predicted that the ugly side of the American character would soon reveal itself. Xenophobia and nativism would flourish. Ominous reports of widespread violence against Arab-Americans would surface. A few hysterical doomsayers worried that it was only a matter of time before Muslims would be placed in internment camps. Despite those fears, none of the Ugly American predictions came to pass. Instead, 9/11 cemented an altogether different phenomenon: Ugly Europeanism.

Jean-Marie Le Pen's strong showing in the French presidential election is only the latest in a string of successes by anti-Muslim political parties across the Continent. Only two weeks after Sept. 11, Hamburg—the most liberal state in Germany—elected an anti-foreigner candidate nicknamed "Judge Merciless" to the state parliament. In November, Denmark's anti-Muslim party, the Danish People's Party, received 12 percent of the vote, up from 7 percent three years earlier. Then in March, the party of the Netherlands' Pim Fortuyn, a zero-immigration candidate who says "the Netherlands is full," reaped 35 percent of the vote in Rotterdam, making it the most popular party in the country's second-largest city. A few weeks later, the Popular Party, which urges a "special integration program" for African immigrants because of their "propensity for violence," joined Portugal's new governing coalition. And this week, Le Pen.

Granted, the Ugly Europeans are not purely a post-9/11 phenomenon. The Freedom Party of Austria's Jörg Haider—who came to international prominence in 2000—is a fellow traveler, as is Belgium's Vlaams Blok, which took a third of the vote in Belgium's second-largest city that same year. (The leader of Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party that wants to forcibly expel all unemployed non-European immigrants, said he and Le Pen were "brothers in arms.") And the Ugly Europeans' anti-Muslim tactics predate the terrorist attacks. In 2000, for example, an anti-racism poster picturing a black child and the caption "When I become white, I'll be a schoolteacher" prompted the Danish People's Party to counter with its own anti-welfare poster: a picture of a white homeless man with the caption "When I become Muslim, I'll have a house."

But the Ugly Europeans accelerated their anti-Muslim rhetoric in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, and they found a newly receptive audience. Anti-Muslim sentiment was already widespread in Europe, but 9/11 reinforced the Ugly Europeans' bigoted message: Muslims cause crime. Muslims cause unrest. Muslims must go. The effect was immediate: The terrorist attacks and the discovery that Hamburg was a haven of al-Qaida activity gave Judge Merciless (real name: Ronald Schill)—and his attacks on "imported unemployment and imported crime" from Muslim countries—a more than 5 percent bump in the polls. The anti-Muslim electoral wave had begun.

Much of what the Ugly Europeans propose isn't out of the mainstream of American political debate: Get tough on crime, promote Christian family values, reform the welfare state, curtail immigration. But the Ugly Europeans' policy inclinations on all those issues stem not from political ideology but from prejudice. How to get tough on crime? Get rid of the Muslim immigrants who are causing it. Why reform the welfare state? Because the Muslims are sucking us dry. Why promote Christian values? Because the Muslim invaders threaten to drown out our faith. Why curtail immigration? Because Muslims cannot assimilate into Western European cultures.

The Ugly European viewpoint stems from an exclusionary ethnocentric nationalism, summed up by Le Pen's slogan "France for the French," Haider's slogan "Austria for the Austrians," and Vlaams Blok's slogan "Our Own People First." Muslims from North Africa cannot assimilate even if they want to. Pia Kjaersgaard, the housewife leader of the Danish People's Party, wants the Muslims in Denmark to "go home": "They must not be allowed to integrate into Danish society." Filip Dewinter of Belgium's Vlaams Blok agrees: "We must stop the Islamic invasion," he told the New York Times Magazine. "I think it's, in fact, impossible to assimilate in our country if you are of Islamic belief." During a protest of a plan to open a center for foreign asylum-seekers in his hometown of Antwerp, Dewinter proclaimed, "Antwerp is not a garbage can." In an effort to prevent Muslim (and perhaps Jewish) assimilation in France, the mayor of Marignane, who is a member of Le Pen's National Front, eliminated the option for a non-pork lunch when pork was on the menu at public school cafeterias. The clear message: We don't want your children to eat with our children.

Ugly Europeans are adamantly opposed to multicultural, multiethnic societies, and they employ a neat rhetorical trick: framing their racist anti-Muslim sentiment as a defense of the multicultural value of diversity—a way to protect their own national culture, which they see as threatened. (The Netherlands' Fortuyn, in a similar bit of ideological gymnastics, justifies his intolerance for Muslims by saying that Muslims threaten the Netherlands' vaunted reputation for tolerance.) They're fiercely opposed to the European Union, which they see as leveling the distinctions among the Continent's distinct nations. And most assail America for its globalizing culture and its multiethnic society.

In this, ironically, the Ugly Europeans share more than a little in common with the Islamic extremism that has propelled them to new heights of popularity. They may not be terrorists and murderers, but their separatist agenda is familiar: a belief that Christians and Muslims cannot commingle; that the infidel invaders must be expelled to ensure their countries' self-preservation; and a backward-looking celebration of an empire long, long gone.

Chris Suellentrop, a writer in Washington, D.C., is a former Slate staffer.  Illustration by Charlie Powell.

France - Le Pen & Immigration

Le Pen upset causes major shock

Defeated Jospin to retire from French politics

April 21, 2002 Posted: 7:57 PM EDT (2357 GMT)
 

Jospin announced his retirement, effective after the presidential runoff election.

PARIS, France (CNN) -- French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced that he was retiring from politics after his loss Sunday to far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of presidential elections.

With more than 85 percent of the vote counted, incumbent President Jacques Chirac had 20 percent, compared to 17 percent for Le Pen and 16 percent for Jospin. Those results were in line with exit poll findings. The rest of the vote was split among 13 other candidates.

Le Pen, the head of the right-wing, anti-immigrant National Front party, has long been a controversial fixture in French politics. If the result holds up, he would face Chirac in a second round of balloting on May 5.

In a victory speech, Le Pen called on the French populace for support in the upcoming election.

"You -- the small ones, the ones who've been excluded, those of you who've got no recognition -- don't allow yourselves to be divided up into the old divisions of the left and the right," he said.

Le Pen described himself Sunday as "socially to the left, economically to the right and nationally of France."

He added, "France is for the French."

Jospin, who has been France's prime minister since 1997, said Sunday's results were "like a thunderbolt ... particularly worrying for France and for our democracy."

He said he would quit politics when the runoff was over, but urged leftist parties to regroup for parliamentary elections "so as to prepare for the reconstruction of the future."

It is the first time such a right-wing candidate will have had such strong crack at becoming president, and the first time since 1969 that the Socialists have not had a candidate in a presidential runoff.

"This is no less than a major earthquake in French political life," said Pierre Lellouche of the Chirac campaign. "This is a massive collapse of the French left."

Chirac called for national unity, a clear appeal to left-wing voters.

Chirac said the upcoming runoff would determine the future of France and its role in Europe.

"I would like to remind all French men and French women to gather together to defend human rights, to guarantee the cohesion of the nation and to affirm the unity of the republic and to restore the unity of the state," he said.

In an effort to stop Le Pen, leading figures in the Jospin campaign were already encouraging French voters to support Chirac on May 5.

"We will say clearly we don't want Mr. Le Pen, coming from the far right, to be president," said Socialist Party official Marisol Touraine.

Turnout was low by French standards, with less than three-quarters of those eligible turning out to vote. Many voters, dissatisfied with the expected choice between Chirac and Jospin, decided to stay home.

"This is not a triumph for Chirac," said political analyst Dominique Moisi. "People didn't go to vote."

But the National Front's Web site urged its members to vote. "To abstain from (voting) is to vote Chirac or Jospin. For the patriots, to vote is a duty," a party statement read.

Moisi called the apathy of French voters an "Americanization" of the French political system, that caused a "huge personal defeat for Jospin."

"I fully take responsibility for this failure," said Jospin during his retirement announcement. He encouraged his followers to support Socialist candidates in the June legislative elections.

Le Pen's showing is the strongest for any far-right candidate since the Fifth Republic was founded after World War II.

At Jospin's campaign headquarters, there was shock and disbelief among many of the prime minister's campaign workers, some of whom were in tears.

"He worked hard ... he was an honest man. He was convinced that would be enough," said Daniel Marchac, a friend of Jospin's. Marchac said the results were a condemnation of the left, rather than a sign of praise for the right.

Chirac and Jospin, who have had to share power under a co-habitation system, have been perceived by voters as promoting similar programs.

This was the third presidential campaign for Le Pen, who has taken a strong stance against immigration and has been accused of being anti-Semitic, a charge he has denied. He has tied immigration to rising crime rates, which was a major issue in Sunday's ballot.

The immigration issue that helped Le Pen Sunday has also helped far-right candidates in Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria in recent elections.

"Mr. Chirac decided to run on the sole issue of security" and the more that security was an issue, the better Le Pen looked to voters disillusioned by rising crime and security issues, said Touraine. She added that although Le Pen apparently convinced some voters otherwise, "there is no automatic link between immigration and crime."

Lellouche said now France had no right to chastise Austria for its support of ultra-nationalist Joerg Haider, since French voters showed a similar bent in this election.

Moisi added, "For the first time in a major European country, the extreme right is close to 20 percent. It's happened in medium-sized countries like Austria, but not in one of the big three. It's in a way a crisis of democracy. It's really bad news, not only for France, but for Europe and democracy in Europe."

Voters worried about crime and employment had been predicted to flock to candidates on the far left and right, including Arlette Laguiller of the hard-left Worker's Struggle. (Full story)

The elections for the French legislature are forthcoming in June. Moisi said there could be a backlash, with voters electing Socialists to balance the government.

Chirac, 69, has seemingly shrugged off sleaze allegations that have dogged the latter years of his presidency. (Profile)

He is currently protected by presidential immunity, but if he loses the election, investigating judges want to question him over several corruption scandals, some dating back to his tenure as Paris mayor from 1977 to 1995.

Jospin, 64, is a former professor who had hoped to capitalize on his government's positive economic record since he came to power in a surprising 1997 election. (Profile)

Anxious not to alienate centrist voters who hold the decisive votes in the second round, the two top contenders ran defensive campaigns with law and order the main issue. Analysts say the strategy appears to have backfired, with apathy running high after five years of power-sharing.

To make matters worse, in some regions the vote fell in the middle of school holidays, meaning some parents were not around to cast ballots in their home town.

-- CNN European Political Editor Robin Oakley and CNN Correspondent Jim Bittermann contributed to this report

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER - "Selective" Immigration
Friday, April 7, 2006

France wants to 'choose' its immigrants

By JENNY BARCHFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

PARIS -- The curtain falls on a bevy of near-naked dancers in feathered headdresses, and Adir Rafael Pires glides into action. As a set-changer at the Lido, the racy cabaret on Paris' Champs-Elysees, Pires could not be farther from his desert birthplace: Cape Verde, a rocky, drought-stricken archipelago off West Africa's coast.

But the door that allowed Pires to make France his home may now be closing. France, like other European countries, is taking a harder look at the immigrants it lets in.

The drive toward "selective" immigration is inspired by electoral politics, by fears that some immigrants are not integrating and may even be vectors for terrorism and militant Islam, and by widely shared concerns that immigrants overtax welfare systems and compete for scarce jobs.

French Interior Minister and presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy championed a bill that would make it more difficult for poor immigrants with little education and few skills to start a new life in France - long one of Europe's most coveted destinations for immigrants.

Pires, 24, reached the ultimate goal - acquiring French nationality - at a naturalization ceremony last month after spending more than half his life here - much of it as an illegal immigrant.

Hi mother, Vitalina, came to France in 1990 on a tourist visa, then stayed on as a live-in maid with a Parisian family. Pires visited her for summer vacation, and never returned to Cape Verde.

Nearly sixteen years later, mother and son became French thanks to a provision that allows foreigners to apply for citizenship after 10 years in the country - even if they were here illegally.

That is one of many immigrant-friendly provisions that would be scrapped under Sarkozy's immigration bill.

Sarkozy, whose father immigrated here from Hungary, argues that France should take a more pro-active approach to immigration by hand-picking foreign workers. His arguments gained resonance after riots ripped through heavily immigrant French suburbs last fall.

Sarkozy acknowledges that he wants to court voters away from the far right, which argued that the riots showed the perils of immigration.

If passed, the law would form part of France's multi-pronged offensive against clandestine immigration that also includes stepped-up border controls and deportations. Under Sarkozy, deportations have increased 72 percent over the past two years, with a record 20,000 illegal immigrants expelled in 2005.

"France cannot be the only country in the world that refuses to adapt its immigration policy to its economic needs and its capacity to absorb new arrivals," Sarkozy said recently. "We cannot continue to welcome people whom we have neither jobs nor housing to offer."

Pires spent most of his first year in France in a cramped apartment he shared with one of his mother's friends. He did not attend school, but learned French from watching daytime television. He saw his mother on weekends.

When another friend offered Vitalina an unheated attic room, mother and son moved in together. They shared the kitchen-less, 110-square-foot room for nearly seven years.

Still, it was a step up from Sao Vicente, one of nine desert islands that make up the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde and the one where Pires was born. The country's economy relies largely on foreign aid and remittances from emigrants - which accounted for more than 20 percent of the GDP in 2005.

Pires does not send money back. There is no one left to send it to. After he and Vitalina left, Pires' estranged father decamped, too. He now lives in Amsterdam, and has become a Dutch citizen. Most of Pires' other relatives live in Europe or Brazil.

Under Sarkozy's draft bill, foreigners would have a harder time bringing their families to France. Immigrants would have to prove that their salaries alone - and not government subsidies - suffice to support their offspring.

Pires says that if his mother had been subjected to such stringent requirements, she wouldn't have made the cut.

"Her salary was really low," he said.

Sponsored by his mother's French friend, Pires enrolled in school.

After a teacher told him he "wasn't college material," he opted to attend a technical high school where he specialized in operating theater sets. That led to the job at the Lido, where long-legged dancers cancan, nude but for strategically placed feathers.

"Here, I have the life of an average European - which I finally am," he said.

While it would target people like Pires and Vitalina, the immigration bill would favor a new breed of "highly qualified" workers who - with their higher degrees and sought-after skills - could just as easily move to New York or Toronto as Paris.

"'Highly qualified' is just a code word for rich," Pires said. He called a provision that would establish a renewable, three-year residence permit based on capacity and talent "a ploy to keep out the poor."

"Immigrant labor rebuilt this country after the war," he said. "It's not right to try to exclude us now."

Myths about immigration immigration 

JEDDAH. April 3, 2006. KAZINFORM - Estate agents say location, location, location. Soon we will find that politicians say immigration, immigration, immigration. If you take the popular pulse, nine times out of ten, whether you are in California or Calais, Dubai or Dublin, the issue of immigration will come up.
Of course there are wide variations in its manifestation. In France where the National Front polled 18 percent at the last presidential elections, it is a major issue. In the US, a country which once set the standard for welcoming immigration, the backlash is now dominating the headlines. Other countries which once championed immigration, like Canada and Australia, have also seen immigration enter the political fray, KAZINFORM cites Iman Kurdi of Arab News.

Concern about immigration is rarely benign, it usually burns with a common fire: Fear of foreigners. And some foreigners more than others.

Consider the countries in the European Union where the anti-immigration lobby has made the most noise and you will find that they have one thing in common. It is neither the size of their immigrant population, nor its high levels of unemployment, it is not even a downturn in economic growth. No, what they have in common is that they are countries with sizable immigration from Muslim countries.

Austria undertook a major reform of immigration law in 2002 aimed at curbing the number of immigrants. Where do Austria’s immigrants come from? Bosnia, Croatia and Turkey. Similarly in Denmark, a country which has rarely been off the radar these last six months, there is a sizable Turkish migrant population. The Netherlands, which has seen a major political debate and a rethink of their whole approach to immigration, has — you guessed it — a large Turkish migrant population, as well as a big Moroccan contingent — the two groups making up 30 percent of all foreigners in the Netherlands. Moroccans are also very visible in Spain, another country that has seen immigration become a hot political issue in the last five years. As for France, the country with the largest Muslim population in Europe, the issue is on the tip of every tongue.

I don’t believe that anti-Muslim feeling is at the root of all anti-immigrant rhetoric — the issue is evidently much more complex than that — but what is clear is that since Al-Qaeda started to wage its war, one of the consequences has been a heightened fear of foreigners in general and Muslim foreigners in particular.

There are many myths surrounding immigration. Three are particularly prominent in the resurgence of anti-immigrant feeling.

The first is the exploitation myth. Last week I took a taxi to the airport. As we drove along we passed a hospital. My taxi driver pointed to the hospital and bemoaned the state of national healthcare. “It’s the foreigners — she exclaimed — there’s too many of them, they exploit the system and now hard-working people like me, who pay our taxes and abide by our laws, we can’t get decent healthcare”. It’s a common myth, which unfortunately I have heard in a number of permutations in several regions of the globe. The essence of this myth is that foreigners come to a country to exploit its resources, particularly its schools, hospitals and housing.

The idea that immigrants exploit the country they migrate to is risible. I am sorry but it is. If anyone is exploited, it is more likely to be the immigrants themselves. After all they are the ones who do not have access to the same level of rights and status awarded to native citizens.

Much has been made about the share of the welfare budget taken up by migrants. In the US for instance, migrants take up a larger proportion of welfare than their percentage of the population. But that is because they tend to be poor. If migrants make up a large proportion of the low-paid — as they do in most countries with large immigration — then it follows that they will take up a relatively large proportion of the welfare budget. But this is more than made up for by their contribution to the economy. Even in pure fiscal terms, immigrants provide a net gain to their host economy as they pay significantly more in taxes than they take in benefits. As for those who begrudge foreigners for being a burden on the health system, they should be ashamed of themselves for begrudging that the sick have access to healthcare.

Which brings me to the second myth: The idea that the doors are open and anyone can come in, settle in a country and obtain all the benefits of living in say Britain with little difficulty. Anyone with any experience of emigrating to Britain will testify that it is no walkover. Whether it is the poor soul who pays someone an exorbitant sum and puts himself into debt for years in order to be smuggled into the country or the relatively luckier soul who enters the country legally, the system is geared toward keeping people out, not letting people in.

The third myth is that migrants take away jobs from native citizens and depress wages. There is no evidence to support this. All the studies that have been done have found that increased immigration makes no significant difference either to unemployment rates or to wage levels. And it makes perfect sense because economies need people to grow. If you increase the population — either through birth rates or through immigration — the net result should be job creation and economic growth.

Immigration is a good thing because immigrants do the jobs that we need and few want to do. They also do the jobs that require skills that we don’t have but desperately need. They contribute to the economy and enrich us culturally. In places like Europe where the population is aging, immigration can also help plug some of the gaps in pensions for future generations. Immigrants provide many benefits to the countries where they settle, but most of all I believe that it is morally fair and right that countries should welcome people who want to become citizens.

Becoming a citizen is a two-way street. It requires immigrants to integrate into the country into which they settle. Integration is not a dirty word, it does not mean giving up your values or beliefs, it simply means being an active member of the community in which you live, contributing to it, respecting its laws and customs and allowing yourself to grow and prosper through interaction with people who may be different to you.

Integration requires inclusion. Successful immigration needs to be managed to ensure that immigrants find their rightful place in society. Moreover countries must implement policies which give long-term foreign-born residents rights which are comparable to those of native citizens. This concept of civic citizenship has been put forward as a benchmark for immigrant inclusion.

Civic citizenship includes the right of residence, protection against expulsion, access to employment, access to family reunification, access to social security and social assistance, the right to participate in political life and the right of movement for work and study purposes.

EU countries differ on civic citizenship. Countries like Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands and Portugal fall toward the top of the scale whilst countries like Denmark and Greece are toward the bottom. As for the Arab world, it has a long way to go before it can be described as giving foreign residents rights commensurate with those of native citizens. There are some encouraging signs. In Saudi Arabia for instance, recent reforms have made it easier for long-term residents to obtain citizenship. It is also now possible for foreigners to own companies and property in the Kingdom.

I believe unreservedly that immigration is a good thing. It is in my blood, I come from a family of immigrants. Four generations ago my great-great-grandfather came to Madinah during Haj and decided to stay. Madinah is a town with a history of welcoming foreigners. I love the names of Madani families, they are resonant of the most distant corners of the Muslim world. They remind us of how vast the Muslim world is and how cultural diversity enriches us.

It is often said that the test of civil society is how it treats its women. Perhaps it is time we said the test of civil society is how it treats its foreign-born residents.

Kazakh Information Agency Kazinform www.inform.kz

The U.S. can learn from Singapore about immigration

BY DANIEL SNEIDER

Knight Ridder Newspapers April 3 2006

The fierce debate on immigration ignores a crucial reality - what is happening to the United States is only one piece, although a big one, of a much larger global picture.

That hit me a couple of weeks ago when I was in Singapore. The Southeast Asian island nation has long been hailed as an economic model, the business capital for the entire region.

But it is an economy facing demographic peril. The small population of 4 million is shrinking, thanks to a very low fertility rate. Prosperous Singaporean couples work hard, have fewer children and worry about how to take care of their aging parents. By 2050, Singapore will have a median age of over 52, one of the oldest in the world.

Singapore's answer is to import labor. A third of its work force are migrants. One out of seven households employs a domestic worker - low-paid women mostly from neighboring Philippines and Indonesia.

Singapore tries to lure "talents," very skilled and affluent migrants, to stay permanently. But the men hauling bricks and the maids washing laundry are in a separate class of temporary guest workers, with no chance to join their society. If a maid gets pregnant, she is shipped out within seven days. Employers have to post bonds that must be paid should their servants break the rules and try to stay, making them play the role of migrant police.

Problems of abuse of domestic workers, including physical and sexual violence and confinement, are serious enough to have prompted a report last December by Human Rights Watch.

Singapore's dependence on migrant labor and its guest worker policy may be at the extreme end but are very much on the global spectrum. Labor, like capital and goods before it, is part of a global market. The movement of people across borders in search of wages and work, most of it from developing countries to developed, is growing at a phenomenal pace.

The numbers are staggering. From 1980 to 2000, the number of migrants living in the developed world more than doubled from 48 million to 110 million. Migrants make up an average 12 percent of the work force in high-income countries. About 4 million migrants cross borders illegally every year.

The demand for labor is driven in part by a demographic disaster - the falling population growth of developed countries. Almost all of those countries now have fertility rates that are well below 2.1, the level at which a population replaces itself. At the very low end are places like Hong Kong (0.94), Korea (1.22) and Singapore in Asia (1.24), along with much of Eastern Europe.

Low fertility means shrinking work forces and aging populations. Without migration, according to a recent study, Europe's population would have declined by 4.4 million from 1995 to 2000. Migrants accounted for 75 percent of U.S. population growth during the same period.

This movement of people cannot be stopped, certainly not by hundreds of miles of fences or even by tens of thousands of border guards. It is an issue that cries out for global cooperation, for common policies that cut across national boundaries. Already, we can benefit from looking at what has worked - and not worked - elsewhere.

A Global Commission on International Migration, formed in 2003 by the United Nations' secretary-general, has taken an initial stab at this. Their report, issued last winter, supports the growth of guest worker programs.

The Senate immigration bill now up for debate includes a provision for a guest worker program here. The bill is clearly preferable to the punitive and ineffective approach of the House version. But the Singapore experience - and previous guest worker programs like the German import of Turks - should prompt second thoughts about going down this road.

One problem is that the guests don't leave. The United States has its own experience with this in the "bracero" program to import farm workers and more recently with the supposedly temporary H1B visas used so extensively by the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley.

Most troubling to me, these programs create an underclass of migrants who are never assimilated, as happened in Germany. It sets us on the Singapore road, encouraging inhumane policing mechanisms. And it is a gilded invitation to employers to depress the wages and incomes of American workers, and not just in the dirty jobs that are supposedly so hard to fill.

The United States has been rightfully proud of a tradition that treats all immigrants as citizens in the making. Rather than guest workers, isn't it more American to set realistic immigration quotas and enforce them fairly?

ABOUT THE WRITER: Daniel Sneider is foreign affairs columnist for the San Jose Mercury News.

April/May 2006 

Naming Names   

Newsrooms are struggling with the dilemma of whether to use the names of illegal immigrants. Anonymous sources are under fire as threats to credibility. Yet identifying undocumented immigrants could lead to their deportation.
By Lucy Hood
Lucy Hood (lahood5@aol.com), a former reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.     

Gloria Rubio is an upstanding member of her community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The mother of three young children, she and her husband are active in parent organizations at their children's schools. They volunteer at church, at a local drug-free program and at other community groups. Rubio, an undocumented immigrant born in Mexico, is also diligent about paying her taxes. She told reporter Ginnie Graham of the Tulsa World that she considered it a demonstration of loyalty and support to her adopted country.

"Is there a quick answer to that?" he muses. "Heavens no!"

Lucy Hood (lahood5@aol.com), a former reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.

http://www.ajr.org/article_printable.asp?id=4076

Angus Reid Global Scan : Polls & Research April 3, 2006

Many Americans See Immigrants as Burden

(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Many adults in the United States are critical of the influence of immigrants in their country, according to a poll by SRBI Public Affairs for the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Hispanic Center. 52 per cent of respondents believe immigrants today are a burden on the U.S. because they take jobs, housing and health care.

Conversely, 41 per cent of respondents believe immigrants strengthen the U.S. because of their hard work and talents.

Last month, the Pew Hispanic Center calculated the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States at somewhere between 11.5 million to 12 million. While California is home to most workers, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina have the greatest rates of increase.

In January 2004, U.S. president George W. Bush tabled his proposal for a major overhaul of the U.S. immigration system. The plan includes a "temporary worker program" that would grant legal status to undocumented workers, who would pay taxes, be required to return to their home country after three years, and receive no special preference if they decide to apply for permanent citizenship.

On Mar. 31, Bush discussed his immigration policies, saying, "Employers must be held to account if they’re employing the people in our country illegally. However, part of the problem is (...) that there has been a lot of document forgery. There’s an industry that has sprung up, and part of that industry is to provide forged documents so that our employers don’t know whether a person is in our country legally, or not. (...) I believe if someone has been here in our country illegally they should not get at the head of the line if they want to become a citizen."

Polling Data

I’m going to read you some pairs of statements that will help us understand how you feel about a number of things. As I read each pair, tell me whether the first statement or the second statement comes closer to your own views—even if neither is exactly right.

Source: Schulman, Ronca, & Bucuvalas (SRBI) Public Affairs / Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Hispanic Center
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 2,000 American adults, conducted from Feb. 8 to Mar. 7, 2006. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11440

What's Behind the Immigration Debate

BY GEORGE LATANZIO

April 2, 2006 Newhouse News Service

They're in the fields gathering produce. They're raking lawns, filling out construction crews and taking care of the elderly. And 9 million of these workers have broken the law by entering the United States in the last 20 years.

The Senate this week will begin shaping its plan to reform a dysfunctional immigration system that has been unable to prevent 400,000 people from entering the country illegally each year. The question is not just whether the U.S. should build a better wall along a border to keep them out. The heart of the matter is finding the best way to deal with the 12 million people _ workers and their families _ who have bypassed the immigration system.

Send them back home? How? Welcome them after they have broken the law? Is that fair?

Politicians in Congress will also have to judge which groups can be appeased and whom they can afford to alienate in the months before the November elections. The decisions will go a long way toward determining which political party gains and what kind of nation we will be in the future.

What follows is an in-depth look at the dynamics of the debate _ the politics, the economics, the competing proposals and more.

THE POLITICS

Illegal immigration turns the predictable creature that is U.S. politics inside out, upside down. Instead of Republicans against Democrats, the debate so far has split the GOP, with House Republicans favoring tougher penalties for people and businesses connected to illegal immigration and their Senate counterparts emphasizing a guest worker program and the offer of citizenship.

The only thing everyone involved agrees on is that an immigration system that keeps millions of people waiting years for citizenship while allowing millions of others to literally walk across a border is not working.

President Bush wants reform legislation that will offer immigrants an opportunity to join a guest worker program. As a former governor of border-state Texas, Bush has a history of reaching out to Hispanics, most from Mexico, who represent the majority of recent immigrants in the Southwest.

Hispanics have already surpassed blacks as the largest minority group in the U.S. If current trends continue, by 2050, Hispanics will make up 25 percent of the population--a group neither political party can afford to alienate. Republicans hoping to court this constituency by liberalizing immigration rules are at odds with those who believe it is wrong to reward lawbreakers.

The immigration struggle within the GOP is raising Democratic hopes for the November elections. If the conservative Republican base sits out the election because it is angered over what it sees as amnesty for illegal immigrants, Democrats can expect gains in Congress and governorships.

The test for Republicans will be to shape a reform proposal the base can swallow while reaching out to Hispanics and the business interests that benefit from immigrant labor.

THE ECONOMICS

Wages in Mexico are about one-tenth the average in the U.S., which means an immigrant in a relatively low-paying job will earn more by crossing the border. The influx of workers often allows employers to pay less, boosting profits and lowering the cost of goods and services for American consumers.

Unions, a key part of the Democratic base, are split on the benefits of legal and illegal immigration. A labor surplus helps keep wages down, and some argue illegal immigrants are taking jobs from unemployed citizens. However, U.S. joblessness is hovering just below 5 percent, a level economists view as full employment. Subtracting the estimated 9 million employed illegal immigrants from the work force could translate into labor shortages for some businesses.

While the clout of some unions is diminished by a larger pool of workers, other unions that represent janitors, landscapers, home health care providers and other entry-level workers see the opportunity to recruit new members and grow.

In fact, "growth" is a key word in the immigration debate. The United States needs an expanding population to support the financial draw of entitlement programs for its aging population. In the future, countries with static or declining populations such as Japan, Germany, France and Russia will be hard-pressed to compete in the global economy with India and China. Democrats, Bush and Senate Republicans appear willing to liberalize immigration rules to keep the U.S. competitive 50 years from now.

THE PLANS

If Congress passes immigration reform this year, it will likely come after some serious readjustments to the current plans. House Republicans have passed a bill essentially ignoring Bush's call for a guest worker program, emphasizing border security and stiffer penalties for lawbreakers instead. Senate Republicans seem more in tune with Democrats and have heard proposals to increase legal immigration or to provide immigrants already here with a path toward citizenship.

The major proposals:

The House: The Republican-controlled House would strengthen patrols along the border with Mexico by increasing staff and adding Department of Defense surveillance equipment.

Living in the U.S. illegally would become a felony.

Employers would be given six years to begin verifying Social Security numbers through a national database, and the civil and criminal penalties for hiring illegal workers would be increased.

Those who smuggle immigrants would also face harsher penalties.

Senate Judiciary Committee: Legislation sponsored by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., allows illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before 2004 to work toward citizenship.

Immigrants would be required to undergo criminal background checks, and to pay a $1,000 fine in order to work in the country. After six years, they would be able to apply for citizenship or permanent resident status after paying another $1,000 fine and any back taxes. They would be required to learn English.

Children brought into the country illegally would be eligible for state tuition and be able to apply for citizenship.

In addition to the "green card" permanent status visa, the bill would create a "blue card" guest worker program for people who could show they worked in U.S. farm jobs.

There would also be a guest worker program that would give up to 400,000 people three-year work visas, renewable for another three years. Immigrants would then be eligible to apply for citizenship.

Border security would be strengthened by increasing the number of Border Patrol agents to 25,000 from 11,300.

Penalties against employers who offer jobs to illegal immigrants not taking part in any programs would be increased including jail terms of up to six months.

Illegal immigrants would not be required to return to their native country before taking part in any of the programs.

Sen. Bill Frist: Majority Leader Frist, R-Tenn., who will have to shepherd various proposals through the Senate, is offering his own plan. It would increase penalties for breaking the law, but also make it easier to gain permanent-resident status.

Frist would require employers to check the status of their workers, and he would increase fines (to as much as $20,000 for each illegal immigrant hired); he would also increase jail terms.

The number of employment-based green cards would be increased to 290,000 from 140,000. The immediate relatives of U.S. citizens would be exempt from visa quota limits, making it easier for recent immigrants to sponsor family members.

Frist would also make illegal residence a misdemeanor. People who overstay their visas would be required to return to their native country before being considered for new programs.

THE WALL

The U.S. border with Mexico stretches over 2,000 meandering miles. Along the line are about a dozen routes heavily used by illegal immigrants, their enablers and drug smugglers.

The House plan calls for a non-contiguous barrier, totaling 700 miles, to block the most popular paths. It also would direct the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to "develop a plan to increase the Department of Defense surveillance equipment along the U.S. and international land and maritime borders." In other words, the House wants military drones and other high-tech equipment to provide coverage along the U.S./Mexico border.

There are no specifics for the barrier, but it would likely be similar to the one now being put up to separate Israel from parts of the West Bank.

Republican leaders hoping to shape a compromise between the Senate and House, and to placate groups that oppose a guest worker program, see the barrier as the key to successful legislation.

There has been some reluctance to talk about a barrier _ Bush has not mentioned it _ because of the image it would project. The U.S. has always seen itself as an open, welcoming country.

WHAT'S NEXT

The Senate this week will wade into a full review of the proposals put forward by Frist and McCain/Kennedy. The current climate favors those who support some sort of guest worker program, probably along the lines of the McCain/Kennedy plan. To gain more political momentum and to persuade the House, the Senate bill is also expected to contain provisions for a high-tech barrier along at least 700 miles of the border, a doubling of Border Patrol officers and tough sanctions against any businesses that do not follow the rules.

In a major breakthrough Wednesday, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said he was willing to consider a guest worker program. If this holds, Senate Republicans have a good chance of avoiding internecine warfare before the November elections, with the goal of having Bush sign a bill in the fall.

For their part, Democrats can try to take credit for forging a bipartisan consensus on an issue that has been festering for 20 years.

(George Latanzio is an editor at The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.

If we're a "nation of immigrants," how can we be a nation of Americans? ...

Are We Really a Nation of Immigrants?

By Lawrence Auster
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 3, 2006

It used to be that only open-borders activists said it. Now the entire political leadership of the United States is saying it. President Bush is saying it. Sen. Specter is saying it. Even Sen. Bill "enforcement-only" Frist is saying it:

"We are a nation of immigrants built upon the rule of law."

Of course, that cute little addition about "rule of law" is nothing but boob bait for the Bubbas (a category of persons that, in the minds of our leaders, seems to constitute about three-quarters of the country); our leaders have as much intention to enforce the immigration laws as I have to fly to Mars next week. The part of the statement that counts is the business about "nation of immigrants." To see the entire political leadership of our country pronouncing in unison this slogan, all as a part of an effort to push through the most catastrophic open-borders scheme in our history, is an Orwellian experience. If we're a "nation of immigrants," how can we be a nation of Americans?

To say that America is a "nation of immigrants" is to imply that there has never been an actual American people apart from immigration. It is to put America out of existence as a historically existing nation that immigrants and their children joined by coming here, a country with its own right to exist and to determine its own sovereign destiny—a right that includes the right to permit immigration or not. No patriot, no decent person who loves this country, as distinct from loving some whacked-out, anti-national, leftist idea of this country, would call it a "nation of immigrants." Any elected official who utters the subversive canard that America is a "nation of immigrants" should, at the least, find his phone lines tied up with calls from irate constituents.

Of course, at first glance it seems indisputable that "we are a nation of immigrants," in the sense that all Americans, even including the American Indians, are either immigrants themselves or descendants of people who came here from other places. Given those facts, it would have been more accurate to say that we are "a nation of descendants of immigrants." But such a mundane assertion would fail to convey the thrilling idea conjured up by the phrase "nation of immigrants"—the idea that all of us, whether or not we are literally immigrants, are somehow "spiritually" immigrants, in the sense that the immigrant experience defines our character as Americans.

This friendly-sounding, inclusive sentiment—like so many others of its kind—turns out to be profoundly exclusive. For one thing, it implies that anyone who is not an immigrant, or who does not identify with immigration as a key aspect of his own being, is not a "real" American. It also suggests that newly arrived immigrants are more American than people whose ancestors have been here for generations. The public television essayist Richard Rodriguez spelled out these assumptions back in the 1990s when he declared, in his enervated, ominous tone: "Those of us who live in this country are not the point of America. The newcomers are the point of America." Certainly the illegal-alien demonstrators in Los Angeles last week agreed with him; America, they kept telling us, belongs to them, not to us.

In reality, we are not—even in a figurative sense—a nation of immigrants or even a nation of descendants of immigrants. As Chilton Williamson pointed out in The Immigration Mystique, the 80,000 mostly English and Scots-Irish settlers of colonial times, the ancestors of America’s historic Anglo-Saxon majority, had not transplanted themselves from one nation to another (which is what defines immigration), but from Britain and its territories to British colonies. They were not immigrants, but colonists. The immigrants of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries came to an American nation that had already been formed by those colonists and their descendants. Therefore to call America "a nation of immigrants" is to suggest that America, prior to the late nineteenth century wave of European immigration, was not America. It is to imply that George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant (descended from the original colonists) were not "real" Americans, but that Richard Rodriguez (descended from 20th century immigrants) and the anti-American demonstrators last week in Los Angeles, are.   

Apart from its politically correct function of diminishing the Anglo-Saxon Americans of the pre-Ellis Island period and their descendants, the "nation of immigrants" motto is meaningless in practical terms. Except for open-borders utopians (a group that has grown over the years until now it seems to constitute a majority of the Democratic Party), everyone knows that we must have some limits on immigration. The statement, "we are a nation of immigrants," gives us no guidance on what those limits should be. Two hundred thousand immigrants per year? Two million? Why not twenty million—since we’re a nation of immigrants? The slogan also doesn’t tell us, once we have decided on overall numbers, what the criterion of selection shall be among the people who want to come here. Do we choose on the basis of family ties to recent immigrants? Language? Income? Nationality? Race? Victim status? First come first served? Willingness to work for a lower wage than Americans work for? The "nation of immigrants" slogan cannot help us choose among these criteria because it doesn’t state any good that is to be achieved by immigration. It simply produces a blind emotional bias in favor of more immigration rather than less, making rational discussion of the issue impossible.

To see the uselessness of the "nation of immigrants" formula as a source of political guidance, , imagine what the British would have said if they had adopted it in 1940 when they were facing an imminent invasion by Hitler’s Germany. "Look, old man, we’re a nation of immigrant/invaders. First the Celts took the land from the Neolithic peoples, then the Anglo-Saxons conquered and drove out the Celts, then the Normans invaded and subjugated the Anglo-Saxons. In between there were Danish invaders and settlers and Viking marauders as well. Since we ourselves are descended from invaders, who are we to oppose yet another invasion of this island? Being invaded by Germanic barbarians is our national tradition!"

Since every nation could be called a nation of immigrants (or a nation of invaders) if you go back far enough, consistent application of the principle that a nation of immigrants must be open to all future immigrants would require every country on earth to open its borders to whoever wanted to come. But only the United States and, to a lesser extent, a handful of other Western nations, are said to have this obligation. The rule of openness to immigrants turns out to be a double standard, aimed solely at America and the West.

It is also blatantly unfair to make the factoid that "we are all descended from immigrants" our sole guide to national policy, when there are so many other important and true facts about America that could also serve as guides. For example, throughout its history the United States has been a member of Western civilization—in religion overwhelmingly Christian (and mainly Protestant Christian), in race (until the post-1965 immigration) overwhelmingly white, in language English. Why shouldn’t those little historical facts be at least as important in determining our immigration policy as the pseudo-fact that we’re all "descended from immigrants?" But immigrant advocates are incapable of debating such questions, because there is no rational benefit for America that they seek through open immigration. Their aim is not to strengthen and preserve America; their aim is to demonstrate themselves to be good, non-racist people—by surrendering America to the immigrant invasion.

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Lawrence Auster is the author of Erasing America: The Politics of the Borderless Nation. He offers a traditionalist conservative perspective at View from the Right. This article is adapted from Mr. Auster's pamphlet, Huddled Clichés: Exposing the Fraudulent Arguments that Have Opened America’s Borders to the World.

“National Security” and Immigrants: the Hype and the Reality

Revolution #042, April 9, 2006, posted at revcom.us

Democratic and Republican politicians alike claim that the borders of this country are “broken” and that this threatens U.S. “national security.” The liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy's immigration bill was officially titled the “Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.” At the more extreme end of things, fanatic leader of the anti-immigrant movement and Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo tries to fan fear with statements like “[Undocumented immigrants] need to be found before it is too late. They're coming here to kill you, and you, and me, and my grandchildren.” (Quoted in the Boston Globe, 6/12/05)

In post-9/11 America, fascist measures like unrestricted government wiretapping and detention without charges have grown by leaps and bounds, justified in the name of protecting the “our safety” and “our security.” And the same justifications are being used to further intensify the militarization of the border and repressive steps against immigrants. This militarization and repression has real consequences in human lives. As immigrants have been forced to cross through increasingly remote and dangerous areas of the southern border in the past decade, thousands have perished in the deserts, mountains, and rivers.

There are sharp divisions at the top levels of the power structure over how best to protect “national security.” Those who are fucked over by this system—and all those who stand against injustice—can not get pulled into the terms and framework of “protecting national security.” To understand why, you have to first look at what those at the top—from Kennedy to Tancredo—mean when they say “national security.” They don't mean the safety of masses of people in this country. The U.S. imperialist ruling class has a global empire that exploits and oppresses people all over the world, including within the borders of the U.S. And when these oppressors talk of “our national security,” that is nothing more nor less than the military force that is used to fortify and expand this worldwide system of murder and plunder.

These imperialists dominate, exploit, and ruin whole countries—making it impossible for millions of peasant farmers in Mexico and Central America, for example, to live off the land. When these dispossessed make it into the U.S., they are shunted into the most back-breaking and low-paying jobs. The bloodsuckers who profit off of this human misery then turn around and use these very same immigrants as scapegoats, blaming the immigrants for problems created by the capitalist system itself and trying to sow divisions between immigrants and native-born people.

But at the same time, as Bob Avakian points out, “The imperialists see in such immigrants a source of instability and upheaval, a force weakening the internal cohesion of the home base and potentially undermining the power of the U.S. as an international overlord.” In this sense, for the imperialist rulers these immigrants are a potential threat to their “national security”—because they need a stable “homeland” as they defend and expand their global empire. And as part of the overall fascist moves in this country, the rulers are ramping up repressive measures against immigrants—and trying to get native-born people to go along with this by fanning fear about “broken borders” (as well as whipping up racist vigilante movements by openly and aggressively promoting the white, European, English-speaking identity of the American Nation). The masses of people in this country—immigrant and non-immigrant, of all nationalities—have no interest in defending this “national security.”

From the perspective of the proletariat, the immigrants and their inspiring struggle are a great source of strength—and potentially a vital force in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow U.S. imperialism and get this bloody monster off the backs of the people of the world.

http://rwor.org/a/042/national-security-immigrants.htm

PRE-September 11 Article & Views

U.S. Foreign Policy In Focus

A Project of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Interhemispheric Resource Center

In Focus: The Immigration Debate

Editors: Martha Honey (IPS) and Tom Barry (IRC)
Written by David Stoll, author of Is Latin America Turning Protestant? and Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala. An anthropologist, he is also interested in the labor implications of immigration.

Key Points

• In the immigration debate, free marketers square off against cultural conservatives on the right side of the political spectrum; while on the left, civil rights and ethnic advocacy groups oppose environmentalists and job protectionists.
• Until 1994 the debate over immigration focused on what the INS calls illegal aliens, particularly those slipping across the Mexican border, even though a larger number of undocumented residents arrived legally and overstayed their visas.
• Immigrants, documented and undocumented, are also the targets of populist backlashes like California's Proposition 187, which bars undocumented immigrants from basic social services.

Immigration into the U.S. is an issue that makes for strange bedfellows. Supporters of current immigration levels include corporate interests that profit from cheap foreign labor, ethnic lobbies seeking to increase their political base, and religious activists, humanitarians, and civil libertarians who focus on human rights and other ethical concerns. Opponents include nativists who view non-European immigrants as a threat to American culture, environmentalists who dread immigration-fueled population growth, and labor advocates who fear that immigration is taking jobs from U.S. citizens and depressing U.S. wages. On the right of the political spectrum, free marketers square off against cultural conservatives. On the left, civil rights and ethnic advocacy groups oppose environmentalists and job protectionists.

Current policy is a reaction to the Immigration Act of 1924, which reduced the number of immigration visas and allocated them on the basis of national origin. Since the quotas for each nationality were based on its proportion of the U.S. population, the system favored northern Europeans and discriminated against Asians. In the 1960s national quotas were finally abolished on equity grounds. Equal opportunity and family reunification became top priorities, opening the door to much larger flows from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia.

Refugees became a large immigrant category with mass arrivals from Cuba in the early 1960s and early 1980s, and from Southeast Asia in the 1970s after the collapse of U.S.-supported governments. Refugees fleeing communist-run countries were granted automatic acceptance until steadily rising flows from Vietnam and Cuba forced a halt to this practice.

To reduce economic incentives for illegal immigration, in 1986 Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) to punish employers who hire undocumented immigrants. In addition to authorizing employer sanctions, IRCA also granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants who had been residing continuously in the U.S. for several years. Immigrant rights groups decried discrimination against undocumented workers, while anti-immigrant groups complained that employer sanctions would be unenforceable and that new arrivals could easily receive amnesty by forging documents.

In 1996 the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) authorized 911,000 legal immigrants, including 595,000 for family reunification, 118,000 for their job skills, and 198,000 for humanitarian reasons and diversity. This represents a rise of almost 30% from the 1995 figure of 716,000. When illegal immigrants receiving amnesty are included, the 1996 total is around one million. In recent years, the largest group of legal immigrants have come from Asia (37%), followed by Mexico/the Caribbean/Central America (32%), and Europe (18%). About 150,000 people apply for political asylum annually, and the backlog of applications for political asylum stands at about 450,000.

Until 1994 the debate over immigration focused on what the INS calls illegal aliens, particularly those slipping across the Mexican border, even though a larger number of undocumented residents arrived legally and overstayed their visas. In response to rising political pressures, the INS launched high-profile campaigns such as Operation Blockade in El Paso and Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego. Blocking the most-frequented entry points, however, shifted immigration flows into isolated deserts and mountains where more border-crossers fall victim to robbers, rapists, and extreme weather conditions.

Immigrants, documented and undocumented, are also the targets of populist backlashes like California's Proposition 187, which bars undocumented immigrants from basic social services. Courts have barred implementation of Proposition 187, but other legislation at the federal and state levels is cutting off both legal and illegal immigrants from public welfare benefits. There are also proposals to end the traditional practice of granting automatic citizenship to anyone born in the U. S., regardless of the legal status of the parents.

Problems With Current U.S. Policy

Key Problems

• Stricter border controls have proved unable to stem illegal immigration flows, leading instead to rising human rights abuses and victimization of border-crossers.
• Immigration clearly contributes to a downward pressure on wage levels and to decreased job availability in certain economic sectors.
• Many refugees fleeing repressive governments and violent political situations find themselves rejected by Washington.

Immigration policy has to address a range of economic, humanitarian, and ethical issues. Central to the raging immigration debate are differing evaluations of the rights of immigrants to be with their families, to find haven from political persecution, to seek a better standard of living, etc. and the rights of native-born citizens (and their government) to determine who lives, works, and benefits from public services in their country.

Among the factors affecting these different assessments are a rising sense of economic and social insecurity in many U.S. communities, dependence of many economic sectors on immigrant labor (from childcare to agribusiness), an increasingly interconnected global economy characterized by the relatively free flow of capital and trade, and rising crime and drug trafficking in border states.

Current immigration policy is failing on numerous accounts. Stricter border controls have proved unable to stem illegal immigration flows, leading instead to rising human rights abuses and victimization of border-crossers. Immigration clearly contributes to a downward pressure on wage levels and to decreased job availability in certain economic sectors. Many refugees fleeing repressive governments and violent political situations find themselves rejected by Washington.

Economists tend to agree that immigration is a net benefit to the U.S. economy. Immigrants fill jobs that U.S. citizens often reject, help the U.S. economy maintain competitiveness in the global economy, and stimulate job creation in depressed neighborhoods. But net benefits for the economy can conceal serious losses for vulnerable sectors of the U.S. population. It is no secret that many employers ranging from suburbanites to small contractors to major corporations would rather hire foreigners who often work harder for less pay than U.S. citizens.

As such, immigration has long been a contentious labor issue. The infamous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was, among other things, a reaction to the importation of indentured laborers, who were paid far less than other workers. The immigration debates of the late 19th and early 20th centuries anticipated contemporary alliances between self-interested capitalists and open-door idealists on the one side, and nativists and protectionists on the other. One consequence of the Great Wave from 1880 to 1924 (with immigration averaging more than a half million annually) was that northern manufacturers relied on imported southern and eastern Europeans rather than hiring southern blacks.

Long employed in the agricultural sector, immigrants since the 1970s have become a major presence in other industries that have reorganized to take advantage of cheap labor and undermine union wage scales. A prominent example is the meatpacking industry, which has replaced U.S. workers with Mexicans and Southeast Asians at far lower pay. The chronic oversupply of labor from south of the border has kept farm wages low and obstructed successful labor organizing. The low-wage economy of border towns like El Paso is also partially explained by heavy immigration flows. El Paso, which has grown rapidly in macro terms, is for the most part a low-wage, labor-intensive treadmill with high unemployment, earnings a third lower than the national average, and twice the national poverty rate. Low-skill workers, particularly recent immigrants and blacks, are among the most common casualties of this process. But they are not the only ones. The 1990 expansion slots for high-skill immigrants have contributed to rising levels of unemployment in the U.S. for engineers, computer programmers, and Ph.Ds in technical fields.

Immigration also has implications for U.S. population growth, environmental protection, and the demand for new infrastructure. In the 1970s the U.S. population was approaching stability at less than 250 million around the year 2030. Currently, immigration (including new arrivals and their children) accounts for an increase of about 1.5 million more people a year, which represents more than half of total U.S. population growth. At current levels of immigration, the U.S. population will approach 400 million by the year 2050. If immigration is reduced to half the current level, the U.S. population would still approach 350 million by that year. Given the voracity with which U.S. residents consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources, the accelerated growth of this population is far more troubling than that of third world residents, who consume so much less.

Immigration's fiscal costs and contributions are hotly debated. Rice University economist Donald Huddle argues that, in 1994, legal and illegal immigration drained $51 billion more in social welfare and job displacement costs than immigrants paid in taxes. But according to the Urban Institute, immigrants contribute $25-30 billion more in taxes than they receive in services. Clearly immigrants are stressing the social infrastructure in some states. But cutting them off from hospital care, schooling, and assistance creates conditions of destitution that are even more costly to address apa= rt from the ethical issues such action poses.

Toward a New Foreign Policy

Key Recommendations

• First on the list of reform should be the current definition of family unification a policy that leads to chain immigration and should be restricted to spouses and children followed closely by a drastic reduction in job skills-based immigration.
• In humanitarian admissions, national preferences should be eliminated to admit everyone who can demonstrate that they are victims of individual persecution.
• Labor advocates and policymakers should give serious consideration to the national worker identification card. Backed by rigorous enforcement of labor laws, such cards would deflate the political pressure for militarizing the Mexican border.

The implications of the trends regarding immigrant rights are troubling. The lure of jobs, higher wages, and better living standards is drawing immigrants into situations where U.S. citizens increasingly perceive the protection of immigrant rights as undermining their own. This means that politicians can attract votes by promising to fortify the Mexican border, even if such measures only exact a higher price from border-crossers without significantly altering the flow.

The quandaries of policing borders have generated support for a national worker identity card. Including a photograph and perhaps a fingerprint, the national identity card would be much harder to falsify than current forms of documentation. If issued to legal residents, authorized temporary workers, and U.S. citizens, the card would enable enforcement of sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants. It would remove the main incentive for illegal immigration by rendering anyone who didn't have a card unemployable. Opposing the identity card is a broad alliance of liberals and conservatives, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Rifle Association, backed by employers who do not wish to see enforceable sanctions.

The jobs/benefits debate has highlighted the fact that the number of legal immigrants is three times the number of undocumented immigrants and that legal immigrants have a correspondingly greater impact hence the proposals in the 1996 Congress to slash legal immigration to as low as 235,000 a year. This figure would approach the level favored by those arguing for replacement level immigration (the same number as those leaving the U.S.). Proposals to reduce quotas were defeated in 1996, but legislation was approved to bolster the strength of the U.S. Border Patrol, expedite deportation proceedings, stiffen the penalties for document fraud, and hold sponsors financially responsible for immigrants who become public charges.

Immigrant labor is, of course, not the main reason for deteriorating wage levels, job opportunities, and labor conditions for U.S. workers. For example, corporations pit workers against each other by threatening to move production to lower-wage locations if their employees make demands. But if current immigration levels are indeed contributing to the transformation of the U.S. into a low-wage economy, then a new immigration policy is in order.

If the labor argument outlined in this policy brief withstands scrutiny, then first on the list of reforms should be the current definition of family unification a policy that leads to chain immigration and should be restricted to spouses and children. Following closely should be a drastic reduction in job skills-based immigration, most of which simply provides an opportunity for businesses to pay foreigners less than what they would have to pay current residents.

With respect to humanitarian admissions, national preferences should be eliminated to admit everyone who can demonstrate that they are victims of individualized persecution. To address illegal immigration, labor advocates and policymakers should give serious consideration to the national worker identification card. Backed by rigorous enforcement of labor laws, such cards would deflate the political pressure for militarizing the Mexican border. Such protections of the U.S. job market should, however, be accompanied by a foreign policy that contributes to broad-based development in low-income countries.

A new immigration policy should do the following:

• Stress ethical and humanitarian objectives by giving priority to refugees fleeing from persecution.
• Streamline and restructure provisional work programs that open the U.S. to temporary workers who take jobs that U.S. residents don't want, while guaranteeing the basic rights of these workers to organize and receive worker benefits such as unemployment compensation.
• Protect the most vulnerable economic sectors from an influx of low-wage competition.
• Lower legal immigration flows to sustainable levels.
• Protect the basic human rights of all U.S. residents, legal or not.