Migrants 'must teach their children English', says Britain's PM
Migrant families have an obligation to teach their children English before they start school, David Cameron has said. And the Prime Minister pledged that he would bring forward tougher rules to ensure those arriving in the UK had a reasonable standard of English. One in six children do not speak English as their first language.
Ministers believe that children brought up here stand a better chance of succeeding if their parents have a good grasp of the language.
Mr Cameron spoke out after a Commons exchange with Yorkshire Tory MP Kris Hopkins, who said: ‘Sadly in Keighley, too many children start school and don’t speak English.’ He then asked Mr Cameron: ‘Do you agree with me that there is a responsibility and an obligation upon parents to make sure their children speak English?’
Mr Cameron replied: ‘I completely agree with you. The fact is, in too many cases this isn’t happening. ‘The last government did make some progress on making sure people learned English when they came to our country. I think we need to go further. If you look at the figures for the number of people who are brought over as husbands and wives, particularly from the Indian sub-continent, we should be putting in place – and we will be putting in place – tougher rules to make sure they do learn English so when they come, if they come, they can be more integrated into our country.’
A recent study by MigrationWatch found that children who speak English as their first language are in a minority in some inner-city London schools. Birmingham, Bradford and Leicester all have more than 40 per cent of pupils in primary schools who do not have English as a first language.
To date, the Government’s policies have focused upon marriage visas. Since September, those coming to Britain to marry UK citizens have been forced to sit pre-entry tests proving a basic level of English.
Lawyers argue that the tests, which apply only to those from non-English-speaking countries, are discriminatory, and breach human rights law. But Immigration Minister Damian Green argued that the English language requirement would allow for a ‘more cohesive society’.
SOURCE
Number of illegal immigrants in the United States steady
The number of illegal immigrants in the United States leveled off at around 11 million last year, ending a two-year slide since the start of the recession, according to a study released on Tuesday.
The study by the Pew Hispanic Center noted 11.2 million illegal immigrants living and working in the shadows in the United States in March 2010, virtually unchanged from a year earlier.
The report, which drew on U.S. Census Bureau data, noted the number of illegal immigrants in the workforce remained steady at around 8 million.
The leveling off last year followed a two-year slide in the population to 11.1 million in 2009 from a peak of 12 million in 2007, at the start of the U.S. recession. "What we have seen in the past is that the flow of unauthorized immigrants, particularly from Mexico, has been very closely tied to the state of the U.S. economy," senior demographer Jeffrey S. Passel told Reuters. "We've seen large drops in the inflows when the U.S. went into a recession, and large increases when the U.S. economy was booming," he added.
The study found the decline in the number of illegal immigrants has been especially marked in Colorado, Florida, New York and Virginia -- which had previously noted growth in their unauthorized population -- as well as in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
Passel said factors including a struggling local economy, together with local initiatives to crack down on illegal immigrants, likely contributed to the decline. "We can point to the economy as perhaps the principal factor ... (although) Arizona and Virginia also passed restrictive legislation to limit undocumented immigration," he said.
SOURCE
Background
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
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