Illegals headed for Australia to be diverted to Malaysia

This deal is a shocker. Another 4,000 useless Muslims to be added to Australia's welfare rolls. And it will probably be more than that. If the refugee status of the illegals is to be assessed by U.N. officials rather than Australian officials, there are not going to be many rejections. Let's hope the bleeding hearts knock this idea on the head. Both the Greens and the conservatives are opposing the deal so it could well die. The Greens are the tail that wags the dog in the Australian government

ASYLUM seekers relocated to Malaysia could be abused, with reports of canings in immigration centres. The move to trade asylum seekers between the Australia and Malaysia is likely to come under fire from human rights groups.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that Australia and Malaysia were close to signing off on an agreement which would see 800 asylum seekers who try to make their way to Australia by sea instead taken immediately to Malaysia for processing.

In return, Australia would expand its humanitarian intake to resettle an extra 4000 genuine refugees already residing in Malaysia over four years.

But asylum seekers sent to Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN Refugees Convention, may receive rougher justice than in Australia. Figures out of Kuala Lumpur show that over the past five years almost 30,000 foreigners had been subject to caning by Malaysian authorities for immigration offences.

While most countries have abolished judicial caning, Malaysia has expanded the practice with the number of offences covered by the punishment having been increased to more than 60. In March, Malaysia's Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, admitted in parliament that 29,759 foreigners had been caned between 2005 and 2010 for immigration offences alone.

An Amnesty International investigation into 57 cases of judicial caning in Malaysia, published in December, found the punishment could be classified as torture as authorities had intentionally inflicted severe pain and suffering. The human rights organisation said tens of thousands of refugees and migrant workers had been caned since 2002, when Malaysia amended the Immigration Act to make immigration violations such as illegal entry subject to the punishment.

Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young also pointed out that Malaysia was not a signatory to the UN Refugees Convention and asylum seekers taken there could be subjected to abuse. "There have been deaths of people in incarceration, while health conditions, particularly for children and their families, are horrid," she said.

Meanwhile, Ms Gillard said the arrangement with Malaysia was part of building a regional approach to combating people smuggling. "From the time that the agreement comes into effect, 800 people seeking to come to Australia by boat, hoping to have their claims processed in Australia, hoping to end up resettled in Australia, will be taken to Malaysia instead," she said.

Asylum seekers transferred to Malaysia would have their claims assessed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees but would not receive any preferential treatment in terms of processing their claims.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said he expected the deal, which had been negotiated with the Malaysian government over the last seven months, to be finalised in coming weeks. The arrangement would add an additional 4000 places to Australia's humanitarian intake over four years.

In October last year, Australia provided Malaysia with $1 million worth of equipment, including patrol boats, to help combat people smuggling.

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U.S. Warns Schools Against Checking Immigration Status

The Education Dept. has issued some dubious interpretations of the law recently and this may be another

Federal officials issued a memorandum to the nation’s school districts on Friday saying it was against the law for education officials to seek information that might reveal the immigration status of children applying for enrollment.

Civil liberties advocates and others have complained in recent months that many school districts are seeking children’s immigration papers as a prerequisite for enrollment. Some state and local officials have also considered bills to require prospective students to reveal their citizenship or immigration status.

“We have become aware of student enrollment practices that may chill or discourage the participation, or lead to the exclusion, of students based on their or their parents’ or guardians’ actual or perceived citizenship or immigration status,” said the memo, from Justice and Education Department officials. “These practices contravene federal law.”

The letter cited a 1982 Supreme Court decision that recognized the right of all children, regardless of immigration status, to attend public school as long as they met the age and residency requirements set by state law.

“The undocumented or noncitizen status of a student (or his or her parent or guardian) is irrelevant to that student’s entitlement to an elementary and secondary public school education,” said the memo, signed by Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the Justice Department; Russlynn H. Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department; and Charles P. Rose, that department’s general counsel.

Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said it was the first time her agency had issued guidance to school districts on the 1982 decision. The Education Department did not return calls seeking comment.

Civil liberties advocates, who had been asking President Obama’s administration to clarify the law, hailed the memo. “We’re gratified that the Department of Justice has seen fit to do the right thing, to clarify any ambiguities,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, calling the guidance “a really big deal.”

Last year, Ms. Lieberman’s group found that 139 districts in New York State — about 20 percent of the total — were requiring children’s immigration papers as a prerequisite to enrollment, or asking parents for information that only lawful immigrants could provide.

While the group did not find any cases in which children had been turned away for lack of immigration paperwork, it warned that the requirements could deter illegal immigrant families from enrolling children for fear that their status might be reported to federal authorities.

After months of pressure from the civil liberties group, the state’s Education Department sent school districts a memo strongly recommending that they not ask for information that might reveal the immigration status of enrolling students. State education officials in Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois and Nebraska have taken steps in recent years to halt similar practices, immigrant advocates said.

Despite the New York memo, some school districts there continued to press for the right to ask about immigration status, said Udi Ofer, advocacy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

In Arizona, state lawmakers have considered a bill that would require the state’s Education Department to determine the number of public school students who are unable to prove lawful presence in the United States, officials said. Last year, a legislative committee in Oklahoma favored a bill to require public schools to determine, at the time of enrollment, whether a child was born outside the United States.

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