France expels record number of illegal immigrants
President Nicolas Sarkozy's government has made a play for the anti-immigrant voters who may determine whether he wins a second term, saying today that France had booted out more illegal migrants in the past year than ever before.
Sarkozy's interior minister added that he wants thousands more expelled this year, along with fewer foreigners legally living in France. Anyone who wants to stay, he added, must shed the traditions that contradict French values.
The conservative president is unpopular and facing a tough challenge from the left and the resurgent far right in presidential elections to be held in April and May in an increasingly diverse France. Sarkozy hasn't formally declared his candidacy but is widely expected to run.
Interior minister Claude Gueant lauded the government's record, saying French authorities expelled 32,912 illegal immigrants in 2011, up 17.5 per cent from 2010.
"This result is 5,000 higher than the initial objective decided upon at the start of the year. It is the highest result ever achieved," he said. The government wants the figure to rise to 35,000 this year, he added.
Echoing one of Sarkozy's favoured themes, Gueant said immigrants must better integrate.
"We reject ... cloistered lives lived along ethnic and religious grounds, those that live by their own laws," Gueant told reporters. "The foreigners that we welcome here must integrate themselves. It is up to them to adapt to us, not the other way around."
The comment was in part a reference to France's ban on Islamic face veils, a 2010 law that supporters said defended women's freedoms, but critics said stigmatised millions of moderate Muslims.
France has western Europe's largest Muslim population, many with family ties to former French colonies in North Africa.
The majority of immigrants come to France legally, though the number of new arrivals is shrinking and Gueant wants to reduce it further. The number of residency permits issued last year shrank 3.6 per cent to 182,595, he said.
"We want to fight against illegal immigration and control the flow of normal immigration to France. What is at stake is the cohesion and the equilibrium of our society and our ability to maintain our tradition of welcoming them," Gueant said.
Sarkozy has championed strict policies on crime and illegal immigration -- ground where he is politically threatened by far right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.
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Must not speak the truth about "boat people"
"Boat people" are illegal immigrants, mostly Afghans and other poorly educated Muslims, who arrive in Australian waters by boat. They are immediatey imprisoned on arrival while their claims to be asylum seekers are assessed
SERCO, the company that runs immigration detention, has stood down an officer who posted Facebook comments saying Muslim children in detention did not deserve Christmas presents and male detainees taught their children it was acceptable to beat wives.
The Serco officer, who has direct contact with asylum seekers held at the Darwin Airport Lodge, posted the Facebook comments on Monday, after an incident in which Christmas presents for 200 children were not handed out by officers until 12 days after Christmas.
"A member of Serco Immigration Services staff has been suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation," a spokesman for the company said yesterday.
In the first Facebook comment, the officer wrote: "Sad for all the Christian kids! Not sure why Islamist (sic?) would want Christmas present."
A short time later he posted: "I don't know of any country in the world that you can enter illegally an be granted freedom immediately! No one abuses them, perhaps u forget the saying it takes two to tango. Maybe you need to come and face these men who teach their children that women have no rights. I guess you must think there is nothing wrong with domestic violence."
Victoria Martin-Iverson, a West Australian refugee advocate, saw the comments posted on Serco Watch, a Facebook page that monitors news about the multinational company that runs prisons in Britain as well as Australia's immigration detention network. The officer had boldly included his real name, which linked back to his own Facebook page that stated he was a Serco officer in Darwin.
"I thought they were pretty outrageous comments," Ms Martin-Iverson said. "What he essentially said is they are wife beaters. It is horrific and he is working directly with asylum seekers." She contacted the immigration department and the department's compliance division responded.
An immigration department spokeswoman said: "The department is aware of the incident. The detention services provider is investigating the matter as they are required to do under the terms of their contract."
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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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