Singapore crackdown gets results
Focusing on those likely to be sympathetic to illegals
The number of immigration offenders arrested continued its steady decline, as the number of overstayers and illegal immigrants caught last year fell.
However, attempts at smuggling in contraband items at the checkpoints reached a record high last year, according to numbers released by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) yesterday.
The number of illegal immigrants arrested fell 35 per cent from 1,430 in 2010 to 930 last year, while the number of overstayers registered a decline of 23 per cent, from 2,830 in 2010 to 2,180 last year.
Overall, the number of immigration offenders fell from 5,560 in 2009 to 3,110 last year.
The ICA said the number of immigration offenders arrested has been steadily declining since 2001, thanks to "thorough examinations and tightened security" at the checkpoints.
The number of vehicles seized for conveying immigration offenders has also generally been on a downward trend since 2001, and dropped by more than half from 18 in 2010 to seven last year.
Also down was the number of people caught harbouring and employing immigration offenders last year, dropping by almost half from 77 in 2010 to 40. Similarly, the number of employers arrested also fell from 26 in 2010 to 23 last year.
The ICA said it has adopted a more focused approach to reach out on harbouring, targeting housing agents, grassroots leaders, students as well as senior citizens.
SOURCE
Greece to build £2.5million six-mile razor wire wall to block worst illegal immigration route into Europe
The busiest crossing point for illegal immigrants into Europe is set to be blocked with a new £2.5million razor wire wall. Greek authorities plan to erect the six mile, 13ft high double fence, on an area bordering Turkey which sees an average of 245 people per day crossing illegally, the EU's border agency Frontex's figures show. And according to latest estimates, around 90 per cent of all illegal immigrants into the EU have come through Greece.
Once inside Europe's visa-free Schengen zone, people are free to travel unchecked through internal borders, and many travel on to the UK.
Greece has been warned that failure to step up border controls would leave the country at risk of being expelled from the Schengen zone.
Speaking to reporters while inaugurating a new police command centre on the border, Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis told reporters: 'This is an opportunity for us to send a clear message ... to all the EU, that Greece is fully compliant with its border commitments.' 'Traffickers should know that this route will be closed to them. Their life is about to get much harder.'
Papoutsis said work on the fence which will stretch between the villages of Kastanies and Nea Vyssa in the Evros border region, near the north eastern town of Orestiada, would begin next month. It should be linked to a network of fixed night-vision cameras providing real-time footage to the new command center.
Most of Greece's 125-mile border with Turkey is delineated by the Evros River - called the Meric River in Turkey - but the fence will cover a short stretch where the two countries are divided by land.
Greece is already receiving emergency assistance at the Evros border from the EU border protection agency, Frontex.
Despite police efforts to seal the border, illegal immigrants continued to walk across. Three men spotted walking across the frontier in torrential rain told The Associated Press that they had come from strife-torn Syria. 'We've been walking for seven days,' said one of the men, who only identified himself as Said, 24, but gave no other details. 'I'm trying to reach an uncle of mine who lives in Hungary.'
Mr Papoutsis' plans for a strengthened border have been controversial in the past with the European Commission critcising them as a 'short-term measure' that did not deal with the root of the problem. Last year he had said the wall was a necessary measure after more than 100,000 people illegally entered the Mediterranean nation in the previous 12 months.
He added: 'The Greek public has reached its limit in taking in illegal immigrants. We are absolutely determined on this issue. Greece can’t take it anymore.'
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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