Immigration Watch International (2)

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

UK Govt Scrambles Extra Immigration Staff To Heathrow Amid Row

Government spending cuts in the U.K. have cast a pall over planning for the summer Olympics in one key respect: insufficient immigration officers at Heathrow airport confront arriving passengers with a gruelling ordeal.

Official figures show an average wait at all U.K. immigration checks now averages around 90 minutes. But Heathrow passengers have been reporting waits of two hours or even longer.

The government is now intervening to fix the problem before the world's busiest international airport will have to absorb the brunt of an estimated 600,000 overseas visitors coming to the U.K. for the July Olympic games. A key hub for travellers to and from Europe at any time, Heathrow already has been at the heart of a dispute between airlines and the government over a future strategy for U.K. aviation.

The U.K. government Tuesday scrambled to pull in extra immigration staff to the sprawling airport to cope with the throngs. This corrects staffing cuts by the U.K. Border Agency to comply with the government's broader austerity drive. The agency responsible for passport control at all ports of entry is being forced to reduce its budget by 20% by 2015 as part of the GBP79 billion in spending cuts the government is implementing to tackle the country's budget deficit. The Public and Commercial Services Union said the Border Agency has already cut 5,500 of 7,000 jobs it plans to eliminate.

The problems have been growing for weeks, but have reached a climax as celebrities, politicians and sports stars have tweeted about waits of up to two hours or more to get through immigration control at the airport.

Airlines and BAA, the operator of Heathrow, have joined the dispute, claiming it is damaging Britain's reputation as a tourist and business destination at a crucial time. The government was already at odds with airlines and business leaders after the previous government blocked plans by BAA to build a third runway.

As the government ramped up its response to the crisis, Immigration Minister Damian Green headed to Heathrow Tuesday to pledge extra staff, taken from other U.K. airports. The issue also has landed on the desk of Prime Minister David Cameron. "Clearly waiting for longer than 90 minutes at passport control is too long," a spokesman for Mr. Cameron said.

The PCSU union claims that the government needed a long-term solution to the problem that would extend beyond the Olympics.

"Drafting in staff from other areas of an already overstretched agency is like putting a sticking plaster on a serious injury, it will do nothing to stop the inevitable from happening," the union's General Secretary Mark Serwotka said. "Everyone can see that the government's obsession with austerity isn't working and that what UKBA needs is more staff, not more cuts."

The focus is now on whether airlines are prepared to help shoulder the additional costs of more customs officials to keep passengers booking through Heathrow.

Willie Walsh, the Chief Executive of International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. (IAG.LN), which owns both British Airways and Spain's Iberia airline, said the airline was prepared to contribute to the cost of employing more Immigration staff at Heathrow previously, but had been turned down. BA, as the biggest user of Heathrow, has been badly affected by the lengthening queues.

But other airlines, already facing increased U.K. passenger taxes and the costs of the European Union's carbon emissions trading scheme, said they were unwilling to contribute. "We would be strongly opposed to airlines being forced to pay for extra border staff. The government gets more than enough money from industry already," Virgin Atlantic said in a statement.

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1. Announcing two new CIS social networking sites

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CIS Testimony on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/CISTestimony

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Commentary:

2. So, Is Mexican Immigration Over? Report shows enforcement works. Let’s keep it up.

Media:

3. Jessica Vaughan discusses Immigration and Public Education on PBS

4. David North Discusses E-B5 Visas on FOX News

Blogs:

5. The Washington Post's Insult Artist, Part 1: Dana Milbank on Romney's Immigration Views

6. A Look Inside a USCIS 'Stakeholders Meeting'

7. Hill's Tourism Bill Likely Made Unnecessary by President Obama

8. Once Again, Washington Post Swallows the SPLC's 'Hate Group' Hype

9. Senators Waste Time on Chatter at DHS Oversight Hearing

10. National Guard Border Drawdown: The Administration's Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

11. The Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Arizona’s S.B. 1070

12. Understanding Illegal Aliens and Illegal Immigration

13. H-1 B Program Grace Notes

14. Turnabout Is Fair Play: A Spoof

15. Uncommon Common Sense: LAPD's Union Bucks the Brass

16. New York Times Op-Ed Argues Against Deportations of Illegal Alien Parents

17. Arizona Case Before Supreme Court This Week

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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.

Immigration Watch International (2)

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

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