Immigration Watch International (2): Immigration Roundup: Three Encouraging Little Items as the Year Ends

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Immigration Roundup: Three Encouraging Little Items as the Year Ends

Three totally unconnected bits of good news have emerged as the year ends for those of us who do not want totally unlimited migration. They came from aviation authorities in France, a federal judge in Florida, and USCIS.

The most surprising to me carries the dateline of Vatry, France, some 75 miles east of Paris near the WWI battlefields of the Marne. There is a minor international airport there and French authorities stopped and turned around a chartered plane with a suspicious flight plan: India to France to Nicaragua.

There were 303 passengers, all of whom the French decided were on their way to a legal entrance to Nicaragua, and then seeking a less legal trip to the U.S. Of that number 27 stayed in France, seeking asylum in some cases, and the rest were sent back to India.

This is a useful precedent and parallels an earlier move by the government of Haiti. Were other nations to take similar moves it would lower the pressures against our southern border.

The second bit of good news comes from Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has been pressing his state legislature to restrict illegal migration. One of the governor’s initiatives was challenged in the federal courts, and we learn from Law360.com that:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can't be sued over a state law criminalizing the transport of unauthorized immigrants, a federal court ruled, saying the bill's critics hadn't shown that the governor was personally responsible for enforcing the law.

The judge’s rationale may be odd, but a win is a win.

Our third tidbit comes from USCIS itself, which has decided to raise the fees on five different kinds of priority processing by about 12 percent. Raising the cost of this process, will, to some extent:

reduce the use of these quicker visas for the well-connected; and

make it more likely that the aliens using this system will pay the full cost of processing, rather than have it underwritten by tax dollars.

Given the complexity of the immigration system, you might expect a complex menu or price list, and you would be right. The base prices to be raised are: $1,500, $1,750, and $2,500 for each of the price groups (some immigrant, some nonimmigrant.) Within those groups are 42 different visas. See the full menu here.

Most of these fees being increased are for skilled workers, but the list also includes H-2B nonskilled, non-ag workers; R-1 religious workers; and P-visa-holding baseball players.

It will be nice to see MLB, a citadel of ultra-prosperity, paying Uncle Sam an extra 12 percent. It is also a reminder that in baseball, that most American of sports, baseball owners can – and do – bring in foreign players to displace American ones.

https://cis.org/North/Immigration-Roundup-Three-Encouraging-Little-Items-Year-Ends

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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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, January 3, 2024

Immigration Roundup: Three Encouraging Little Items as the Year Ends

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