Finland Aids in Aliens' Self-Deportation

When Gov. Mitt Romney suggested that illegal aliens would "sell-deport," many in the media and in pro-illegal alien and amnesty groups laughed and dismissed the idea.  However, the government of Finland has moved swiftly to introduce legislation that allows Helsinki to assist immigrants -- illegal aliens, failed asylum seekers, et al. -- who wish to voluntarily return to their home nations.

Currently, such voluntary repatriations are spearheaded by non-governmental organizations such as the Interional Organization for Migration and international bodies such as the EU.  These joint efforts have seen over 1,000 people voluntarily leave Finland -- self deport, in other words -- between January 2010 and July 2013.  While these numbers are not huge, Finland, with a population of 5.4 million, sees the benefit of this program and wants to let the national government help in the process.  Newly-appointed Interior Minister Jaana Vuorio said:

    "In Finland we often think that there may be illegal immigrants and that the police could deport then. But it is also the case that there has been an increase in the number of residence permit denials. On the other hand the idea is that a voluntary return is always better since the individuals themselves are committed to returning."

The Finnish government, as well as the EU as a whole, sees voluntary repatriation as a more humane way of removing non-legal immigrants from a country. Unfortunately, many in the United States still see this method as too barbaric a method to be carried out

SOURCE





Congresscritters facing opposition at town-halls, and in primaries!

ANNE MANETAS

More than half way through the Congressional recess, good news continues to emerge indicating that Senate-style comprehensive amnesty legislation won't gain any traction in the House of Representatives. As you may recall, key House Republican leaders already announced the anti-American worker Senate bill is unconstitutional so it is unlikely to get a House vote.

House Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) made some strong statements during TownHall events in his district and on radio this week against a comprehensive amnesty bill and amnesty in general. The Washington Post lamented Chairman Goodlatte's comments may indicate there is no future for amnesty in the House (see below). Perhaps Chairman Goodlatte is feeling some of the same heat his colleagues across the country have been feeling at TownHalls this month.

As Melanie reports in her blog, NumbersUSA activists have attended more than 200 TownHall and other events during the August recess to express their opposition to amnesty and immigration increases. These are constituents seeing their own Congressman and not a case of busing people in from the outside or staging political theatre as the other side has done so often.

If constituent pressure during the Congressional recess isn't enough evidence that support for the Senate amnesty bill is a political miscalculation, Members of Congress may be cautioned by the recently announced primary challengers to two of the Senate's most ardent amnesty supporters.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Gang of Eight and chief spokesperson for the Senate amnesty, now faces three primary challenges and likely a fourth. As well, a primary challenger to Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander was announced last week. Citing Sen. Alexander's support for the Senate amnesty, his primary challenger is making the case that Sen. Alexander is out of touch with the desires of most Tennesseans.

Advocates for the Senate immigration bill have a tough sell and their job isn't getting any easier. Trying to convince a public whose chief concern is jobs to support a bill that would increase permanent work permits for new immigrant workers from 10 million over the next decade to 20 million is a tough job and you're not making it any easier! There's no recess for hardworking citizen-activists like yourself.

SOURCE

In New Interview, Liberal Voice Laments Mass Immigration's Inequitable Impact on the Labor Market

An internationally recognized authority on immigration policy and a Fellow of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Mr. David North, argues in a new video that the United States immigration policy is "tilted against the people at the bottom of the American labor market."

The Democrats' tendency towards "third world identification, ethnic identification, and political gratification" contributes in part to poor immigration policy, leading to inequities in the labor market. "The American dream of doing better than the earlier generation is not happening now because wages have stagnated at a deplorably low rate supported by the continued flow of illegal and legal temporary immigrants," noted North, who was a political appointee in both the JFK and LBJ Administrations and has been studying labor and migration matters for 50 years.

North suggests more vigorous enforcement of immigration laws in the interior of the United States to decrease the flow of illegal immigrants into the country and to increase the flow out. "Until the illegal population is down to a reasonable number, I do not think 11 million is a reasonable number.we should not be doing anything else."

View Mr. North's interview at: http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews/David-North

View the CIS interview series at: http://cis.org/Videos/ImmigrationPolicyInterviews

Among the points made by Mr. North:

1. High Skilled Immigration's Effect on Labor Market

Silicon Valley is replicating the agri-business scenario. Employers are bringing in a large number of docile foreign workers to do what employers want done at a depressed wage, distorting the labor market for the worse and discouraging American workers.

2. The Effects of Continued Mass Immigration

The combination of bringing in a large number of temporary foreign workers and illegal immigrants with little education and not enforcing immigration laws increases the labor force on the bottom end of the scale, causing decreased wages and deteriorating working conditions.

3. Employers and worksite enforcement

Employers exert political pressure to avoid worksite enforcement and keep immigration policy tilted in favor of employers and against the rest of us. If illegal immigrants are discouraged to work, wages would increase and working conditions might have to be improved.

4. The 1986 IRCA and Current Reform Efforts

The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act legalized nearly three million illegal immigrants and promised enforcement of laws to prevent the future flow of illegal immigrants. Given the failure of the enforcement component, more vigorous enforcement of our laws in the interior of the United States is needed to encourage people here illegally to leave before any large scale legalization is considered.

5. The Winners and Losers of Immigration Policy

Our immigration policy is tilted towards the winners in life, the people and the corporations who have assets and power. Employers have created the idea that there is a labor shortage allowing them to bring in workers from overseas. In reality, offering better wages or better conditions would allow them to tap into the millions of unemployed.

View a new CIS series analyzing the House of Representatives bill, H.R. 2278, at: http://cis.org/SAFE-Act

View the Senate bill, CIS Senate testimony and commentary at: http://cis.org/Border-Security-Economic-Opportunity-Immigration-Modernization-Act

The above is a press release from from Center for Immigration Studies. 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820,  Washington, DC 20005, (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076.  Email: center@cis.org. Contact: Marguerite Telford, 202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org.  The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United States.  The Center for Immigration Studies is not affiliated with any other organization





The RNC Chair's Horrific Open-Borders Pandering

By Michelle Malkin

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus had a message last week for outspoken conservatives who support strict immigration enforcement policies: Shut up.

Yes, the head of the RNC is more concerned about protecting the party's Hispanic vote-pandering campaign than protecting law-abiding citizens from the devastating consequences of illegal immigration.

At the RNC's annual summer meeting in Boston, Priebus complained that openly advocating self-deportation policies during last year's election season was "horrific" and that rule-of-law rhetoric "hurts us." Yes, really.

So is it OK to discuss during off-year election cycles? Leap years? Weekends? Holidays? Can the GOP sensitivity police let us in on their approved immigration discussion calendar?

Priebus has yet to explain what exactly is "horrific" about telling foreign rule-breakers that they shouldn't wait for the government to eject them, and that the right thing for them to do would be to abide by our laws and go home on their own. This is an exceedingly and ridiculously polite policy suggestion, given how most other countries treat illegal line-jumpers, border-crossers, visa overstayers and deportation fugitives.

But Priebus treats the idea as if it were an international human rights violation.

Tellingly, the RNC chair has no response to the families of all races, classes and creeds who have raised their voices against America's perilous deportation abyss, systematic non-enforcement and coddling of illegal alien DREAMers who have wreaked violence and havoc on their lives.

The relatives of murdered Los Angeles teen Jamiel Shaw posed a question to Priebus on Twitter after the RNC chair's remarks at the GOP event last week touting minority outreach and diversity: "How many Americans Have U Talked To Whose Kids were Killed by illegals?"

Priebus has not answered.

As I first reported in 2008, 17-year-old Jamiel was gunned down by 19-year-old illegal alien Mexican gang member Pedro Espinoza. Young Espinoza was smuggled into the U.S. illegally when he was a toddler, just like all of the DREAMers the open-borders propagandists are always extolling in sweeping terms.

One day after he was released from jail for serving time for assault with a deadly weapon, this known illegal alien gang-banger was back on the streets. The feds failed to deport him. Local authorities failed to detain him.

Espinoza celebrated his freedom by shooting star student athlete Jamiel execution-style in the head for carrying a red Spider-Man backpack, which the Latino 18th Street Gang thug mistook for gang colors. Jamiel's mother, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, had to travel home from serving in Iraq on her second tour of duty to join her family in burying her son.

Illegal alien teen killer Espinoza was sentenced to death last fall. Grieving parents Anita and Jamiel Sr. and their loved ones have valiantly kept Jamiel's memory alive by supporting efforts to repeal dangerous illegal alien sanctuary laws, spotlighting lapses in detention and deportation policy, calling attention to violent illegal alien gangs targeting blacks in L.A, and opposing reckless bipartisan amnesty proposals.

As Mr. Shaw told Breitbart's Matthew Boyle: "Just because you were brought here under no fault of your own doesn't mean you give amnesty to everybody." Amen. And instead of phony promises of enforcement later for blanket amnesty now, we need immediate reform of our bloodstained, loophole-ridden, under-funded and systemically sabotaged criminal alien detention and deportation system. Pronto.

Jamiel Shaw's family members are vigilant community organizers against illegal immigration. But their activism will never be hailed by Hollywood, The New York Times op-ed page, the White House or the RNC's elitist open-borders outreach panderers. Mr. Shaw, who testified at a House GOP panel hearing on the horrific consequences of our failed deportation policies earlier this summer, warns astutely that Republicans are "up to something" as they prepare to cut deals with open-borders Democrats in conference.

I think he's right. I also believe it's no coincidence that the RNC is now publicly marginalizing those who dare to challenge the rose-colored DREAMer propaganda of McCain-Graham-Rubio-Ryan-Mark Zuckerberg-La Raza - just as the forces of Amnesty Incorporated conspire behind closed doors.

Question: Why won't Priebus acknowledge the horrific suffering of the Shaws and countless other families who have been harmed by illegal alien nightmares? The political timing is inconveeeenient. Innocent lives be damned.

SOURCE

STEM Visas Should Be No-Brainer In Immigration Debate

Although the conversation on immigration reform tends to unfold in terms of border security, enforcement of laws, and pathways to citizenship – there is one critical aspect this debate that has failed to break through all of the other noise. Immigration reform could help the economy grow--if done the right way.

Instead of getting bogged down in negotiations about amnesty and its various forms, conservatives should drive the conversation toward STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and H1-B visas. These visas can help bring the world’s best and brightest to America--the kind of people who will start businesses, buy homes, pay taxes, and contribute to society.

Conservatives can take a solutions-oriented lead in driving economic growth in America’s high-tech sector by pushing through Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) Skills Visa Act independent of other legislation. The bill would make more H1-B visas available to foreign graduates of U.S. universities with advanced STEM degrees who are already in America, allowing us to capitalize on the investment we have made in educating these young people. By bringing this legislation to an immediate floor vote and pressuring the Senate to do the same, House Republicans can set the narrative on the immigration debate.

At a briefing on immigration reform at Microsoft’s offices in Washington, DC, this week, some of the brightest minds in the conservative movement discussed the tricky intersection between technology, immigration, economic growth, and electoral politics.

Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative think tank American Action Forum, presented on the potential economic benefits of immigration reform. With birth rates in America slipping toward the low levels of continental Europe, we are increasingly reliant on immigrants to keep our population--and accordingly, our labor force, GDP, and economy--from declining.

Holtz-Eakin cautioned, however, that immigration reform must be designed to attract more skilled immigrants looking for work. Among the industrialized nations, the U.S. grants comparatively few visas for economic reasons and by far the most visas for family reunification reasons. For immigration reform to work, he argued, America should follow nations like the U.K. in prioritizing work visas for immigrants with specialized knowledge.

Nowhere is this specialized knowledge more needed than in the STEM fields, where despite the Obama economy’s high unemployment, there are more jobs available than qualified applicants.

According to BLS statistics, the economy creates 3 jobs requiring a B.S. in computer science for every one college student graduating with a B.S. in computer science. These fields represent an opportunity for the brightest tech minds of the world to help jumpstart our economy here in America.

Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the CATO Institute, remarked that the system that many of our ancestors used to enter the country in the early 20th century no longer exists. Finding a modern-day answer to Ellis Island could help streamline legal immigration and fix our broken system.

Immigration reform also represents a ticking time bomb for the Republican Party. Whit Ayres, director of Resurgent Republic, showed charts detailing the decreasing percentage of whites in the electorate, and the Hispanic community’s increasing preference for Democrats. With non-Hispanic whites expected to become a minority of the population by 2040 and the Hispanic population’s continued growth, Republicans simply must make inroads with nonwhite immigrants to remain a national party.

On this point, it was encouraging to hear Dr. Barret Duke of The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention talk about his efforts to engage his membership in the immigration debate, and discuss the importance of the evangelical community’s support to the success of broad immigration reform.

STEM visas may not be a “magic bullet” to drive minority voters to the GOP, but they represent a facet of immigration reform that conservatives can embrace. The panelists at this event explained the multitude of reasons why these visas are good, conservative policy, and by promoting a plan to reform immigration based around STEM, Republicans can show the nonwhite community that they are serious about reaching out and welcoming them into the party.

SOURCE






Australian conservative leader takes a tough line on illegal immigrants

Says they will NEVER be granted citizenship

The Coalition has ramped up its hardline stance on refugees, announcing on Friday that almost 32,000 asylum seekers who have already arrived in Australia by boat will never get permanent settlement as well as stripping them of the right to appeal to the courts.

The Coalition would also introduce indefinite work-for-the-dole obligations for those found to be refugees.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott channelled former prime minister John Howard from 2001 when announcing the change to the policy in Melbourne.  "The essential point is, this is our country and we determine who comes here," Mr Abbott said. 

In 2001, Mr Howard, in the wake of the Tampa stand-off, made a speech at the Coalition's election campaign launch and declared: "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."

The crackdown on asylum seekers already in Australia has outraged the Greens and refugee advocates, with Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young likening it to an "arms race on who can be the cruelest".

As part of the toughened policy, a Coalition government will scrap the right of asylum seekers to appeal to the courts, which in the March quarter brought the number of asylum seekers who were granted refugee status from 65.3 per cent to more than 90 per cent.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the Coalition would return to a "non-statutory" process, in which a single caseworker would decide the fate of asylum seekers.

According to Department of Immigration figures compiled last Friday, 31,986 asylum seekers are either in the community on bridging visas, in community detention, in mainland detention centres or on Manus Island and Nauru.

Mr Morrison and Mr Abbott said on Friday that a Coalition government would deny them the right to ever settle in Australia, creating a crucial point of difference between the two parties, now united on stopping the boats.

"The key points of difference are that Labor would give them permanent visas, but we'll give them temporary visas," Mr Morrison said.

He also flagged tough new rules for assessing the refugee claims of those who arrive by boat without documentation, despite it not being illegal to claim asylum in Australia without papers.

Evoking Howard

The Coalition Leader said he wanted to get back to the "effectiveness" of border protection that operated during the Howard years.

During the last five years of the Howard government, there were on average, three boats a year, he said.

"I will regard myself as having succeeded very well if we can get back to a situation of having three boats a year," he said, adding that the "ideal" would be zero boats.

Mr Abbott said that he was "confident" that the Coalition would reach the three-boats-per-year level by the time it was "well into" a first term of government.

Mr Abbott praised Mr Morrison, saying he had showed "tremendous strength" and "a touch of compassion" in the shadow immigration portfolio.

Mr Morrison said he wanted to end the "tick and flick" approach of Labor, "which is seeing nine out of 10 peopl

SOURCE

Immigration or Invasion?

What we insist on calling “immigration” from the Third World to Western European countries like Britain is a historically new phenomenon, for which a case can be made that other, more appropriate terms should be used — like “colonization” and “invasion.”

The definition of “colony,” from which the word “colonization” is derived, is: a) a body of people living in a new territory but maintaining ties with their homeland or b) a number of people coming from the same country, sharing the same ethnic origin or speaking the same language, who reside in a foreign country or city, or a particular section of it.

Either could apply to the people coming to live in Europe from Asia and Africa.

In reference to colonization, dictionaries add “relating to the developing world,” but this is only because colonization primarily occurred there in the past. Word meanings have to change to adapt to the new historic realities.

Similarly, the expressions “native” and “indigenous” previously referred to the original inhabitants of non-European continents, whereas now they are used to describe Germans, French, British, Swedes, Dutch and so on.

“Invasion” has three main meanings: a) the act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer; b) a large-scale onset of something injurious or harmful, such as a disease; c) an intrusion or encroachment, an incursion by a large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity.

The latter is a perfectly apt description of what is happening in Western Europe.

Even “ethnic cleansing” could be used, since local populations are being replaced by different ethnic groups. London, for instance, is no longer a white-British-majority city, although mainstream media like the BBC and London’s own paper, the Evening Standard, barely mention it, to say nothing of the city mayor Boris Johnson.

From Wikipedia:

    "The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group.”

    [...]

    Terry Martin has defined ethnic cleansing as “the forcible removal of an ethnically defined population from a given territory” and as “occupying the central part of a continuum between genocide on one end and nonviolent pressured ethnic emigration on the other end.”

European native populations are being replaced because many locals, tired of being colonized, flee their countries, cities or neighborhoods.

The proportion of white British Londoners fell drastically from 60 percent in 2001 to 44.9 per cent in 2011, partly due to the arrival of so many foreign nationals and partly to a mass exodus of white Britons. David Goodhart, director of Demos, writes in The Financial Times:

    "Over the decade between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, the number of white British Londoners fell by more than 600,000 (17 per cent). That is about three times the fall over the previous census period, 1991 to 2001.

    “Most of the leading academic geographers did not expect London to become a majority minority city for another 20 or 30 years – they underestimated the extent to which white British people have opted to leave an increasingly diverse London,” says Eric Kaufmann, an academic at Birkbeck College who is leading a project on “white flight” at Demos, the think-tank I lead."

Six hundred thousand is a big city disappearing in just 10 years.

Are we sure that Londoners have abandoned their city because of this “cultural enrichment”? Looking at the areas where white flight mostly occurs provides reasonable evidence that they do: the most multi-racial districts tend to experience high levels of it.

What the large-scale influx of foreigners to Europe can no longer be called is “immigration.” Immigration is what you have when, for example, small groups of French go to live in Britain or the British in Spain.

What distinguishes invasion from immigration are three things: the volume of people involved in the movement, the span of time and frequency of these movements — the same number of people moving to live in a country over 4 years as opposed to 400 years — and the kind of people, in particular how similar or alien to the natives they are, and how easily or improbably they’ll integrate.

The sheer numbers of people who have come to live in the UK in the last few decades have negatively affected the indigenous population’s quality of life in a serious, profound way, even assuming that those people were all law-abiding, upright citizens, which they are not.

There are many areas where this is occurring, including jobs, social services, education and public health – with tuberculosis constantly rising largely due to immigration.

A classic example is the current housing shortage. The UK is suffering its worst housing crisis in modern history. Two or more household units cram into one dwelling, and young people, not being able to afford to move out, live with their parents.

It would be trivializing the issue to say that all housing problems are created by immigration, but it’s impossible to deny the obvious fact they are exacerbating it.

There are other factors contributing to the housing crisis, including the very low interest rates, which result in fewer forced sellers, and the welfare system that, by underwriting sometimes exorbitant rent bills for people who’ve never worked, indirectly encourage landlords to charge more, thus driving up both rental and purchase prices for those who do work.

But one of the main causes is the high number of immigrants increasing the demand for dwellings, while the supply remains low, therefore pushing up house buying and renting prices.

Liberal commentators say that there is no evidence for that, but the evidence is in the most self-explanatory statistics: the more people are in the country, the more properties are needed.

Most immigrants rent, rather than buy, a property in the first 5-10 years since their arrival, which inevitably increases rental prices for everyone, including the indigenous people.

Social housing is also in limited supply. Therefore, the immigrant population that takes a share of it deprives the natives. The percentages are roughly the same: 17 percent of British live in council-rented accommodations, 18 percent of foreigners do.

Leftists and charities would want the government to “build more affordable housing” and “enough homes to meet demand” rather than limit immigration, although it’s difficult to see why the government should act like a construction company in preference to a body that protects and defends the country’s borders.




Recent posts at CIS  below

See  here for the blog.  The CIS main page is here. 

Blogs

1. A Mexican Actor's View of Hollywood's Projection of Illegal Immigration to 2154

2. That Handsome Illegal Wanting to Be a Marine - Tell It to the President!

3. RNC Head: U.S. Sovereignty "Horrific", Doesn't Have "Anything to Do with Our Party"

4. Media Misleads on True Nature of H-1Bs

5. Would U.S. Gain Financially if Illegals Joined the Tax System?

6. Mark Zuckerberg's Clever Response to Steve King

7. President Obama's Immigration Sophistry: Part 2

8. Good Reason to Say "No" to Amnesty: It Helps South-of-Border Tyrants

9. Asylum Antics

10. President Obama's Immigration "Bipartisan" Sophistry: Part 1

11. A New Immigration Policy Maker — John Sandweg, Acting Head of ICE

12. Republican Establishment Swallows the Democrat Line on Immigration Reform - Hook, Line, and Sinker

13. A SAFE Ending

14. The GOP's Immigration Leverage: The Power of Options

15. Everything Ezra Klein Knows About Immigration Is Wrong

16. Four Levels of Immorality Within the Illegal Immigration Business

Australian Left  accused of demonising migrants

TONY Abbott has called on Kevin Rudd to distance himself from a $1 million union advertising crackdown on foreign workers, accusing the Prime Minister of demonising migrants who came to Australia through proper legal avenues.

The Opposition Leader said he was appalled at the stance taken by Mr Rudd on the issue, saying that 457 visa holders contributed to Australian society by working and paying taxes.

“Mr Rudd really should disassociate himself from this particular union campaign, particularly given one of the first things that he said on coming back into the Prime Ministership was `I'm sick of all the politics of division',” Mr Abbott said.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) will spend $1 million over the next two weeks in its advertising campaign to claim Mr Abbott wants to “massively expand” the temporary 457 visa program and put foreign workers first.

The campaign includes radio and billboard advertisements as well as television advertisements that began screening last night on free-to-air television networks in Tasmania and Queensland.

One of the ads features a worker who was among 106 redundant employees made to train 457 visa holders kept on by the employer.

Mr Abbott today said employers already had to meet requirement conditions to use foreign workers and that it was already more cost effective to source domestic workers to plug skills shortages.

“It's far more expensive to employ a 457 visa holder than it is to employ a local,” Mr Abbott said.”They aren't stealing our jobs, they are building our country.

“It appalls me, it really appalls me that the unions and Mr Rudd are running this campaign effectively to demonise the skilled migrants upon whose backs our country has been built.

“Just about every Australian is a migrant or a descendent of migrants and frankly we should be honouring and cherishing the contributions that migrants who've come to this country legally, the right way to join our team, have made.”

Mr Abbott made the comments in the western Sydney seat of Lindsay, where he released the Coalition's policy to crack down on gun imports.

Earlier, he was in the Sydney electorate of Bennelong to announce his small business policy.

Mr Rudd's first act after being returned to the prime ministership was to pass through the lower house Labor's contentious 457 visa legislation, placing more onerous requirements on employers.

The new restrictions include labour market testing provisions for employers, tougher monitoring of compliance by the Fair Work Ombudsman and strengthening the ability of the immigration department to prosecute wrongdoers.

It also includes a new dob-in hotline, allowing employees to report employers for unfairly treating foreign workers. It will also require businesses to allocate one to two per cent of payroll for training purposes for every year of the visa sponsorship.

The legislation was opposed by business and industry groups who pressed for evidence of rorts under the current regime.

SOURCE







Jealousy of LEGAL immigrants in West Australia

THE Irish are threatening to boycott WA over a Budget policy to impose $4000 public school fees for children of parents working here on 457 visas.

While some families look at moving interstate or overseas because they can't afford to pay up to $20,000 a year for five children, doctors warn the health system will suffer and principals fear some children simply won't go to school.

The decision to charge $4000 a child, announced in the State Budget this month, is being criticised internationally, making headlines in Dublin's The Irish Times this week.

Australian Medical Association WA president Richard Choong said he had received worrying feedback from Britain and Ireland and the fees would be a "game changer" for many overseas-trained GPs looking to move to WA on a 457 visa.

"This is one of the most negative policy decisions that I have seen for some years and one that will have a seriously negative impact on health in WA," he said. "We know from comments already made to us that this will encourage some GPs on 457 visas to leave WA for other states, or to move to another country.

"For others looking to come to WA from overseas it will mean a complete rethink of their plans. Not many will be able to carry a $4000 fee for the education of their children, especially if they have three or four children."

WA Primary Principals Association president Steve Breen said there was an incorrect assumption that 457 visa holders were highly skilled and therefore highly paid.

"For example, in Katanning there are a number of 457 workers in the abattoir  they will struggle to pay the $4000 per student to send their kids to school," he said. "There is a potential for these children to not come to school."

The latest report from the Immigration Department shows there are 6180 people from the UK working in WA on 457 visas, followed by 4070 from Ireland, 3130 from the Philippines and 1330 from the US.

Education Minister Peter Collier said he had received mixed feedback and the Government was working towards making more information available soon.

Irish Families in Perth president Eimear Beattie said families of up to five children were considering moving elsewhere.

"There is a lot of panic out there because a lot of people have got huge families," she said. "This will deter a lot of people from coming out here. A lot of people who want to come out here are now asking if it's even worth coming here on the 457 visa.

"A lot of the families already here are actually thinking of leaving the country altogether, or moving to another state, or going to private schools."

Mother-of-five Claire Calvey said her family, who moved to Paraburdoo last year after arriving on a 457 visa from Ireland, was considering a move to Canada. She is circulating a petition, which has almost 1000 signatures.

Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive James Pearson said the school fee threatened to "undermine the effectiveness of the 457 visa scheme for current visa holders and their employers".

Opposition education spokeswoman Sue Ellery said a parliamentary inquiry had recommended any school fees be means-tested. "I am concerned that this is going to create a hidden class of children who are not educated," she said.

Mr Collier said the details would be finalised "as soon as possible" but he was confident "that WA will continue to be an attractive working destination for people from overseas".
The number of children of 457 visa holders attending public schools has jumped from 290 in 2005 to 8600 this year.

SOURCE

More immigration puts public tolerance at a tipping point

IMMIGRATION – Ooh! You said a rude word… Not any more. The “I- word” has broken the sound barrier constructed by the Progressive Consensus.

The British public will no longer allow itself to be silenced by the political class on the topic that is now its greatest concern.

Future historians will be baffled to comprehend how the demographic revolution – or rather imposition – of the past half century was implemented. Since the engineering of population movement has always been the most controversial activity imaginable, normally provoking war, the apparent acquiescence of the British public, long known for its sturdy outspokenness and sense of identity, in the drastic reconfiguring of society will appear inexplicable. The obvious question will be: was the population initially favourable to immigration? Hardly. When Enoch Powell made his speech warning against uncontrolled immigration in 1968, the polls recorded 74 per cent of the public in agreement with him.

So, what happened? What happened was the emergence of guided democracy under a new liberal political coalition. The cross-party consensus had tested the water by abolishing capital punishment against the wishes of the public; that emboldened it to extend the dictatorship of the consensus by imposing immigration. Edward Heath’s sacking of Powell was an iconic moment in developing this system of soft totalitarianism. Free speech was eroded, nominally by a succession of “race relations” laws, effectively by the demonisation of all contradictory opinions. The BBC, the print media, modish “opinion formers” all conspired to stifle debate on an issue of critical national importance. To query unrestricted immigration was “racialist”, later modified to “racist”; ­society was induced to police itself.

Under New Labour the onslaught was intensified. As Andrew Neather, former speech writer to Tony Blair, revealed in 2009: “It didn’t just happen: the deliberate policy of ministers… was to open up the UK to mass migration… the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.” Again, historians will marvel at the frivolity of so irresponsible an approach to such an important issue. So far from rendering “the Right’s” arguments out of date, the migratory flood New Labour encouraged has brought them to the top of the political agenda. Under New Labour “net” immigration quadrupled as three million legal, and probably one million illegal, migrants entered Britain, while one million Britons left.

The weasel term “net” immigration is a favoured device of those whose interest it is to sweep immigration statistics under the carpet. The presumption is that the departures are homebound Polish plumbers; the reality is that many are native-born Britons, further aggravating the demographic imbalance. Today, 12 per cent of the population were born outside the UK; in 2011, 25.5 per cent of births in England and Wales were to mothers born overseas and in London the figure was 56.7 per cent. The lower figures for Scotland are seen as a reproach by Scottish ministers who avow their commitment to increase immigration. Send for the sanity inspector.

For decades, politicians were banned from discussing immigration: any attempt at debate was denounced as “playing the race card”. Bogus asylum seekers were awarded benefits and houses, allowed to indulge in endless spurious legal appeals at taxpayers’ expense and, when the last legal resort was exhausted, still not deported. As EU migrants became the focus of concern, the “racist” charge could hardly be sustained when those being objected to were white-skinned, so “xenophobic” was substituted in the liberal lexicon of knee-jerk abuse.

Now it has emerged that, even before next January’s open-doors deadline, there has already been a 35 per cent increase in immigration from Romania and Bulgaria since last April. To the dismay of the liberal consensus, the public is not dancing in the streets to celebrate this increase in diversity; instead, it looks like a tipping point in public tolerance, not just of immigration but of the political class. This is partly fuelled by awareness that there are already 2,400 Eastern European immigrants enriching our culture in venues such as Wormwood Scrubs, at an annual cost of £90m.

The politicians are making noises about controlling immigration; of course they will do nothing, beyond inanities such as sending out vans with posters advising illegal immigrants to return home. We would not even be talking about it but for the advent of Ukip, the first party to break the consensus and give the public a voice. Among Ukip voters, Europe is down at fifth place in their list of concerns: immigration and homosexual marriage share first place. Such unenlightened attitudes are enough to make a BBC executive on a six-figure salary choke. There is a bad time coming for the progressive consensus.

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Papua New Guinea is 100% behind asylum deal with Australia

PNG'S Prime Minister Peter O'Neill has confirmed his country's commitment to the asylum seeker deal agreed with the Rudd government.

Fairfax media reported on Saturday that Mr O'Neill had said his country had not agreed to settle all asylum seekers found to be genuine refugees after they were processed on Manus Island.

Mr O'Neill reportedly said Australia would need to take back a share of them.

"There is no agreement that all genuine refugees will be settled in PNG," he said.

The coalition and the Australian Greens seized on the report, saying it showed the deal was unravelling.

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the PNG government had confirmed its "100 per cent support" again on Saturday and he could guarantee that no person sent by a a people smuggler on a boat to Australia without a visa would be settled in Australia.

In a short statement released on Saturday night, Mr O'Neill said PNG reaffirmed its 100 per cent commitment to the agreement signed with Australia.

"People who are found to be refugees, identified through the process in collaboration with United Nation High Commission for Refugees will be settled in Papua New Guinea and other participating countries in the region," he said.

"They will not be returned to Australia under the agreement. PNG remains 100 per cent committed to the Regional Resettlement Agreement with Australia."

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Canada's Asylum Reform Reduces Claims by Half

Our northern neighbor shows that do-gooder aspects of immigration needn’t be masochistic self-flagellation for the receiving country. By contrast, the United States of Obama is currently doing a doormat imitation by its reaction to a new invasion gimmick of demanding asylum using just the right complaint phrase, namely that the pesticans have a “fear of persecution.” Mexicans et al are mouthing the correct words, even though their situation is one of high crime, not state oppression.

By that standard, Chicagoans could claim asylum in welcoming welfare havens like Sweden or Britain.

Canada has reasonably determined that not all nations are gulags of torture and cruelty. Claimants from genuine totalitarian states are therefore accorded more credibility than likely moochers.

Interestingly, the article below observes that a number of Mexicans have been admitted under the new rules. Some Mexes — specifically police officers, government officials and journalists who have opposed the cartels — might be allowed entry given the criteria of genuine individual danger. But that Canadian policy is entirely different than the surrender to invasion happening now in the US Southwest.

Michael Coren, of Canada’s SunTV, defended the new policy from accusations of it being mean-spirited from the usual open-borders suspects and diversity cultists.

Asylum claims down by more than half in 2013, Canada.com, August 12, 2013

OTTAWA — Little more than six months after the government first unveiled a list of so-called “safe” countries considered to be unlikely producers of refugees, the number of asylum claims has dropped dramatically.

In total, Canada received half as many asylum claims in the first half of this year as it did during the same period last year — 4,558 compared to 10,375.

Between January and June of this year, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) received just 104 claims from Hungary — once the chief producer of asylum seekers, many of them Roma, and a particular concern for the federal government which has argued many of them are illegitimate and merely abusing the system.

During the same period last year, Canada received 13 times as many claims from Hungary — 1,389 of them to be exact.

Meanwhile, 68 claims from Mexico — another mega producer of refugee claimants — were referred to the IRB during the first six months of this year. During the same period last year, Canada received 224.

“This is proof that our government’s reforms to Canada’s asylum system are working. We have seen a significant reduction in the number of claims from countries that have traditionally had high numbers of unfounded claims,” Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said in an email.

“This is good news, especially for genuine refugees whose cases are heard more quickly and benefit from Canada’s protection sooner.”

Between Dec. 15, 2012 and May 31, 2013, Canada added 37 nations to a designated country of origin list introduced as part of a massive refugee reform bill. Because Canada considers these countries to be respectful of human rights and more likely to offer state protection, claimants from these countries are treated differently. They now have their cases expedited, those who are denied refugee status have no right to appeal to the new Refugee Appeal Division and they are deported more quickly.

According to IRB figures, the 37 countries produced a total of 463 claims in the first six months of this year. For the same period last year, these countries produced 2,928 claims. The top producers of claims are now: China (374); Colombia (259); Pakistan (250); Syria (202) and Nigeria (178).

Canadian Council for Refugees executive director Janet Dench called the drop in asylum claims “shocking.”

“Focusing on how to reject people more quickly who don’t deserve protection . . . means also that you’re not giving enough time for some people who do need protection to make their case,” she said.

“Having fewer claims seems to be a goal of government when we would have thought saving more people’s lives would be something we should be happy about.”

Figures obtained by Postmedia News suggest the government is also getting close to meeting new timelines set for determining whether a claim from a designated country is valid or not. According to the IRB, it takes an average of 57 days to make such a determination. The government has vowed to get that down to 45 days.

That said, the board has exceeded expectations when it comes to non designated countries. New guidelines call for determinations to be made within 216 days. The IRB said it now takes, on average, just 86 days for a file to be processed. However, it still takes about 20 months to process older files received before the new rules took effect, according to the IRB.

The figures also don’t account for the time it takes to deport an unsuccessful claimant following a negative decision. However, the Canada Border Services Agency, which is responsible for removals, said it deported 6,345 failed refugee claimants between January and June 2013. The agency could not immediately say which countries the individuals were deported to.

Meanwhile, the IRB approved just a third of all asylum claims during the first six months of this year, a slight drop from 35 per cent during the same period last year.

Of the 1,178 Hungarian claims that were completed in the first six months of this year — a figure that includes both those who applied under the old refugee system and those who applied under the new, more rigid system — about 16 per cent were accepted, an improvement over the same period last year when just six per cent were accepted.

Of the 680 Mexican claims that were completed, 19 per cent were accepted compared to 15 per cent the previous year.

Dench said she’s disappointed to see acceptance rates continuing to drop. Up until 2010, she said, they typically stood over 40 per cent. Given all the restructuring at the IRB after the new refugee determination system was put in place, she expected new adjudicators would err on the side of caution. Instead, she argues, it appears they’ve bought in to the prevailing “negative” view of refugees as fraudsters and queue-jumpers. Between that and the government’s desire to clear cases quickly, she fears bona fide refugees are falling through the cracks as a result.

The fact that 183 Hungarians and 132 Mexicans were accepted as legitimate refugees, “tells us clearly that these are not safe countries,” she added.

“It just confirms how wrong it is for Canada to be labeling certain countries such as these as being safe.”

According to the figures, no other counties with a “safe” designation produced that many bona fide refugees this year. The next closest was Croatia with 28 accepted claims.

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Australian conservatives  will henceforth deny  settlement to illegals

THE Coalition's asylum seeker policy will take away the people smuggling model of permanant residency, deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop says.

"We will provide temporary residency, so should the situation in their home country improve, then they will be sent back to their home country to help rebuild that nation," Ms Bishop said on the Nine Network on Friday.

"It takes away the people smuggling model that they are selling and that is permanent residency."

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his immigration spokesman Scott Morrison will announce on Friday that almost 32,000 asylum seekers already in Australia after arriving by boat will never get permanent settlement, creating a crucial point of difference between the coalition and Labor, Fairfax reported.

Ms Bishop said asylum seekers would also have work rights under the policy.

"There is a mutual obligation, if you are here on a temporary protection visa you will be expected to work," she said.

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