Migration

This week’s news roundup features stories on racial inequality in the UK, an update on the immigration debate in the US and Canada’s search for new migrants to help it cope with its recent oil boom:

• ITV, the UK news channel, features a story on research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation according to which people from ethnic minorities are twice as likely to be poor than their white counterparts. The series of research reports on the issue can be downloaded directly from the foundation’s website.
• Immigration policy reform remains a hot button topic on the US agenda, with presidential hopefuls beginning to weigh in on the issue to add to their profile. Over the weekend, immigrants protested in Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona. A number of protests are expected across the country for ‘May Day,’ including a march in Indianapolis . Organizers there are hoping to repeat the success of the last demonstration in April, which brought 20,000 people to the streets to remind Congress of its unfinished business. Meanwhile the April 30th Editorial of the New York Times accuses Republican Presidential candidates of “lurching, falling over themselves to convince voters that where they stand is not where they stood.” The author finds Rudy Giuliani and John McCain’s sudden change of opinion the most disheartening.
• Modern day slavery is the result of human trafficking. The New York Times features the harrowing story of a Nigerian woman worked for 12 years without pay, in what can only be described as modern day servitude.
• While all the world seems to be speaking of curtailing immigration, officials in Alberta, Canada are seeking a few good men and women - 100,000 to be exact - to help cope with the demand in jobs after the oil boom, the UK’s Guardian reports.

Even high-profile migrants have got to fit the bill. Australia’s immigration services have banned rapper Snoop Dogg from entering the country after he failed a character test. The BBC quotes Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, who notes: “He doesn’t seem the sort of bloke we want in this country.” The star, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, has wracked up a number of offences over the year, prompting the government to rescind his visa. This is not the first time the Dogg has run into trouble - he was also denied a visa to the UK, prompting P.Diddy to cancel their joint concert in the country.

In their often desperate plea to find work in the U.S., more and more illegal immigrants are turning to counterfeit organizations to provide them with social security number or new identities. The scope of the problem became evident following a number of raids at meatpacking plants in the Midwest.  On April 25 federal authorities charged 22 people with being part of one of the nation’s largest operations to produce counterfeit identification documents, the New York Times reports. Catering to predominately Mexican immigrants, the crime ring with key operations in Chicago, sold false documents at a price between $200 and $300 a document. Officials estimate that this generated an approximate annual turnover of $2 - $3 million with as many as 100 customers a day.

 Economic necessity is what drives the business of counterfeiter organizations like this one. Analysts have reacted by suggesting that the introduction of biometric work permits might put an end to the trade in illegal documentation and make it more difficult for migrants without legal status to be gainfully employed. Even if lawmakers opt for the biometric card it won’t happen overnight, leaving criminal groups to prey on the need of illegal migrants in their quest to make a better life for themselves across the border.

On April 21st 2007 Egyptian born Canadian Mohammed El-Attar was ultimately convicted as a spy in an Egyptian court this past weekend. He was accused of spying for Israel and recruiting Arabs in Canada to assist him in his activities. While the court claims to have obtained a confession of his activities, it is said by El-Attar that his confession was obtained under torture and that much of the evidence against him is falsified. While Canadian officials are looking into the case, no overt actions have been taken to assist El-Attar in his dilemma in Egypt. He has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labour.

Assistance to Canadian citizens abroad has become an issue since last summer’s conflict in Lebanon, where many Canadian citizens of Lebanese origin were seeking assistance from the Canadian government but resided and had legal citizenship in Lebanon at the same time. While no formal differences or rights exist in Canadian law distinguishing citizens who immigrated to Canada and those who were born in Canada, there may be some customary distinctions made by a response to those who hold dual citizenship in Canada and another country, and are convicted of crimes in their country of 2nd nationality and birth.

This past month another Canadian citizen of foreign birth was convicted in China. Huseyin Celil was charged and convicted for terrorist acts against the Chinese government and sentenced to life imprisonment. Celil, a member of China’s small Muslim population initially escaped a Chinese prison in 2000 and eventually came to Canada and gained citizenship in 2005. Canadian officials claim that their calls for diplomacy with the Chinese government have gone unanswered and that they will make strident efforts to assist Mr. Celil. With the number of cases of Canadians being convicted of political crimes abroad and some being tortured in the process, the rights of foreign born Canadians will likely continue with future convictions of Canadians in foreign countries. Canada currently has one of the highest percentages of foreign born citizens in the world.

As many analysts had predicted: it’s ‘Sego’ vs. ‘Sarko’ in the run-off election for the French Presidency on May 6. The race is now on to win the 18% of the electorate that gave their vote to centrist candidate François Bayrou. Given that Bayrou advocated a moderate take on immigration control, largely favoring the EU line agreed in the Hague Programme, Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal looks to win over his voters on the immigration issue. In any event, as campaigning resumes, this issue will emerge as one of the ‘make or break’ questions, as both have starkly opposing opinions. We will continue to monitor the progress of the debate in shorter updates throughout the next few weeks.

The elections in 2002 were remarkable for a number of reasons: first, immigration became a major issue of contention after it had been largely ignored for years, and second, the right-wing Front National was able to use it successfully to its advantage. In a vote that shocked the nation, former Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin was shut out of the second round of voting, when Jean-Marie Le Pen garnered 16.86% of the vote.

Following an outcry by civil society, particularly migrant NGOs and shocked international reactions, the only ‘moral’ decision for the electorate was to deal Le Pen a fatalistic blow at the ballot box during the second round. Unsurprisingly, despite his overall dwindling popularity, Jacques Chirac one this second round by a landslide, with 82%.

Naturally, the fact that Le Pen had won so much ground meant something: it meant that many in France were confused by the government’s policies. It also meant that many believed in the Le Pen-ian rhetoric, according to which immigrants were to blame for the slow growth of the economy. Alas, the government, now under Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin had little choice but to tighten existing immigration legislation. Asylum law was tightened, entry and residence curtailed and measures to combat illegal immigration were stepped up.

A first, yet feeble, attempt was made to work toward the better integration of migrants, by introducing so-called “integration contracts.” These ‘contracts’ forced migrants to attend language courses, alongside seminars on French society and values. In addition, these integration measures were supposed to offer more intensive individual support for adolescents from difficult backgrounds. These insufficiency of these measures were made painfully clear during the 2005 banlieu riots, however.

Addressing Islam

Since 9/11, France – as many other countries – has put a premium on constructively addressing the role of Islam in French society. The objective here has been to strengthen moderate Islamic forces that recognize the French Constitution as a primary guidance. With around 5 million Muslims, the country boasts the largest Islamic community in Europe. In 2003, the first French Islamic Council (CFCM) was elected. Its role was to represent all Muslims living in France vis-à-vis the government. It had additional responsibilities regarding the education of the country’s imams.

While addressing the needs of the large Islamic population in France, the government launched a near simultaneous reexamination of the secular values of the Republic. The headscarf affair, discussed in our earlier posting on migration issues in France, tapped a new discussion on religious symbols in schools. A lengthy discussion on “laïcité” – the separation of church and state ensued, which resulted in a new law to prohibit all religious signifiers in schools. This naturally included the removal of Christian crosses and the wearing of the Muslim headscarf and other symbolic relics.

Although analysts had predicted the contrary, the law was met with relatively little opposition. This is in part linked to the fact that the country’s Muslim organization, which had long opposed the law and encouraged protest, abandoned its criticism following the abduction of two French journalists in Iraq. The kidnappers had demanded the government drop the controversial law in the ransom notes communicated to Paris, threatening to kill the correspondents, should the government not comply with their demands.

In solidarity with the kidnapped journalists, who were freed in December 2004, the imams of all the leading mosques in France called upon girls to take off their headscarves before they entered school.

New faces - same policies

The government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, which featured Sarkozy as the interior minister, focused on curtailing illegal immigration - particularly following the 2005 riots. Upon taking office, de Villepin had announced that he “believed in a generous and determined France. A France where there is a place for everyone according to their merits. A France of opportunities.” This policy sat well with the measures introduced toward attracting the best foreign students to France and facilitating their remainder in the country upon graduation.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, he promised to counteract the alienation of migrant youths by encouraging or even forcing companies to switch to a ‘blind’ recruitment process, whereby names of applicants and their racial or ethnic background would be obscured.  He also promised to increase the number of scholarships kids from ethnic and difficult socio-economic backgrounds received for elite preperatory schools. Individualized career counseling for France’s alienated suburban youth was also intended to help diffuse the situation.  In addition, his government was going to invest EUR 30 billion, “in order to renovate the whole urbanism.” Unfortunately, beyond these announcements, the Prime Minister’s website features no reference to the implementation of these measures.

Nevertheless, the period between 2002 and today was a busy one for France’s immigration policy, as outlined above. One of Sarkozy’s first key decisions was to close down the Sangatte refugee camp, which had become untenable by humanitarian standards. By 2005, the impact of the ‘reforms’ introduced by the earlier Raffarin government were beginning to make inroads. In the first months of 2006, 33,000 illegal migrants had been sent back, while the figure of those in detention centers more than doubled. Voluntary return payments, system which has resurfaced time and time again as a policy, was revamped, offering migrants willing to leave more money.

Rules for residency permits were also tightened during that time, diminishing the number of ‘cartes de sejour’ attributed. This, Sarkozy felt, was all linked to his policy of ‘resoluteness and severity.’ The continuation of this line, should he become Prime Minister, include the creation of a separate ministry for immigration and national identity and a further overhaul of the existing system.  Nevertheless, the regularisation of migrants continued under Sarkozy, despite official rhetoric to the contrary.

If we do see a ‘Sarko’ vs. ‘Sego’ run-off, as analysts are now predicting - in keeping with the flip-flop tradition of French polices - migrants’ status could change relative quickly depending on their individual situation. It will thus be interesting to closely follow the debate between these two polar opposites as they approach the second round in early May. Should Le Pen make the race after all, Sarkozy will be forced to take another tack to make his point clear…this should be an interesting Sunday…

This week’s news roundup features stories from Iraq, the UK, France and Russia: 

• UK Home Secretary, John Reid, is coming under fire from right-wing critics. Civitas, a right-wing think tank has argued that people have been allowed to enter the UK “at record pace.” Mr. Reid has acknowledged that illegal immigration creates insecuritites and a sense of “unfairness” among the resident population, the BBC reports.
• The Editorial of the New York Times warns of the effects of mass migration from Iraq. “Four million people - one out of seven Iraqis - have been forced to flee their homes. If Iraq continues this descent, the refugee tide could turn into into a regional tsunami, with potentially convulsive political consequences.
• The Economist takes a last look at the candidates ahead of Sunday’s election in France and has this to say about immigration: Indeed, it is the enduring potency of Mr Le Pen that has pushed Mr Sarkozy to the right on immigration during this campaign. Although Mr Sarkozy firmly rules out an electoral deal with the far-right leader in the second round, assuming he gets through, he has been unapologetic about courting his supporters. “It is not Le Pen that I’m interested in,” he says, “but his voters.” To that end, at a rally in Metz this week Mr Sarkozy repeated his declaration that “those who do not like France are not obliged to stay.” He even added a religious twist: France, he said, should not “renounce 2,000 years of Christian civilisation and heritage.”
• The NYT also features a piece by Eleanor Randolph, in which she highlights a new wave of racist crimes in Russia. There migrants have been banned from selling their wares at market: “In the street there is hate for immigrants.” SOVA, the anti-hate-crime organization in Russia, has estimated that so far this year, 23 immigrants have died and 149 have been wounded in what it terms ethnically motivated attacks. Since April 1, the police have raided the markets with buses to round up people and send them back to former Soviet states like Azerbaijan or Uzbekistan or Georgia. Notices on market doors advertise space now for “farmers from the Fatherland.”

French presidential hopeful, Nicolas Sarkozy, is coming under fire from those nipping at his heals ahead of Sunday’s election. It seems as though the hard-line stance he has been advocating throughout the months of campaigning is now beginning to haunt him. Reuters rounds up the criticism Sarkozy’s opponents have been lobbing at him over the past few days. The socialist camp of Segolene Royal and the centrist circles of Francois Bayrou are “portraying him as an agitated, dangerous right-winger,” according to Reuters. Both “say his inability to visit France’s multi-ethnic suburbs without a small army of riot police shows he is incapable of being the unifying force a president is supposed to be.”

The truth is that none of the candidates have put forth convincing programs to dismantle the alienation many, predominantly immigrant youths feel in France’s high-rise suburban areas, the banlieus.

An article in the New York Times Magazine underlines the potential for violence that still runs as an undercurrent in these areas. As described in my FPA commentary, many of the unemployed youths here feel that “they are unwelcome in a France.”  David Rieff, the author of the NYT Magazine piece agrees with my earlier assessment of the general malaise in these parts of France, where youths feel that the country’s “treatment of them, whether hostile or indifferent, utterly contradicts the claim the country makes for itself: that in France everyone is treated equally and that the Republic neither makes nor will accept any distinction between citizens on the basis of race, class or ethnic background.”

Behind the assimilist mantra put forth by every French government since the early seventies lies the reality, which Rieff addresses in his piece:

“There are data that seem to demonstrate that if your name is Mohammed or Fatima, you have less than 50 percent of the chance of being hired than you do if your name is Jean or Marie. The French Republic may proclaim its commitment to equal opportunity, but few French people believe it to be genuine. Abderrahmane Dahmane, who is in charge of the Sarkozy campaign’s relations with France’s immigrant communities, told me that when a policeman stops an immigrant youth, the youth might say something like “I’m as French as you,” and the policeman might agree, but they would both know it wasn’t true.”

Sarkozy will not be winning the French Muslim vote on Sunday - that electoral territory has been left largely to Bayrou and Sarkozy’s closest rival (according to today’s poll figures), socialist Royal. Surprisingly, even Jean-Marie Le Pen is making inroads with this electorate, by doing what Sarkozy might be afraid to do, following his disparaging remarks about migrant youths in 2005: Le Pen has been to the banlieus as part of his campaign. His campaign-manager daughter has promised all French citizens, regardless of skin color, greater acceptance and a better life. This slight modification in the Le Pen program might have an effect at the ballot boxes on Sunday, but Bayrou seems to be the leading candidate among the French Muslim community, in part for his strong commitment toward a roots-causes approach to migration and greater aid promised to North African countries.

Rieff’s article quotes Lhaj Breze, the head of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France: Breze smiled wanly: “I’m afraid you won’t find a single young French Muslim who will vote for him (Sarkozy) . No one is yet willing to forgive him. As far as they are concerned, what he said at the time of the riots — as well as his closeness to America’s policy in the Middle East, which is very important to the Muslim community in France — makes him unacceptable to them.”

Sadly, whatever the outcome of the vote on Sunday, a real seismic shift in France’s immigration policy - one that would address the integration issue in a comprehensive manner - is unrealistic. Should Sarkozy win the second round of the vote, scheduled for May 6, his majority will be a crucial factor against which to predict just how restrictive his new policies on immigration will be. Naturally, the President is not the sole figure of France’s executive - the National Assembly will have its voice heard. Analysts predict that despite perhaps being elected on a hard-line ticket, Sarkozy will have to - even if it’s just for the sake of keeping the peace - revert to a more conciliatory attitude toward resident legal migrants in France’s suburbs.

In 2006 the UNHCR reported that nearly 26,000 Somalis made the journey from Somalia to Yemen that year, and approximately 330 died while 300 were declared missing and reported dead. With the ongoing conflict in the East African nation of Somalia, the urge to leave for many grows as the conflict continues. The risk of travelling to Yemen since the beginning of 2007 has grown rapidly however, with this year alone 113 people have gone missing and 35 were confirmed dead in their sea voyage from Somalia on refugee boats on March 22nd 2007. Last week as well, another 365 arrived in Yemen, where smuggles forced 34 refugees overboard and who consequently drowned.

“As the smuggling boats entered the Yemeni waters, coast guards began firing on them, causing one boat to capsize,” Sadat Mohammed, head of refugee affairs in the Somali community in Sana’a

Their fate was not merely from just falling overboard according to Mr. Mohammed. Twenty of the refugees who resisted were apparently stabbed in the process of escaping from the coast guard.

With one in ten refugees to Yemen coming on smugglers boats, and the fact that the majority do land in Yemen and do improve their standard of living, there will likely not be a reduction in refugees to Yemen from East Africa, as well as refugees to other countries coming from the region. With the large number of migrants in Yemen from Somalia and Ethiopia, there is a hope from local leaders in Yemen from East Africa that greater attention will be paid to the rights of those leaving the region and losing their lives in the process.

On April 17th 2007 the BBC World Service broadcast a story which until recently has received little attention in the media. With the tensions and deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and the UN focus on Iran and missing sailors, the consequences of conflict in the region has only recently focused on the resulting refugees leaving Iraq for neighboring countries and overseas.

Today the UN addressed the issue of Iraqi refugees. The UN wanted the two main recipient countries, Syria and Jordan to accept more refugees from Iraq. Approximately two million reside outside Iraq in Syria and Jordan alone, with another 50,000 leaving Iraq each month. With around 4 million Iraqis residing outside their home country worldwide, the strain on Syria and Jordan in not only accepting more refugees, but maintaining the current refugees in good care is likely a burden too hard to bear.

“I hope this conference will galvanise international support to provide them with more protection and assistance and I hope it will mobilise resources in establishing much needed protection space,” Ban Ki-moon – UN Secretary General

The UN urged all countries to accept a number of refugees from Iraq, and for the wealthier countries such as the US and EU to assist financially as well as accepting a number of refugees into their own countries as well. The only solution is international solidarity on the issue, said High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres before the conference held today by the UN refugee agency. He claims this as the worst refugee crisis to hit the Middle East since 1948.

Where Iraqis have fled to:

Syria: 1,200,000
Jordan: 750,000
Gulf states: 200,000
Egypt: 100,000
Iran: 54,000
Lebanon: 40,000
Turkey: 10,000
Internally displaced: 1,900,000
Source: UNHCR

For Stories of Individual Iraqi Refugees: BBC News - Iraqi Refugee Stories