Migration

A legal dilemma often presents itself to officials who come into the presence of families who are both a mix of legal and illegal family members living in the same country. We encountered this a few times in our own legal consulting to refugees who came into contact with us in Canada. The International Herald Tribune decided this past week to discuss the issue regarding Ireland, focusing on a young Irish lad, George-Jordan Dimbo who was born in Ireland and became a citizen due to his place of birth, but is a son of illegal migrants from Nigeria. George-Jordan only ever knew an Irish life, but may “return” to Nigeria for the first time.

Ireland has always been seen as a country which has traditionally emigrated many of its citizenry, but in the last few years Ireland has become one of the most innovative an successful economies in the EU. As a result immigration has boomed, with an estimated 11% of the Irish populations being immigrants and masses of other EU and non-EU individuals going there to work, learn English and make a life on the Emerald Isle.

How does a new Ireland of immigrants handle these new dilemmas? In the event where such families exist in the Canadian system as the Dimbo family do in Ireland, the government must consider the best interests of the child. While the people born in Canada or Ireland a few years ago were considered automatic citizens, it did not mean that the child would stay in the country. If there were no chance of harm to the child they would return to their parent’s country of origin with their main caregiver, but have the right to return an Irish or Canadian citizen when they wish or stay with legal citizens in Canada or Ireland. The parents however would be permanently removed from the country without much recourse, and to stop the whole family being deported it must be proven that the rights of the new citizen and a move would harm the social and emotional development of the child, something which is not commonly done in the Canadian system and may not have precedent in Ireland.

So for the next St.Patrick’s Day, celebrated all around the world it would be proper to ponder the fact that the world has come to Ireland to celebrate many other festivals in the streets of Dublin. Some of these people will get to stay, and others will go but time and precedents in Irish society and courts may produce a more equal solution than how the Irish were treated as immigrants a long time ago. Over time Ireland may develop policies out of an Emigrant Nation in contrast to how the rest of the EU is turning to reverse many past open policies towards immigration. Until then, Cheers..

The British government is committing GBP 70 million to bolster the confidence of Muslim women, in an effort to shield them from becoming targets of radicalization. Hazel Blears, Communities Secretary in the Brown government announced that the funds would go toward supporting “assertiveness” training, communication and mediation skills. The courses are part of a wider initiative to get members of the Muslim community to actively participate in public life. Officials hope that empowering women will lead to increased visibility of positive role models while insulating a vulnerable part of the community against radical rhetoric and extremist tendancies. Mentoring programs, leadership training and management skills are to show women alternatives to their more traditional role within the Muslim social construct, government representatives hope. They argue that this new initiative reflects a growing desire by Muslim women to play a greater role in British society and to work toward changing the generalized suspicions that remain following terrorist activity in the country.

Muslim groups, meanwhile, are accusing the government of dividing the community. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The government at first wanted our imams to act as spies on young British Muslims and now they seem to want Muslim women to do the same.”

German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, suggests that the government decision in favor of additional funds for adult education comes in response to two widely-publicized cases of differential treatment of Muslim women by the authorities. Aisha Azmi, 24, was fired from her job as an elementary school teacher after refusing to remove her headscarf. School officials had argued that children could not learn the English language from a teacher with a veiled face. Azmi’s lawyer has taken the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Samina Malik, meanwhile, branded herself as an “lyrical terrorist” was the first woman to be convicted under the controversial UK Terrorism Act. Supporters have criticised the verdict, based on contacts she had and internet poetry posted to radical web pages as a “wrong signal to Muslims” demonstrating that a judicial double standard is at work in the UK.

For more on this story, see the BBC, The Telegraph and The Times.

Like Canada and Australia, Britain has sought the adoption of an immigration points system in order to limit the number of unskilled workers entering the UK and promote highly skilled workers coming in to support the British Economy. While this idea is a logical one, it often leads to dozens of smaller issues which while limits the number of low-income immigrants, also makes life fairly intolerable in the process.

While not on a points system, the City of New York has set out to conquer an issue which is also prominent in cities like Toronto, Canada. New York has always had an issue with illegal immigrants being victims of unreported crimes because upon contacting legal officials, often the immigrant would be simultaneously placed into the removal process since they did not reside legally in New York and the US. In Toronto, while three years ago and prior to that police did not have powers to enforce immigration orders, since then they can now check someone’s legal status in Canada and detain them when responding to criminal investigations. The problem in immigrant cities like Toronto, is that due to the points system, people who used to come in as middle income workers often now come as illegal migrants. In Toronto as well as New York, immigrants not able to be personally secure because it will surely result in the end of their lives in their resident country.

Growing in great numbers due to its booming economy, the city of Calgary in Canada shows an example of how the lack of law enforcement for many illegals can lead to some undesirable situations. In the North-East part of the city, dozens of illegal Asian migrants were found working in an illegal brothel which takes advantage of many people in similar situations entering Canada without a proper legal status. Many similar organizations exist across the country, and due to the new police powers to enforce immigration rules, many more underground operations have the roots to keep them beyond the law.

The UK is likely to have many of these issues plaque their cities in the near future. While trying to crack down on immigration, there is a real threat that society as a whole will lose in the long run.

The weekly news roundup features critical views of the UK points system for highly-skilled migrants, a look at how Wester Union is dominating the remittances market across the world and a preview of France’s new immigration legislation released on November 22nd.
It is becoming ever more attractive to become a US citizen - at least that’s what the latest surge in citizenship applications seems to suggest. In fact, it’s less that naturalization has become more popular over the past months, it is more a combination of a fee increase earlier in the year, fear of new immigration legislation and confusion over green card applications that is causing the bureaucratic backlog that might take up to a year to clear, the New York Times reports.

• Agence France Presse has a stunning article about the tiny village Elinkine in Senegal that is profiting from the droves of illegal immigrants passing through the town to seek a passageway to Europe. In a mafia-type set up, local families profit from “facilitating” migrants’ journeys, i.e. housing them ahead of their departures, and - the article alledges - police pockets are equally fleeced for the same purpose.
• What has five times as many locations worldwide as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King and Wal-Mart combined? Why, Western Union, of course. Powered by immigrant remittances around the globe, the once bankrupt telegraph and communications company now turns a USD 1 billion profit annually. Last year migrants sent home USD 300 billion,nearly three times the world’s foreign aid budgets combined, according to this New York Times article on Western Union.
• In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, Michael Skapinker notes that the new points system to evaluate highly-skilled migrants in the UK has its faults. Geared toward the university educated, well-earning individual, Skapinker fears the new system would keep out precisely those entrepreneurs needed in Great Britain today: the brilliant minds too impatient to sit it out in a classroom, i.e. the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of this world.
• Also in last week’s FT, Gideon Rachmann ponders the realities of immigration today. He concludes that while economics can be spun both in favor of and against increased immigration flows, governments are likely to pursue restrictive policies. But, he notes that the populist arguments and general anti-immigration stance is losing force in the Western world, partially because: “Voters are more attached to the principles of an open society than the raw polling data on immigration suggest. It is certainly possible to crack down on legal and illegal immigration. But the necessary measures would often involve sacrificing freedom and convenience. You could have much tougher controls at borders - and even longer waiting-times at immigration control. (Forget just hopping on the Eurostar to Paris.) You could introduce identity cards in countries, such as the US and the Netherlands, that have long resisted them. You could bind employers in even more red tape. You could restrict people’s right to marry. You could arrange mass deportations of illegal immigrants and shut your eyes to the resulting injustices. Some combination of all of those measures probably would dramatically reduce immigration. But in the process you would risk creating countries that are not only less welcoming to immigrants. They would probably be much less palatable for native-born citizens as well.”
• France’s new, 65 article strong immigration and asylum legislation was revealed at the end of last week. While I have yet to read the full text, Le Monde offers an initial glimpse here, though again, introducing genetic testing for immigrant minors wishing to accede French territory as highlighted by the paper and detailed in article 13 is hardly new, given the debate on DNA testing an immigration a few months ago. We will cover these legal changes in a separate blog. Meanwhile, however, Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank and one of the prominent Frenchmen on the international stage has implicitly criticised the restrictive new immigration law, pointing to France’s longstanding history as a country of immigration.

Like many Brazilians, 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes moved to London for a change of environment, work opportunities and to benefit from the ever overvalued British Pound Sterling. The fate of this young man was not one of a typical South American migrant, being chased down by the London police and shot point blank during the London bombings of 2005. Unlike others accused of terrorist acts in London who are tried at the Old Bailey for their crimes, the trial for De Menezes was done posthumously as he was killed by the police themselves who thought he was contributing to the crimes that day by running away from officials and perhaps not having the language skills in English to understand what precisely was occurring at the time.

In a surprising verdict last week, the years of contemplation and stress between the UK and the Brazilian Government and community in London resulted in a guilty verdict against the London Police as a whole, charged with more than 800,000 Pounds Sterling in damages and legal fees. The individual officers were not found guilty, despite much pressure from the family and friends of the victim in Brazil seeing the officer’s actions and criminally negligent beyond their police powers in the incident. The nature of the incident was initially hidden from the public, but when more investigations were completed it was found that de Menezes most likely did not understand what was occurring when the Police tried to detain him and took off for unknown reasons. He was pursued into the Tube Station and pinned down by officers, apparently then not being arrested but having a firearm placed against his body and discharged according to the BBC World Service broadcast of the event months after the Bombings.

Despite the victim being typically Latin American in appearance, the profile of the Bombers in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world could not be distinguished from other minorities during the time of chaos. The event also loomed with suspicion as a clear effort to cover up the true events from the public took place for months after the death of de Menezes due to the Terrorist label being applied to the victim and the Bombings taking place the same day of the incident. With the guilty verdict, the “accident” which took place seems more like negligent behaviour than simply a mere misunderstanding. The verdict is well justified after the lack of cooperation in finding the true source of the error which led to the young man’s death.

This week’s news roundup is truly a mixed basket of stories, including a look at the new US citizenship test, a new set of statistics on immigration, which raise a few questions for the Home Secretary in the UK and a story on how a new musical phenomenon is visualizing just how much Italian society has changed over time.

• Janet Hinshaw-Thomas, the founder and director of Prime - Ecumenical Commitment to Refugees, a two-decade-old refugee resettlement organization in Pennsylvania has been arrested in Canada for aiding Haitian migrants in seeking asylum in the country. This is the first time the 2002 law on prosecuting “criminal smugglers” has been applied to someone working for an immigrant aid organization, the New York Times reports. Hinshaw-Thomas’ organization has been accompanying migrants who have exhausted their legal options in the US to the Canadia border over the past few months, always giving Canadian authorities advanced notice. Her lawyer is disputing the charges.
• The United States has been giving citizenship tests to those seeking a blue passport for years and these have become the golden standard for many European countries who are currently developing their own versions of these exams. Now, the US test has been updated: knowing who the Speaker of the House is and correctly identifying Susan B. Anthony’s role in the women’s civil rights movement will help assess whether an immigrant has understood basic concepts of modern American democracy. American or not, would you be able to answer these questions?
• We have highlighted the difficulties the dire economic situation in Zimbabwe is causing neighboring countries in previous posts. This article from the International Herald Tribune describes the situation for Zimbabwean migrants - some permanent, some merely daily labor migrants - in neighboring Zambia. Around a 1,000 Zimbabweans cross into Zambia daily just to purchase basic provisions no longer available in Zimbabwe.
• Michael Kimmelmann reports from Rome on Italy’s changing face, visible in one of the first truly multicultural, successful orchestras. A documentary the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio went around the international film festival circuit and boosted the group’s popularity at home. They now play sold-out shows up and down the country and politicians hungry for votes have begun to take notice.
  
• Members of the European Parliament are backing EU Commissioner Franco Frattini’s plans for an EU Blue Card.
• Looks like the UK government needs some better statisticians: earlier in the week, the Office of National Statistics published new projected migration figures, revising previous estimates with an increase of 30%. Naturally, anti-immigrant groups and opposition politicians jumped all over the Labor government for their apparent failure to live up to their “complacent assumptions” of migrants coming into the country. Instead of 145,000 migrants annually, the new figure now stands at 190,000. Home Secretary Jaqui Smith reiterated her commitment to bringing in highly-skilled migrants on a points-based system and cracking down on criminal immigrants and illegals with her proclaimed “zero tolerance” approach, while immigration minister Liam Byrne pointed to the fact that these new numbers could be attributed to the EU decision to relax rules on labor migration from the Union’s newest members to other member states.
• The UNHCR has created an excellent web resource on the Iraqi refugee situation, including an update of recent relief work in the region. In addition, the UNHCR is closely monitoring how Iraqi refugees are being treated in exile.

This week’s news roundup features a closer look at Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s agenda on immigration, as well as a number of personal stories on asylum and Mexican-American relations:

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has decided it is time to talk tough on immigration to outflank the Tories, as they try to garner that political topic for themselves. Over recent weeks, David Cameron, the Conservative leader has made a number of relatively vague statements on how immigration is a burden to local councils and a problem that needs to be acted upon. Now Mr. Brown wants to be seen to be doing just that: The Prime Minister has announced new immigration rules for thousands of foreigners seeking work in the country. The scheme would extend the language testing requirement already in operation for highly-skilled (i.e. university qualified, doctors, lawyers, etc.) migrants to the second tier, the skilled migrant category. Skilled workers from outside the EU will have to prove their English language skills or risk being sent home. According to analysts, this new measure could shut out around 35,000 skilled workers a year - and this, in turn, is worrying to British employers. Reuters quotes David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce: “In recent years migrant workers to the UK have ensured the continued growth of the economy, possessing a work ethic and skill level that many young British people just do not have. Of course language skills are important but I would be concerned if this meant that those who want to work and help our economy grow are kept out of the country and take their skills and talent elsewhere.” The Times paints the policy initiative in a far more nationalist perspective, as this announcement arrives in tandem with an incentive package for UK employers to hire British workers, with an emphasis on youth and long-term unemployed.

• In conservative politics elsewhere, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Guiliani has come out to say that illegal immigration is not a crime, kicking off a further dust-ruffling discussion with rival Mitt Romney, who accused Mr. Guiliani of not taking the issue seriously enough. In making his case, the former New York mayor is defending the City’s so-called sanctuary policy, which stopped city workers from reporting suspected illegal immigrants. The policy is intended to make illegal immigrants feel that they can report crimes, send their children to school or seek medical treatment without fear of being reported. It did require police to turn in illegal immigrants suspected of committing crimes. While NYC’s approach is an enlightened one and one that demonstrates true public policy making, Mr. Guiliani’s overall solution to the immigration problem is not: “My solution is: Close the border to illegal immigration.” Now that’s an innovative and helpful public policy proposal.
• We recently reported on how heads of local Iraqi provinces were denying settlement to internally displaced refugees. The latest report by the International Organization for Migration shows just how dire the situation has become: “In Basrah as in other governorates, the report finds that displaced women cannot access limited health facilities because of chronic insecurity and in Kirkuk, traditional customs continue to restrict the movement of displaced women. In Anbar, although governorate authorities have not officially imposed restrictions, the intensity of intertribal conflict requires IDPs to have tribal ties to an area in order to stay there safely.”
• Another prominent case of an illegal immigrant mother has been resolved. The story of Zhenxing Jiang made international headlines in 2002, when news broke that she had miscarried twins after allegedly being mistreated by US immigration official trying to deport her. The case has been under review for a number of years, but now Ms. Jiang has been granted political asylum and is thus allowed to remain in the US with her husband and American passport-carrying children. In her original asylum claim, Ms. Jiang had noted that under the Chinese one-child policy, she could have faced forced abortion or even sterilization, had she returned to the country with two American children.
• The San Francisco Chronicle features a profile of Lionel Sosa, the Mexican-American entrepreneur and political advisor on Latino Affairs who has now thrown his weight into finding practical ways of bridging the divide between Mexico and the United States with his new think tank MATT.org - Mexican & Americans Thinking Together.
• When three Muslim-fundamentalist terrorists were arrested in Germany earlier in the week, following the discovery of a plot to blow up a number of establishments frequented by Americans in September, Germans were shocked at the news that two of the suspects were countrymen who had converted to Islam and become radicalized through the mosque they visited in Ulm, but mostly through the terrorist training camps they attended in Pakistan. Hardly any public attention was lavished on the third suspect - a Muslim of Turkish origin. While all of Germany pondered the possible threat of the “new converts,” the New York Times examines what impact the involvement of a second-generation Turk in this plot might have on the image of the Turkish community in Germany.

In this weeks Weekly Roundup we take a look at the US Presidential Campaign and political attacks by Romney against Giuliani’s immigration record, the National Guard situation at the US border as well as Remittances to Mexico and Census changes in the US and problems with the immigration laws in the UK:

• In one of the strongest conflicts yet between Republican presidential front-runners, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney attacked rival Rudy Giuliani Wednesday, implying that Giuliani supported illegal immigration when he was mayor of New York. See the story here.
• NBC Reports There Are “Fewer Than 1,000″ National Guard Troops Along The Border. NBC’s HODA KOTBE: “Well back here on the ground, there are reports of a snag in the President’s border patrol plan. Instead of growing to 6,000 National Guard troops along the border, there are fewer than 1,000, with many states reluctant to send more. See the story here.
• Legal restrictions targeting illegal immigrants have contributed to a sharp fall-off in the remittances sent to Mexico from a number of US states, according to a survey published yesterday. Remittances are one of Mexico’s largest imports of funds into the country. See the story here.
• The government’s proposed changes to immigration rules for skilled migrant workers are unfair and break human rights law, a parliamentary committee said on Thursday. See the story here.
• As of 2006, non-Hispanic whites made up less than half the population in 303 of the nationals 3,141 counties, according to figures the Census Bureau is releasing Thursday. Non-Hispanic whites were a minority in 262 counties in 2000, up from 183 in 1990. See the story here and here.

In the August 1st telecast of the BBC World Service the BBC did an investigative report on a new trend in London where Polish women were taking payments for marrying non-EU citizens so they could remain and gain legal status in London. The report went into great detail to present the problem, going as far as sending a reporter under cover as someone looking to marry an EU citizen to gain status in London and filming the “brokers” of these marriages in the process.

After the accession of new EU member states such as Poland, the UK was the first country to fully liberalise its economy in letting in foreign workers within the EU rules without any restrictions or time limits past the date of accession of new member states. For that reason, London absorbed many Eastern European workers who often drifted into both blue collar jobs as well as many professionals who were “brain-drained” out of countries such as Poland towards the UK and London. Today it is not uncommon to see few traditional brits working the shops and restaurants of London as many labour jobs have been taken by Immigrants and EU-citizens alike.

While marrying for papers was not uncommon before the accession of the new EU member states, an added fear that in some new communities there could be an outbreak of false marriages is an understandable concern. While the report did not give actual numbers of marriages in the Polish community or any others under false pretenses, their primary research well illustrated the problem. Despite this, I do not believe that it is an issue in one community in London only, but is a general issue that existed well before Polish citizens became part of the EU. Please search the BBC World site above for further information…

Oxfam has joined the chorus of international relief agencies calling for immediate action against the looming humanitarian crisis in Iraq. According to its latest findings, every third Iraqi is in need of some kind of aid, be it because of food scarcity, insufficient water supplies or proper sanitation. In a report issued today, Oxfam notes that

• Four million Iraqis – 15% - regularly cannot buy enough to eat.
• 70% are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50% in 2003.
• 28% of children are malnourished, compared to 19% before the 2003 invasion.
• 92% of Iraqi children suffer learning problems, mostly due to the climate of fear.
• More than two million people – mostly women and children - have been displaced inside Iraq.
• A further two million Iraqis have become refugees, mainly in Syria and Jordan

Oxfam has called on the Iraqi government to extend its food aid program deeper into the country and demands that the members of the military coalition, i.e. the UK and US enhance their efforts toward easing the humanitarian crisis that exists as a result of the ongoing civil warfare in the country.

International relief and aid organization such as Oxfam have had to withdraw from Iraq over the past few months, given rising security concerns. By the same token, as reported in an article in German news magazine, Der Spiegel, local medical personnel and other highly-skilled experts, including engineers needed to restore water pipelines, etc. are leaving the country in droves. This exodus further exacerbates an already dire situation.