Immigration notes from all over
Think we've got too many furriners in this country? Check out what the furriners themselves have to put up with:
Italy: Berlusconi government may be backing away from tough new immigration enforcement — under pressure from what AFP calls an "ironic" alliance (oh yeah?) between the Catholic Church and an ex-communist president. Rome also gives Spain the fig after the deputy Spanish prime minister critizes Italy's anti-immigrant mood.
Canada: New Democrats say they'll use every trick in the book to block changes that would give our neighbor to the north's immigration chief more power to approve and reject pending applications.
Australia: This time it's the left trying to put the brakes on immigration, as New South Wales Senator-elect Doug Cameron wrings his hands and warns about a coming worker backlash against immigration, citing the United States and United Kingdom as negative examples. "In the UK, the British National Party have used this issue of migration to build a support base for an extreme right wing group and I don't want to see that happen within Australia," Cameron says.
New Zealand: The other Down Under coughs up an even weirder story as former head of the Immigration Service Mary Anne Thompson comes under investigation for claiming a doctorate from the London School of Economics that seems to be as fake as Waleed al-Shehri's visa application. On the plus side, New Zealand seems to be better than we are at dealing with errant immigration officials: Thompson resigned last week after the story came to light.
Wait a second: We've got Italians, Kiwis and Italians growing Kiwis? Confusion like this is why we need comprehensive immigration reform now!
Senator Feinstein is just doing what almost 100% politicians do - protecting her Senate seat. She, like most politicians, will do anything for their big contributors in order to stay in that seat. I think the folks who are our link to Washington, DC, immediately turn to only one group only, their millionaire contributors. They owe us nothing after we vote to elect them. Worse, you can see they never want to vacate that seat. A really nasty trend that most of our politicians have, is staying in their seats until their children can be elected to them. This is no way to run a government. We need term limits for all politicians.
Posted by: elainekramer | May 21, 2008 at 11:22 AM
Amnesty for illegal immigrants has once again reared it's ugly head with Senator Feinstein (D-CA) slipping in her amnesty for agricultural workers into the Iraq Supplemental Spending bill being voted on this week in the Senate. This would amount to amnesty for over 3 million illegal aliens. Her amendment is not only not germane to the bill's intent, polls indicate 80% of Americans are opposed to amnesty on principle.
Unless Americans immediately, once again, pepper the Senate with complaints, amnesty could come to pass. Want to fight against sellout politicians, illegal immigration and amnesty? Here's how:
http://www.alipac.us/article-3191--0-0.html
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115596.html
http://www.alipac.us/article3201.html
Posted by: zeezil | May 20, 2008 at 08:21 PM
I notice the radio silence on the Ag-jobs amnesty -- conspiracy? Nah.
But in other agricultural news, farmers, unable to get enough cheap labor in California .... rent land in Mexico. Thus employing Mexicans, building up the Mexican economy ... taking advantage of comparative advanatage, so to speak. Does the land lie fallow here ... no, they plant a low labor intensity crop, high value added crop, like corn
Contrary to the typical conflation of the issues trade is a substitute for immigration.
Posted by: Mitchell Young | May 20, 2008 at 05:40 PM